#he could've taken it on the abyss twin

[reginrokkr]

I blame @astrxlfinale for the Dain brainrot he's making me have after a brief lore conversation 🔪

[theleechyskrunkly]

Lost and not so found.

Heya! I’ve been inactive lately for no particular reason, but I thought I’d post a little snippet of Aurinelle’s backstory since it’s still in the making. This part is not as heavy as the rest of the fic will be. My writing skills aren’t wonderful, but I hope it’s acceptable at the very least!

Word count: around 6k

regular text for present Aurinelle’s perspective, italics for the past. Bold for past Aurinelle’s inner thoughts.

I'm not one to speak of my past to strangers, but it seems I am being given no choice, am I? In all honesty, that day is carved into my memory to the point in which it haunts my dreams. To this day I wonder what I could've done to prevent the entire thing from going down; perhaps if I had paid more attention, or if I didn't let any of them out of my sight, or if I'd just gone hunting on my own... The possibilities are endless, yet pondering on them is not gonna change what has already happened.

That Tuesday I had taken all my sisters out on a hunt, they'd all been eager to come along — it was the day of the week in which I always took them out for hunting lessons, despite their young age. Down in the Abyssal Sea, all children need to learn how to hunt on their own when they're young, especially because you never know when your parents could just drop dead or get eaten alive. It was my turn to take them hunting that day.

"What's the point of taking us out to hunt if you're just going to corner the prey for us?!" Gia, the eldest of the Sireiwen sisters, complained. Her expression was as sour as always, for she always had something to protest about.

"Because your little sisters are far too young to find their own edible prey. Need I remind you that not everything that is alive down here is good to eat?" Aurinelle reminded his sister as he joined them behind the rock in which they were hiding, preparing to pounce on their prey. Aurinelle had rounded up a bank of fish — non-toxic fish — for them to begin their training. He did this mainly for the little ones, Nellie and Aurine, who were far too young to go after the fish, which were much faster than them.

"Yeah, well then, can you at least take me and Gianna on a more difficult hunt once we're done with this kids' play?" Gia insisted, throwing an arm over her twin sister's shoulders and pulling her in to emphasize that she wanted to bring her along. Gianna could only sigh. In reality, she was perfectly comfortable with going on small hunt with the little ones, but she'd humor Gia for now.

"Maybe. Catch me seven of the biggest fish in the bank, and I'll consider it." Aurinelle chuckled as he gave the girls the signal for them to attack, which meant Gia could bolt, which she did, being the faster swimmer out of all the sisters. However, being the fastest didn't make her the most agile. The fish were slippery and fast, swimming out of her grasp before she could even close her hand around them. Aurinelle simply watched in amusement as she grew increasingly frustrated. Seems like there wouldn't be a second hunt after all.

Aurinelle waited an hour until he declared the hunt over with a high-pitched cry only detectable by sirens like himself. The sisters soon crowded around him, displaying their catches, some with pride, others with disappointment. 

Gia, with only three of the seven fishes required in hand, looked down at her tail in disappointment as she attempted to hold back tears. Aurinelle smiled down at her with pity, patting her head as a display of affection and understanding. "It's all good Gia, you'll get better. This is still very good for a beginner!" He said gently, slowly opening Gia's clenched hands to take away the dead and bleeding fish pierced by her claws and put them in their hunting bag.

Next was Gianna, who had the same amount of fish as Gia. She, however, looked very proud of herself. She usually got one fish at best, so this was a particularly big haul for her. Aurinelle patted her head in the same manner as he did Gia, a gentle smile on his face. "Spectacular job, Gianna! You're getting much better." Aurinelle's words elicited a happy squeal from Gianna as she carefully put her fish into the bag, fish which were not as torn as the ones Gia had caught, which she had basically dissected due to the strong grip she had around the unfortunate creatures.

Anna and Ania always hunted together and brought back five fish in total. They had their usual stoic faces on, but you could tell they were expecting some sort of praise by the glint in their eyes. Aurinelle did as he did with the previous two, giving them both a content nod of approval. "Good work, you two. Your teamwork is really paying off." The identical twins smiled as they delivered their haul into the bag, content with the compliment.

