#kaeya golf-clapping when liloupar so proudly says that line about using the hearts and hands of her children

[dandelion-wings]

Thinking about Liloupar first telling us the story of a betrayed woman using her children to destroy Gurabad, then so proudly declaring that it was her, and also thinking about how I used the Favonian Freezer team throughout, and...

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They pause for a meal before passing through the sandstorm, despite the Jinni's impatience. Jeht does her best to forget all her pain and unease and enjoy a meal with Lumine and the companions she's brought with her.

Still, she notices when Kaeya quietly excuses himself from the group and goes over to stand by Liloupar where she floats by the balcony's edge, staring over the sands. She shifts her position a little as if to listen more attentively to the two sisters, talking of their far-away cathedral where they worship a far-away god, and strains her ears for that conversation instead.

Neither sister seems to realize that she's paying them no attention, though Rosaria, whom she'd assume to be even more distracted by this discussion than they are, gives her a pointed look.

Kaeya hasn't exactly been the most comfortable of travel companions. Something about him sets her on edge--the ease of his smiles, the casual way he speaks, so clearly hiding something beneath the blithe exterior. All his companions seem unbothered by it, though, even Lumine, so she's let it go. And up until now she's felt some kinship with him around the Jinni in particular, for she's dismissed them both as savage desert-dwellers despite his polished words and foreign clothes, scornfully telling him that he was worse than Jeht for his 'masquerade.'

But he'd applauded when Liloupar confessed, after this last fragment, to using her children murder her lover--and while it had seemed mocking, Liloupar had spoken a bit less condescendingly to him afterward. Jeht is just uneasy enough to want to know what they're saying now.

"So," he says to the Jinni, looking out over the whirling sandstorm. "Your children were merely instruments of your revenge, hmm?"

"Not merely anything. They were beautiful, my children... brilliant and strong, shining as brightly as their father did when I first beheld him. But yes, they served their purpose well. And I do not believe you have any right to judge."

"Not at all. I truly am impressed. It's such a revenge that the descendants of Khaenri'ah seek against those who wronged them... and our methods aren't so different, after all."

"No." The Jinni cycles through several colors, silent a moment, and then returns to her golden sheen. "Though... as a mother, I do wonder now and then what my children might have been, with all their brilliance, if it had not been necessary to make them instruments of my revenge."

"That's what happens when you turn them into tools," Kaeya says, so quietly that Jeht can barely hear. "You never get the chance to find out."

Something in his tone, soft and thoughtful and utterly calm, sends a shiver down Jeht's spine. She resists the urge to turn and look at what expression he might wear. Instead she looks over at Lumine, beside her, who has ceased speaking to the sisters and has an abstracted look on her face. Rather than unnerved, though, the look in her eyes is sad.

"Well, aren't we quiet," Kaeya says from directly behind Jeht, making her jump. He chuckles. "Does that mean it's time to pack up and go?"

"We're not done eating!" Paimon insists, looking a bit furtive as she clutches at his abandoned plate.

Even Jeht has to join in the giggling at that. She glances over at Lumine, though, watching Kaeya as he sits back down. Lumine looks back at Jeht and gives her a small smile.

It's meant to be reassuring, Jeht can tell. But even as she smiles back, she makes a mental note. Lumine has had her back through the betrayals she's faced thus far. If Kaeya turns out to be as much a danger as her nerves insist... Jeht will have her back, too.