#i imagine this is like...within her first century of being the archon

[o-sn4pple]

the voices beg for gaming crumbs.... ORFURINA... furinaor gaming crumbs... thevoices

Furina doesn't need a bodyguard. She really doesn't. The streets of Fontaine are perfectly safe, and who would dare have the audacity to attack Lady Furina de Fontaine, Regina of All Waters, Hydro Archon and God of Justice? Especially on such a beautiful day like this?

That is all she can think of as she takes in your silhouette against the sun, arms trembling as the full weight of the Construction Specialist Meka's claw bears down on you. Somewhere behind her, men from the construction site shout to chase after the operator of the machine, who'd simply ran off after declaring that this was simply an act of revenge. There's some more shouting, but the Construction Specialist Meka is starting to whir, thundering in the archon's ears. Its geared foot scores at the ground in an attempt to reverse. As it inches back, your feet begin to shift, dragging you along with it.

"Wh-What are you doing?!" Furina manages to shout. "Let go!"

To her amazement (and perhaps for the first time since you became her bodyguard), you listen. You let go for just a second, then lunge and grip the claw by its base. With a furious cry, you throw your entire weight into a full-body twist, metal crumpling like paper as you tear the claw from its arm. Air pumps hiss, Arkhe sparks. In the same twist, you fling the detached claw aside and flex a hand, your claymore appearing in a flash. The blade isn't exactly designed to cut, but that doesn't stop you from driving the edge into the Construction Specialist Meka hard enough to dent. Again and again, you bash the machine with enough force to send it spinning. One final slam finally brings it to its side. You stand before it, victorious, sword in hand like some kind of knight from a fairy tale-

You turn. The midday sun must be getting to Furina, because her skin suddenly feels a lot hotter than it should be.

"Lady Furina," you call, breathless with exertion. "Are you alright?"

"I-Uh..." Furina can't bring herself to speak. Sweat glues your clothes to your skin, peppered with ash and soot from the machine you'd just bashed into submission. When she manages to meet your concerned stare, she tenses. "Your forehead..."

"Huh?" You reach up and touch at your temple. Your fingertips come away slicked with blood, but you just brush it against your shirt. "Just a scratch, my lady. What about you?"

Furina just watches the rivulet skim the corner of your eye, following the curve of your cheek until you try to swipe it away. That gets her to move. "Stop that!" she scolds, snatching your wrist before it can touch.  "Ugh, your hands are dirty. If you keep touching it, it'll get infected." She plucks her handkerchief from her breastpocket, then gestures for you to come closer. "Come here."

You blink. "Huh?"

"Come here!" Furina flicks the handkerchief open, then starts to dab at the cut. Your cheek twitches from the pressure, but you obligingly keep it to your head when she drags your hand up to hold it. "You should have been more careful. What point is there in playing the hero if you're just going to get hurt?"

You huff, the soft brush of air making Furina's warming skin even worse. "If I didn't play the hero, my lady, I would be fired. Speaking of which..." With that, you gently pull away, eyes darting over Furina's shoulders. "It seems you have an audience."

Furina flushes as she whips around. Sure enough, the workers from the construction site are clustered around, trembling and gawking. It makes her lips curl, and she doesn't have to try hard to fake the anger in her voice when she shouts, "Where is the overseer of this construction site?!"

The overseer gets shoved to the front in seconds, some pale and mousy man that wilts under her glare. "P-Please believe me, Lady Furina. I had no idea-"

"Silence! Do you have any idea how dangerous-" Furina almost unleashes a tirade worthy of the Opera Epiclese when she remembers that you're still standing there, bloody and covered in dirt. You'd been struck by one of the arms before the machine had turned its attention to the archon. Could that kind of injury lead to a concussion? Do you need medical attention? You must, she thinks, because when she glances at you, you're staring at her with the strangest, softest expression on your face. So she inhales, exhales, and channels her disdain into a single scoff. "Save your excuses for the Maison Gardiennage, but let it be known that I will be watching your trial very closely, monsieur." Before he can react, she turns on her toes and barks, "Come along!", strutting down the street. After four steps, she pauses and turns around. The first time you'd followed her into the city, she'd ordered you stay six paces back. She imagines if she takes two more, you'll finally start moving.

You tense when she storms up to you. Despite being strong enough to take on a Construction Specialist Meka without a Vision, you don't resist Furina when she snatches your wrist and drags you along. "Are we going to the Palais Mermonia, my lady?" you ask after a moment. "You were rather lenient with the construction workers, but if the Chief Justice hears that you were almost injured-"

"Neuvillette can handle it," Furina huffs. "You need to see a doctor."

"A doctor?" you echo. "My lady, I promise it isn't as bad as it seems-"

"As your Archon and ward, I order you to see a doctor," Furina amends sharply. "How can I feel safe and protected if my bodyguard is bleeding all over the floor?"

You finally pause, anchoring yourself when she tries to tug. When the archon looks back, there's a smug smile on your face made worse by the blood still smeared across your skin. "Oh? But I recall you saying that you did not need me, Lady Furina."

Furina gawks, then rips her hand from your wrist just to smack you. She doubts it actually hurts a warrior like yourself, but you still recoil anyway. "N-Now is not the time for semantics!" she snaps. "If you keep up this nonsense, I will-I'll..."

You just lift a brow. "You'll..."

"I'll...dock you of your pay for the week!"

You jaw goes slack before you sigh. "Such cruelty, my lady..."

"As you deserve." Furina nods, satisfied, then grabs your wrist again. "Now then, a doctor. Afterwards..." She is supposed to head out to the Opera Epiclese, but with the brutal heat and your injuries, she doubts you would be very comfortable. She does recall that you enjoyed the desserts from the newest café that had opened, though..."I'm craving something cold and sweet."

You hum. "An affogato with extra ice cream and La Lettre a Focalors?"

Furina blinks at the perfect recitation of her order, then smiles with satisfaction. "That will suffice."

[lavandulawrites]

Okay but here me out with this idea, I don know why my brain made this connection but cause Snezhnaya is snowy and stuff and Snow White normally takes place in a snowy climate.

Capitano with a Snow White darling.

Like with the Calamity saw her once or twice before she fell asleep, and she is like the former Cryo Archon’s daughter or something. So when her father dies she falls asleep as since he created her out of snow or something to be his daughter, she lives off of his power or the abyssal power corrupts her body so much that she gets so weak and falls into a deep slumber. The Tsaritsa has her body in room in the Zapolyarny Palace, taken care of while she slumbers for hundreds of years.

So then when Capitano becomes the first of the Fatui Harbingers he finally sees her again, only in a sleep like death.

Snow White

Yandere Capitano x reader

This such an amazing idea!╰(*´︶`*)╯♡ I’ve always loved Snow White and it’s such a fitting concept for Capitano. (Let me know if anyone wanna be apart of my taglist).

Masterlist

Warnings: obsession, future murder, delusional Capitano, female reader

Word count: 901

The first time he saw you, you were sitting in the winter garden within the place. Your hair was elegantly braided in Snezhnayan fashion. Your makeup was minimal, but well suited. Your pale blue gown was flowy, yet warm given the white fur that was sewn onto the sleeves, the end of the skirt and the collar.

His breath was uncharacteristically caught in his throat at the sight of your beauty. You had looked up at him with a gentle and innocent smile. You didn’t seem intimidated by his towering height nor his muscular form.

The second time he saw you was at a ball hosted by the cryo archon. That was the day he learned you had been brought into existence by the powers of the archon, your father. Capitano found himself even more awestruck at your beauty, knowing your existence was above human nature. Your eyes had a certain glow one would never find in human beings. Your ethereal beauty stunned everyone that looked your way as you moved around the grand ballroom in your gown that sparkled like ice crystals.

The Captain bowed before you as he asked for a dance. You happily obliged. One of his large hand found the small of your back. The other held your hand gently as he lead you through the room in fluid dance that even surprised him. You were a talented dancer and he felt blessed by the heavens above to be in your presence. For once he longed for an entity above humans. His Khaenri'an kin and companions would be greatly disappointed to see him like this, but the black haired man could not care less. Not when he had found the woman he could imagine spending eternity with.

The evening came to an halt sooner than he had expected, and soon he saw you bid him farewell with a wave of your hand and a bright smile upon your lips.

Centuries had passed since the former archon had died and you, his daughter, had fallen into an eternal sleep. He kneeled before the Tsaritsa as she made him the first ranking Harbinger. He was a proud man and promised to serve her and her country for an eternity. He took her pale delicate hand in his large hand. A black colour with faint cobalt blue lines had started to form on his fingertips as a sign of the curse. He brought his hand to his mouth and kissed her gently. She smiled down at him with what resembled motherly love.

After the ceremony he was left alone, free to roam the palace. The new archon had placed great trust in him. He wandered the palace with his head held high and with a new identity. His steps came to an halt when he was faced with a large set of doors that looked like they were made of thick ice. He couldn’t see through them as their thickness was too great, but he sensed a presence behind them that lured him closer.

His hand itched towards the handle with a pull of an invisible force. As in a trance he opened the doors. They were heavy, but it was no struggle thanks to his inhuman strength. The room was dark except the small ice lanterns that casted a dim icy light. The room was lacking in interior, save for the lanterns and a big clear ice coffin. He could faintly see the outline of a person inside it.

Capitano’s feet moved on their own accord towards the enigmatic coffin. As he came closer he got a good look at the person inside. His heart hammered against his chest and his throat closed at the sight of you. When he saw that your chest heaved gently, he let out a shaky breath of relief. Finally, finally after all those years he got to see you again. He had thought it was a myth that the daughter of the former archon, the woman made of snow and ice, was sleeping in a ice coffin within the palace.

Capitano placed his hand on the lid. The cold ice sent a biting sensation through his gloveless hand, but he could not care less. How could he when the love of his life was right before him?

“Don’t worry, my princess. I will get us reunited sooner or later. Just be patient” he whispered as he kneeled before you with a hand over his heart. “I promise.”

He slowly rose to his feet when an idea struck him. His movements stilled as his blue eyes were locked onto your sleeping form. What kind of man would he be if he left you alone? He gritted his teeth as hot raging hatred filled his cursed veins. How could your father be so careless? Capitano wished with all his heart that your father would appear before him alive, just so he could kill him again.

He would find away to convince the Tsaritsa to let him away your hand in marriage. He would also have to find everyone underneath the former archon’s court and kill them for their inability of taking care of you. After he was done, he would finally have you all to himself. Waking you up shouldn’t be too difficult with a little bit of help from his colleagues and her Majesty.

You would never get out of his reach ever again.

[toomanyideasandfandoms]

Death seeking creator but with Furina? Imagine the sort of things she would feel when she first heard of an "impostor", and her being the only one who kills them once and never after because of like her looking at the body in 'pity' since they would be like her (pretending to be a good they are not)

Then she realizes she killed the actual creator and then they don't appear in Fontaine for a while and the guilt is eating away at her until she finds them again and after that she tries to accommodate for them and actually try and help!

Maybe she succeeds, maybe she doesn't, it's up to you :3

YOU ARE SO RIGHT ANON. This kind of thing would REALLY mess with Furina's head honestly. Like the pure pain she already feels from her own situation, I can see her have a slightly higher opinion of "imposters" solely because she can relate not having the choice of their fate. She never expresses this to anyone though, not even Neuvillette for her thinking he would be as strict about such topics as the other archons are.

Also yes she would only try to kill then once. But! Her method would be from a public execution, since Fontaine is about fair trials. As much as she would use her authority to speed the process, her biggest obstacle is actually Neuvillette!

This is because Neuvillette would already be aware about the truth because of his closeness with the elements of Teyvat. After all if the Sovereigns came before the Primordial One, then who came before them and created them? That's right, the Primordial Mother! Or the Sovereign Mother as they once called their creator, but it was changed over the centuries. Though I'll get into that another time.

Either way Neuvillette would do his absolute power to protect them. But it would be all for naught unfortunately as someone would sneak into the confinement area the creator was put in and killed them overnight.

That event would devastate Neuvillette, most likely causing him to quickly explain things to Furina. Though that could go in different ways if she listens to him or not, most likely yes because of her own situation.

Actually if I can ramble real quick, Fontaine is actually the nation that would have the least amount of deaths rate for our creator. And that's solely because of the long waiting periods Neuvillette and Furina set in place to keep anymore deaths within their nation. Though this does poorly due to those who kill from the shadows, or because of our broken creator themselves.

Honestly I know for a fact that Fontaine would have the most likelihood of a breakthrough for healing our creator's mental state. Especially since Neuvillette and Furina would be able to explain that them dying in custody was never the plan and they never had planned on letting them die in the first place (more so Neuvillette saying this, though he would vouch for Furina because most of Teyvat was ignorant).

But this wouldn't stop the angst at all during the healing process. Rain would be falling down constantly for practically years!

Though once the healing has been done I can guaranteed you have the entire nation of hydro being overprotective of the creator. They won't ever trust another nation and practically even forbid any non native Fontaine citizens near them.

They refuse to let any chance of events repeating once more. They've already gone against the Heavily Principles once, they're willing to go to war once again.

[nekasu]

Neka had truly been Makoto's retainer, though he'd hoped that as much of himself had rubbed off on her as she had on him.

"She truly is the purest of the junko. The power, vanity, cruelty, wisdom of the kitsune is magnified to an incredible degree within her. Perhaps it was her purifying her very essence itself that she could amplify her divinity enough to become a god in the first place. That was her power--one that I did not inheret, by the way--to purify things, ampliying their innate qualities. Yet…" A pause.

"Yet, it's not an omnipotent ability, because if it were, there would be no reason for me to exist. Which is why I had decided to fight her as the Fox of Calamity; not only is she the recipient of my grudges which it will feed on, it's the only thing I know of that she cannot simply purify away. That will still be my backup plan, but I will try to go about things your way." In his mind, the best possible outcome of a fight between him and his mother is the both of them dying.

Neka's own view of the divine is hardly so rosy. To him, they are essentially powerful mortals with their flaws amplified. They enacted their wills as they saw fit, and slaughtered their brethren for the chance to become Archons. Orobashi, whose malignant tataragami lingered even to today. Inari, who had treated him like a disposable sacrifice. Even Makoto's actions left faint lingering resentment in his hear; to deny him the honor of dying for, instead of, with her. Not that Neka was blind to the hypocrisy of his judgment, because, after all, was he not yearning to strike down a goddess himself, his own mother at that?

"If it truly mattered, then people would have been more willing to help someone willing to sacrifice so much for their sakes instead of leaving them to rot for 500 years. I'm someone who values results above all else. If they're willing to put their faiths in me, then I will respond in kind. After all, I'm a youkai who can turn wishes into a reality with a bit of effort, so I'm actually quite familiar with what mortals truly desire."

"Worship is a way of amplifying a being's divinity, but it's not strictly necessary to attain it. However, if the people of Inazuma do not see me as another deity to revere, then we must simply attain it in more…direct ways. And you are going to help me, but you'll probably enjoy it as well. After all, you're the only being in Inazuma who is stronger than I am."

He gives her a wry grin that steadily grows toothier as he imagines the possibilities. "And you could learn some tricks from me, so you don't lose to a traveler who's even weaker than I am ever again, hm?" While he doesn't know exactly what happened in the Plane of Euthymia, Neka had found it almost impossible to believe that Ei had lost. Either her period of stasis had rendered her rusty, or those centuries alone had weakened her resolve. To him, there's no other explanation, since nothing he'd observed from the traveler had neared Ei's power, or even his own.

"Heh, your sister was a strange woman, Ei. Not only did she not kill me when we first met, she commanded me to live instead, only to balk at me giving her idea of killing the Fox of Calamity. I hope your committment holds true if it comes down to doing so." Not that he doubts her, but if she's not the one to stop him, could anyone else?

Despite his rather forceful personality, Neka takes the book from Ei with surprising care. If it's truly a relic from Makoto's time, chances are it'll fall apart if handled improperly. "I had very little to do these last 500 years, so I wrote stories of my own. Nothing worth printing, mind you, since most of the endings were anything but happy ones. But I appreciate the chance to read something new, especially one that Makoto herself worked on. That said, does this have any connection to Issun-Boshi?"

Finding beauty in tragedy is so foreign of a notion to someone like Ei. But to draw a sense of comfort in that is, ideally, very characteristic of her sister indeed.

"I see. Then allow me to rephrase myself: Though she is divine in her nature, her motivations are not." Perhaps ironic that she would think so, considering her own actions have become the cause of such pain for the Inazumans. Yet it is so - that she held no deliberate intention of such cruelty and the willingness to rectify the course of her actions - that Ei is able to discern clearly just what it is that divinity represents.

"Be that as it may, you have still done quite a lot for the people and that warrants recognition," She points out gently. "While I cannot guarantee that they would pay respects to your shrine and worship you as a deity, I can at least ensure that your part of Inazuma's history is not erased or re-worded into something it is not."

It is strange for the proud youkai to be this uncertain about his own feelings or instinctively seek out logical reasoning to hide behind when he deems he has acted out of his own character. Was that not simply a sign of someone pretending that they held no emotional vulnerabilities? That they simply did not wish to be placed in a position where they could be hurt again?

"Would it not be enough to simply watch over them because you choose to do so? Whether it is by responsibility, by caring, by love...there are perhaps many reasons that compel one to act. Is it not what one places into action, despite their feelings, that matters most?"

There is only so much words can achieve after all.

"Your resentment towards mortals did not prevent you from fulfilling your oath to Makoto nor did it prevent you from doing what you felt you must. I think that should count for something."

His warning is a realistic one that she accepts with a nod. Should there ever come a time in which he succumbs, she will be the one to sever the ill fated knots of his curse.

"You have my word. I will bear our arrangements in mind."

And if it's books that he prefers...

"Then allow me to be the first to pay my respects." Ei finally releases his hand in favour of reaching through the shelves and withdrawing a small book; pages aged yellow but relatively well kept. She presents the item to him.

"When we were younger, my sister and I passed the time in between training by making up stories. Her favourite ones always involve a character known as the 'One-Inched Boy'. This is one that we both worked on."

[kalims]

Imagine if the twins mom is dating Dainsleif. I can see him dealing with a lot of side glances especially from the traveler's sibling and mom trying to step in to manage awkward conversations😂 poor guy. I think that he is really nice and caring, but he has little no experience with relationships (is it alright if I request headcanons?)

oh my... mom reader is getting shipped a lot lately, not that I'm complaining ( I first added some pre-relationship headcanons to show how his feelings felt and escalated ;) )

fluff, angst, established relationship. spoilers for archon quest: bough keeper and backstory.

my man dansleif is honestly a quiet man, and if you've done the quests where he's included in and thinks otherwise I will fight you.

he knows he's less... talkative than most individuals but perhaps that's because he just doesn't see a reason to speak unless needed. after all the centuries he's lived through, blending within the shadows and speculating from it is practically his moto.

dansleif greatly appreciates and even admires the times where you can easily twist conversations into your advantage, with a relaxed demeanour and a coy smile. victims come barrelling in your trap, simply by your talent with words.

but even so, he hesitates with telling you all about the times he and lumine travelled the same journey aether is currently partaking in, you would no doubt be terrified of the fact that she's five hundred years older than the last time you'd seen her. dansleif can see where lumine gets her confidence from, her eyes and playful arrogance were all inherited from you. he knows he can't tell. not right now atleast.

you're just as mischievous as her, and it sends him on a rollercoaster of nostalgia. travelling with you is certainly something... at times, he's a silent man left with his thoughts that just leaves him at a loss because why does his cold face feel warm? there's the feeling of tingles spreading across his skin and the feeling of serenity ever so present when he sees your smile.

dansleif can't help but let himself fall into daydreams of being into your arms. maybe with you wrapping your arms around him like a cocoon he can fall asleep in knowing that he is loved, to further explain: it's like a teenage girl that's afraid of the dark suddenly being brave enough to conquer her fears once her hand is tightly grip onto the one that she loves the most.

he knows he won't be accepted, thrown away and casted aside just like lumine did once she was faced with the heavenly principles that your family simply cannot escape from just as kharen'riah couldn't, like a curse of some sorts. fate had already designed your family's fate and there is no turning back.

the fuck when did I become so poetic, go away sad headcanons. 😿

anyways, you and dansleif huh.. aether just doesn't like this at all, he and dansleif probably made an agreement to not tell you anything about lumine out of worry. plus, he doesn't know whatever happened after dansleif promptly sped through that portal so it's natural that he's suspicious.

in short, aether doesn't trust dansleif one bit. not after he lied about lumine.

hm.. let's make it more lively! in the next featured headcanons are just about after the travelers finally reunite!

ah let's see, as the relationship progresses, it'll become more open? he'll trust you enough to share his own stories and experiences when you've both encountered enough together.

and I totally agree with him recieving side glances from the twins! lumine's being a lot more less since she's known him throughout the climax of her journey, thus she trusts him more than aether. speaking of the other twin, with dain practically being stuck on your hip like a clueless child starved for her mothers love, he's bound to get used to the man.

he's incredibly stiff when it comes to affection, even paimon has to step in to tell him to relax his shoulders and tense statue! you didn't seem to mind so he didn't really notice. :c he's internally beating himself up for not not noticing that he's like a rock when being hugged sooner. 😭

this relationship is basically sakura and sasuke, that's so fucking cute omg. the thing these men have in common is that their lover is really.. scary? when faced with a situation that turns your mind into a desperate jumble, your first instict is to assess before attacking head on.

you might be asking, why did I include sasuke and sakura? that's because I want to show you how dansleif and yours will be like! a strong headed woman who won't hesitant to beat your ass if you mess with her loved ones and her quiet pacific spouse that will absolutely destroy you if you even hurt her.