Lastly, Aurinelle went to check the catch made by the youngest two. Nellie unfortunately hadn't caught anything. Her blind eye put her at a disadvantage when it came to hunting, so it wasn't all too surprising. Not to mention she was extremely young, being only three years old. However, it was clear that she was very unhappy with her lack of efficiency, her attempt at holding back frustrated tears not very successful. 

Aurinelle felt a pang of guilt. He was responsible for that blind eye. "Don't worry, Nellie. It's all a matter of practice. You're still young, after all." He said softly, pressing a soft kiss to the tiny gem on Nellie's forehead. Nellie moved to cling to Aurinelle's tail. It was an action that brought her an odd feeling of comfort. Clinging to her older brother made her feel safe.

Then Aurinelle moved onto Aurine. Except she wasn't there. Aurinelle's heart dropped to his stomach, a pit of despair forming. But he decided that perhaps she hadn't heard him call out for everyone to return. So he tried again. And again. And again.

Nothing.

No response.

"Did any of you see Aurine earlier while you were hunting?" Aurinelle kept his voice leveled while asking the question, wanting to avoid sounding as panicked as he felt. His question was met with collective head shaking from all five of the girls present, little Aurine missing from the head count. Aurinelle's heart began to pound fast. Something was wrong, and he felt it.

Despite his attempts at keeping things calm, Nellie's grip tightening around his tail brought his attention to the girl's agitation. She wasn't used to being apart from her twin sister, and she clearly felt that something was off as well.

And then came the scream. A loud, ear piercing, terrified screech that paralyzed all six of them.

Aurine. 

Aurinelle wasted no time. He detached Nellie from his tail, handing her to Gianna and barking orders at her and Gia to get the younger girls home and alert their mothers immediately as he swam in the direction the scream had come from at full speed. He had to hurry.

————

tagging: @thehollowwriter @elenauaurs @tixdixl @cyanide-latte @distant-velleity (ask to be added to tag list)

[mrpenguinpants]

Hey so that Dainsleif quest huh 👀

[Spoilers for those who haven't played it yet ofc]

.

.

.

These are just some disorganized initial thoughts for your consideration:

So I'm pretty sure his "travel companion" that he keeps mentioning is our twin

Does that mean our twin has gone to the exact same places as we've been going?? Dainsleif seemed to be familiar with all the locations we visited in Mondstadt but I suppose that could've been from an even earlier journey

And the possibility that the Abyss is trying to mislead us bc we hadn't encountered any abyss mages since Dvalin 🤔🤔🤔 what do they want??? We know (kinda) that our twin is watching our progress and that they're the prince/princess of the Abyss so like are they trying to keep us from getting in the way of their plans so as not to accidentally hurt us? Though something tells me we're gonna get tangled up in it one way or the other lmao

Dainsleif said that his goal is to oppose the Abyss so perhaps he's got his own secret plans to try to stop our twin (as is also supported by what he said at the end of the mortal travails video about proving ourselves worthy of stopping "her"/Lumine probably)

Also turns out I'd been pronouncing his name wrong the whole time lmao I had been saying dains-leaf instead of dains-lif

No Vision as confirmed by his full character model

Also his eyepatch is more of a phantom of the opera mask lmao

Important observation he looks like post timeskip Dimitri from a distance when I had to meet him in Dvalin's Lair I legit thought he was Dimitri for a sec XD

Anyway those were my thoughts about the new quest lmao my internet was cutting out the whole time while I was trying to play like dsfkdksjf pls I just wanted to talk to blond eyepatch man

Important part of this post: 

I took a lot of pictures of Dainsleif if you want to use them as references (or appreciation).  The pictures are under the read more tag so if you don’t want spoilers, don’t read anything and skip to the read more. 

Also, he calls you and your sibling “idiots” through money.

He asks for 500 mora and (this is probably just a coincidence but considering Zhongli tips Xiangling 888 mora I’m sus). The number 250  [二百五] or ( èr bǎi wǔ) means “idiot”. 

If someone calls you 250, they can say (nǐ shì wǔ bǎi) or “You are [250]��. But if you give someone 500, this can be taken as saying two people are stupid (250 + 250 = 500). I mean, that’s probably not how it works but I think it’s funny to imagine Dainsleif being too polite to call us stupid. 

