Archive of Our Own

These are cheap breaths he takes in: They only kiss his lungs at the corners. The stars swaddle the night. There, they sing to it, there, there little endless darkness. You will end soon, don’t you worry. Kaeya wouldn’t listen to such a lullaby had he not been sitting up awake in a bed lately big enough for two. 

The morning comes, one way or another. The birds sigh first, still sing soon after. The desperate, dusty, dreary mornings of August are no more. October scoffed at them some time ago: So long, see you! Yet he still waits for the sun’s forehead to bruise the horizon. 

As Kaeya walks through the halls, over him the wool sweater his neighbor’s mother knit, new boots squeaking in the headquarters, he misses who used to haunt this space. In his own words, of course. Kaeya never took him for a ghost. And he knows many of them. 

The key is cold in his hands. Outside by the plains squires run in circles on, dahlias bloom pink and orange. There is a shy fog, hovering between Teyvat and Celestia, between decisions: To haze, or not to haze. Sings a rhyme, points a finger or two. Whomever it lands on deserves to not see too far ahead. Kaeya is out of luck, it seems. He can still see the icy mountain. It’s too early to do so, yet he sighs anyways. In his office the darkness lingers. Kaeya debates opening the curtains. What for, he thinks. Then, I can’t be this far gone, this soon. He still has his pride after all. He pulls the curtains, opens the windows, polishes his fangs and orchestrates a memory from before: The time, that one time as summer was ending, when they were fourteen, Diluc and him stole the cherry pie Adelinde made. Ate it all in meadows. It tasted like heaven drizzled with honey to them then, knowing the fruits will change. It was their last plea for the sunny days to stay because their father always wrapped their scarves tightly all the way up to their noses. Can they finish one big pie now, Kaeya wonders. Would they? If he dared Diluc, he would agree. Probably. After all, Diluc hears him somehow. He did pick up that fountain pen once. Wrote his invitations. His stubbornness might be a block of salt, but rivers run for a reason. Perhaps Kaeya will remember tonight, how generous the stone ovens were home. Perhaps not. He might not have the will left to see his brother’s thoughtful frown if no wings beat by his windows again. 

When he has two maps and his list lay belly up on his desk, after having moved the bright yellow cardigan and colorful pieces of candles, Noelle comes by. 

“Tea?” She asks, already walking inside with the tray. Kaeya stops spinning the jeweled dagger in his hands. 

“Noelle,” He stands up, finding it in him to smile at her. Lying to himself about how he does not have it that bad yet. “Good morning. I heard you were carrying crates until late last night. Again.” Noelle smiles too, gentle and polite. She puts down her load, sets down the blue, green and white teapot and the cup Kaeya once said he likes years ago. 

“Yes,” She says quickly. “I helped with Miss Sucrose’s shipments. Sugar?”

“No. Hertha told me she wrote Huffman down to help with that.” 

“Ah,” Noelle puts down apple filled, sugared pastries down too. Hidden behind the teapot as if that will make Kaeya like them this time. “But Mika is here. Mister Huffman is busy.” 

“Noelle.”

“I know,”

“You don’t act like you do.” 

“I,” She looks away then, out of the window. “Is it not too cold like that, Sir?” 

Kaeya puts the dagger on the table, moves to close the windows. “At least,” He says, twisting the knob until glass and wood promise to stay. “Act as if you’re not trying to change the subject.” Noelle shifts her weight from one leg to another. Holds the now empty tray under her arm. “Thank you for the tea, but take the pastries with you.”

Noelle shakes her head then, her ponytail swaying from side to side like a stubborn snake’s spine. 

“But,” She says, and a strong wind knocks on the window. “Master Diluc said the last time he visited, that you’re trying to gain weight.” Doves and their hearts, doors have hinges so nothing can be quiet. Brothers get away with things like these. 

“He did,” Kaeya asks, letting himself smile once again. “Didn’t he?” Still, his cheeks are unfeeling. Unkissed, recently. Not even Diluc’s jokes cheer him up much. He can’t be that gone, now, can he? Noelle smiles too, unaware of the person Kaeya is acting as if he doesn’t miss. 

“Enjoy, Sir.” 

“At least take one.” Easy as steel armor bruises the roses, the mountains hold their breath for the rust of autumn to settle. “And stop trying to do everything.” 

The young maid takes one, and says “I’ll try.” around the dessert in her mouth. It almost sounds like she never learned how to lift a claymore and be rejected. It almost sounds honest. Kaeya smiles. Better this time. If only the beak he learned to tell apart would knock on the window. 