....yeahhh.... he's the damn twilight sword I will fight you again if you think that he's weak, man literally restrained an abyss herald with a raise of his hand?? and his unknown power that seems really strong depsite it being displayed for like a minute or two

the abyss is no more, so dansleif is basically just a man with nothing to do. he just passes time with your company, he's seen tevyat grow with his own eyes. so he's bound to catch a couple tricks about love!

overall a very wholesome relationship, the trio will eventually learn that even with their distrust, dansleif just genuinely sees you as his home.

even with a couple of ups and downs, both of you will find yourselves seeking out the other. no matter how hard he tries to bury the love within, it will rise once more.

[probably-haven]

Hello!

So I’m the anon who asked for more Archon War Venti headcanons and I just loved it! I really like reading your headcanons cuz some of them are similar to mine but mostly are headcanons that I didn’t think of so it really is nice to read and see your thoughts about Venti!

I feel like as if I’m asking too much but could you keep doing these types of headcanons? Like it doesn’t have to be Archon War headcanons but like some headcanons about Venti’s relationship with the Ragnvindrs and Gunnhildrs. Because the first Gunnhildr was the first one who prayed to Barbatos and the first Ragnvindr was his friend who left but came back and I really wanna hear your thoughts on that!

And I’ve decided to get off anon cuz you just replied to my texts and I wasn’t expecting that so I’ve got a short confidence boost that I am completely taking advantage of! And thanks for the advice! or uhh comment? observation? I’m not entirely sure but thank you for that! I’ve heard that be said to me a few times and I have been trying to be more, uhh, assertive so thanks for that!

rfouierjkhfkecs i actually came across information on Gunnhildr and the "Red-haired warrior" yesterday when i was doing more research into the rebellion against Decarabian and I was like "wow this would be really fucking fun to research and theorize on, but its too specific/niche to include unprompted no matter how much i want to" but bestie you prompted, and im literally so happy right now because I didn't think I'd ever really get the chance to post about them!

also lmao yeah, i tend to try and reply to as much as I can, since it's a good feeling when someone does and all. but yeah, no problem! I’m glad you felt confident enough to reveal XD. 

This may be structured a bit more like analysis/theory/just citing canon things at first before it gets into a more headcanony format.

ehe i have so much free reign on this it's lovely

More Archon War Era Venti: one two three

spoilers for Venti's backstory and Diluc's(kinda, i think, just in case)

first things first, laying down some canon background because before yesterday i hadn't heard of either of them outside of that one cutscene.

the very reason Decarabian had his storm wall up in the first place was because at the time Andrius had declared war on him- and his tower, and the city of Mondstadt by extent, were basically constantly under attack by Andrius's blizzards, which since he was still alive back then, were a lot bigger and covered basically what seems to be the whole of Mondstadt outside the barrier.

This meant that people had two options. Live in the city under Decarabian's oppression, or live outside the barrier, and brave the blizzards of a warring god... which was not a good idea

but the Gunnhildr clan(not yet called that) tried- and they almost died because of it. In the midst of a blizzard, the clan chief's daughter, named Gunnhildr(which the clan would be named after later) sent out a prayer that was heard by a wandering wind spirit. And the faith of that prayer gave the spirit enough power to create a small shelter to protect them.

When her father past, she became the new leader and also a priestess. She would later lead the clan to fight Decarabian alongside four others. And basically the Gunnhildr Clan ended up as like sworn protectors of Mondstadt

-

as for the red-haired warrior, who is basically assumed to be the earliest known ancestor of the Ragnvindir clan(im gonna refer to as Ragnvindir for convenience sake, even though "Ragnvindir" is technically a different character from Vanessa's era)theres not much information on him, but heres what i have from the various wiki's

- he was a wanderer

- one of the first to use the sign of windblume to find other rebels(so he's intelligent)

- actively propped up the nameless bard so he could watch as the tower was destroyed

there's this little tidbit too from the Windblume Ode bow's description that im probably gonna talk about a considerable amount too: "Atop the ruins of the ancient tower, amidst the cheers, songs, and tears of those who had newly won their freedom. A red-haired warrior turned his back on the newborn god, hidden like a single raindrop in a tidal wave of humanity. He was first among those who passed the secret sign of Windblume, the one who wove threads of dawn throughout the long night. His name has since been lost to time, but his deeds are still remembered in song." followed later by "The fate of this clan will likely never change: they shall ever live in the darkness and bring forth the flame of dawn."

-

Now I'm going to start with the Ragnvindir(geez, why's it spelled like that tho)

My idea of his character is basically formed by a mix of Ragnvindir stereotypes and just generally analyzing text.

So what do we know about Ragnvindir's for sure? they are shady motherfuckers- or at least they rarely operate in the spotlight. also damn, these guys are more cursed than anemo vision wielders- like the only one who didn't canonically lose someone close to them was Crepus, but considering that Diluc doesn't exactly have a mom..... he probably did

so what do we know? - he was close with the nameless bard - he was intelligent - he likely operated primarily from the shadows "ever living in the darkness" - he was a wanderer - he abandoned Venti during the celebration - but his deeds were still remembered in song, so Venti and him were likely still close

now the question of the century: how will i choose to interpret "turned his back on the newborn god"? And honestly, I'm- not sure- at first i assumed he abandoned him completely- but Venti did still make sure to carry on his memory- which could just be Venti being Venti, but for the sake of sanity, this is how I'm interpreting it.

A lot of things happened to the Ragnvindir that day. He lost a friend, saw another become a god to replace the one they had conquered, and he saw his goal, his reason for being in Mondstadt, come to fruition. "see the world through my eyes" the bard had said, and the Ragnvindir had been a wanderer even before. Sure, the people had won freedom, and that was to be celebrated, but he's intelligent to recognize that people would likely see him as one of the key figures in leading the rebellion. And for him this was a solemn time, and ending to a chapter, and not being one to operate in the spotlight, the last thing he'd want is to be swept up in festivities and attention at a time like this.

It also likely didn't help that he's probably smart enough to understand the idea of "power corrupts," and seeing the wind sprite just readily accept the mantle of Archon was likely not the most comforting thing to happen in the given situation after all. But Decarabian was gone, and Andrius had ceased his blizzards, so without a word, he slipped into the crowd and left, a wanderer once more.

-

now back to Gunnhildr

she was the first to receive an anemo vision from Barbatos, no I do not take criticism on this "the power bestowed on her by Barbatos" like please, they basically said it.

It also mentions that she crowned Venti with laurels(symbol of vistory) after the battle- the book Biography of Gunnhildr additionally says "the Gunnhildr Clan will continue honoring the legacy of its ancestors and its duty to the Anemo Archon: to protect Mondstadt, the land and all who inhabit it, forever."

I really like this because it conveniently ties into my past headcanon about Venti granting visions to the people of Mondstadt and having them be the ones to erect wind barriers and defend the city in his absence.

So in the Archon War I like to imagine that the Gunnhildr clan had a lot of people who were actually granted visions and were basically in charge of protecting it from those who would attempt to ambush them.

Mondstadt essentially became known for this- the fact that the mortals within it were strong enough to fend off the force of a god without support from their own.

but regardless, Gunnhildr, as she had before, served as a priestess to Barbatos, the closest thing that Mondstadt had to a ruler, and yet she only took charge of prayer and protection.... i hate to just- equate them to their descendants- but to an extent- her role was kind of like a merge between Jean and Barbara- Except with a whole lot less structure.... i really dont want their characters to just be carbon copies of the descendants but- c'mon, the comparison was right there.

anyways besties- back to Venti so i can tie them in

The Archon War was one of the worst times for Venti in his entire life thus far. And the time immediately after Decarbian's fall, while Gunnhildr and the Ragnvindir were still alive, was the key period of time in which things could have gone very differently.

Venti is the god of freedom. That's a reoccurring theme and I think I've made that abundantly clear. But during this time, Venti was anything but free.

I've mentioned before how he would stay far from the city of Mondstadt so the shockwave of his death wouldn't reach him, should he fall.... well- Venti is new to a lot of things- godhood- humanity- war- freedom- and at this point he was trying hard to figure out how to be Mondstadt's god without becoming Decarabian, and while still being able to survive, and make sure they survived, and see the world for his friend, and carry on his friends legacy.

And this is a lot of stuff for what was once a carefree elemental being, and there were certain things that had to be done for this to happen. He couldn't just stay in Mondstadt, or he would grow weak and his people would be vulnerable to attack, but he couldn't abandon it, because despite being able to fend for themselves, there's always hat just in case. He couldn't stay in any one place outside of Mondstadt for very long or he'd be found and killed. He knew in order for Mondstadt to survive he would have to take an active role in the war, strengthen himself so he could defend Mondstadt, and thats exactly what he did.

He started by going after the less powerful gods, ones he had a chance at beating with the power he got from the Gunnhildr clan and the rest of Mond, and by wiping them out, he would grow stronger, so he kept it up- working his way up the metaphorical ladder.

but he couldn't let anyone near him either, because he knew just what would happen if he was attacked then. Were it not for Gunnhildr's prayer, the early years of the Archon War would have been without contest the loneliest time of his life, and there would be nothing he could do about it, bound by survival and his attachment to the legacy of his friend, constantly fearing for his life and going against his very nature as the god of freedom. Frankly thrust into that circumstance that early on, and having to face it alone, it's likely that Venti would have caved under the pressure and dropped his attachment to either his survival, or to his friends legacy... or just something entirely worse(isolation messes with brains) so I'm attributing the fact that he didn't do that to Gunnhildr's companionship, speaking to him and guiding him through it as he had guided her through the blizzard some time ago.

I also like to think that she's responsible for founding at least a number of the different celebrations that still happen in Mondstadt even now.

Ugh supportive warrior priestess- we stan

anyway meanwhile! we got the Ragnvindir

He hears about Venti taking part in the Archon war during his wanderings and returns to Mondstadt to check in, wary of what he might find.

Venti, who hadn't seen him since the rebellion, is elated to say the least and they do a bit of catching up because they need it

and then the conversation turns more serious, and the Ragnvindir brings up a third thing that Venti needs to hold onto- his humanity.

See, in the early years, just desperate to get a foothold on the world, Venti's first number of targets were just indiscriminately going after those he knew to be weaker than him, and the Ragnvindir points this out, saying that while it's not necessarily bad, if he keeps doing it, it won't be long until he causes his and, by extent, Mondstadt's legacy to be tainted by a reputation for slaughter, no better than any of the other bloodthirsty gods that frequented the war's fields. "Think of what the bard would do, we were both close enough to do that much"

And Venti becomes yet more caged, but recognizes that he's right, and this is another turning point, that in the coming years would keep Venti from losing himself.

also- Gunnhildr, Venti having told her about the Ragnvindir's concerns that he now shared, probably organized some kind of event (not unlike the right of part, but also, yes unlike it) that was deliberately intended and designs to serve as an excuse that Venti could chose to take to visit Mondstadt, something she know he desperately wanted to do, but wouldn't allow himself for fear of putting them in danger. But if she made it an official celebration, then it would give Venti the opportunity to visit his people again, under the guise of it being a responsibility, not having to deal with the moral implications of doing so at a time when he was already dealing with enough of those already.

Also on his travels, the Ragnvindir probably started and spread a number of rumors that could end up working in Venti's favor, not that anyone ever knew it was him of course.

basically Gunnhildr protected the people of Mondstadt and did all she could to keep everyone in as high spirits as possible, Venti included.

And as for the Ragnvindir, he took a more realistic approach, traveling and getting venti followers in far places, spreading false information about him, and just overall making sure that Venti didn't do things he'd regret.

And when they died, Venti would carry their legacy with him as well, not losing his humanity to the tide of war as he very nearly had(though he still often came close), and trying to spreading high spirits where ever he could without fail.

[tuliharja]

Omg, Zhongli with timers. Can be with xreader or xningguang or whoever! Like just imagining him as a young god fighting war after war, with this unfathomably long amount of time counting down on his wrist makes me 😩

Omg! Your suggestion made my creative juices to flow right to way, darling! Thank you so much for sending this ask and leaving it so open. I had lot of fun writing about Zhongli. Hopefully I made at least little bit justice to him!

The soulmate AU prompt list can be found from here.

(I apologize in advantage if this is bad. I'm a bit rusty in what it comes to writing, and I have never tried to write like this before.)

Warnings: Spoilers about Zhongli's past, mention of canonical character death, brief mention about war, and general deaths because of that.

Timers Soulmate AU with Zhongli

The soulmate timer is the very first contract in Zhongli's life. At first, it amazes Zhongli as he never thought Adepti could have timers. He never considered there would be someone who could complete him, so, despite the fact the timer has a number that Zhongli can barely even comprehend, he is looking forward to his soulmate. He has time, after all.

When Zhongli meets Guizhong, it's the first time he starts to think a bit differently about his timer. Guizhong has too timer, but theirs isn't a match. It surprisingly saddens him, but he hides it deep within himself. Zhongli decides instead to become friends with Guizhong. She becomes his greatest friend and ally, making them explore and learn about many things together.

It's the best time in Zhongli's life so far, making him almost wish his timer would disappear as he knows if his soulmate will die his timer will disappear. Yet the moment these thoughts enter into his mind, he finds himself horrified of himself –he knows he has to get away from Guizhong to not possibly pose the idea of them ignoring their soulmate timers. He sets on a journey with Azhdaha all around Teyvat, only to return home when some troubling news comes to his ears…

An Archon War hits. It's at that time, Zhongli starts to despite his timer. There is despair in the air, pain, blood, and losses. He sees how countless people die, how their timers stop when they die, or they fade away when the counterpart of that timer disappears. It makes him despair. It makes him fight even more viciously manner before he collects the remains of his people, and he sets up Liyue Harbor. He wants to make it a safe haven where no one's timer will stop or disappear, making him set rules, contracts. He realizes the countermeasures are a must if he wants to ensure such a thing. (After all, during the Archon War promises got broken too easily, causing even Guizhong's death when she was too trusting of her partner that she had found…) It earns him the title of 'God of Contracts'.

After the Archon War finally ends and some time passes, Zhongli dares to look at his timer as during the war he hid it. He had learned to despise it, but he had also learned to be scared of it. After all, the timer could have jumped up near zero during the war. If that had happened, it could have been used against him, or he would have been in constant worry about that if his destined one would wind up dead in the war. Almost too scared to look, he ends up looking: the timer is still ticking toward zero. His counterpart has yet to be born in this world, or they survived from the war as the timers in near-immortal beings are wonky like that: your counterpart could be similar to you or born centuries later. The only thing that reassures one about that, they even have one or will have one, is the timer. But now that Zhongli looks at his timer, he notices the time has become much shorter. The time is nearing.

When the time of his destined partner nears him, Zhongli winds up meeting a very interesting youngster. A very ragged one who tries to manage by selling various items she has obviously collected from shores and all other various places. The things she tries to sell are all but junk, but the look in her eyes is what caught Zhongli's attention: full of determination to make it. He feels drawn to her and decides in a moment of a spur to strike a conversation with her. As he converses with her, he ends up buying too much and paying too much. But he has mora to spare. What shocks him, though, is the fact the youngster doesn't have a timer. Never has. She doesn't have time for such silly things as she is on the road to make herself something big. Something, that will go down the history. Zhongli sends her off with a fond smile of past, noticing his timer has stopped. At that moment, Zhongli decides to find the loophole of his Geo Archon contract and tear it down. It'll act as a punishment toward the destiny for breaking his contract between him and his soulmate in an unjustified manner –after all, why he should any more look after Liyue, its people and protect it when his long-awaited happiness was robbed from him like that?

Side note: When Ningguang finally gets her vision a few years later, a timer appears on her hand. Yet the counter shows zero…

[oristromboli]

If You Be Our Star, We’ll Be Your Sky | 3

Chapter 3: Straw Dogs

Childe cocks an eyebrow, smirk barely melting into a snarl. “And what would you know? You stay behind the scenes while the rest of us do real work.”

Scaramouche's slow smile is poisonous and laced with contempt as he hisses, “You should know there is a Liyue saying that goes ‘Heaven and Earth are impartial, treating all creatures like straw dogs.’ When the sacrifices have fulfilled their purpose, they are discarded because there is no more use and care for such worthless objects. Didn’t dear Morax tell you of this philosophy himself, Childe?”

(Smut this chapter: Zhongli/Childe)

In your dreams, you hear maniacal laughter ring around you. Somehow the emptiness begins to oscillate, reaching towards you with endless gnarled limbs and bloodshot eyes that won’t stop watching. You back into a wall that wasn’t there before, unforgiving edges all but flaying the skin on your back as you try to escape.

They’re coming.

You turn and run. There’s a golden light beckoning you, so you urge your legs to go faster, but the light never gets closer. If anything, it grows more distant. This path will end in madness.

They’re coming.

You decide a new route to traverse before those twisted hands seize you. When was there water? Is it water? It grows thicker, warmer, rises to your knees, your chest, your throat. You can’t breath. You’re drowning.

They’re coming. And you’re alone.

 ---

 You feel a hand on your shoulder gently shaking you awake, fear seizing your throat in a silent gasp as you try to orient yourself. You’re okay, you’re okay, just breathe, you’re okay. When you look to your right, Aether’s golden eyes meet your own as he stands near your bed with the Seelie fastidiously hanging by his side. Sweat glistens on his forehead and his pupils are blown too.

Neither of you say anything as you open your blanket and he crawls in to join you, tucking against your side to hide his face. Each night spent chained to this world you witness a new side to Aether as he comes undone at the seams.

He and Lumine were inseparable. She shouldered all his secrets, as he did hers. When they rescued you that night so many centuries ago, you promised to safeguard the two of them while they covered each other. You did not need to know everything that happened between them and before your arrival, just as they did not ask for you to fill all the holes in their understanding of you.

This night – the night immediately after facing a fallen god’s wrath – you both hug each other tightly. Is this how it felt to be on the other end of the heavens’ sword? Though Zhongli left Liyue to fend for themselves as a test, you still cannot help but feel angry with the silence of your own people as you were both abandoned without care.

Realization dawns through that cracked armor about how broken you both feel without your divine powers. How cold without that eternal light, Lumine. What did she feel in her last moments, what hatred for the skies?

Still, this is enough. Sorrow needs a place to sleep, needs hands to hold its delicate shape and say it is alright. It is not always loud, nor sharp, nor clean. Sometimes, it just needs a place to rest until morning.

“I miss her,” he mumbles, barely audible above your own heartbeat.

“Me too.”

This is enough.

 ---

 Xiao turns his head, heeds the all too familiar calls of a nightmare. Just call his name Aether, just utter it once and he’ll be there. When silence is all that greets him, Xiao instead follows that smokey trail until he comes upon the inn’s room. The fight with Osial is fresh in his mind, so he imagines the same must be said of Aether and yourself. Both of you hold the other tightly, blissfully unaware of the vigilante keeping watch.

Xiao wants to lean forward, to brush Aether’s hair out of his face and say it’s alright, but he refrains from encroaching more than he already is. Instead, the adeptus leaves an offering of herbs that relax the mind on the windowsill for their discovery.

When the morning arrives, Aether is the first to wake and finds the gift left behind. Even if there’s no name attached, he knows precisely who left it. A boyish smile breaks on his face as he leans out the window to smell the fresh air and, admittedly, try to catch sight of the adeptus. “Thank you, Xiao,” Aether murmurs with the full force of his sincerity, pure and golden. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but come to me whenever you can’t sleep either. Maybe I can sing you a lullaby.”

Do adepti even sleep? Aether shakes his head at himself, but he doesn’t stop smiling. He hopes that one day, the yaksha will take him up on his offer.

On the inn’s rooftop overlooking Liyue Harbor, Xiao’s heart flickers with hope.

 ---

 Childe flexes his arm, raising his fist back and forth to test the ligaments and muscles. They work fine, but he still feels that dark electricity pulsing; in some ways, he feels as though he’s the marionette being strung along. The Foul Legacy Transformation always collects its toll, and each day Tartaglia fights, he fights to gain the strength to beat back that beast that lingers in his peripheral.