---

I know right? When I saw the leak for it and seeing it confirmed in patch notes, I was so confused. Wha-Why are you here so early? I wasn’t expecting you for another 5 years at least. I’m happy to see you and your beautiful model in game but at the same time I was so worried that we were going to get crumbs of interactions. Same thing with Guizhong in Zhongli’s story quest. Genshin please...finish your stories (that’s fucking hilarious coming from me considering I still have a part 2 to Childe that I need to write), but I’m honestly just happy that he’s in the game. But yes 👀👀 more lore food. 

You know, I was talking about the archons a bit with @maagdalen and, I may have been misunderstanding or reading the wrong message, but they brought up the idea that what if the archons’ personality is based on their regions country's? So for example, Venti’s personality adopts the German mentality because Mondstadt was modelled after Germany? Obviously, I have no idea if that’s true because I’m not from or am German but in the context of Liyue and Zhongli. I can definitely see some sort of connection. 

But some food for thought:

“But cyro archon is very viable since she's suppose to be a kind hearted person that needed to be cold for the sake of freedom. or peace. something like that.”

 “Sorry, but this is stupidly Russian style. No matter what you say, people will always be dissatisfied. Of course it's not that bad...but it's something to think about.“ 

But yess, @svnflowery​ said the same thing. That Dainsleif was Lumine’s “guide” the same way Paimon is our guide. I actually think that’s an interesting idea. That Lumine has gone to the exact same places as we’ve been through. It actually makes me wonder (since we can play as both her and Aether), that Lumine went through the same story line as Aether. She met Venti, Zhongli, everything that’s happening right now. She’s already been through, then when she reached the Khaenri’ah chapter she failed. So she decided to spin the clock back and change destiny. I mean, this is me spit balling and I don’t think this happened but it’s something to think about. 

You know funny enough, hasn’t Venti been asleep for a while? Either way, he doesn’t really strike me as the type that truly wants to be an Archon. He says in his voicelines as well that “that’s a problem for Mondstadt to deal with”. So it would be easier for the Abyss Order to mess some things up. While Zhongli has been alive for 6000 years and I highly doubt Abyss Order can do anything to him haha. If we’re going on that “Lumine has already been through this journey” she could be trying to re-make or lead us on the same path. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if Dainsleif was our guide, then when Lumine spun the clock back and aligned herself with the abyss, that’s when they split. That could be a reason why he’s trying to oppose the abyss order but really I think it’s because the Abyss Order’s goal is to basically set the world on fire (or something like that). I always pronounce character names wrong and I don’t understand why people make such a big deal out of it. You know who I’m talking about, my pronunciation isn’t completely shit to the point you don’t know. So why do you keep yelling at me??

Also. The most important part of his quest was it was “Aether’s version” of the “We will be reunited” trailer. 

It even showed the crushed dandelion flower and the ruin guard footprints. IT’S OUR SISTER. 

I knoww, I was searching for his vision and got weird pics but that’s alright, I LOWKEY HATE THE OPERA MASK SO MUCH. GIVE ME ACTUAL MASK. THERE GOES THE “SEPERATE COLOURED EYE” ART OF KHAENRIAH PEOPLE. Yo, knock off Dimitri let’s go. 

I love Dainslief’s english voice but I hate Xiao’s en voice. What a dilemma. I usually play in chinese but wow does Dainslief sound old. Jp is slightly better but I hear grandpa vibes. Korean isn’t bad and I actually don’t mind korean xiao so korean we shall go. It’s weird. I like Dainsleif english voices, Xiao chinese voice, paimon korean voice haha. Jp is usually just good all around but I have preferences. But tyty for telling me your thoughts! I’d love to hear about the Xiao quest that just dropped. Beautiful boy 

sweats 

yeah about that...xiao scammed me. I wonder if his speech changes based on what you say. i kind of doubt it though. 

I’m looking at his outfit from every angle while Xiao stays pretty in the back. 

I like that you can see his magic arm there. 

While on this side you can’t. 

I swear this is for research. IM TRYING TO SEE IF HE HAS A VISION. IM INNOCENT!!

he also has some sort of weird...blue thingy on his foot?

Im using Xiao as a personfication of me BUT TELL ME YOUR SECRETS