Afternoon finds him pacing, flicks its poison to the corners of the room. The door is knocked. Once, loud and clear. When the doorknob turns, Jean steps in. Her hair is braided, then the braid is swirled in a bun. She is wearing the whitest shirts still, over knit sweaters now, and is adamant to keep how she washes them a secret. Kaeya’s shirts run to forgetful, faint grays after every treatment on the clothing line. 

“Kaeya,” She says as a greeting. Kaeya amuses himself thinking that’s how Jean reminds him who he is. “How have you been?”

Kaeya stops his pacing only for a few moments. Resumes the flawed circle he is teaching his carpet as his friend enters the office. 

“We saw each other last night.”

“A lot can change in hours,” She quips back. “Especially since I assume you have more free time lately.”

Cruel. He is not so gone that he can be teased. No. “Not you too, Jean.” 

“Ah,” Jean grins, the scar on her cheek crumbling like paper when she does so. “Not only me. Lisa sends her regards in these difficult times for you.”

It’s revenge then. Kaeya appreciates it, usually. When a limping treasure hoarder comes with the barely closed scar on a leg, claiming he didn’t tell him there will be boar traps on the way, for instance. It must be much better on his tongue when it comes from a friend. Tamed and sugared. It isn’t. He isn’t in the mood it seems. For anything.

“Out of my office.” He jokes, stopping his pacing once more to fully listen to Jean’s laughter.

“You get what you give,” She huffs after. Slaps a gentle hand on his arm when his precarious path brings him close enough. “You’re going to get dizzy,” She chimes, then squeezes his arm. Firm and warm as friends do. “Klee said she has some things here?”

Kaeya hums, thinking the ice around his throat should give away now. He points to the chair where the candle pieces rest on top of the folded cardigan. Jean squeezes his arm once more. He truly must look worse than he thinks he does.  

“Is she with you today?” 

“Yes. Alice is out collecting bat stomach liquid or whatever.” 

Kaeya laughs, always surprised by Jean’s hesitance to witches, and yet reverence to the Archons. Some swallow the stars skewed, it seems. 

“How fun, why didn’t you join her?” Jean shoots him a glare, and takes Klee’s belongings carefully. Kaeya sighs with his first victory of the day. Hungers for more. “But why do I even ask? You take no such dangerous quests now,” He rolls his shoulders down. Tells himself they don’t ache. “How would your poor wife feel if you got hurt, Archon forbid?”

“Kaeya,” Jean scoffs, pieces of color in her calloused and scarred hands. “I swear you make me wonder if Lisa is paying you, sometimes.” She moves towards the door then, sighing. “Why is Klee collecting candle pieces?” 

This one Kaeya knows. He listened to the design process many times by now.

“She wants to melt them and make a bigger candle that will smell like summer.” 

“Like flowers?” 

“I don’t think so,” Kaeya shrugs, watching Jean open the door. “Like heat, most probably.”

“Speaking of heat,” Jean blinks green into the autumn. “She’s alone in my office.”

“Run.” 

“On it! I’ll see you later.”

The evening, when it comes, looms over them eagerly. The dark settles earlier nowadays, stays as long as wet coughs do under the snow. For now though, only fallen leaves lament fate. No bird came to him. None was waiting at home, either. Still, Kaeya turned the key and twisted the house into something that doesn’t hurt. He ignored the thin shawl Albedo claims is enough. Looked away from the thymes growing in the pot in front of the kitchen window. Didn’t bother crouch and look under the cabinets. The alchemist threw his stashed wine out after talking for three evenings to prove they are closer to vinegar now. That was some time ago. Not that Kaeya thought about it. No. He instead dug his walnut chest out. Found his coat in it, remembered yearly as the weather turns brisk. Had to put away sketches of himself, various types of fish, and a goat herd to do so. But no matter. Now he welcomes the faint smell of closed spaces on the worsted wool coat. Tells himself it distracts him from how his heart beats: At half speed, because there could have been two horses trotting towards Dawn Winery. 

The evening, and its glass fist, whisks him out of home, into the stables, towards home. The stableboy takes the reins eagerly when he arrives. His stallion walks away to tower next to the farm horses and donkeys that push and pull carts of grapes in every stage of their life. Soon turnips will fatten on soil, fit in hands and Blanche’s display. He should bring some as snacks then. After all, when he asked two dinners before this one, Diluc told him the donkeys they would feed as kids are still here. Not that Kaeya has any way of recognizing if they truly are. Not that he has reason to doubt. 