He wonders if each time he transforms, a bit more of his soul returns to the abyss, how soon the day will come that the Harbinger is dragged back. Though, if the Tsaritsa ever catches wind, he’s sure the ever-curious and macabre Dottore would become his new best friend. How nice. If that’s not depressing, he’s not sure what is.

“Childe,” Zhongli calls. He snaps out of his reverie and an easy smile slides back into place, fitting perfectly with his wayward good looks. The ex-god is staring at him, gripping his bowl of noodles and wielding his chopsticks with a deft precision Childe knows he’ll never achieve.

He wonders how many people have been killed by those hands.

“You appear lost in thought once more,” Zhongli rumbles, stare becoming more intense.

“Ah! Forgive me, I am just reflecting on my trip with Teucer. Took a bit out of me, ya know,” he replies, shrugging genially. Best not to dwell on the negatives. Though it took many long hours of meditation – he still remembers his frustration at just trying to sit still because who the fuck does that willingly – at Zhongli’s suggestion, no less, Tartaglia finds it easier to manage his impulsive thoughts before they follow the most practical (cynical) route. After all, he’s trained warrior and follows one rule: ‘Don’t let the enemy see you bleed.’

“I see.”

Well shit. Broke rule number one.

The pair are sitting at one of the tables at Liuli Pavilion at the god’s behest; it’s been a handful of weeks since the… incident, and barely one since Teucer decided to surprise him. They’ve met more often than perhaps the last months leading up to the fateful encounter at the Golden House, especially with Childe’s time in Liyue coming to a close within the week. Each spare moment is split between the Travelers and Zhongli. At first, Childe admits, he dragged the former Archon along to properly size him up, try to understand where exactly he fucked up his estimations of his character. Though he’s been called back to Zapolyarny Palace, Childe notes that the order recalling him does not say to stop observing Zhongli.

So he does just that. It’s for the Tsaritsa, he tries justifying to himself, nothing more than selfish curiosity. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Not for the first time, Tartaglia ignores this… intensity in his chest, burning traitorously bright and intense and passionate when he sees the god. Childe thinks back to his journey of how this came about: orders turned to curiosity, turned to attempted manipulations, turned to genuine fondness and betrayal and – and –

As though reading his thoughts, Zhongli puts down the bowl, his full attention on Tartaglia now. Great. “It is more than Teucer and your injuries. Did you truly recover?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m always getting stronger, remember?” Right?

Amber eyes narrow. “Did you recover?”

Ah.

“Mm, yeah, still trying to figure out how you managed to guess so easily that I would resort to summoning Osial to get to you.” They both know he’s lying through his teeth, but Zhongli thankfully plays along this time.

“To be fair, your character is straight forward.”

Childe laughs, bright and genuine for the first time this conversation. “I, Tartaglia, am the Eleventh Harbinger of the Fatui! The Vanguard of the Harbingers. How dare you say that I am so easy to read, when I have always been the first sent to initiate bloodshed, as according to our many long and boring schemes.” The last parts of his sentence fizzles out as his nose curls in distaste. Show no weakness. “Well, in any case, you know I never enjoyed that stuff anyway. Take it head on or don’t at all.”

Zhongli nods, understanding his meaning. Childe maneuvers his head to find amber eyes and raises his eyebrows, suggestive and giddy; he saw in Zhongli an intelligent man before, but now? Oh, oh! A battleworthy opponent. Maybe the god picked up on his not-so-subtle hints for a fight?

“I am still not going to spar you.”

Worth a shot.

“Ah, well, I tried.” Childe reaches for a pair of chopsticks and tries again. When both men watch as the Fatui manages to pick up a piece of meat without trouble, there’s a sudden shift in the atmosphere, warm and nostalgic. It settles deep between them.

“You know…” Childe starts, looking at Zhongli, really looking at him, soft eyes reflecting something foreign in those ocean blues. “I appreciate your consideration for me. Really. You won, fair and square, checkmate and all. I hope to one day be able to manipulate the battlefield as excellently.”

Zhongli returns his smile, and Childe ignores the something that falls in his heart. “Understanding your opponents is half the battle, both literally and figuratively,” the god laughs, clearly amused at his own play on words. He joins in, if only to indulge the silly man.

Another silence. He looks around them and releases a deep sigh. Yeah, okay, he can admit privately that this is nice.

“Do you ever feel bad about it?” he asks suddenly, surprising them both. Now, where the fuck did that come from?

When he thinks of you, Childe feels something else, something cold settle beside his confusion, a sensation he hasn’t felt in a long time. Guilt. Of course, his companion understands the unspoken implications, eyes falling to the ring Childe wears. Both men still remember vividly how violently you three reacted, all teeth and pain and fury bared. He has long since made peace with you, but…

He looks to the boats on the ocean, swaying back and forth, back and forth. His heart moves with them. Something feels unsettled, unsaid… A loose thread. Childe’s heart squeezes at that thought. Fantastic.

“I have no regrets,” Zhongli replies, tone firm and final, clearly choosing his words carefully and mindful for any straining ears. “I did what was best. Moves and countermoves. All things can be bargained in the end, and Liyue won its right to be independent that day.”

Blue eyes narrow. “Bargained?  You mean bought?” He rolls the word around his tongue, tasting it. Yeah, no. Tastes like shit. “You think people can be treated like that so easily?”

Neither of them needs to say it, but both know of the lingering bitterness towards the Tsaritsa. Childe adores her attitude of achieving harmony at any cost, including war, but the underhanded nature of being used himself makes him feel less like a general and more like a pawn. Even there, in Liyue’s hot climate, is her frozen heart felt. However, Zhongli narrows his own eyes. “Are you not the leader of the Northland Bank?”

Childe scoffs and is the first to break the impromptu staring contest. “That’s different, people knew what they were getting into. They didn’t. I… I made a mistake and apologized, but still. It feels… Wrong. I feel wrong.”

“Because you feel as though you sunk to the Tsaritsa’s level?” Zhongli’s soft voice tugs Childe back into looking at him, and he immediately regrets it. Oh. Oh man. He’s very… intensely feeling something for this man. What is it? Everything and nothing. Fondness, yes, warmth, yes, but nothing of that garbage in those cheap romance novels his sisters love to read. Nothing… fuzzy, because truly no, that’s not right either, doesn’t feel right. Childe swallows and nods.

“Yeah,” he croaks. Wow. Really pathetic, but whatever, all pretenses are gone now between them. Right? “We’re good now, yeah? We’re being honest with each other? Have been? Will be?” Childe winces lightly at how quickly he rattled those off like he’s trying to reassure himself more than Zhongli. In a way, he is.

“We are, have been, will be,” the consultant responds, voice lighter and taking Childe’s heart with him.

“Cool.”

A beat.

“But you still didn’t answer my question. Do you really think of us mort- people so low?”

Something else emerges, not unfamiliar when he thinks of the god. Frustration, irritation. Nothing new, but again, not right either.

Zhongli tilts his head, not unlike a cat with golden pupils in slits. Ah, he’s cute, cute in the same way the furry little creatures are before they leap at their prey. The god rolls his head briefly like he’s trying to shake his own thoughts out, untangle them.

From what?

“Do you wish for my response as a mortal, or as my… previous station?”

Ah. Choosing between which face to use. Tartaglia understands this intimately and finds another piece of common ground to stand with the old god.

“Both.”

“Mortals fascinate me, and for the first time in a very, very long time, I am afforded the luxury of… Walking as one. Experiencing life as they do.”

“Wait wait wait wait – “ Childe is shaking his head and holds up his hands. “You say that as if being… you is so different. Is it?”

“In a way, it is,” Zhongli nods. “As someone of my age, knowing of the limitless future, there is no need to attempt to comprehend anything beyond the next battle, the next project for my people. What time wounds will be mended by time once more. If we are being honest –“

“We are.”

“I never cared for understanding the inner workings to life. I could not during those days, I stood as the stone shield to protect my companions. Instead, I faced my problems head on, relentless and straightforward and precise. Actions and emotions were separated; one could not reflect upon the other during times of conflict.”

Childe huffs in a half-hearted laugh. He always pitied the unfortunate souls caught in Zhongli’s spear. “I think I’m starting to see your point Zhongli. Our once-gentle Tsaritsa understands this reality intimately, especially now that she declared the world her enemy to achieve peace.”

“In essence, for the Cryo Archon believes gentleness and humanity to be weaknesses these days.”

“I hear a ‘but’ somewhere in there, though.”

“My friend… Guizhong, she… She understood mortals, encouraged me to watch them and learn, sought for me to unlock what she claimed was true strength. Many weaker gods have passed, their spirits barely a whisper and their memories all but forgotten. Stronger deities, such as Osial, will never truly depart but just slumber for the opportunity to rise again. Even some Adepti linger if they do not choose reincarnation. So then, what did she mean by ‘true strength’? I did not understand.” Zhongli’s voice cracks briefly, so Childe’s hand reaches across the table to grasp the other’s. He offers a comforting smile, a rare sight on a Harbinger’s face, but he regards Zhongli as a truly rare companion worthy of his undying loyalty.

Zhongli returns it and Childe’s heart flutters. He knows that he’s just a mortal, what can he do to protect the God of War? Still, if he can at least stave off some of those bad memories, then it’s worth it. The man rubs slow circles on the god’s hand to ground him to the present.

“As the years passed, I observed. In the end, we are all the same. I have found that a singular purpose guides each individual and drives their spirit to fight, to linger, to be born anew and try again. Understanding that guiding desire is the key to establishing proper contracts.”

“Mm, so, basically, there’s an order to life?” he responds, poking fun at Zhongli’s motto to lighten the atmosphere. Childe’s shit-eating grin grows wide at Zhongli’s dry, unimpressed look that crosses his face. Still, there’s a hint of fondness and gratitude, if Childe squints hard enough. Hey now, he can’t be disappointed in the Fatui’s little jab considering the absolutely dad-styled joke he made earlier.

“Indeed. Gods, adepti, and people can therefore be bought. All things can, even an Archon’s gnosis. We are all equal in that respect.”

Childe nods and retracts his hand to stab a piece of meat with his chopsticks. Nothing threatening, he just needs a way to guide his thoughts. There must be some dubious psychology, though, in deciding his brain is the piece of meat he just committed casual violence against.

The Fatui can’t help but wonder if Zhongli is still missing the big picture in deciding that life can be simplified to a series of contractual choices, even if it eases the immortal’s pain of losing the things he values most over and over again. Then again, does Childe even know what that picture looks like himself? “I get debts, but this feels different, y’know? I understand the value of connections and people more intimately than most, but… People aren’t things. You can’t completely own them for the sake of having them.”

(Morax, the glaze lilies around him whisper, you cannot hoard people.)

“Then,” Zhongli says, ignoring the voices of times past, “What do you call your collection of these valuable people?”

Childe laughs, full and bright and roguish. “Give and take, my friend! Give and take. All things must be equal in the end as you said yourself, no?”

 ---

 “Why him?”

The Tsaritsa’s icy gaze pierces his own, and Zhongli’s lips quirk up, the only indication of any betraying thoughts lurking behind that stony visage.

They both know he allowed her to the courtesy of witnessing it.

“Your other Harbingers all lurk within the shadows, but from what you describe, Tartaglia wields them like a weapon. He is a refined tool for chaos. No one else is mad enough to summon a long-dead deity.”

“Whatever I ask of my Harbingers, they will bring. Signora can summon Osial all the same. So, I ask again, why him?” Her eyes challenge him, demonstrating her confidence in front of the oldest of the Seven.

How arrogant of her.

“Two Archons already lay their claim on him, do they not? Vision and Delusion,” he replies.

“Moves and countermoves.”

“So why not him, Tsaritsa?”

Her biting laugh suddenly rings out, bouncing against the ice around them. “Morax, you are indeed cruel for nothing to escape you. Perhaps he is perfect for your plans, then, as malleable as that boy is. Very well. I will assign him to Liyue.”

Zhongli’s fists curl behind his back. So little regard for the mortals under her charge, so little care.

The Tsaritsa waves her hand dismissively. “It is merely coincidence that the boy is favored. He just embodies the valued qualities of our nations, I assure you. You will find him most agreeable.”

One eyebrow arches. “Whether I find him agreeable is irrelevant. As long as he fulfills his designated purpose, I am content.”

She looks at him, studies him. “Indeed.”

 ---

 “Why him?”

Zhongli looks to Ganyu, curious and gentle eyes flickering between his. They stand on Mt. Tianheng, watching the harbor rebuild. It’s been a few hours since his lunch with Childe, and he agreed to meet with one of his most loyal – and oldest – friends afterwards. Ganyu is one of the few adepti who have,  presently, seen him physically outside of gifted visions and dreams. He was always fond of her company, even if the young qilin has an unwavering habit of napping precisely when it was most inconvenient.

“You have taken many lovers over the years, participated in contractual commitment, as per customary of your gifts. Never with someone so impish, though. Why him?” Her questions are not frigid, imperial, challenging; no, she asks out of genuine concern and care for his wellbeing. Always the soothing soul.

He smiles at her. “It is because of his impish behaviors I find him so interesting.” Turning back towards the harbor, he pauses for a beat before continuing. “This is not the first time I have courted and taken lovers, and eventually, he too discovered my real identity. All of my lovers understood precisely who they were engaging themselves with.”

Her eyes follow his to the harbor, lost in thought. Idly, she reaches for some leaves in a silk flower shrub to her right, tempted to pluck its leaves to eat. A nervous habit. “Yes. But none were so disrespectful.”

Zhongli chuckles, rich and true, no longer burdened with maintaining appearances. “You are correct. His treatment of me did not change after learning of my identity, the first mortal to dare such behavior. No, he still treats me as his equal, not as a god. He cared for me at first as an enemy, but now, his heart pours generosity regardless of old wounds and without expectation of anything in return.”

Give and take. Childe is breaking his own rules once again.

Soft lips curl around your name, Ganyu’s questions endless now that it has been unleashed. “What of her? Why? She is the first immortal you have been enamored with since the glaze lilies wilted.”

Zhongli crosses his arms and closes his eyes, contemplating his answer. A distant and wistful expression breaks, though Ganyu cannot see it. “Because the Travelers are most curious beings. They have shared in burdens similar to my own, and I find it comforting to know that there are others who understand deeply what I feared to be alone in ever since she left.”

The waters of time have worn away his stone heart, and yet… He feels renewed, like spring has finally arrived after leaving him so many lifetimes ago.

“Celestia’s burdens are now put to rest, Ganyu. Where before I did not end my duties for fear of a lack of purpose beyond that point, I realize now that I am free to pursue what I could never have. Serendipity would have it that I have found attractive companions to walk it with. Perhaps this is her final trial for me.”

“But, Zhongli… She is not Guizhong.” The unspoken warning lingers in the air.

(Do not dishonor living company with the memories of those long dead.)

“I know.” Soft leather creaks as his fingers tighten.

(I won’t.)

She fears for her master’s softened soul, though she remains too loyal to speak.

Ganyu’s lips purse and she thinks once again of those reflective blue eyes, of Tartaglia’s fierce dedication to duty and love of battle, of how he cares only for the satisfaction of the next victory. She thinks of a younger Morax, tall and proud as he led their people to glory with jade shields and obsidian spears.

What, then, is Tartaglia trying to protect?

How interesting that this mortal mirrors so much of the deity before her; the birth of one, the death of another.

“The timing is interesting for your mortal paramour as well; do you not agree?” She hesitates, attempting to choose her next words with, perhaps, greater care than she does for the Qixing. “How she falls from the heavens, how he walks into your life now that you are free to explore it.”

Zhongli waves his hand dismissively before he catches himself. “Merely coincidence.”

Ganyu narrows her eyes this time. “You do not believe in coincidence.”

He doesn’t respond.

 ---

 Ajax sits in his bed, flipping his dagger around and around, vulnerable and alone in his thoughts. The new moon gives way to a blanket of stars, distant but lingering nonetheless. When the man looks to his left, the chopsticks Zhongli gave him those many months ago rest undisturbed.

He grins then, uninhibited delight gleaming. “Well well well, anything can be mastered, right?” It’s not like he’s going to be able to sleep anytime soon with the way his mind races. Ajax groans as he reaches over to grasp the utensils and stands, stretching out the day’s stress.

He has time to prove Zhongli wrong, he can master these infernal sticks or he doesn’t deserve the title of Eleventh Harbinger of the Fatui. At the very least, he wants to eat a full meal with the man without resorting to just stabbing his food because that’s just downright pathetic. The Harbinger looks out his window again to the sky, a twinkle in his eye, before turning around, set on finding some leftovers to practice on.

The stars certainly appreciate the ensuing clumsy entertainment.

 ---

 Another day, another meal. Come on, Childe tells himself, this is it, this will be the one-

The noodles slide out of his chopsticks’ grip, and he sighs, tossing his head back and running his left hand through his orange locks. “Pretty sure I’m just cursed at this point…”

He smiles when he hears Zhongli snickering with at least some decency to try to cover his mouth.

“You know, the Travelers have no issue applying themselves to those tools, so why do you?” Childe snorts, but only kicks the other under the table.

“I’ve seen the way you look at her, you know,” he starts casually. Zhongli looks at him, eyebrow quirked, but a smirk emerges nonetheless.

“Oh? Is this another one of your jokes, Childe?”

He laughs, shaking his head with a mischievous expression to match. “Nah. It’s okay, you know, I don’t mind. Our little… Stress relief is not exclusive.” At that, Zhongli’s eyes narrow. He slowly leans forward and steeples his gloved fingers, resting his chin on them, deep in thought. Was it… Did Zhongli not believe him? “ ‘m being honest,” he says as he raises his hands in a show of peace.

“I know you are. Which is why I’m curious.”

Childe gulps, suddenly very aware of the scrutiny he’s put under. He has nothing to hide, but Zhongli’s boring into him like the man grew a second head. “About what?”

The god leans back and picks up his chopsticks, apparently having decided on whatever it is that Childe just blurted. He doesn’t respond, but his shoulders shake with contained laughter like he’s in on some inside joke, and oh, the asshole. “Hey, don’t pretend you didn’t hear me. About what?”

Amber eyes flick up at him, amusement just rolling off of him in waves. “About why you did not pursue her yourself. You are not the only observant one here.”

Whatever happened to don’t let them see you bleed? He winces and starts a plastic laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. Why does the old man never pull any punches? “Ah, well, y’know…” A gloved hand waves around pathetically, trying to somehow grab the words out of thin air to explain for him. “She’s just so distant. And angry. And strong.”

“Like that ever stopped you. As a matter of fact,” Zhongli purrs, “I recall that exciting you.”

“Har har, just don’t go around telling everyone about my kinks, alright? Besides, we started this little thing of ours before that whole fiasco, but don’t get me wrong, this is just all pent-up tension. She isn’t afraid to fight me, like you. Gotta get my sick kicks somewhere else,” Childe grins, eyes daring the other to take the bait.

“Mm, I am not fighting you, comrade.”

“Damn it.”

“But you are simply proving my point, you never back down from a challenge. So why then?” Shit, he has a point. Why didn’t he? Childe only grunts and reaches for a dumpling, intent on trying again and thoroughly exasperated that Zhongli is just deflecting his own curiosity.

“You tell me,” Childe drawls, long and sarcastic. “I thought dear Morax always got what he wanted?” Zhongli sighs and closes his eyes, frustration bubbling forth. Yeah, okay, Childe was being immature, he’ll admit it. Zhongli can go screw himself though, the guy was being annoyingly spot-on.

“Funny how an equally possessive man accuses me as such. I suppose… it did not feel right to start something that is – as you describe it – ‘stress relief’ after the incident. Not with her,” Zhongli’s jaw tightens before he resumes eating, adamant at leaving it like that. Still, Childe nods sagely and without irony this time around. Yeah, that’s a good way to describe it. His feelings for you were no different than his own towards Zhongli, but it was also… Not the same. Your name tastes different in his mouth, left his heart twisting differently, tensing differently.

Otherworldly.

“Gonna have to wait for the bird to want to fly back into the nest this time around after we angered the Travelers, huh?” Yeah, ‘pretty bird’ is probably Childe’s greatest stroke of playful genius, the name seems to suit you in every way he can think of.

His companion grumbles something under his breath before gracing him with an indignant response. “Do you best understand these delicate matters only in terms of the bloody hunter and frightful hunted?”

“You got me there, Zhongli.” With a wolfish grin, he grabs the bottle of baijiu and pours a drink for himself. Oh, how he misses Fire-Water… Soon, Childe reminds himself, soon. “You were right that day, you know. I don’t like losing control over what’s mine. We always tried to win some battle with each other, and we knew what we were doing, even when it was playing the Tsaritsa’s game. The amazing sex was just another aspect to our business relationship in finding the enemy’s weakness.”

Zhongli snorts into his cup. “Do you sleep with all of your business associates?”

“Fuck off, you know you wanted it too. But her? Not all the bargaining chips are on the table. She keeps it pretty close to the chest, and I try not to walk into enemy territory blind. Not always successful though, obviously.”

Zhongli hums along. “You can guess what my next moves are now that you understand who and what I am.”

“Yeah, and at least Aether and the stir-fry have the decency of telling me what’s going on in their head by being obnoxiously loud about it,” Childe grunts. “Not her, though. Not really. I don’t trust her ‘openness,’ nobody shows their emotions that easily. Even blondie and his pet gremlin try to hide some things, but I recognize the way she looks at them when they do a poor job. It’s how she looked at me when I tried to lie to Teucer.” Childe’s nose crinkles fondly at the memory of the loyal knight’s desperate attempts to protect his brother. “I’d say it’s a fair bet whether she would kiss me or kill me first and I wouldn’t be able to stop her. But hey, adds to the thrill of it all.”

“Your masochism will be the death of you one day. Do you have a single care for your well-being? Truly?” Zhongli’s deadpan words are purely rhetorical because they both know the answer.

“Hey! I listen to the doctor when I need to.”

“Mm, and do you pull rank on this Fatui doctor as well?”

“Well, who’s keeping track anyway?”

The god only smiles, affection radiating from his being. “My friend, I treasure our conversations. I will surely miss them.” Childe smiles and laughs with him. He feels good. Yeah. Zhongli makes him feel good. What he feels is thrilled, excited, electrified, but most importantly, genuinely welcomed.

(Welcomed, accepted, cared for. His heart lurches. No right word can describe this, describe how the strange not-humans from Teyvat and beyond took him in without question.)

He’ll miss this too, he concedes without a shred of shame, even if it’s a bittersweet feeling.

“Now then,” Zhongli coughs, before looking back up with the gall to appear sheepish. “About paying for our meal…”

“Oh, fuck you.”

 ---

 Childe’s knuckles rap against Zhongli’s door before pushing it open, pleased but not surprised as the door gives way without protest. He steps inside and removes his shoes by the doorway before padding down the hall, the smell of bamboo shoot soup permeating the hallways. When he enters the kitchen, he finds Zhongli sitting at the table with a bowl already in hand.

“Aw, you started without me?” Childe pouts but steps up to the table nonetheless. Zhongli huffs in amusement.

“I heard you walking up the steps and took the liberty of beginning.”

“Of course you did,” the other replies while rolling his eyes. They finish their meals in peace with little banter flowing between them. After all, both felt the weight of this last night together. As Childe gathers the dishes to place in the sink, he mulls over his own decision for coming over to the ex-Archon’s den. Lust pools in his gut and his selfish body wants to taste Zhongli’s skin one more time. That’s all it is. Pure lust.

As gloved hands slide around his waist, slow and easy, Zhongli perches his head on Childe’s shoulder and rumbles deeply, “Lost in thought, are we?”

He snorts and turns around, tugging the other closer so their hips are flush against each other. When he adjusts himself to a better position, innocent eyes blinking, Zhongli gasps as his own body bucks forward, looking for more friction. “Mm, just wondering what I’ll have to do to get you to show me your hoard, comrade.”

The other man grumbles, but it’s half-hearted and disguises the increases sounds of pleasure threatening to claw out of his throat. “O-Oh? And what makes you think this will aid your investigations?”

Childe flashes his teeth wickedly as he leans down to nip at the other’s ear, all gentle foreplay gone as he immediately bites hard enough to draw blood with his canines. Zhongli groans as he grabs the other’s shoulders, squeezing with force shy enough to break bone. “Don’t underestimate my tactics, comrade,” he purrs. Zhongli looks at him, eyes hooded and panting before he keens when Childe’s hand slides down to cup his half-hard bulge.

At the insistent whining, Childe leans forward and captures his lips, shoving the other forward and off of him. Zhongli grunts but follows his orders obediently as Childe maneuvers them to the bedroom before he sits down on the bed, yanking the former Archon by the tie to his knees. He falls and leans forward, begging for another kiss as his eyes keep staring at Childe’s plump lips. The man obliges and delights at the speed he’s given permission to explore. Fuck, who would’ve thought that Rex Lapis would be such a bitch when you kiss him right?

He pulls back and smirks at the shivering mess before him that shuffles forward to nudge Childe’s straining bulge and lick along the clothess concealing it. “Look at you,” Childe coos, “you’re so pathetic, you want my cock that badly, huh?”

“Y-yes,” Zhongli rasps and moans brokenly when Childe’s hands snake into his hair to pull him up off his knees slightly, his own hands grasping Childe’s thighs for purchase. When the Harbinger ups the ante by reaching his right hand down the other’s pants to grab his leaking cock, hard, Zhongli nearly shouts as his face twists in pleasure. “Please, Childe, more. I want more – “ His voice cuts off into another broken moan when Childe gives a few leisurely pumps, blue eyes watching the other wickedly.

“You want? Comrade, just what do you think an interrogation is? You don’t get to want anything,” he growls and retreats, suddenly letting go of the other. Zhongli’s eyes shoot open as he falls down again. Fuck, the way his chest heaves as his face is flushed with blatant desire threatens Childe’s composure. No, no, that won’t do, Zhongli doesn’t get to command him like this.

He curls his lips as his boot moves forward, gently rubbing at Zhongli’s erection. The sob that erupts is thrilling, and Childe’s lust-addled ego rears its ugly head when he notices the other gasping incoherent praises between breaths. “Please, please, please, do not tease me like this on your final night Childe, please. Forgive me, but I want your cock, I need it.”

Childe’s characteristic laugh bubbles forth as he clutches the other’s throat to silence him. “My, you’re agreeable like this. Did anybody ever tell you that you get to be so chatty when you want to be fucked? Pathetic,” he whispers, but a cruel pleasure unfurls as he watches Zhongli come undone with each degrading word. “You really like that, huh? Who else has talked down to the great Rex Lapis like this, hm? Answer me.”

“O-only you,” Zhongli gasps. “Only you.”

“Good.” Childe’s smile grows affectionate and he releases his grip before kissing the other again. It would be chaste if not for the insistent pawing at Zhongli’s clothes. “Strip for me.”

The god obeys, immediately tugging his own clothes off. Still, even in the throes of pleasure does he perform every action so meticulously, so carefully; he folds his clothes and places them on a nearby chair, and Childe’s heart flutters with fondness. Of course this stupid man would be so fussy during sex, of course. But that thought only sparks another – oh, by the Archons, he’s going to ruin this man and mark him for weeks after. Let’s see Zhongli deal with that problem.

Who even cares that the god can probably heal his wounds in minutes? If anything, that drives the warrior further in his madness to make the other bleed.

Zhongli stands before him, bare and glorious, his throbbing cock pink and leaking driblets of shimmering precum. He’ll never stop being hypnotizing with how the Geo energy refuses to be contained, permanently staining Zhongli’s arms with bronze and gold. All that power lurking beneath the surface…

Childe smirks and tugs off his gloves, tossing them to the side before he taps his thighs. “C’mere.” Zhongli submits – a little too eagerly, Childe thinks, where’s the fun in that – and straddles him again. When Childe’s right hand takes the other’s cock while he leans forward to begin teasing his nipples, Zhongli’s curls in on Childe and settles his head on the other’s shoulder, shivering with pleasure.

Childe nearly laughs when he realizes the image is not unlike a dragon coiling around its prey. Oh, but this one bites; the Harbinger’s teeth sink into Zhongli, drawing blood again. The wanton moan in response just sounds so delicious, and Childe matches his noises as he begins pumping in earnest. Zhongli’s begins grinding his ass into Childe’s bulge, and hey, that’s cheating. Childe is the one who’s doing the torturing here, damn it.

“Oh fuck,” Childe heaves, “I can’t take this anymore, fuck, where’s your oil Zhongli?”

Or not.

Yeah, okay, the man would be hot with embarrassment at how quickly he broke, but the way Zhongli croons and obeys just for him leaves him as desperate. When he rises to look for the oil, Childe stands quickly and begins stripping with the speed of a virgin teen about to get laid for the first time. A string of Snezhnayan curses is grumbled when his pants get caught on his ankles, but he when glances up at Zhongli’s chuckling with a fist curled in front of his grin, Childe only flushes further.

“Shut up,” he mumbles but grins along. Now free from his clothes, he grabs Zhongli’s wrist and tugs him back into the bed, kissing him all the while. The action is… Kind. Sweet, if Childe was being honest with himself.

But he hasn’t been truthful before, why start now?

When he leans back against the headboard and spreads his legs, Zhongli takes the cue to once again perch in his lap holding the bottle of oil in his hand. “Look at you,” Childe murmurs, pitch lowered but still rough around the edges, betraying a deeper hunger. “You look so good for me, presenting yourself like this.”

“What happened to the fearsome Harbinger just now?” Zhongli questions, mischief dancing on his face.

“Mm, good cop bad cop. Obviously being rough with the God of War wasn’t doing much ‘cept making me realize how badly I want to be inside you,” he states matter-of-factly before tugging Zhongli down for another kiss. When he takes the bottle and gently pries it open, he pours some on his fingers before placing the rest on the nightstand. Amber eyes watch Childe biting his lips, boyish eagerness shining forth.

Ah. Still so young, Zhongli thinks, and so cute.

That thought is interrupted when Childe leans forward and begins kissing along his abdomen, but characteristic of the Harbinger’s bloodlust, also peppers his skin with bruises and bite marks sharp enough to pierce the pleasurable haze in Zhongli’s mind. Cool fingers begin to gently prod between his cheeks, a silent question for permission which is quickly granted when his hands reach back to pull them apart for easier access. He feels Childe’s pleased groan beneath him as a single finger massages the muscle open before sliding in, and oh fuck, he missed this.

“H-haah, h-how are you always so tight?” Childe asks, taking his unoccupied hand to once again stroke Zhongli. He’s not entirely cruel, he’ll ease the other’s tension where he can. Whether or not it’s also out of selfish desire to see Zhongli unfurl around him, shoving his ass further on his fingers and into his palm is glaringly obvious when Childe bucks his erection up to graze briefly and intermittently between his toned cheeks.

“Are you complaining?” Zhongli moans.

“You kidding me?” Childe laughs and eases a second finger in, then a third. Now then, where is it…?

Zhongli suddenly cries out, vulgar sounds tapering off into quiet whimpers. There it is.

He begins massaging the spot and watches how Zhongli rolls his hips, the slight trail of drool and messy hair downright pornographic and mesmerizing. When his ass brushes against Childe’s cock again, he moves forward to nip at the god’s hip. “Z-zhongli, be careful there or I’m not gonna last.”

“I would ra-aahh-ther you finish in me, Childe,” the other rumbles, “before you ruin my bedsheets again.”

“Gods damn it, that was one time, you will not let that shit go,” Childe complains, completely uncouth and disrespectful, before withdrawing his fingers. “You’re lucky you’re good at sex.”

When his grabs the bottle again to pour it on his own straining member, the cool sensation welcome against his throbbing heat, he hears Zhongli chuckle above him. “Is that all I am to you? A nighttime tryst?”

“Don’t say that like you don’t enjoy it,” he mumbles, grabbing himself to line it up with Zhongli’s entrance. When the other slowly lower his hips, they both groan as the head begins to breach. It’s not fair, it’s not fair at all that Childe can’t stay mad at Zhongli like this. Not when the other swallows his dick like an animal in heat.

He moans openly when Zhongli finally meets him at his base, and he gives an experimental hip-roll to the god’s delight. Zhongli’s breath shudders before he starts a steady pace, switching between rolling his hips and lifting them to slam back down. Childe chokes on his breath and digs his head into the pillows beneath him at the sensation of being used like a fuck-toy for the ancient god. When blue eyes watch the Archon, muscles flexing in a downright filthy display of power, he’s awestruck. Zhongli is almost, almost treating his cock as another thing to conquer with the way he’s being manhandled like all attempts at domination earlier were just jokes.

He’s not giving up that easily. Childe’s fingers dig into the other’s hips to urge him to stop, bruising grip going nearly unnoticed. “Z-zhongli,” his strangled voice calls, “Flip over.”

When he slides his hands higher on the god’s hips and begins lifting his own body, Zhongli follows his lead. Before long, he’s flipped on his back with Childe looming over him, immediately catching his lips in another kiss as the Harbinger slowly pulls back before putting all his honed power in the movement back in. Zhongli breaks the kiss to groan and bares his throat in a show of submission, allowing the mortal to mark the god with fervor. Childe laps up the salt pooling along his skin with due diligence, nipping haphazardly along the way.

His thrusts begin to angle, looking for that tender spot once again. It’s no surprise how the ruthless Harbinger finds it with lethal precision and begins slamming into him earnestly. Fuck, his hips stutter and grow frantic when he’s rewarded with Zhongli’s increasingly loud cries, how does someone so composed sound downright filthy like that? Zhongli has no right, no right at all. When he feels nails drag down his back to draw forth sticky warmth, he retaliates by leaning forward and fiercely biting. His moans mingle with Zhongli’s as blood pours into his mouth, lust tearing through him, urging him to lacerate and mutilate this god further. Is it possible for a god’s body to be such an aphrodisiac?

Electric pleasure begins creeping forward; he’s losing his mind, Zhongli is coaxing out atrocious amounts of gratification and raw, unapologetic gluttony. More, he wants more.

Childe’s nose is flooded with warm mountain air, the musk inhuman but comforting, nonetheless. It’s enough to ease the abyssal beast inside of him but leaves the man in him wanting as he looks for any skin left unmarked to ruin. Much to his satisfaction, there is little left.

He releases his jaws when he feels a slight tugging on his hair, so he pulls back and – oh no. Oh, no no, that something grows in his heart again when he sees amber eyes gazing at him lovingly. “Childe,” Zhongli murmurs softly, “Let me see you, let me see your eyes.”

His responding laugh sound fake, even to him, as the sudden anxiety pushes aside the passion. If Zhongli notices how his thrusts begin speeding up, chasing that elusive and traitorous pleasure to mask it, he doesn’t comment. Instead, callous hands cup Childe’s cheeks and urge him to look deeply. “Please, a-allow – haah - me to commit you to… to memory.”

“W-what the fuck are you talking about?” he stutters, swallowing thickly around a sudden lump. Stop it. Stop being so sensual, stop it, stop being so sentimental you naïve and old creature, stop it –

Zhongli only smiles, lips wrapping around the soft sounds and purrs coming from deep within his chest. Luminous eyes are watching him, studying him, and he grows hateful at how Zhongli seems to just know. “I y-yearn to remember, please, allow me this. You are beautiful like this.”

“Shut up,” Childe suddenly snarls, leaning forward to hide his face in Zhongli’s shoulder. The other’s noises intensify in response, seemingly in an attempt to soothe him, and he hates it. “S-shut the fuck up, don’t make this something it isn’t, d-don’t do this to me Zhongli. Stop be-iiihng, ah, so cruel, you liar, we agr-eed to stop fucking lying to each other.”

Zhongli turns his head to kiss along Childe’s jaw, each one leaving behind hidden messages of longing and affection. “We did.”

Damn him, Ajax thinks as he desperately turns his head to meet Zhongli’s to kiss again, and again, and again.

It’s no surprise that soon, his hips’ rhythm falters before he slams one more time into Zhongli, that familiar heat in his core spilling deep in the other. Zhongli moans and flutters his eyes shut, relishing in the feeling pooling in his gut.

Ajax is not cruel. He rolls his hips and reaches one hand down to grab Zhongli’s still-aching cock, drawing forth more pleasure from the former Archon with an unforgiving speed. Soon, his breath is drawn, and he shudders as his cum shoots across his belly and into the Harbinger’s hand. Ajax is not cruel.

Damn him, he thinks again as he kisses Zhongli, but there’s no more malice, no more pretenses or attempts to hide his endearment for the older man. When he pulls back, Zhongli’s eyes glow softly in time with the markings along his arms. It’s indescribable, Childe thinks, how the light dances across the obsidian bedsheets and shimmers back, reflecting the riches of Teyvat in his blood. Before he can stop it, a single word tumbles out: “Beautiful.”

Zhongli smiles and pulls him down for another kiss.

And another, again and again and again.

 ---

 (Don’t let them see you bleed, don’t let them see you bleed, don’t let - )

 ---

 The two men hold each other, and though neither say a word, the silence before them is comfortable. How many rounds did they go for? Childe is twirling Zhongli’s hair around his fingers while the latter’s eyes are closed, but his breathing is too shallow to be asleep. Exhaustion clearly is not an issue for immortals.

Hm. His dark hair is silky and fine, maybe he can…? Childe glances at the not-sleeping man in front of him and a mischievous smile twists his lips, all attempts to suppress it gone. Not like he’s going to get another shot at this anytime soon. Deftly, his fingers begin to braid Zhongli’s hair in patterns he remembers the women in Snezhnaya wearing.

Only, when he looks at Zhongli again, golden eyes stare back, torn between being unimpressed and blatantly amused. Childe laughs and grabs the other’s chin to give a quick peck. “Aw, don’t look at me like that comrade, I just think you would enjoy this more than bed head.” It’s an excuse because Zhongli always looks perfect, but let him just have this.

“Mm.” A deep exhale breezes across Childe’s chest, and lust sparks in his gut once again at the cool sensation tickling his open wounds from when Zhongli took his turn hammering into Childe, spearing him open unforgivingly. Some minutes pass, and – yeah, no, braiding isn’t his thing Childe decides. The braid is unorganized, hair falls out, and he’s pretty sure he accidentally tangled it somewhere. Zhongli chuckles and buries his head further against Childe’s neck. “You would make a fine weaver.”

“Asshole.”

They both smile, but when Zhongli looks to the other again, he knows there’s a question forming. He just knows it, but seeing those swollen and kissable lips bruised and knowing that he did that? Childe’s dick twitches traitorously, ready to go again.

“Childe, are you listening?” Zhongli frowns and Childe blinks, attempting to be coquettish. The other’s frown deepens.

“Sorry, sorry,” he grins. “What was that?”

“I asked if you believe in the red thread?”

Childe’s hands stop, and not for the first time, he wonders why the hell Liyue is so obsessed with the concept of destiny. He scoffs, mouth twisting and nose curling up. “Nah, I don’t. It’s a cute gesture ‘n all, but if you look closely, there’s a reason for everything, and it isn’t because Celestia or whatever decided it.”

“Do you say this because you did not have control over what happened to Liyue?”

At Zhongli’s inquisitive look, he holds up the mess of a braid he was trying to rectify. “You see this? This is the red thread. It’s messy. It’s artificial. There’s no such thing as destiny, Zhongli, everything happens deliberately, by us,” he huffs, irritated by the question. Childe was just trying to have a relaxing time, why did he have to bring that up now? The former Archon’s radiant eyes glow brighter, an impassive wall for the other to beat against. Somehow, though, that placid expression irks Tartaglia further and the words fall out before he can stop them.

“You think it’s destiny that I was maneuvered like that? That I began serving Her Imperial Majesty the Tsaritsa? That I fe-“ Tartaglia, thankfully, has enough wherewithal to pause that statement before too much is revealed and he closes his eyes, taking a deep breath to center himself. “No, Zhongli, I do everything for a reason. Everything. My path is my own, all the titles and reputations and connections I possess were bargained for fairly. I dragged myself out of that cold and dark land by my own will.”

Zhongli knows he isn’t speaking of Snezhnaya, but says nothing regardless.

“I thought you of all people would understand that,” he spits, sudden cynicism surging through him like a tidal wave. “How many people have you controlled over the years? Pawns moved, strategic opportunities seized? You should know that nothing happens by coincidence, someone as old as you.”

A roaring tempest, changing and harsh and untamable, crashes against the rocky mountain that stands tall and firm at the center of the chaos.

Zhongli’s lips curve as he admits, “I do. Perhaps you and I have a different understanding of the concept of coincidence, then, though I do not disagree with what you say.”

“Did you not say that actions and emotions must be separate?” he replies, wry smirk back in place. He doesn’t miss the flicker of sentiment, and if he didn’t know the stone-cold god any better, he would be tempted to label it as almost melancholic. What was Zhongli thinking?

Childe sighs, all fight in him about this topic abruptly gone. Truly unpredictable. “Two sides of the same coin, huh?” he murmurs. “Let’s just… Not talk about that. Not on my last night.” He instead descends to capture the other’s lips in a vicious kiss, clearly an attempt to redirect his frustrations elsewhere.

Zhongli returns it with equal fervor and two pairs of hands grapple each other in possessive movements. They’ve long ago decided to be truthful with each other, and this is the most open they can be, unspoken words and feelings conveyed through touch.