“Master Kaeya,” Adelinde says right as she opens the doors for him. It seems with age, she didn’t lose her habit of watching out of the window for arrivals and then refusing she ever does that. 

“Adelinde,” He greets. Finds the house as warm as it always has been. “I hope you didn’t tire yourself for me?” She answers a different question:

“It’s always wonderful to have you here.” 

“He’s late,” Calls Diluc as Kaeya takes off his coat, then argues with Adelinde that he can hang it himself. “Tell him he’s late, Adelinde.” 

“I’m not,” Kaeya huffs, finally free from the dyed, scratchy fabric. “If you’re hungry, just say so.” 

Diluc is in his simpler clothes. Still tailored specifically to him. Not that he cares, Kaeya guesses. Not that he should, with him. Warm, soft wool, immaculate neckline from the hands of an experienced knitter; his hair is pulled away from his face with a simple leather band. Since winter showed its forehead, Diluc’s freckles are fainter. Fidgety on a futile promise that they can go home. He hugs Kaeya, short yet firm. Awkward. Still, at least he stopped holding out his hand to shake. Kaeya pats his brother’s back, laughing when Diluc grumbles:

“I might be a bit peckish, I admit.”

“Let’s not keep the master of the house waiting any longer then.” 

“Stop talking like that, or you won’t have dessert.” 

“She made dessert too?”

At that, Diluc gives him a look. A long suffering and languidly satisfied one. Kaeya should have guessed from that. No matter. He sees for himself in a short time. 

“I think that’s more than enough.”

If all the doctors in, under, over Teyvat averted their eyes, they still couldn’t deny: Lovers have lungs waiting to rot and rust. It takes a smile dropping sooner than usual. It takes less than a snowflake. There is no cure. But a warm home, and a steaming table helps. 

“I think not,” Another plate joins the others. So final, so fierce, the rabbit stew stirs like the sea. She has always been like this, Kaeya muses. There is no need for surprise. Though he wonders how Albedo would react. Would wonder had he been that in love- The stars above glare. Maybe there is no need to lie now, when the little bird he etched into the dining table’s leg when he was nine is still there. “Please enjoy.” Adelinde smiles, moving away to bring even more food. That is what she has been doing for a good time now. 

Diluc is separated from him by delicacies of bacon, onion, pickles wrapped and put to sleep in beef. Sits behind the mashed potatoes, cooked red cabbage. He sighs, shrugging at Kaeya. Eyes the plates of meat tenderized in wine, vinegar and spices like a man who lost half of what he is on a gamble. There are also two bowls of salad, fresh and fragrant; three different kinds of bread, sliced and savory; grapes, round as the sun; cheese, proud as mountain peaks. Adelinde enters the dining room again. Puts down thin pancakes made with grated potatoes. Kaeya looks up at her, the chair beneath him creaking in mockery. 

“Adelinde, were you perhaps expecting three to five more people?”

“Of course not,” She says, resting one hand ever so faintly on his shoulder for a moment. Squeezes gently. Kaeya must truly look miserable today. “This is just for you two, young masters.”  

Diluc sighs again, leaning his elbows on the table. Kaeya wonders if his brother is thinking the same thing. That this table looks just like the ones they had when Crepus would return from week long trips. Exactly like the ones where they would act like they’re not dying to rip open the presents their father would bring every time. The same wood table was stretching to the horizon back then. The meat was too thick to cut by themselves. Adelinde’s hair had no grays. Crepus would always come back home. Oh how the years spit them all out. 

“At least sit with us and eat, too, Adelinde.” His brother says. Always one to snatch the words out of Kaeya’s mouth. Adelinde, and all of the age spots on her hands, elegantly back away. 

“I couldn’t possibly,” She tells the young master, then, “The staff already ate.” She tells Diluc, voice warmer. Freer. It is a wonder of the world, how she juggles both. Does time ever feel sorry that it is passing them by? 

“Very well then,” Diluc hums, sitting straighter, holding up the wine bottle. “Thank you for everything, Adelinde.” Kaeya lifts his glass up. Pushes thoughts behind his eyes. The first dinner Diluc invited him to, Kaeya couldn’t do that. All he thought misted his gaze. Now there are crows pecking at his mind. Why not, they say, it is as twisting and turning as a walnut. Why not, when your feathers are as black as ours? 

“Pour a bit more, how stingy,” He murmurs. Diluc indulges him until the wonderful red fills more than half of its new home. “Thank you, Adelinde. They smell wonderful.” 