When they break apart, Tartaglia’s ocean eyes hide how far below the boy in him is confined to the murky depths. As he nips at Zhongli’s throat, the god can’t help but wonder of their varying approaches to this concept of control. Tartaglia moves with aggression, uses his body as a weapon to get what he needs, to distance his emotions and thoughts further from the surface; Zhongli attempts to convey his desires and willingness to plunge into those watery depths, to drag him back through his own.

Zhongli won’t deny that their arrangement started as him humoring Childe’s lust, of allowing the other to believe in the lie that he had the upper hand all along, but the god has since grown genuinely fond of the tempestuous being.

However, Tartaglia only sees their passions as another battle to be won and the old God of War indulges him. If Tartaglia chooses to classify their relationship and letters as platonic, then so be it.

But… Is the Harbinger truly so far gone that he does not understand Zhongli’s blatant desire for him? How quickly did the young man latch onto this desperate understanding that their passionate actions are separate from the relationship they have built? What war is he fighting?

What happened to him to make him believe he could only rely on himself?

Zhongli hums. No matter.

The dragon already decided long ago that Childe is a treasure worth coveting, and hopes that one day, he will understand that Zhongli’s desires are not superficial. He has all the time in the world to find a love language that Childe will understand.

In due time, he intends to help raise the man above the Archons who dared to use him, dared to take away control over his hard-won destiny, dared to treat his mortal kin as worthless compared to the boy they raised.

In due time.

 ---

 Ajax did not want to think about his carefully guarded feelings nor talk about it that night, lest Morax see him for how selfish and hungry his heart is. It is no secret how he lusts after power, and that night in the Golden House sparked a ravenous flame. Even if he could only convince one of the immortals to join him, it would be enough to challenge the rest of the Harbingers and begin his own conquest.

However, during his stay in Liyue, he could only ease his treacherous heart with one who surely saw mortal hearts as tradeable as gold. His own aches in resignation.

Is it because he is afraid of his own weakness? Or because he knows that when destiny pushes him back into that abyss a second time, it will be final and alone?

Don’t let them see you bleed.

Ajax trusts Morax with his life (strangely enough), but not with his soul. Not now. He wonders if you would be gentler. Kinder.

But a bird cannot survive a hurricane.

 ---

 (The stars whisper fearful warnings that night - incessant in their dulcet tunes – hoping to shepherd these souls once more.

Nobody hears them. They have been absent from their duty too long. Nobody remembers.)

 ---

 On the boat back to Snezhnaya, the Harbinger is leaning over the railing, twisting the ring around his finger in thought. A small smile graces his lips as he thinks of the last conversation he shared with you, of the promises of a rematch.

Cute. That’s all he thinks – fluffy, unreasonably angry, cute, so insistent on chirping and proving yourself a fierce opponent. No, you are formidable as he remembers his ass being beaten to the ground without mercy. A thrill shoots up his spine at the memory and his tender smile turns wicked. Formidable and sexy he declares with Her Imperial Majesty as his witness.

Maybe Zhongli was right, there must be something fucked up in his head for him to still think you’re cute as he nurses his wounds from the Golden House and the Teucer fiasco.

Chlide beams, completely enamored with the open ocean and its bare surface; the bright and open sun shimmers across the waves as tempting as jewels for the taking. One day, he wants to take his siblings out to the coasts beyond Snezhnaya’s eternally frozen waters where icebergs leave few paths for the boats to navigate. Though he’ll never admit it to the other Fatui, he always preferred the freedom to go wherever and do whatever he pleased.

Well, let’s be more honest here, it’s more or less already an open secret. After all, that’s why he’s the Vanguard of the Harbingers. Tartaglia is sent to be the first storm that wreaks havoc and flood enemy defenses while the others clean it up and claim credit.

Childe sneers because fuck Signora, that glory was supposed to be his.

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, but pauses midway before lowering it and clenching the railing harder. Memories flood his vision as he remembers watching how you would rub your head whenever you were nervous, would brush Paimon’s hair and coo at its ephemeral patterns, would help Aether re-braid his after a particularly messy fight. During his stay at Liyue, he somehow picked up the tick himself after spending so much time watching you to try and find your own quirks in character. Chlide never intended to punch a hole in his own carefully guarded defenses.

So… Why did you reveal yourself like that? Childe mulls his options over. Either you weren’t aware of your actions - which is not possible, not with the way you move during battle – or you let him see to throw him off your trail, letting him think he figured you out. Hm. But that’s something Zhongli would do. Did.

Asshole, he thinks fondly.

Maybe you just… Maybe you’re just that open? Let your guard down around him because of – because of –

He closes his eyes, stifling that inkling of something again from creeping its way into his traitorous heart. Childe snorts, sardonic nature taking over because yeah right, like you would really let him in so easily. But then he sees it, sees how the blue glimmers with the light like stars.

If you trusted him because of a starconch, then you really were as stupid as he was afraid of.

And, well, maybe he is too.

How many stories did you exchange over warms meals and long nights? In all those little tales he shared, he showed a bit more of himself. After all, the best lies have truth in them; Zhongli knew this and reciprocated the efforts. In a way, that’s why he trusts Zhongli more – the former Archon already manipulated him and proved his suspicions right. Now that the betrayal has been seared into his memoirs, he understands all the more the man’s motivations, making him an easy target for Childe to predict next they meet.

His heart remembers the unexpected connection he made with Aether – the sacrifices for one’s family rings universal. It’s only when Teucer found his way into Liyue – the little devil – that he realized that somehow, along the way, it was Ajax that was laughing, Ajax that was helping Aether find Lumine, Ajax paying for Paimon’s egregious eating habits.

Childe’s thoughts loop endlessly as he tries convincing himself his mind is only consumed by you three (or one) because he can’t figure you out. You’re an eternal mystery and challenge, how could he resist?

He’s stirred when he hears the Fatui recruits call for him below deck and Childe’s easy nature slides back in. He promised them a proper Sneznhayan drinking game; it’s time to show these fresh-faced bumpkins what being a Harbinger is all about.

 ---

 (Ajax did not see how Morax gazes at him, ferocious and protective. Only one mortal’s heart will remain immeasurable and incomparable to Teyvat’s riches, the scales will never be balanced.

Nor did Ajax witness the stars streak across the sky for him, incandescent and besotted, a promise of other immortals who would faithfully carry him to the heavens if he but asked.

A mountain of bodies filles his vision as he seeks to build a paradise above the carnage for his family’s dreams to be safe, so that they may never know what nightmare lies beneath the world.

He made a promise, after all.)

 ---

  My dear Childe,

I suppose I am able to write the first of our agreed upon letters, as I am the one left behind with the luxury of free time while you journey to your own homeland.

Please note that, attached to the letter, are packages of various Liyue sweets that I am sure youth enjoy. Hu Tao has at least assured me of its quality. If your kin are anything like you, these will serve in sufficiently whetting their voracious appetites.

Also included are some artifacts that, I pray, will find a new home in Snezhnaya. Hopefully your siblings are as curious as you. Certainly, you can tickle Teucer’s desires for grand anecdotes with the enclosed miniature terracotta warrior. They once stood as guardians to tombs of emperors long past. Perhaps he can become a paragon of honor once more as sentinel to Mr. Cyclops.

Just be sure to not allow the statue to break. I must warn you that it contains a very real spirit. Children enjoy this sort of thing, yes?

I am glad we can remain in contact. I cannot begin to repay your kindness and generosity in this lifetime for treating me as a mortal; I never sought the continuation of Rex Lapis’ legacy in my assessments of Liyue. Instead, I find that having good company to walk with is enough.

I pray that your duty does not come into conflict with the Travelers. They have asked me to inform you that they will not attempt to establish contact, for they fear their own journeys will eventually threaten Her Majesty the Tsaritsa. They do not wish to endanger you or your family.

No one is at fault for attempting to complete their mission, but let it not distract you from why – and for  who - you fight. As you described to me, baseless glory for the sake of it is no way to conduct oneself as a true warrior.

Do not be afraid to be the first to step on the path into unknown territory. Believe me, time waits for no one.

Your dutiful friend,

Zhongli

 ---

  My dearest and most lively funeral consultant,

Don’t worry about my wellbeing; as I have said on our last night together, my destiny is my own. Her Majesty the Tsaritsa will have her seven stars, as I’ve promised, but they are not my stars nor my true goals. I believe you are right – I will have to venture into that dark night if I am to find what I truly seek.

I am pleased to report that Teucer is now sleeping with your protective clay warrior after naming him, aptly, ‘Mr. Dirty’ for the incessant mess that the dusty old thing seems to leave. My mother has certainly thrown a fit more than once for the dirt it leaves in his bed. Whether you have blessed this little thing with one of your tricks to always produce earth is a cheeky mystery I am sure you will never answer.

Zhongli, my friend, we must really educate you on what is and is not appropriate to gift a young child. I did not explain to him – nor my family, for that matter – why I insisted on wrapping Mr. Dirty in a very cushioned blanket.

Furthermore, Hu Tao was right, the candies were a roaring success. Quite literally, I might add, as my siblings tore at them with the ferocity of Snezhnayan wolves and howling battle cries.

I wonder who would win in a fight for the last sticky honey roast: my siblings or Paimon.

I understand fully their reasons and don’t fault them for it. If anything, they conduct themselves with greater care than I ever did in Liyue. Regardless, I will miss them dearly and hope that when we meet again in Snezhnaya, it is not for Her Majesty the Tsaritsa, but for myself. I did promise my honor as Harbinger to be the prize won.

With the letter is a package of a hand-crafted Matryoshka doll. I had asked for the crafter to paint each layer as different armor from Liyue’s history. However, at the center, you will find a doll with intimately familiar amber eyes.

This is, I hope, a suitable gift. To me, you will always be Zhongli first and foremost at your core.

You still owe me a fight for the right to reassert your divine status to me and rectify the slight against my character. Otherwise, you will find my insolence to become tenfold. I just hope you defend your honor before your short guard dog, Xiao, does it for you.

Your loyal companion,

Childe

   ---

 Ajax walks along the beaches outside of his village. He’s been home for a few weeks on leave, much to the delight of his family; he welcomes their affection and returns in kind, even if when he embraces his father, he feels emptier after he pulls away. It’s funny. Growing up, Ajax adored his father’s stories of adventures. They seemed so thrilling and freeing, especially to travel the world outside of Morepesok.

Only, whenever he comes home, a bit more of his father’s image is broken away like ice. That’s all they were: stories. The Harbinger has massacred battlefields, left just enough in his wake that would churn most men’s stomachs as a brutal reminder for defying the Fatui. No, those stories are nothing to him now.

He keeps walking, stopping only to kick away some snow from his path. Ajax missed this; he’ll admit it. Too many times has he spent an extended period on Dragonspine to let the cold freeze him just to the brink of death, reminding him of Snezhnaya. Such a ruthless landscape to birth a ruthless warrior. As much as he adores travelling, home is where he’ll always return to, where he misses most when he reads each letter gracing his desk.

Ajax spots a shining object and immediately bends to reach it, but pulls away with only a blue stone and faint silver markings.

Not a starconch. Huh. His instincts must be slow for him to make such a rookie mistake.

As he tosses the rock over his shoulder, Ajax���s lips pull into a frown. Home is where the heart is.

So why does he feel empty?

 ---

 Ajax looks out the window of his home as Tonia, Anthon and Teucer snore peacefully in his lap. They’re in front of the roaring fireplace and a thick blanket is wrapped around them all.

He very pointedly ignores the sharp Mr. Dirty digging into his side, and just… Why, Zhongli, why are you so stupid sometimes. Ah well, it made Teucer happy, so Ajax relents in his complaints for the time being.

Outside his window, he watches a family of snowy owls as they emerge from their nest. Some time passes before the youngest brave the howling winds, opening their wings to test the currents.

In a heart-stopping moment, all the children leap and exit his field of vision before quickly rising again, thriving in the winds of change. He watches as they flap their wings experimentally, fluttering around the tree before the family gathers itself. They eventually leave, heading to horizons unknown to explore as they flee the coming darkness of winter for their own safety. Despite this, the owls will return home when the chaos settles, they always do.

A stray thought springs into Ajax’s head as he looks down at his siblings.

   ---

 When Tartaglia saunters up the alabaster steps to Zaplorny Palace, he remembers how awe-struck he was as a child listening to his father’s speak about the Tsaritsa residing within. Frost paints ethereal patterns into the decorations, constantly changing as it’s melted and regrown. The shimmering patterns no doubt rival the beauty of the skies, but also mirror them in the way that the stars are so far and cold themselves. No matter how many flames are lit, Zapolyarny Palace will always remain cold.

He wonders if the Tsasritsa’s frozen heart still has a flicker of warmth.

Before he turns down the next hallway, he is met with the sight of three other Harbingers. Oh boy, what a fucking party. “Ah! Forgive me comrade!” Childe chuckles as he shoves past Scaramouche’s shoulders to join them. “I didn’t see you down there,” he sneers, relishing in the murderous glance tossed his way.

“Childe. For how long you spent in Liyue, one would expect you to have learned some respect by now. I suppose it’s too much to ask for from someone of your limited faculties,” Scaramouche responds, tone light and casual but eyes burning regardless.

“Was your leave rejuvenating?” Pulcinella interjects, hoping to steer the conversation away from a brawl starting in the palace. Not that they have any doubts over Scaramouche’s self-discipline, but Childe’s was another matter entirely. “Signora here has informed me of your recent success in heralding the Gnosis from Morax. Congratulations.”

Childe raises one eyebrow, eyes dull and heavily guarded. He’s familiar with these political tactics and with how the Harbingers lace their words with patronizing intent. It’s all some bid to try to put others down, remind them of their place. What a bunch of idiots, don’t they know he only cares about what the Tsaritsa thinks?

As if reading his mind, Signora’s lips quirk upwards as she slithers in to join Pulcinella’s compliments. “Indeed. I have informed Her Majesty the Tsaritsa of your valiant efforts. This couldn’t have been done without you.”

Without your brash and impulsive tendencies.

“You know…” Scaramouche starts, crossing his arms and tilting his head back in a show of friendly submission. What the fuck is he up to now? “Some time ago, when I was in Mondstadt investigating the Jester’s little mission for me, I saw the Travelers again. They certainly grew more adept in commanding the elements, wouldn’t you say, Childe?”

The ginger-haired man’s airy laugh rings off the walls around them, the easy-going nature of Childe stepping forth before Tartaglia has a chance to strangle him. “Oh yes, I would certainly agree. Makes it all the more exciting to see what they’ll be up to next. Let me guess, you had a hard time dealing with them? I too heard the reports, dear Balladeer, of how they kept dancing just outside of your short reach.”

Pulcinella bites the inside of their cheek to keep the amusement from showing. Somehow, their favored recruit always finds a way to piss off the other Harbingers like it’s all some game. Really gives a good show too.

Scaramouche scoffs, allowing the jab to slide this time. “I let the fools go. My research was complete, I didn’t linger. But I did notice something… Interesting.” He raises his left hand casually, motioning his fingers in a light pinching motion as if he held something small and precious. “A single starconch hung from one of the Traveler’s journals. A rather curious sight.”

Childe’s smile grows wider, more placid. The lack of an aggressive reaction is, in itself, a threat. “Curious indeed.”

“Scaramouche, wouldn’t you say that was a stroke of genius on Childe’s part? He’s keeping them close and relaxed. I’m rather proud of you for employing our more covert tactics for once. That is, after all, your intent, is it not?” Signora smirks when she sees how Childe’s eyes flick to hers. Still no change in his expression, but he laughs and holds up both hands in a placating gesture. As much as she plays at knowing his tactics, it’s not very hard to guess where his chaotic actions will lead him. However, the motivations behind his more subtle behaviors remain elusive wherein only two can guess it correctly at any given moment: Pulcinella and Her Majesty the Tsaritsa herself.

“You got me. They’re just so eager to help others, how could I resist that temptation of fucking with them?” Childe’s whimsical tone never wavers, not once. Pulcinella frowns. This is a dangerous game; they always caution against becoming attached to the unhinged Harbinger, but if the Travelers became strung along too much, then…

“Careful, Tartaglia,” Pulcinella murmurs, drawing all eyes on them. “Since your little betrayal of their trust, the Liyue agents report that our Fatui strongholds in the wild have steadily lost their footing. For every inch we gain, we lose two more.”

Childe pretends to look shocked, but he has his own ears inside the palace, he’s been aware of it the whole time. Little birds, he thinks affectionately, I’m nearly proud.

“Hmph, of course the idiots keep losing ground, they have no Harbinger guiding them,” Scaramouche says, frown deepening. “Even with Signora in Mondstadt, the diplomats were frankly imbeciles.” She tsks in irritation, but nothing more.

“Aw, if I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you were complimenting me, comrade!” Childe says cheerfully. The Inazuma native’s face flashes with fury before quickly recovering.

“All I’m saying is that maybe we need someone to keep an eye on them,” he replies. “Since Mondstadt… They’re not what you think, Childe. The stars are a lie; none of it is real. I’ll bet you the Travelers know more about it than they’re letting on. Don’t make the same mistake twice.”

Childe cocks an eyebrow, smirk barely melting into a snarl. “And what would you know? You stay behind the scenes while the rest of us do real work.”

Scaramouche’s slow smile is poisonous and laced with contempt as he hisses, “You should know there is a Liyue saying that goes ‘Heaven and Earth are impartial, treating all creatures like straw dogs.’ When the sacrifices have fulfilled their purpose, they are discarded because there is no more use and care for such worthless objects. Didn’t dear Morax tell you of this philosophy himself, Childe?”

Tartaglia tastes blood as he bites his tongue to keep from summoning a blade then and there.

Pulcinella not-so-subtly coughs. “I believe our meeting is starting soon. Let us take this discussion there, for Her Majesty the Tsaritsa is currently informed of all developments. We will receive our next assignments there.”

As all four Harbingers walk in silence down the halls, Childe lingers in the back so that the other three don’t catch sight of his eyes darkening. He was right, damn it, the Travelers are hiding something.

However, a sadistic smile curls on his face. Though he’s sure that the others allowed Scaramouche to hint at what is surely classified information that currently only he, the Jester, and the Tsaritsa know the full scope of just to allow the shorter Harbinger to insult Childe, he enjoys the fact that the others once again underestimate him. They were likely not informed of Scaramouche’s findings either and this provided an apt opportunity for them to update their intel if their unashamedly curious expressions were anything to go by. Scaramouche’s lightning temper strikes again and illuminates the path forward, even if Childe had to bleed first to see it.

Oh what fun, fun, fun!

 ---

 The Tsaritsa’s cold gaze peers down at Tartaglia as he kneels before her, not even daring to gaze at her feet. With the other Harbingers long-departed after the meeting, the only two remaining souls in her throne room are himself and the Cryo Archon; for anyone else, this would strike fear in their heart, but Tartaglia only croons at the thought. Finally, finally, she trusts him with a classified mission, one that she fears the other Harbingers might impede on should they discover the true intention.

He buries Scaramouche’s words deep below the surface, unwilling to allow his goddess to witness his burning desire to prove himself. For now, Childe will serve dutifully until the opportunity for him to topple the Archons’ thrones presents itself.

Littered around them are the eternally frozen bodies of all who made the mistake of striking too soon, their faces warped in perpetual agony as sick trophies. Are they still alive beneath that ice, like the creatures trapped atop Dragonspine?

“Tartaglia,” she starts, regal voice cutting clear through the air, “the Travelers defy the laws of this world and harness its ancient secrets with ease, something the other Harbingers have failed to provide me concrete information on. However, I understand that you have observed these phenomena yourself. Am I correct?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” comes the smooth reply, steady and betraying no weakness.

“Good,” he hears the pleased smile in her voice. “I have a new task for you.”

 ---

  Dreams do not normally come, smothered by the abyss. But something is different this time. Ajax hears it.

A voice calls to him in a language that sounds of silvery bells. Another speaks in a tongue long forgotten by mortals.

-

notes:

childe’s pov has a lot of swearing (and will in future chapter) bc lets be honest, he probably would if mihoyo would let him

1) Childe flips masks depending on who he's with according to mihoyo's official forum thread on him. Pulcinella is quoted as stating that Childe is completely trustworthy for any job, but cautions against getting too attached/close (for unknown reasons)

2) One of Childe's voice lines expresses admiration for the Tsaritsa's warrior methods, but in another line, has massive disdain for the underhanded tactics of others. He also blatantly admits to being willing to take on the other Harbingers and overthrow the world with the Traveler if the opportunity presents itself, and doesn't care at all for their opinions on him

3) The terracotta soldier is referencing the Terracotta Army guarding the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China and Matryoshka dolls have multiple dolls inside one.