Adelinde smiles, asks if it isn’t the wine Kaeya is smelling. Tells them to enjoy their dinner again. Gets to tell them both she is just a call away, once again. Then, it’s only him and his brother, and all they think for a long time before saying. After all, they’re adults now.

“She cooked this much all because of you.” Diluc starts. Then, sends all those hours of literature tutelage, no matter how small, back home: “Stop being sad.” 

These are cheap lies Kaeya deals. Scratched at the back, folded on the corners, they give themselves away as the hands are dealt. No matter. “I’m not sad,” Kaeya huffs. His voice breaks, sadly. “Why are you blaming me? Weren’t you here all day? Why didn’t you tell her nothing grand was needed?”

“Oh,” Diluc grins, cat-like as he reaches for the reddest, thickest meat on the table. “You poor thing, your memory’s going,” Lowering the knife and the fork, he stops to give Kaeya a look. Just in case his brother gets the delusion that he is hiding well. “I was cleaning pests by the Falcon Coast, remember?” Kaeya takes some of the cheese, washes it down with wine. 

“Ah, yes,” He mumbles, looking down strategically. “Slipped my mind for a moment.”

“Sadness does that to people.”

“Stop joking already, Diluc.” 

“If I were joking,” Diluc says, piling food up in front of him. “You would be laughing. Are you laughing?”

Kaeya tilts his head up, quips back: “Nothing is funny around you.” The stars align, inch by inch with every meal shared, it seems. He gets his brother back. Faster this time: 

“Bullshit.” Diluc says around a mouthful of what was once a boar. Kaeya bursts out laughing. It rings in the dining room, it pulls a fond scoff out of the master of the house. If only Crepus was here to say, language, boy, as he used to. If only winds knew how to blow by themselves.  

“Where are my manners?” Kaeya says, once settled. He wraps a hand around his glass, putting down the armor he beat and brandished out of pride. “We forgot to toast. Get your grape juice over here, little one.”

“I’m older than you.” Diluc replies, still raising his glass. The knock makes a clear, bright sound. Kaeya finds himself smiling despite the day he had.

“Just by months,” He says. Still, his brother grumbles. Kaeya ignores him to call out to Celestia: “To our health,” Diluc scoffs, yet the lift of his lips stay upwards. “And, to my sadness passing soon.” He takes his glass back, welcoming the wonderful taste of what had patience enough to ferment. 

“Amen.” Diluc says, drinking the juice he probably hand picked from grape to bottle. He stops for a moment. Wondering if he should ask more, probably. Kaeya reaches for the salad to give him time. Silence is a balm and a blight. And for rattling hearts, ships roll slower on waves. When Diluc decides to keep his query to himself, Kaeya answers for him anyway:

“He didn’t write back yet.” 

Diluc hums, carefully keeping his gaze on the food. If he is worried, he doesn’t show it.

“Has it been a week yet?”

“Just barely more than one.” 

A breath, a heartbeat. There is a reason grapes dangle from the vines together. Diluc snaps his eyes up, looking right at Kaeya.

“Will you go to him?” Then, right after: “This isn’t a good time.” 

Kaeya wonders if Diluc remembers the games they played. Where there was someone to rescue. How they argued about who gets to be the knight. Until Jean came up, of course, her button nose turned to Celestia and said: Knights rarely go on missions alone, you ducks! He wishes it was as easy as they thought. Reaching the devil wizard’s evil tower on the doomed mountain, rescuing the princess who usually was one of the curious kittens of the farm cat, and coming back home in under an hour. Back then, the game ended when the mother cat came and took her kitten back. Now, a part of Kaeya worries he might already be too late, even if he left now.

“There is no good time to go to Dragonspine.” 

Diluc hums. “Then you’re staying.” 

“Nine days of silence is too much.” Kaeya admits like a well spits a brick. “This time the bird didn’t come back either.” 

“It’s unnecessary risk. Tell Jean to bring together a group.” 

“No, that’s unnecessary to do in such a short time without a distress signal.” 

“How do you plan to help if what you feared happened?” Diluc argues. Stops right after, holding his glass just to have something to do. The table seems smaller now, for some reason. “Stay, Kaeya,” Diluc says, soft and somber. “Wait some more.”

Some people are lucky to be worried about, Kaeya guesses. He would smile if he didn’t need his tongue to have a gentle edge. 

“I haven’t decided yet,” He starts. Guarded, grateful. Adelinde shuffles about the room to add another log to the fireplace. “And when I do, I don’t suppose I’ll need permission.” 

Diluc glares at him as embers would to a tree from a torch. It reminds Kaeya of a rainy funeral. It reminds him Diluc kept the delusion, somewhere in this house. Diluc looks away, sighs.

“Of course you don’t. Stop by here if you decide to go,” He says, sounding like he would rather eat sawdust than utter those words. Then, he relaxes his shoulders even if it’s a conscious effort. The food gets colder, watching them. Where do doves go in winter? Such white, soft chests, what can they feed to the winds when they act like knives? Diluc takes another slow sip. Looks away before talking: “Remember that frame I knocked down with your sling? The one Adelinde fixed?” He asks, as if Kaeya could forget. Diluc told everyone it was Kaeya who did it. “Yesterday night it dropped down out of nowhere.” 

“Really?” Kaeya says, leaning forward again. When did he pull back? No matter. “Did it break?”

“Yes.”

“From the same place?”

“Yes. You know what that means?”

Doves and their horrors, when leaves fall, the evergreen pine needles aren’t that prickly. 

“Father is finally haunting the house.” Kaeya answers.

“Exactly,” Laughs Diluc, finally, fully back to being his brother. “I think I’ll drink to that.” 

“Amen.” Kaeya says, giving back Diluc’s words to him. Perhaps he can forget he has a lover on an icy mountain, for some hours. Forget, most importantly, that he got no letter back in days. Perhaps he can, if the calf climbs into the bird nest. 

There is not much to do but be a knight when Kaeya returns from Dawn Winery. The day after the dinner, two squires fight. One’s nose is broken, the other has three ugly scratch marks on his forehead. Call it an attack, call it advice, Kaeya scolds both until they memorize the patterns of the carpet in his office. Afterwards, Mika brings a letter from Eula. About suspicious locations she requests a joint skirmish for. 

“How is being back home?” He asks the boy. 

“Good,” Mika says too quickly. A tactic he has, to answer with the most common answers when he wasn’t expecting to be spoken to. “Better than good. Proper beds here, and all?” 

Kaeya nods, looking over at the letter. Mika eyes the jeweled dagger he broke the wax seal with. “Great to hear. You’re back just in time too. Sara will start baking all sorts of things with pumpkins soon.” When he looks up, the boy finally smiles. Even if he looks as tense as those squires did. Seriously, were him and Diluc ever this shy? 

“Am I dismissed? Or?” 

It is second nature by now, even buried under all he worries about, Kaeya teases:

“I don’t know, are you?” 

“Am I?” Mika mumbles, wide eyed. “I’m… Asking that… Actually, Captain.” 

“You didn’t change one bit, Mika!” Kaeya laughs. “You can leave, thank you.”

There is a small “You too.” just as the boy leaves the room. Then the door is pulled a little quicker than he meant to, when he realizes what he said. No doubt Kaeya soon will have a note slipped under the door. About how it wasn’t Mika’s intention to slam the door, about how sorry he is. Leaves yellow on their pedestals outside. If only Albedo were here. He would ask how he can help the boy be more confident. But he isn’t, and that ices Kaeya’s chest around the ribcage. 

It is after a lunch Kaeya eats under Lisa’s constant implications about how in love he is, there comes a bright spark in the day. Lisa pulls at her turtleneck. Kaeya wonders if he should mention he saw that sweater on Jean before. The Cat’s Tail’s night furred prince jumps up to the table next to them. As the sound of Wagner resuming work after a break starts ringing pleasantly, Nimrod’s brother in law, who is visiting for a month, walks around the plaza quickly. Unsettled and unknowing of what to do. Kaeya doesn’t bother act like he isn’t watching.

“There’s smoke coming that way.” The man says at first, to no one in particular, pointing to no direction. Lisa turns her better ear towards him. Gestures Kaeya to look with her eyes. 

“Smoke?” He asks, pushing his bowl of eintopf away, not waiting to watch sausages, carrots and potatoes sway in the broth. The man turns to him, the balding spot he carefully brushed hair on opens with the wind. 

“Smoke, I think,” He says. “Isn’t there a village that way?”

Right after, there is the sound of a horn coming from the watchtower by the gate. How curious. Do doves know what drums are? Kaeya starts marching closer. Pearls are pained promises to heal. On display, if one is ruthless enough. Curious city folk drag their feet the same way as he does too. Swan’s worried face greets him once at the gate.

“What is it?” He asks, it’s the knight at the top of the tower calling out to him:

“Fire, sir!” She yells. “Springvale.” 