4) The Liyue philosophy quoted is a sentiment expressed in Chapter 5 of the Tao Te Ching that basically translates as Heaven treating all the people equally, neither with love nor hate aka nobody is special. It is what it is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

5) Childe 100% spent so much time on Dragonspine with the video from yesterday (April 4th) from mihoyo featuring him walking around missing Snezhnaya

6) The multiple frozen statues are a ref to the White Witch from the Narnia series where she froze all her enemies and kept them in a room to look at. Yeesh.

7) and FINALLY (TL;DR at the bottom of this bullet point) (I wrote this chapter before “We Will Be Reunited” quest)

Scaramouche's line of "the stars are a lie" are a direct quote from the Unreconciled Stars event. A lot of veterans of mihoyo games think this references the theory that Teyvat is actually a bubble world either as a part of the Seeds of Sumeru (name also one of the regions in Teyvat) universe from Honkai Impact 3, a sci-fi game, or is just another world in the Imaginary Tree of mihoyo's overarching lore (aka multiverse). The symbol for the abyss and celestia being a tree support this too, plus the mythos of Gnosticism says that a rival divine made a false world to mirror the "true" divine (abyss/celestia?) with Archons ruling over 7 planets.

This is further confirmed in a dev video where one of the characters from HI3 is seen watching Dvalin on a computer screen, stating that Genshin exists parallel to HI3 and has the same rules where if mankind progresses too fast or too far, these beings called Honkai come and wipe them out to restart. Since I PERSONALLY would feel extremely discouraged if Genshin turns into something too sci-fi (takes away from the fantasy appeal imo), I'm taking this to mean that the MC travels multiple worlds exploring while the unknown god is stopping mankind from being too arrogant. The Archons know things about Celestia most don't (maybe why the Tsaritsa wants to rebel), and the MC's twin joined the abyss separately after seeing the cataclysm 500 years ago to probably help the abyss.

The abyss order are all but explicitly confirmed to be the fallen Khaenri'ah turned monsters and the advanced technology we see everywhere with the power to end civilization also belonged to them, if Kaeya's voice lines and item descriptions anything to go by. They used the abyss as a power source "away from the eyes of the gods" that is parallel to Celestia's power. Celestia is preventing any more disruptions to the great cycle by controlling mortals (one piece of lore on the wiki's timeline page directly describes how they used to walk among the earliest human ancestors in Tevyat long before even the gods we know today were born, but mortals are not meant to know that Teyvat's history is cyclical, starting and ending multiple times). I don't think the MC is aware of the fake stars because they're canonically just as confused as Paimon when Scaramouche says that the sky is a hoax. I'm taking my own twist on this for the fanfic with stars being "sentient" or artificially placed (maybe by Celestia?) since the meteorites that fell were someone's old constellation. There are separate stars that follow and affect the Travelers/worlds.

TL;DR: The stars in Teyvat are artificial but the MC canonically didn't know this, the unknown god is trying to prevent uprisings, mortals want to control the heavens instead, the abyss and celestia mirror Gnostic mythos about two divines and 7 Archons, and for the purposes of this fanfic the stars are both separate from and connected to the Travelers.

[filled-with-tomorrows]

Star Trek: TOS - title references

A list of all references (I think, I might have missed some) in the episode titles of Star Trek: The Original Series. In addition to the references to various literary works, I’ve also included the titles with references to proverbs or obscure words that non-native English speakers or even some English speakers might not catch. So, basically, a bunch of useless trivia for nerds like me.

(I’m using the chronological order for the episodes. Also, I’m not putting links on the sources because Tumblr is a b*tch)

S1EP1 Where No Man Has Gone Before - the title is obviously a reference to the final line in the series-opening poem "To boldly go where no man has gone before". Appropriate for the pilot episode

S1EP4 The Enemy Within - the origin of this phrase is unknown, it has been used for a long time in various contexts like within religion and military. Example from A Course of Family Prayer by Augustus Montague Toplady (1794) "Lord thou knowest our weaknesses... our danger from the enemy of souls... and above all, from the enemy within, our vile flesh and deceitful hearts, so apt to betray us into sin." (source: wordhistories.net)

S1EP5 The Man Trap - a slang word for a woman who is purported to be dangerously seductive or who schemes in her amours; a femme fatale. An obvious reference to how the creature lures its victims in by changing its appearance according to the victim’s preferences. (source: Dictionary.com)

S1EP6 The Naked Time - Nakedness can refer to literal physical nakedness or a figurative baring of the soul which we saw happen to the crewmembers, but especially to Kirk and Spock.

S1EP7 Charlie X - X is often used to represent the name of a person or thing that is not known or stated, can also be used to indicate a mistake or to remove something from lists (source: Cambridge English Dictionary)

S1EP8 Balance of Terror - the distribution of nuclear arms among nations such that no nation will initiate an attack for fear of retaliation (source: Dictionary.com)

S1EP9 What Are Little Girls Made Of? - "What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and all things nice, that's what little girls are made of." Old nursery rhyme from the early 19th century.

S1EP10 Dagger of the Mind - Machbet, Act 2, Scene 1, Line 38, "Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?" (37-39) Machbet is experiencing a moral crisis about killing Duncan and is imagining the act he is about to commit. This manifest itself as a hallucination; “a dagger of the mind”. “ "Dagger of the mind" can read in two ways. First, there's the literal contrast of tangible reality and Macbeth's imagination. Second, you have the metaphor of Macbeth's guilt—and doubt—manifesting itself as a vision as he waits upon the signal from his wife. False in this context plays upon a number of meanings. While the primary reading is "unreal," shades of "deceitful, inconstant; not to be trusted" are equally applicable.” What Machbet is seeing is not reality, just like the feelings the neural neutraliser causes in Kirk. (source: Bardweb > SRC Features > Speech Analysis > Machbet > Go to line analysis)

S1EP11 Miri - Name with a Hebrew origin that’s most common meaning seems to be “bitter”. Other possible meanings are “sea of sorrow, beloved, wished for child”. (source: various baby name sites, lol)

S1EP12 The Conscience of the King - Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, Line 565 "the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" (564-65) Hamlet stages a play of his father's murder to get Claudius to confess his involvement. This is also the play that the Karidians perform on the Enterprise. Since this episode is also about catching a murderer the title choice should be obvious.

S1EP15&16 The Menagerie - menagerie: a collection of wild animals kept in captivity for exhibition; A strange or diverse collection of people or things (source: Oxford Eglish Dictionary)

S1EP22 The Return of the Archons - from the Greek word archon: ruler, to rule 

S1EP25 This Side of Paradise - possibly taking its name from F. Scott Fitzgerald's book This Side of Paradise or the poem that gave its name to the book Tiare Tahiti by Rubert Brooke. The book explores love warped by greed and status-seeking. The poem explores afterlife and how it might not be all that it's made out to be, hence the phrase "this (worse) side of paradise", possibly alluding to how Spock and the other crew members have to give up their personalities and real feelings to reach euphoria. In short, paradise is a lie they have to wake up from. 

S1EP27 Errand of Mercy - The title comes from The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens "It is an errand of mercy which brings me here. Pray, let me discharge it". Errand of mercy is “a trip undertaken to help someone who is in trouble” (sources: Memory Alpha - Errand of Mercy: Story and script, Collins English Dictionary)

S1EP29 The City on the Edge of Forever - “The title is a reference to both the dead city on the planet and New York, in the original script when Kirk first sees the city sparkling on a hilltop like a jewel he says it looks like "a city on the edge of forever"“ (whatever that means) (btw the original script was so bad guys, like so bad (Kirk orders his crew to execute a guy for murder, like wtf) (source: Memory Alpha - The City on the Edge of Forever: Story)

S2EP1 Catspaw - “The title of this episode, "Catspaw", is a term that describes a person used by another as a dupe; as McCoy points out, Scott and Sulu are used as catspaws to lure more crewmen down” (source: Memory Alpha - Catspaw: Story and production)

S2EP2 Metamorphosis - Definition of Metamorphosis 1a: change of physical form, structure, or substance especially by supernatural means, b: a striking alteration in appearance, character, or circumstances 2: a typically marked and more or less abrupt developmental change in the form or structure of an animal (such as a butterfly or a frog) occurring subsequent to birth or hatching (source: Merriam Webster)

S2EP3 Friday's Child - The episode's title is derived from a traditional English poem, known as "Monday's Child". The reference is to a line in the poem: "Friday's child is full of woe" or alternatively "Friday's child is loving and giving". Given the unfortunate circumstances of the child’s birth, it would seem that the former version of the poem was intended. (source: Memory Alpha - Friday’s Child: Background information)

S2EP4 Who Mourns for Adonais - “The title is taken from Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Line 415 reads "Who mourns for Adonais?". Shelley's Adonais is derived from Adonis, a male figure of Greek mythology associated with fertility. Also, "Adonais" would be the English plural of the Hebrew spoken name of God, so it would mean "Who Mourns for Gods?"” (source: Memory Alpha - Who Mourns for Adonais: Story and production)

S2EP5 Amok Time - Definition of Amok: an episode of sudden mass assault against people or objects usually by a single individual following a period of brooding that has traditionally been regarded as occurring especially in Malaysian culture but is now increasingly viewed as psychopathological behaviour occurring worldwide in numerous countries and cultures, 1: in a violently raging, wild, or uncontrolled manner, 2: in a murderously frenzied state (source: Merriam-Webster)

S2EP7 Wolf in the Fold - An ancient expression that means that there is someone in a group who presents a danger to the rest of the people in it. The first known usage in written form is from Virgil's Eclogues:

“The wolf is fatal in the fold, and so Are hailstones to ripe corn, wind blasts to trees—  Or — Amaryllis' anger to us all."

S2EP8 The Changeling - Definition of Changeling: 1) archaic: turncoat, 2) a child secretly exchanged for another in infancy, 3) archaic: imbecile (source: Merriam-Webster)

S2EP9 The Apple - The title is most likely a reference to the Apple in the creation story. The citizens of the planet Gamma Trinaguli VI (which was referred to as the Garden of Eden) were being controlled by a computer called Vaal. When Vaal was destroyed, they bit the metaphorical Apple from the Tree of Knowledge and were banished from the Garden.

S2EP12 I, Mudd - “Possible inspirations for the title include: I, Robot, Isaac Asimov's 1950 android-themed short story collection, the title of which was itself inspired by "I, Robot", Eando Binder's 1939 short story with an android hero, which had been adapted for TV in 1964 with Leonard Nimoy in a supporting role; I, Claudius, a 1934 novel by Robert Graves about the life of the Roman Emperor Claudius (the 1976 BBC production of which featured Patrick Stewart). Like Mudd "The First" in this episode, the subject of I, Claudius is also a despotic ruler who views himself in a more flattering light; Lines from Kurt Vonnegut's 1963 novel Cat's Cradle, which detail the creation myth of Bokononism: "I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done."” (source: Memory Alpha - I, Mudd: Story and Production)

S2EP14 Bread and Circuses - The title, "Bread and Circuses", comes from a line in the Satire X by the Roman satirist Juvenal, and refers to the practice in ancient Rome of providing a regular free bread (or grain) dole to the lower classes and free entertainment in the city's arenas and circuses, both of which had the effect of preventing civil unrest in the populace. (source: Memory Alpha -Bread and Circuses: Story and script). In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses). Juvenal used it to decry the selfishness of common people and their neglect of wider concerns. The phrase implies a population's erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority. (Source: Wikipedia - Bread and circuses)

S2Ep20 A Piece of the Action - If someone wants to have a piece of the action or a slice of the action, they want to take part in an exciting activity or situation, usually in order to make money or become more important. (source: Collins English Dictionary)

S2Ep21 By Any Other Name - “The title is part of a quotation from Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2. "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Kirk recites it to Kelinda. It is often used to convey the idea that although you can change the name of something, its nature will remain the same. In this case, the Kelvans become Human. In doing so, they start behaving as Humans do.” (source: Memory Alpha - By Any Other Name: Story and production)

S2Ep07 Is There in Truth No Beauty? - The episode title is from a poem by the 17th century English poet and clergyman George Herbert, from his poem "Jordan (I)", line 2: "Who says that fictions only and false hair/ Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?" (source: Memory Alpha - Is There in Truth No Beauty?: Background information) ‘Jordan (I)’ is a poem about poetry: George Herbert takes as his theme the proper material for poetry, as well as the proper language for poetry. In the first stanza of ‘Jordan (I)’, Herbert asks, why is it that people consider only made-up or fictional stories and situations suitable for poetry? Why aren’t things that are true to life considered beautiful, and therefore fit material for the poet to use as well?... Herbert is questioning why poetry, which is itself a construction, has to express itself by referring to other false constructions, rather than directly depicting life as it is. (source: Interesting Literature - A Short Analysis of George Herbert’s Jordan (I))

S3EP11 Day of the Dove - The word dove in the title is a possible allusion to their status as symbols of peace and love. Appropriate for an episode where the Klingons and the Enterprise crew come together to defeat a common enemy.

S3Ep16 Whom the Gods Destroy - An adaption of an anonymous Greek proverb that is often wrongly attributed to Euripides. An early version of this phrase appears in the play Antigone by Sophocles, "Evil appears as good in the minds of those whom God leads to destruction ". The version in the title is spoken by Prometheus in the poem The Masque of Pandora (1875) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow "Whom the gods destroy they first make mad” (source: Memory Alpha - Whom Gods Destroy: Story and Script)

S3Ep21 Requiem for Methuselah - “This episode's title is a dual allusion: first to a ritualistic liturgy of Roman Catholicism (and other related religions), the "Requiem" being a Mass for the dead, and second to Methuselah, son of the Biblical prophet Enoch and paternal grandfather to Noah, who was the longest-lived Human being in the Bible (in Genesis 5:21-27) having lived 969 years; existing for nearly a millennium, Methuselah's lifespan has historically become a proverbial reference for longevity.” (source: Memory Alpha - Requiem for Methuselah: Story)

S3Ep23 All Our Yesterdays - Machbet, Act 5, Scene 5, Line 22. A soliloquy after Macbeth's wife dies. "She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. — To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing." To paraphrase: people see the future as bright even though eventually everyone will die. Life is a walking shadow that will end in death, not a litten path to a brighter future. In the context of this episode, the title seems to allude to the time travel that takes place. Spock and McCoy are literally trapped in “our yesterday(s)”. Spock’s love interest Zarabeth is also long dead when they return back to the future, so she’s taking on the role of Lady Machbet. 

[caeliri]

Preparations

A sea of letters lay on her desk, wrist deep and in dire need of tending. 

Dawn came and went in a whisper of satin and silk, her nightgown surrendered to the floor of her suite and exchanged for slacks and a loose fitting shirt made without the same intention for enticement as her nightwear. At least she had nowhere to be today; of late, her days were spent in constant motion, bounding between Dalaran, the Dawnspire, and the quiet village of Summerglen - the province which the Archon bequeathed to her. The trips were expensive and exhausting, the effort spent in transcending space with magic and riding back and forth from one place to the other wearing her thin and leaving little time for all else save crashing into her sheets come midnight and curling against whatever warmth she’d invited for the night. All carnal desires in her had been stilled of late, though they still roved beneath the surface, waiting for the fire of her passions to ignite again - perhaps when there was less work to do.

Thus far, her efforts in Summerglen had been few - she’d ordered work to begin on the repairs to the manse of Hallowhearth, which would one day be her home, and presently she was grappling with where else to spend the funds allotted to her province. To her, the issues Summerglen faced seemed small compared to the problems of the Sunguard; the stakes were not so high, not perched precariously on the precipice between life and death. Simple province, simple problems; but to the people of Summerglen, those simple problems were their world. The wealth of the harvest or the lay of the street, every aspect of their village and the lands belonging to them affected the other an affected them in turn.

Summerglen was a lesson in practicality; something the young Dame lacked, for all her ideals and endless elysian dreams. It would have been easier to decide, she knew, were she more a part of their community, but she had no desire to rush the repairs to the great estate house, not when Shallowbrook was home. Midway through a response to a Request for Aid written to the Dawnmenders, Caeliri paused, her pen hovering just above the surface of her parchment. Hallowhearth had all the opulence of the Evergrove, it’s design inspired by the open, columned walls and sheer curtains of the Dreaming Gardens, it’s stained glass windows - now shattered - once bearing landmarks of the not-so-distant land. It was beautiful and grand in it’s own right, smaller than Shallowbrook, than Shael’thas Lair, than even Embertree Court, but it was neither its size nor it’s grandeur that failed to make it feel like home.

Home was where her heart was, and her heart was --

Wrists aching, she rubbed the bony bulge as she set the response aside in favor of something that did not require writing. Below the request sat her Last Will and Testament, already written, only in need of review. Sea-green eyes swept across the script penned on the paper before her, one of many; the Archon commanded the Sunguard to have their affairs in order, and while Caeliri had no fortune - that was in her hands, her inheritance remained with Cere’thien, untouchable save by request, until her first century - to her name, she had many personal effects, and each now had a home at the time of her demise. It needed notarizing still, and soon - come the end of the week she’d lead the Dawnmenders down into the Fal’dorei tunnels, and though they went with escort, there was always the fear that they would not return.

Night’s ago, the Ranger-Captain had shown the same apprehension - she remembered the tightness of his smile, all false and festering with fear in the arcane lights of Dalaran’s dark night. No matter how much she’d fiddled with his fingers and assured him she’d never be laid low again, they both knew the truth - neither of them could make that promise, not with any honesty.

Reaching forward, Caeliri seized the handle of the enchanted tea cup that sat beside the letter, a gift from the Greenseer months ago, filled with coffee - not tea. She hated tea. Nose crinkling against the waft of strong scent, she sipped, and sipped, and sipped again, hoping the cinnamon and hazelnut drink would drive off the hungry hold of sleep.

Drawing in a deep breath, she cast her eyes across the room, to where Grace sat perched on the gilded gift Lirelle had given her. Preening, the phoenix paid Caeliri little mind, ignorant to the fact she’d been promised away to a person she might have considered the wrong one - long before the Archon’s command, she’d promised Grace would return to Cere’thien at the time of her death. Caeliri was sure Grace would have protest, would think her light and warmth was better served with the Captain who occupied the suite beside hers, and in some regards Caeliri was sure it would have been better, but… she was bound to her promises; even if that promise was not to fall in combat.

Shuffling through the responses, an envelope, still sealed shut, slipped out from amongst the opened letters, and Caeliri’s throat vibrated with a plaintive groan. A letter from Summerglen, another problem, no doubt; she drew the letter opener to her, gripping it’s filigreed hilt in hand and slipped it beneath the the seal of her Captain of the Guard, popping the letter open for perusal;

Dame Dawnsworn,

I fear if I write you with more foul news you’ll soon see me fired; for that, I am eternally sorry. This letter comes to make you aware that all work on repairs to the manse of Hallowhearth has been paused, yet again. As before, the workers cite the spirits that dwell within as the cause of their discomfort and unwillingness to work, though I’m afraid the situation has escalated since last you came to Summerglen.

One of the workers was assaulted by the spectres that dwell within the halls of your future home, and remains, at present, on bedrest at The Hungry Hound, being tended by my wife, Haela Heartblossom. He is recovery well, his wounds overall minor in the end - by the account of the workers sent to repair the stonework within, they fell under siege from dinner ware. Whether their memories are sound or strained by terror, on truth remains; whatever struck the craftsman barely missed his temple, and had it been a few inches further forward, I would be penning a request for recompense for his family.

My update does not end here; with how small our province is, news travels fast, as I’m sure you can imagine, and after this last occurrence I can find no one else willing to work on the repairs to Hallowhearth, not until the haunting has been handled. It seems your stay abroad will continue until the halls can be purged of these poltergeists.

There is one other matter I wish to address. Though I’ve taken the steps to enact your plan and open the issue of where funds should be spent in your first act as Dame - either in arming the troops that Summerglen has to offer, or disrupting their dailies lives by repaving the many, many ruined roads in an out of the province - to vote amongst the residents, I implore you, once more, to reconsider. While your wish to glean the want of those who, at present, call Summerglen home is noble-hearted, I believe it unwise. Your first act as Dame will set the tone for the remainder of your governance, and though you may wish to err on the side of democracy, know that to carry forth along this avenue may cause your allies, enemies, and even those you seek to lead to view you as weak-willed and pliable.

Having met you, my Dame, you’ll excuse my impertinence as I assure you are not weak-willed, but there is no doubt you are pliant - but that is not the sort of woman you want to be, if you intend to step into the shadow-steeped dance of politics. As it stands, you may be in the good graces of all you know, but where you stand and whose favor you hold changes as rapidly and viciously as the tides, and for all your charms, there are some things that can not be compelled by a sweet smile and a gentle touch.

Neither choice comes without it’s own difficulties and without it’s own detractors, but I implore you; choose. Do not yield your power so swiftly.