There is not much to do but be a knight. He supposes he is that far gone in love with Albedo. His first thought at the news is: Good, Albedo isn’t anywhere near Springvale.

“Fetch my horse.” Kaeya tells Swan, “And tell Parthos to let Jean know.” A woman in white, feet unburdened by the ground, paints the wings of butterflies, he thinks out of nowhere. The rest is a blur. 

There is no time to appreciate the excited huff of his horse. No time at all to smile at the sound of hooves over the stone bridge. His hair whips back. The pigeons lift off in fear. As Mondstadt city shrinks behind him, the greenery to his left blurs. There indeed is smoke, rising like a thin, traitorous column. It reminds Kaeya of that one time when he was a squire. The captain him and Diluc were under back then made them help injured merchants to the Cathedral. Reminds him of how they both skimped on their duties to go and keep asking about the merchants for days after. How Varka chewed only him out when he found out. Something about growing a thicker skin, and how not everyone survives. No matter. He lifts his weight off the back of his horse, leans forward to pick up pace. Past is a string of proud pearls. Fate has a neck long enough for it. 

When Kaeya reaches the village, four men are rushing buckets of water on a stack of burning hay. Three women are doing the same, just for wooden crates instead of dried gold. There is a lot of noise, a lot of running. Sour, black smoke. Kaeya jumps down before the stallion fully stops. Grabs a hunter by the arm. 

“What happened?”

Deep breaths, the frustrated folds on the man’s forehead tell sweat to roll down. There, they say, this one worries enough. Leave him be.

“Kids,” He says, taking a deep breath. “The farmers are burning the dried stalks, Captain. Tomatoes and peppers, and all, Sir.” He stops to swallow. Wipes his face on his sleeve, starts speaking as if chased by a sparrow: “Kids were just playing, held some branches to fire. Panicked, and ran, Captain. The hay stacks caught fire faster than a boar could run.” Ice runs down his spine. But surely not- They must be okay. 

“Where are the kids?” Kaeya asks. The man’s pink, glossy cheeks give nothing away for an awful moment. If he notices how Kaeya holds his breath, he does nothing to show.

“Home.” He finally says. Puts his hands on his hips. “Safe, thank the Archons. They gave us quite the fright, Captain.” 

There is no heaven above. But when Kaeya was eleven and he wanted to properly surprise his brother on his birthday, Crepus took him to Mondstadt City from the winery. Told Crepus Kaeya needs to see the healers. Walked with him in and out of shops for hours until Kaeya chose a gift for Diluc. There is no heaven, all that gathers on the ground is hoarfrost. Kaeya exhales, thanking it either way. 

“Good,” He breathes out. “Good, make sure they’re okay.”

There is not much to do but be a knight. Jean will gather a team of three, fetch a sister just in case to send with knights. Until then, Kaeya walks to the fire and calls upon his vision. The townsfolk take a few steps back, wipe the effort off their faces. Ice hisses its laments to die over bright flames. At its sizzles, some others stop to watch. Two women and one man keep bringing water to help him. 

Kaeya summons frost until his fingertips turn red. Until the ache turns sharp. Until the sharpness turns and says: you should love your pain less, if you can. But I doubt it. He hears his heart snicker. Good, Albedo isn’t anywhere near Springvale. Chalk has a way of hearing what twists between Kaeya’s ears sometimes.

The rest is a blur; the rest is tiring. His horse wandered off to where the grass is green. Where people are less. To find him is to walk, but even standing makes Kaeya sway. Guess it can’t be helped, can it? He is a knight after all. The rest is clearer than a king’s diamond goblet. The fire dies a crackling death. Some people insist on shaking his hurting hands firmly. 

Afterwards Kaeya talks to Draff, who came running, and the other hunter he caught before. This and that, they say. How thankful they are. How they will make sure nothing like this happens. How lucky, how fortunate he came before the fire grew. But the three of them all stop when a woman says as loud as she can:

“You had me worried sick !” She runs with a new word each step: “Running off to quell fire! Are you a knight? Just let it be.” The one she runs to is another woman her age. And the way they hug sits like a mountain on Kaeya’s chest. How wonderful. How wicked love is. The ache in his pink fingertips throb. Some hours later, the stars will swaddle the night. There, they will mumble to the moon, there, there little wormhole. The yearning will end soon, don’t you worry. The sun will come back. 

Under such a sky, why should Kaeya sleep alone? 

When Kaeya is back home that evening, when he begins his waiting, he is undecided. Inside waits a lion’s least favorite teeth. Outside waltzes loneliness. In its arms: People who smile towards the corners of rooms. When Kaeya is back, and the messenger bird isn’t, he thinks the least he can do is not feed himself. But the innkeeper’s wife brought him soup even if she had to stir it with her newborn tied to her chest. How cruel. Now, how can Kaeya ignore that? Calling upon the quiet autumn, he heats it over fire. Breaks stale bread on it. Follows his threats to drown them all if there is a single crumb on the floor. Tries not to think of Albedo. Eating is a burdened business alone, after all. 

He can’t focus enough to read. Can’t stand the sound of steel against whetstone.  Later, he finds a hair band on the ground right between his bed and the wall. Thin gold shines on it. Perhaps there is a spine to climb, even if doves would disapprove.

When he drops down to the couch like a drunkard greets tomorrow, one of the brittle charcoal pencils of Albedo breaks under his leg. There is no need to sigh, but Kaeya does it anyway. He tries to dust off the black. Feeds it deeper to the fabric of his couch. It would make his chalk man laugh, he thinks, hearing the mess Kaeya created with what he regularly weaves beauty out of. How odd that they haven’t talked in so long. 

The evenings are quiet when the wind stops gossiping against the windows. The days end sooner every time the sun wakes up. Kaeya gets up. Puts away the patrol route reports of last month. Changes the spot he hid Klee’s gift for the new year just because. A wind up toy from Fontaine, shaped like a frog. Jumping once every time the knob on its back is turned. To delay any thoughts and treasons, he washes the few dishes he has. There is no reason to warm or warn the water. It bubbles and bites, cold as the castle city outside. It’s not enough. In Kaeya’s mind the shadows of pale skin play, sparrows preen in puddles of fond glances. He remembers how Albedo would sit with him for dinner, even if he takes three spoons in three hours. This and that, he would say. What he did that day, what he will do tomorrow. I’m not running dangerously low on materials yet, he would say, but would you like to come look for cinnabar ores with me? I will heat it to collect the mercury, he would explain. Then, on the few times Kaeya had no tasks and agreed, Albedo would watch him instead of the ground. How wonderful, how foolish. These are cheap memories: They only squeeze his lungs for a moment. There is no relief, in any corner of this home he carved. No relief or redemption over how he thinks of Albedo as his. Perhaps Kaeya has a mountain to scale. 

Life bends in the paths it knows. Where they wear the soles of their boots off threads their noose. Kaeya counts sheep, sunken ships, sabers, solemn stars all night; the sun, sworn silences, snapdragons in the pot front of the bakery, swirling slopes in the morning. He ends up in his office. As if nothing happened. As if nothing ever happens. He cracks open the window, a hesitant hope, and turns to his heart to say: There, will you bleach your red now? Enough of this romantic rasping. Papers wait on his desk. From Eula, a report on some caves adventurers reported to have smoke coming from. He drops it to the left lower drawer. Winter comes for hilichurls too, after all. His heart hums its reply: Why should I? Don’t you want it to hurt a little more before I freeze? From Jean, an official request of what she has already told him over lunch one day. Adler of the second troops under light cavalry is retiring on account of a limp that never healed after the stars fell. Someone suitable in his place. He keeps that one on the desk. Just to pretend thinking over it through the day when he already picked someone the day Adler was taken bloody and bruised to the Cathedral. Such a difficult job he has. 

His savior comes barging into his room as the sun peeks behind velvet clouds. “Kaeya!” 

His lips quirk up before he can help it. Still, Kaeya keeps his eyes on the list of treasure hoarders, and his voice light. “Oh my, I think I heard little Klee,” he starts, turning the paper over to hide the once red stain on it. “But Klee knows to knock before entering.”

Quickly, without a grumble, the door is closed. And aggressively knocked right after. 

“Come in.” 

“Kaeya!” Klee bursts in, her grin the sole rival of anything gold. “Master Jean said you were here.” 

Kaeya stands up, fixing the scarf covering the jeweled dagger with a strategic stretch. “And she was right,” He walks over as the girl runs over. There is no hesitation in how she jumps into his arms even though she bumps her knee into the coffee table. “Ah, you’re so heavy, Klee, you’re growing so fast!”

Now settled and held up, Klee fixes his eyepatch just for the sake of it. “I’m not heavy,” She huffs. “You’re too weak.” 