I await your next visit to Summerglen, and am eager to hear your intentions for how to proceed with preparing Hallowhearth for your residency. I doubt I need remind you that a province is best governed from the ground it’s built upon. Make haste, my Dame - do not let desire pull you from your duties.

Your faithful servant, Liadove Winterthorn

The last made her lip curl in a way unbefitting her gentle face; what did he know of her desires, or her commitment to duty? You know what he knows, her thought proclaimed, and she found them true; she felt only relief that the repairs were stalled once more. It meant more days, more weeks, more months in Shallowbrook, with her best friend, who needed her as much as she needed him. Drawing the letter to her lips, she held it firm, an almost-kiss, an thankful act. The rest, she would not sway on - whether the roads would be ripped down to their roots and repaved with fresh stones, interrupting the daily lives of those beneath her charge until their completion, or their near hundred standing soldiers would be better armed and stood at the ready for the Archon’s - no, Lord Truefeather, in all non-Sunguard matters - eventual command would be up to the citizens of Summerglen. For this, their fate lay in their hands; as it should have been. Who was she, to know better than them, where their futures should lay?

A thought occurred to her, and Caeliri threw herself against the back of her chair so fiercely it rocked onto it’s hind legs; the room was filled with the sound of her long, loud, fluttering groan. There were supplies needed for the Dawnmenders who would follow her down into the tunnels of Falanaar - special gloves and bags made for collecting sticky webs, and enchanted to keep them safe from the wild, sparking energies that lay latent in their lengths. Special supplies required special requisition forms, which required both more paperwork and for her to waltz her perky ass through the city to actually purchase what was needed. Silence settled into her room, and for a moment, the ever energetic mender felt utterly spent, that effervescent glow that kept her going against all odds at last relenting to inertia. Head hung over the back of her chair, Caeliri stared at the ceiling, eyes set on the blue-white light of an arcane fixture above, until it’s light blurred into a perfect halo across the flat expanse and made her eyes ache.

Rising from her desk, Caeliri moved through the ever open double doors to her bedroom into her sitting room, to the door where her boots and bag lay at the ready. Shoving her feet into her boots, she bounced on one foot - then the other - then slung her bag up over her shoulder and out the door she went.

So much for having nowhere to be today; a Dame and Dawnward did not know the meaning of ‘a day off’.

@felthier | @thesunguardmg | @lissanaria | @forever-afk

[mindpenis]

Abyss Chapter Six

Sometime in the pre-dawn, I heard my door being unlocked. I hadn't fully slept, instead dozing in a chair by the window, so I was fully dressed and came to awareness quickly. One of Damaris' servants entered; the woman, in fact, who bore resemblance to Marion, who I had seen returning to the house earlier. Businesslike in her manner, she requested that I accompany her downstairs.Once again I was brought to Damaris' grotesque library. Umaru, the Malay, along with the individual who bore superficial resemblance to Damaris were there, and right behind me came Marion, disheveled, her hair unpinned, apparently having slept more readily than I had. Marion was accompanied by the man who resembled me. Seated in a high-backed, cushioned chair that had been placed near her display-case of heads, sat Damaris herself.With that grisly background she looked as I imagined some barbaric queen in a cheap novel of antediluvian lost-civilization might appear, an impression gainsaid only by her tight-bodiced, modern dress. She wore no bandage at her ravaged throat, but a dark blue satin choker. Her legs were obscured by the fall of her long skirt, but they did not move – I wondered to what degree they had been splinted.I didn't expect her to be able to speak – her vocal cords could not have escaped damage from the throat-slitting – but I was wrong. Her words came in a whisper, but they were easily understood.“Remember,” she said, “I told you not to fear time or violence. Not when you are fully part of us.”I had numberless questions for her. But many I now wished to ask her alone.She quickly went on. “Tonight is New Year's, and soon enough you two will experience your own Depuration. But before that we have some old business to clean up. Earlier Clive, Elizabeth and Miriam,” she indicated the trio we had seen depart before our journey in the Archon underworld, “along with Umaru, spent the evening leading some of my daughter's associates across the city, ultimately to a house I own quite far from here, which they naturally and quite erroneously concluded to be the site of our Depuration. Grace knows that we are uniquely vulnerable after the first night of our rite. She tried to pry its location out of you, doctor...and failing that, put watchers on this house, which we have properly led astray.“The purpose was to in our turn follow those watchers, to see if we could discover where Grace herself is staying tonight. She moves about a great deal, and can be distinctly hard to pin down. She is, at this moment, in a brothel called the Solon, in the Liberty of Clink in Southwark, not far from the prison and Cross Bones graveyard.”“A brothel?”“Yes, James. The Solon is an establishment I know very well. A nest of women that periodically prey on their clientele using Archon life-extending techniques in a bastardized manner.”“And you let them get away with that?” Marion, ever attuned to the pragmatics of revenge, sounded surprised.“I'm not so linear in my thinking,” Damaris answered. “My daughter introduced them to those techniques, of course. Part of her effort to create a counter-force to our network of Archon servants. Crushing them would have been easy, but it's been in fact an interesting study to observe how our methods work while missing several key elements that only true Archons possess. The women of the Solon do indeed remain young, though time only pauses for them, not stops. Also, from time to time I have a wish to remove some servant of our order who has developed loyalties too focused on one of my six elite associates. By surreptitiously exposing that individual's identity to the ladies of the Solon, I can unleash cats upon a canary. Archon servants who have undergone our full rite in Africa are a potent delicacy for thieves of life like my daughter and her followers.”Damaris seemed to choke slightly on the last words. She raised a hand to her throat, massaging it while her breath caught in a ragged manner.“Are you all right, Mistress Ruha?” Marion asked.Damaris, after a moment, controlled the fit. “For a while speaking and swallowing will present a challenge,” she whispered. “Nor will I be able to walk without supports for a number of days. I believe Saklas was particularly irritated with me.”One question, at least, I wanted an open answer to. “Your fingers. One from each of the Archons. Why?”“So I could show you this, my dear James.”She held up her maimed hand. The side where the little finger had been removed was not bandaged. I was amazed enough that the still-open wound had no stitches, but then, looking more intently, I saw a small growth emerging where the finger had been.“You may look closer.”I moved forward and she extended her hand toward me. I examined it closely, scarcely able to believe what I was seeing.“It appears to be...”“Regenerating. Before January is out, my hand will once again have five fingers. The same will be true for my associates. As I said, we wished to demonstrate to you that violence – short of that so extreme even an Archon could not recover from it – need no longer be feared if you become one of us.”Damaris lowered her hand, turning her attention to the trio of mimics.“You three will go out again, this time to one of my other homes in the city. Miriam, as Grace's watchers will have no idea of the extent to which Saklas damaged me, you need not ape my current state in full. The intent is merely to draw away the focus of Grace's agents here in this neighborhood. She is to have no warning, nor any form of reinforcement from this quarter. James, Marion, Umaru, you will be going to the Solon to collect my daughter.”Umaru went to an elaborately-carved cabinet, from which he took two decidedly modern objects. Pistols, one of which he gave to Marion, the other to me.“And what do you propose we do with these?”“You may not need them at all, James. And Umaru, when hunting, dislikes firearms. But my daughter is distinctly dangerous. My expectation is that by the time you arrive she will already be in hand, but one never knows. You three will not be alone at the Solon. I've been sending agents of my own for some time to build up the illusion of being a normal part of their clientele. Regulars by now, purchasing nothing more outre than conventional fucks. The ladies don't kill everyone that utilizes their services, that would make for a short-lived business. When I learned earlier tonight that Grace was there, I sent instructions to a number of London men well known at the Solon. They went to ostensibly do the standard business of enjoying some fornication, but in fact are tasked with killing everyone – except my daughter – in the whorehouse.”My hand tightened involuntarily around the butt of the pistol – a movement that did not go unnoticed by Damaris.“James,” she sighed, “these are people who have murdered for the reward of a pretty face. By contrast, only once, on the second night of the Depuration, do the servants of the Archons kill one another without very great cause. After that, we feast on each other and live. Your response to my actions regarding the Solon lacks perspective.”“So you justify yourself by classing your philosophy as...good God...gentler? Or that it is all right to kill venal people just because you call them that?”“As a conscience you're more irritating than persuasive. Even were the women of the Solon pure innocents, that wouldn't matter. They are sparks floating in a wasteland, to be harvested and re-sown. As beautiful dead as they could ever be alive. But I won't take part in an inevitable argument with you now. We must be quick, or lose the moment.”Miriam, Clive and Elizabeth departed. Umara too moved to the library door, and Marion, after a glance toward me, followed.“James,” came Damaris' whisper. “A moment.”Alone with me, she looked up from her chair, her disturbing grey eyes unreadable as to their emotion.“Ask,” she said.“Wife, mother, father, daughter, lover, wife?”“Ah. James, I know you are a hard-headed man regarding that which is mystic in life. Have you ever considered the existence of reincarnation?”“Hindus are profoundly attached to it. Surprising, considering all that you've gone to such lengths to show me, that it's an interest of yours.”“Yes, superfluous to someone with a body that may well last forever. And we have done many extreme things in a short time to bring you closer to accepting the reality of a life near-eternal. But you have a great difficulty in processing the place – and the future – of those that do die. The spark that I've spoken of, the pneuma, which is the human link to the beginnings...that is also a part of what we use in our work to shape that future. However, we sometimes snuff out lives from necessity or in retribution, and those sparks may replant themselves in ways that are unexpected, but recognizable if you know how to look.”“It strikes me that your esoterics – for all that you've demonstrated some of their basis in reality – are a means to justify whatever cruelty you wish to indulge in.”She smiled, a little ruefully.“You do sound like him,” she looked toward her hideous cabinet of decapitated heads. “James, before Carson Xavier became Grace's husband, he was my husband. Before he was Grace's lover, he was her father. I've told you, life with the potential to stretch across centuries changes our perspectives on the roles of coupling. As to the esoterics you have such a tendency to dismiss, consider this. Umaru was the instrument of Carson's death, but Saklas was present, in fact he officiated over it. And he is a noted devourer of the pneuma of his victims. A short time later, he used for one night a Whitechapel whore – an individual of no consequence, who stirred him to lust based on physical qualities of genetic excellence. He immediately discarded her. She would die within the year. Giving birth to you, dear man. I assure you, he had no interest in prompting a carnal return of my former husband. But sperm is reckless, and quite naturally filled with the residues of the human pneuma.”“There are Bedlamites who consider themselves the return of Julius Caesar, or Jesus Christ, or Henry VIII,” I answered her. “They pass their brilliant returns tied into straightjackets.”“You consider my mind diseased, sweet James?”“Perhaps I'm more surprised that you would embrace so much... romanticism for your delusion.”She laughed...a grating in her ravaged throat that made her cough. “Love, for me, is hardly a swooning boudoir game. And I loved my husband very much.”And what could I say to that? I looked at her in silence.Finally she lowered her eyes. “If you wish to go and rescue the doxies of the Solon, it's certainly too late for that. They are very likely succumbing to their erstwhile clients' attentions as we speak. A fait accompli. But you still have the opportunity, I believe, to bring Grace, alive, to me. I'd like the three of us to talk.”I stalked out, my mind once again roiling. Every conversation with the woman ending up filling me with fury. Her knowledge of my mother – of whom I had known nothing – just added to my anger and frustration, as she had made her disregard for the woman patently obvious. The absurdity of her reincarnation talk would have ordinarily caused me to class her at the level of a follower of nonsense spouted by the likes of Madame Blavatsky, but even that was challenged by the astonishing medical feats of which her Archons were capable. The further revelation of an incestual circle among these people, normally enough to elicit shock, seemed almost normal when compared to all the rest.As I left the library, Marion cocked an eyebrow at me. “May I ask what that was about, doctor?”“No.”“Well. I'm not keen on being summarily dismissed, but I guess we're something short of boon companions. In a way it's almost a comfort to see you being rude, doctor. Saints in general make me uneasy.”Umaru frustrated further talk by taking two overcoats from a hallway stand and holding them out to Marion and me, before shouldering into his own. I surprised myself by the level of anger I felt toward him as well; Damaris and Xaus having been the architects of Carson Xavier's death seemed to fade into the background of my emotions as I stood here before the living instrument of that death. A result of psychological manipulation...hardly the lust of a reincarnated spirit to take revenge on his killer. And yet, it took an effort to push down a surging desire to take out the gun I'd just been given and fill him with bullets.And why would Damaris see fit to arm us, while pointedly alluding to Umaru lacking any such weapon? A test of rebeliousness, backed by absolute confidence in the big man's ability to – do what? Disarm us with ease should we misbehave? Shrug off bullets?I accepted the coat, thinking briefly of my own burned coat and what was likely the smoking ruin of my office and flat. I put the pistol into my belt and closed the coat over it.Marion, instead of putting on her own garment, handed it back and turned around, spreading her arms slightly to encourage Umaru to drape the coat on her, which he did. She turned around again, tilting her head back to look up at his face.“I've yet to hear you utter a word,” she said. “Is that just your manner, or do you lack the equipment in some way? Given all the exciting demonstrations of Archon healing, I expect if Mistress Ruha had your tongue cut out, it would simply grow back.”When Umaru answered, in heavily accented but perfect English, Marion was so startled she jumped.“You would do well,” the big man said, “to learn the meaning of dignity.”“Lord, he's really smart,” her laugh sounded somewhat forced. “And ruder than you are, doctor.”Umaru simply adjusted his gaze until he was looking over the top of Marion's head. His eyes rested on me, with, I thought, a particular intensity. Had he heard some part of what Damaris had said, and did that also carry for him the echoing remembrance of deeds done a half-century before? I knew nothing of the man, beyond the statement by his mistress that he was Congolese, a warrior, and at the command of my father and herself, had killed Carson Xavier. Now he was being sent to capture Xavier's wife...daughter...bizarrely both.He led us back down into the basement, once again taking to the walking-tunnels. This time we did not travel far, no more than leaving the neighborhood of Damaris' house, before we ascended again. A door cleverly melded into a brick pattern opened from pressure applied by Umaru, and we came out into an alley. Soft snow continued to swirl through the darkness.A carriage waited for us there. With a curt wave of his hand Umaru dismissed its driver, climbing himself up to the bench. While the driver departed into the bricked entrance of the tunnels, Marion and I entered the coach. No sooner were we seated than the carriage jolted forward.Marion was examining the pistol she'd been given. Abruptly, she handed it to me.“Will you see if this thing is properly loaded? I rightly confess to having no lack of guns around me in life, but never schooling myself in shooting them.”So she was suspicious about having been given weapons too. I opened the chamber, satisfying myself that it was indeed loaded. I tipped the open chamber toward her, displaying the bullets. “It has no safety,” I said. “Be cautious not to carry it with your finger inside the trigger guard.”“Or I'll shoot myself in the foot?” She laughed, taking the pistol back and putting it in the pocket of her coat.For a moment, she too looked at me very intently.“May I ask how you intend to conduct yourself on this little foray? I presume with no intent to kill anybody, despite the prophecy Mistress Ruha gave that you're to become a great slaughterer of women.”“I don't know,” I answered truthfully.“Well. Look doctor, aside from all the blood and fucking, you and I aren't exactly what I would call intimates. But I've got no one better to talk to. I'll tell you I'm not completely pleased with the way things are shaping up. Your little private tete-a-tete and other rather obvious signals makes the promise by our mistress of no favoritism somewhat shaky to my way of thinking. The lady Ruha is clearly fixated on you. Her interest in me seems to have more to do with money. What she told you about my history is perfectly true. I have cash aplenty from my daddy and granddaddy's enterprises. I've not the slightest doubt that Mistress Ruha would be pleased to suck up a great deal of that for her own endeavors, and I've no objection, if I'm paid off in years of youth. But the claws she wants to sink into you carry a little more weight than cold cash, if I'm any judge of the ways of the world.”“I won't fight you in their monstrous arena, Miss Bama.”“So you say. So where does that leave me? Not much better...the Archons seem a trifle rigid in the way they like things done. Do I get what I want for dispatching a sacrificial lamb?”I had no answer for her. Perturbed as she seemed, she didn't press the matter. The carriage tilted slightly upward, and she opened the side window. Snowflakes drifted in, but I could see the dark, slow-flowing expanse of the Thames. We were crossing one of the river-spanning bridges into Southwark.The district was of course noted for its clandestine and edge-of-society activities – it had the repute of being rife with criminal cliques, which thrived beyond the law maintained north of the Thames. I'd thought the mystique exaggerated – visits of my own to the famous theatres in the area had been picturesque but in no way dangerous – but apparently, if anything the criminality of the Clink had been understated.Marion continued to look out the window, and I also watched, looking past her outlined profile.And how did I intend to comport myself once we reached our destination? I felt myself past my initial urges to call down the authorities on this strange and violent underworld. Marion's Louisiana logic of a man fallen afoul of the Ku Klux Klan was perhaps more apt than I'd originally considered. Given the elaborate infrastructure behind Archon activities, Damaris almost certainly had any number of officials in her pocket. To have ordered multiple murders in a bordello and not expect the newspapers to be crazed with it the next day implied that she had the power to clean it all up afterward and cause all evidence of the act to disappear. Even if I could somehow divine what authorities were not possessions of the Archons, those individuals would doubtless consider me a lunatic.Yet I was riding in the company of two murderers, to a scene that promised mass death, to apprehend a woman who had mutilated me.The carriage came to a stop. We had been traveling through streets without public gaslight since coming into the Liberty of Clink. In somewhat eerie fashion, that actually caused more light to seem present – ambient light reflecting from the city proper into the low clouds of the storm. There was little of the deep light-and-shadow to be found on the gaslit streets of London; a general soft glow permeated everything.The carriage lurched as Umaru climbed down from the bench. Opening the door I alighted, with Marion right behind me.The building before us, presumably housing the Solon, lacked any sign or mark to show its identity. Its windows were curtained, though behind some the uneven light of candles shone. A short flight of steps led up to a stoop before the closed door. The snow had become heavier. It settled on my hair and the shoulders of my coat as we went up.Umaru turned the knob. It was not locked; at his touch, the door opened easily.The foyer, scented with perfume and incense, gave into a reception room furnished with a number of upholstered couches and chairs. A heavy candelabra suspended from the ceiling, but most of the wax tapers in it had burned down, leaving dull, smoking candle-stumps in their sockets. The few that still burned shot a fitful yellow light around the room.The reason for that neglect was clear. At most such establishments the madam greeted clients from a centrally-situated chair or desk; sprawled across the Solon's reception desk was a beautiful woman whose jet-black hair, somewhat prominent nose and dark skin marked her as being of Indian descent. She'd been garroted. The cord used to strangle her cut so deeply into her neck her head had been all but severed.Since the killers sent by Damaris had posed as regular bordello clients, I could only guess that after being conducted one after the other to rooms with the prostitutes, one of the men had finished there, and returned to eliminate the madam. So there could be little hope that any still remained alive.Umaru went to look at her, lingering to examine the ghastly near-decapitation.“Semi-immortal or not, I don't think she's getting up from that,” Marion said.Suddenly a sharp sound rang out from above – a single report, followed by male voices shouting. Umaru raced to the stairs – which presumably led to assignation rooms on the second floor – with unhesitating speed. I took out my pistol and followed, Marion at my heels.The second floor presented a long hallway stretching to right and left, with doors at regular intervals. Candle-sconces along each length of hall had also burned low. Umaru had moved to the left, where five men had gathered at the foot of another stairway, recessed into the wall, which led up to the third story.As Marion and I passed one of the rooms, I looked through its open door to see another dead woman, naked and spread-eagled face down on the room's bed. She too had been strangled; the thin ligature-end trailed from under her hair down her back. Attempting to help her was pointless – the unnatural cant of her head showed that she too had been all but decapitated.My heartbeat pounded in my temples. The sight should have filled me with horror. Or at least driven me to the mind-place I had learned to adopt in battle, where I could detach myself from acts of carnage. But instead, with the force of a wave, I felt as I had in the hallucinatory incident with Grace and also with Damaris and Marion while hypnotized. Hunger, sexual hunger, gripped me. The curve of the dead woman's back and buttocks, the repose of her legs and feet...her arms with limp fingers...all seemed to possess an overpowering eroticism.My thoughts ran like a runaway train, thinking that I could...I had to enter the room, close the door, take her...no one would judge me, these people probably felt exactly the same.What had they done to me? I was under the influence of no drugs. Damaris was not present to work her diabolic mesmerism on me. With an immense effort of will, I stepped past the open door.Several of the men in the hall – some of whom were naked, some partly so – were speaking at once to Umaru, their words falling over one another.“Had the mad-eyed bitch...sleeping like a baby...she's pure hell...she knifed Thomas here and got loose...offices upstairs, she must have had a pistol there...took a pot shot when we tried to go up.”Umaru was looking up the staircase, as if contemplating a rush to the top floor. Long-time servant of the Archons that he was, perhaps he really did believe bullets from Grace would only be a minor hindrance.Before he could decisively move, I shoved past the knot of men. Several steps up I turned and leveled my own pistol at them.“Doctor, what are you doing?” That was Marion; at the sound of a woman speaking the cluster of men turned to look at her, wondering perhaps, if one of the cathouse-women had evaded them.I used the moment of distraction to fire two shots – one into the shoulder of a naked man, the second creasing another's torso. I was not shooting to kill, but to control these maniacs. The man who had taken the shot in his shoulder clutched at it, gasping, “What the bloody Christ...”Whether or not I could have controlled the situation became moot only a second later, as I felt a hard impact in my back and a burning burst of pain. In short order four more shots from above followed. Marion and the men scattered into the hall on each side of the stair-foot. I could not see if any of them had been struck by the bullets.I turned, looking back and up, and saw Grace on the landing at the stair-head. She had a pistol in one hand, a bloody knife in the other. Backlit by a candle-sconce on the landing, I saw she was barefoot, dressed only in a black shift-dress. Her hair was down, her dark glasses absent. As one of the killers had said, they must have caught her in her sleep.“Fucking murderer!” she shouted, continuing to pull the trigger of her pistol several times before fully realizing she had expended its bullets. She hurled the empty gun down the stairs – it went by my head, to abruptly strike Umaru in the chest right below me. I had not realized the warrior had returned from the shelter of the hallway to come charging up the stairs.He paid no attention at all to the pistol bouncing off the front of his coat. He shoved me against the staircase wall, slapping the gun from my hand. It also clattered downward to the foot of the stairs. He bounded past me.I rose, flinching at the pain the movement caused in my back. Difficult to gauge the severity of the wound, but I was able to get my feet under me.Marion was there then, helping to steady me. I looked back down the stairs. “The killers...”“Piss-ants, more like,” she replied. “Brave enough to strangle fuckery-girls from behind. Maybe they'll realize that there are five of them and succeed in screwing up their courage.” She looked up. “The boy went off, though. Do you think he got her?”Both Grace and Umaru were gone from the landing.My legs held, and I went up, Marion staying close to me. In the dimness and amid the mayhem she didn't seem to realize I had taken a bullet. The pain had settled as a throbbing ache in my lower back, but I could move well enough.At the top of the stairs a shorter hallway than the one below led from the landing. A few steps down the hall an open door gaped. I looked in – though no candle burned there, it seemed to be an office. I could make out a map of London pinned to the wall, and beside it was surprised to see a map of Africa. Hard to tell in the dark, but it did not seem nearly as complex as the one Damaris possessed. But clearly the women shared a similar interest in the skull-shaped continent.“Doctor!” Marion called.She had continued along the hall, coming to a door that stood slightly ajar. Inside was a narrow utility staircase, uncarpeted, leading further up. Wet footprints glittered slightly on the worn treads: Umaru's footprints.We went up, emerging a few moments later on the roof of the building. More footprints showed clearly in the snow, leading to the edge.The ebb and flow of the storm had shifted to ebb; the heavy grey sky once again had an opalescence which extended our field of vision. A narrow gap opened at the back of the building, plunging down into an alley. The next building roof, flat also, could be reached by a short jump. I could see the trail of footprints continue on the far side.“I guess she didn't want to fight him with just a knife,” Marion opined. “Barefoot and in her nightie, even. Do we go?”I replied by slightly anchoring my footing and launching myself across the gap. My jarring arrival on the other side sent pain shooting across my back. In a moment Marion was beside me, her boots skidding slightly on the back roof's snow coating.“Reminds me of ragamuffining around the Quarter playing kick the can,” she breathed. “Of course I didn't have to deal with all this damn snow.”The tracks led around several chimney-crests to the side of the building, once again terminating at the edge. Looking over, I saw the sloped roof of a long shed below. The snow there had been disturbed in a slide, which could only have been precipitated by Grace and Umaru dropping down and glissading lower along the slanted surface. Marion and I did the same, gaining speed on the long slippery expanse to the point where we dropped over the lip at its edge without great control. We came down among piles of snow-covered refuse in another alley.Marion landed on her side and got up cursing. As I scrambled to my feet I saw that I was leaving blood drops in my wake. Bleeding in the snow again...Marion did not notice the blood. The tracks led further into the alley, where we had to surmount a wooden fence. Beyond that a more open street leading to a small square, from which more avenues branched like spikes.“Clear as a bell,” Marion said, pointing to the ongoing tracks. “So I'll praise the snow now, and the fact that no one's out and about at this hour to muddle us up.”I looked back – no sign yet of the five men from the Solon having also taken up the chase. But I had no doubt they would follow.The trail dodged along crooked streets, in and out of alleys. At no point did the two sets of prints separate. Had there been more snow or wind Grace might have had some hope of throwing off pursuit, but conditions were exactly wrong for her.Finally we came to a dead end, the way barred by a tall metal barrier of rusted wrought iron. Worked into the pattern of the iron was a row of crosses. Beyond, across a bleak expanse of flat ground, I saw tombstones and monuments.“Mistress Ruha mentioned a Cross Bones Cemetery,” Marion unhesitatingly raised a boot to an iron crossbar. “Looks to be the back side of it.”She climbed up and over. Now I was following her, and slowing down. I got over the iron fence only with difficulty, and on the other side sank to my knees briefly, struggling with dizziness.Marion had crossed the open ground edging the cemetery and passed along a row of headstones. Suddenly she shouted and dashed forward. “There they are!”I saw them too. Umaru had caught up to Grace in front of a mausoleum decorated with a crouching angel, its wings folded and coated with snow. She was struggling fiercely with her old antagonist, slashing at him with the blade she still carried.Umaru tried to control her, succeeding in taking hold of one of her arms, but Grace's knife-hand remained free. She jabbed at him, sinking the blade into his middle-body. This did not slow him at all. Grace pulled the knife free and swiped it at his throat, but he intercepted the blade in mid-arc, so she had both of her arms pinned.Marion, running, was getting close to them. I tried to run as well, stumbled, and struggled painfully back to my feet.Umaru half-spun with Grace in his grasp and flung her with terrible force against the side of the mausoleum. She sank down in the snow, the knife falling from her hand.The big man reached down, grabbed her hair, and vertically lifted her off her feet. He put his other hand around her throat.Marion, breathing hard, came to a stop right behind him. I was close enough to hear her speak.“Going to kill her? I bet you've waited a long time to get your hands on this one.”He glanced over his shoulder and down at Marion. “No. She belongs to Ruha.”“I really can't get over you talking so much.” As Umaru turned back to Grace, Marion pulled the pistol from her pocket, raised it to the base of his skull and fired. Blood sprayed outward, but Marion was not content with a single shot – she fired three more into his head a point blank range.He dropped Grace, who fell, blood-spattered, to the snow at his feet. Umaru toppled, collapsing right on top of her. With a gasping cry, she shoved him off.Marion, her legs braced slightly apart, shifted the aim of her pistol toward Grace. “I believe I could get to like guns. If I was counting right, I still have two bullets left.”Grace stared at her, the roving pupils of her eyes giving what was unquestionably the false impression of being dazed. I finally arrived at Marion's side.Grace, her black shift-dress crusted with snow, her bare feet bluish from the cold, found the knife where it had fallen and picked it up. She then spoke in a low, steady voice. “His head needs to come off.”I looked at the red ruin above Umaru's shoulders.Marion actually smiled. “Think he's going to pop up like a zombie? I tell you, you Archons remind me no end of my voodoo playfellows.”“I'm not an Archon.”“Right. You're the avenging whelp. But let's not get off on the wrong foot, Miss Grace. I can see why you'd enjoy removing his head, given the introduction I had to your dead husband. Go right ahead, if it pleases you.”Grace did not hesitate. Though she had only succeeded in inflicting superficial wounds on Umaru before Marion had interceded with her gun, the knife she held was clearly razor-sharp. She leaned forward, placed it hard against the man's neck, and it sank deep. When she encountered the resistance of Umaru's spine, she adjusted her position, braced her feet against his shoulders, took hold of his hair with his free hand, and pulled as she sawed downward.The grisly spectacle took about a minute. When the head finally came free, she held it up before her, staring into the glassy eyes with her chaotic ones. Then, while Marion and I stood watching, she kissed the dead lips, and placed the severed head down almost gently in the snow.I remembered Damaris' cryptic comments about the living absorbing sparks of primal identity from the dead, and I wondered if that kiss was less to a defeated adversary than to the shadow of a lost husband.“I'm figuring it's not long before the fellows who did for the Solon will be coming along the same trail we did,” Marion, practical as always, had no use for pondering Archon metaphysics. “We'd better settle our business quick.”Grace stood, and despite her appearance and the acts we had just witnessed, the dignity of her bearing could not be denied.I shouldered out of my coat and handed it to her. She accepted it, her face puzzled. “You two are Ruha's candidates for the Depuration.”“That was the original thought,” Marion replied.Her eyes widened somewhat then, seeing the broad bloodstain on the back of my coat. Grace followed her gaze and saw it too. Marion took a step closer to me and looked at my back.“Doctor, you're bleeding somewhat fearful.”“From my bullet?” Grace asked.I nodded.“I was shooting at Umaru. My vision makes me useless with a gun. I'm sorry, doctor. You were holding them at bay on my behalf. And you,” she looked at Marion, then the corpse of Umaru, “did this to him.”“Miss Grace, I don't know you from Eve, but I've got the strong impression that your mama has every intention of using me for a while, at the conclusion of which I'm more likely to be a dead mess like this boy than a happy semi-goddess with eternal life. I've also come to the conclusion that Dr. Wilder here wants nothing to with whatever shit she ultimately intends to pull.”“You've judged my mother well enough.”“Accepting that we're no saints – with the exception perhaps of Dr. Jim – I'm thinking at this point that being your ally might be more conducive to my goals than being Mistress Ruha's disposable fuck-and-kill puppet. I get the impression, despite what happened at the cathouse, that you still have a gang at your disposal?”“You could call it that.”“Then what if I told you exactly where their precious ritual is going to be happening? Think you and your cohorts might be inclined to drop in?”“I already know where it's going to take place.”“So you think. You've been flanked, Miss Grace. Your watchers followed doubles to a false destination. They're following them around again, right now. She used the ploy to spot you at your bordello-roost, and here we are. She's got a literal underworld that she calls Siniavis...that ring a bell for you? At this very moment she's recovering from two broken legs and a slit throat acquired in our little recent visit there. Her associates are a bit the worse for wear too. I'd call them ripe for the taking.”“You're crossing her? That's a very dangerous thing to do.”“I don't doubt it in the least. But like I said, I think our Mistress intends to chew me up and spit me out. I'm banking on the chance that you do right by people who join up with you. So I made you this.”Marion opened the front of her coat and reached inside the bodice of her dress. She withdrew a folded piece of paper, which she handed to Grace.“Drew it up while it was all fresh in my mind. There's a door to Siniavis in the basement of Mistress Ruha's house. She comes and goes under your nose. Now you're going to need to righteously assault her house to get there, but I'm guessing you have the will for that. Resistance won't be quite so stout with her boy here, dead...I haven't seen more than a few other servants around the place. Some have attitude...but then so do you. Come when the lady herself is attending her soiree with us in tow, and you should make short enough work of them.”Grace closed the paper in her fist. “And this wouldn't be an effort to draw me into a trap, would it?”“Missy, you were trapped right well five minutes ago, if I hadn't broken it up.”Listening, I was amazed at Marion's audacity. Her intent to pull the teeth right from the mouth of the Archon cult was absolutely self-interested, but had far more likelihood of success than my own earlier desire to place them all before conventional authorities. My own experience with Grace showed her to be ruthless and driven, but I felt too somehow that she would keep her word if given.“I figure I'll be naked and either fucking or killing someone when you show up,” Marion went on. “Just describe me well to your boys, so they don't slip up while they're chastising Archons. Now we have an immediate problem...a little clutch of piss-ant bully boys are likely to come climbing the Cross Bones fence in a minute or two. Were you just running scared when you ducked in here, or did you have some plan that will cross up their ability to follow your footprints just the way we did?”“The cemetery and the bordello had an arrangement,” Grace answered. “Periodically they would...visit the Solon with a horse-cart, to take away Archon servants when my women were finished with them. The horse is stabled very close – the warder will look the other way when I take it.”“Nice,” Marion nodded. “Go to, then. We'll be expecting you.” She spared a glance at Grace's bare feet. “You aren't going to fall down halfway there with frostbite, are you?”“I'm not an Archon, but just as resilient as one.”Grace took a last look at the bloody heap that had been Umaru, her pupils momentarily re-centering, giving her perhaps the most wistful expression I had seen on her face. Then she blinked, and her troubled eyes once again went askew. But her posture was all strength and determination as she put on my coat and disappeared behind the mausoleum with the crouching angel.Marion and I stood silent for a moment. The snowfall, beginning to increase again, sifted about us with soft whispers.Finally Marion gestured toward the corpse. “This,” she said, “might be a little thorny to explain.”“Give me your gun, then run back along our trail until you encounter Damaris' bravos. After I shot at them in the brothel, they won't have any trouble believing I'm the one who did this to him.”“You never disappoint, doctor.” Marion handed me the pistol.I swayed on my feet somewhat and she looked again at my bloody back, but made no comment. She left me, walking and then jogging back along the path of our footprints, until the curtain of falling snow swallowed her.I took a deep breath and watched the lacy caress of snowflakes settling on Umaru's body, some melting in the pools of his blood, before beginning to coat and obscure the vivid patterns of red.I felt no sense of righteous vengeance having come up out of the past.Then the snow was whirling, and I realized I had fallen onto my back only when I found myself looking up, blinking at white tatters that sought my eyes, before I closed them.

[symbianosgames]

The conquering of virgin territory is quite an old fantasy given new life by countless installments of genre fiction. Our very language locks us into a certain mindset when we talk about “colonizing” other planets, an apt word that nevertheless cannot shake off the associations with what it has meant on our own world. Militaristic dominion; slavery; genocide; cultural dissolution. How can sci-fi shed that baggage? Is it even possible to tell a story about brave explorers colonizing new worlds without evoking the conquistador and his terrors? 

The quiet, diffuse imperialism of Mass Effect: Andromeda is offset by innumerable, equally quiet reckonings with that old imperial imagery--and the result is a somewhat confused affair at war with itself.

[SPOILERS FOLLOW]

To deliver the fantasy--always and forever a power fantasy--you have to allow the player to indulge in the unethical. They have to be able to shoot and kill aliens with impunity, they have to be objectively better than the natives, and they have to be the fulcrum upon which all progress is levered. In several ways, Andromeda meets all that criteria. You bring salvation to the native Angara after centuries of stalemate with the vastly more powerful Kett (whose actual name you never learn throughout the hundred-hour long game), you’re treated early on to a member of your squad committing a lesser war crime against the implacably marauding aliens, and your technology is more advanced than theirs; all the ingredients are present. 

But there is a guilty and almost endearingly earnest B-narrative in the midst of it all that contrasts with some of this.

"The game has some awareness of the fire it plays with and it’s to be commended for that."

Games like Andromeda are authored by many hands, and it’s rarely so apparent as it is when one looks at how it deals with the themes of colonization. On the one hand you’re presented with a classically jingoistic tale of spacefaring heroes crossing the ocean of space to beat some implacably evil, ugly alien bad guys. 

On the other, you have something that owes a lot to Star Trek and its sense of peaceful exploration. Your ship, notably, has no offensive weapons. The job of a Pathfinder is to have, as Foster Addison said in her memorably awful line, “path found something.” Inasmuch as that particular Yogi Berra-ism makes any sense, it means that a Pathfinder’s first job is to explore and find habitable planets for the sleepers aboard the Nexus.

The Andromeda Initiative has “first contact” procedures to ensure peace, and a charming, almost dorkily earnest welcome center aboard the Nexus to introduce native Andromedans to the new species who’ve shown up on their door. You’re reminded (and given the opportunity to say) that the colonists, as outsiders, should be respectful to the Angara and recognize that this is their home. One can even say this of the Kett, as a way of explaining their hostility. “How would you feel if aliens with guns showed up suddenly on your planet?” you can ask. The game has some awareness of the fire it plays with and it’s to be commended for that.

Andromeda is at its best when you get involved in the life of each planet you visit, undertaking the necessary work to make them more habitable. It gives an almost miraculous edge to being a Pathfinder, making you a lifebringer among the stars. 

But when you go back to mass slaughter of everything from aliens to colonists to native wildlife, you’re stuck back in that tiresome idiom of progress that undercuts those more peaceful themes. Even this would be somewhat more forgivable if the new alien species introduced weren’t so bland.

***

"The attempts to add some degree of nuance always feel dissonant against the Chosen One style fantasy that games like this still try to sell."

Part of what made the original Mass Effect so compelling was the, if you’ll pardon the awkward expression, humanity of its aliens. Classic sci-fi and fantasy tend to make humans the versatile and diverse species, while every alien race is rigidly locked into a very narrow band of stereotypes. In Mass Effect, though there’s a median for each race (Krogan’s are militarist toughs, Asari cerebral aesthetes, Salarians cunning scientists) there’s ample diversity shown that exceeds each stereotype. You have thuggish Asari and sensitive Krogan, for instance. In so doing, BioWare did an excellent job showing how sapience, in any species, was likely to lead to diversity of thought, personality, and perspective.

There’s none of that here. The Kett are horrifically evil, unattractive, and implacable--indeed, their entire religion seems based on committing the very crimes you struggle against. There are hints of a political conflict within the Kett force, who are also invaders in the Heleus Cluster, subjugating the native Angara. One increasingly vocal group wants to go home, while their maniacal Archon wants to press on. But that’s as close as we come to anything approximating nuance. 

The Angara are a touch better. Their voices are represented with three different English accents, and this is actually explained as being the result of different Angaran languages and dialects being expressed through their lingua franca trade language. There’s a lot to like here; aliens are often portrayed as having one language, an oddity when we humans have literally hundreds. Showing Angarans as possessed of some of that linguistic diversity is a wonderfully humanizing move.

But that’s about all I can say for them. This is important because the portrayal of the alien other whose land you’re exploring and colonizing is central to our predicament.

As critic Dia Lacina makes clear in her scathing take on colonial themes in RPGs:

it's represented in systems that demand binary conflict: player vs. baddies. Games are quick to establish an "other" that must be defeated or subjugated, along with material resources that must be acquired, expended and reacquired.

The Angara are portrayed as sympathetic, themselves the victims of what can justly be described as the Kett’s imperialism. But they are also put in the position of being the technologically inferior species that you, to an extent, have to save from themselves with your superior knowhow and broad-minded views. It’s the Angara who are portrayed as mistrustful xenophobes--not without cause, as the murderous Kett were their first contact with an alien species--but it can leave a bad taste in your mouth as it comes off as an enlightened, soft form of colonialism. ‘We must teach these noble creatures the ways of galactic cosmopolitanism, which they are too backward to come to on their own.’

But then again, those many hands writing this plot all have their say. Some Angara are portrayed as xenophiles, eager to meet and learn about the new creatures in their cluster. Others, like the Moshae, a spiritual leader, are portrayed as wise (though this is a trope in its own right), and can be given the opportunity to assume leadership roles over a nascent political union between the Angara and the colonists. Still, the fact that such a thing is yours to give, rather than in the gift of the people who actually live there, rankles.

This, again, is where the power fantasy runs up against the themes. You’re the mighty Pathfinder, with power over all galactic events. What player wouldn’t want to be that? Yet this is at odds with the realities of diplomacy and the complexities inherent to being a newly arrived species in an already-inhabited cluster of stars. The attempts to add some degree of nuance always feel dissonant against the Chosen One style fantasy that games like this still try to sell.

There is freedom and art within limits, and much to explore in the territory of constrained power. Andromeda would have been better served by delving into that, rather than serving up another cliched guns-blazing conqueror fantasy.

This matters despite all the usual protests. Such ideas and themes invariably resonate with our own very real history; that history provides the context which gives those themes meaning in the first place. A lovely little soliloquy from Suvi, your science officer, makes the point. She romanticizes the intergalactic journey by likening it to the “old days” on Earth when one went exploring on those parts of the map that said “There Be Dragons.” We’re locked into this metaphor, and even though science fiction is supposed to be the domain of imaginative speculation, we keep circling back to this theme, in thrall to centuries’ old history that we can’t escape.

Our mental rubric for space colonization comes, in part, from the definitive template of European colonization on Earth. Andromeda demonstrates clear attempts at challenging and militating with that legacy, but still ends up with a kinder, gentler form of it.

Only when we escape the terra nullius fantasy of colonization can we truly begin to make thoughtful games about the subject.

Katherine Cross is a Ph.D student in sociology who researches anti-social behavior online, and a gaming critic whose work has appeared in numerous publications.