“Am I? Let’s see,” Kaeya answers, loosening his hold on her ever so slightly. Klee shrieks, hugging his neck like the world’s most adorable octopus. Laughs like snow never freezes flowers. “You’re right,” He says, finding himself grinning. “I am so very weak!” Kaeya balances her in his arms, carrying her easily. Klee doesn’t stop hugging him.

“Train then! How will you carry me if you’re weak?” 

“How should I train, Miss Spark Knight, you recommend?”

Bright, amber eyes settle on his face. She is in a thick sweater with cats knitted on it, Alice or Amber’s handiwork for sure, and her boots hit his side as she swings her legs. 

“Start by lifting a house.” She says.

“Will do.” Kaeya quips back. 

“Now.”

“I’m at work.”

“Okay.” 

“Okay,” Kaeya says too, brushing wild bangs off her eyes before he sets her down. Klee makes him open his hands and hold them palms facing her.

“Look!” She says. Headbutts his open hands, giggling. 

Kaeya hums. “Are you a cat now?”

“No!” She beams up, leaning back just to do the same thing again. This time she holds her fingers up on two sides of his forehead to imitate horns. “Guess which animal!”

“A goat?” Alice has some, he knows. Even though no one herds them, they always find their way back home. “No, not a simple goat, a magical goat that carries Dodocos to dreamland every night.”

“No,” The kid giggles. “I’m a simple goat. Like the brown one we have!” 

There is no helping it, Kaeya laughs. Forgetting about mountains, messenger birds and miseries murmuring over his shoulder. He wishes Albedo was here. With his sister and him. He wishes dragons didn’t die around Mondstadt. Turns around and admits to his collarbones: Maybe I am that far gone for him. 

“Oh Klee, you make my days so much better,” He smiles at the little girl still grinning up at him. “Never forget that, promise?”

“Promise!” She says, moving to sit at his desk already. “You promise too. Can I draw pictures here?” 

An hour is filled with three pages of drawings. Kaeya settles on the seat in front of his desk where he usually has his guests sit. Klee makes sure to dump all of her crayons and pencils all over his desk. One of the drawings is of Kaeya on a purple horse with red star shapes on it; one is of yesterday, as Klee explains. Her and Alice baking a cake with those swirly things in their little homes. It takes Kaeya two sips of the tea Noelle brought to figure out she means walnuts. The third one is done with a white mustache of her warm honey and milk.

“Remember to wipe your mouth,” He tells her. “Not on your sleeve- Klee. What am I going to do with you?” 

“You can wipe your mouth on your sleeve too,” She shrugs, eyes on her paper still. “I won’t tell Jean.” The drawing is of Albedo. Alone in a blue blue mountain, smiling in his stick figure glory near an orange and green fire. Kaeya acts as if he doesn’t notice how quiet she gets. As if nothing ever happens, and no one ever leaves. Klee is much better than him. She takes in a deep breath, and looks straight at him:

“Did big brother write to you yet?” 

These are costly truths he partakes in: He wraps the day’s stale peace in a faded bow to pay for them.

“No,” He says. Trying not to sound how he feels. “Not yet.”

“Why not?” Klee asks. Her eyes are as big as her belief that Kaeya must know why. How adorable. How heavy.

“I don’t know, firefly. You know how busy he is.” 

“No,” Klee says, going back to her drawing. She picks a yellow crayon. Puts enough force to flatten its tip as she colors Albedo’s hair. “Mommy says no one is too busy for family.” She stops to scratch at her ear as one of the ponytails tickles it. “You’re not always busy. You let me come here.” Funny how it all fits into young lungs. With one exhale, Klee calls Kaeya family. One breath, and she says the exact words he has been thinking all this time: Albedo could have written. It is as much of a surprise as cold dawns are, what Kaeya replies with. Everyone knows. And no one is ready.  

“If he doesn’t write tomorrow too, I will go and look for him.” 

Klee stops to look at him, pushing her bangs off with the back of her hand. Smudges the faint, yellow color of her crayon on her forehead. “Okay,” She says and it sounds like: Promise? Promise. “Bring him back, because mommy says I can’t go to the pumpkin patches without him.” 

It doesn’t matter that she has no real idea of how dangerous this trip will be. It would make no difference. Some have hills to die on, Kaeya found a mountain to bleed over. A promise is a promise. Okay? Okay. That easy, when one is six years old. That easy, because Kaeya is in love with Albedo. 

“I will.” That easy indeed. Klee moves on first, deciding to add black flowers with pink stalks all over Dragonspine.

“Do you wanna see a lizard?” 

“I don’t know, do you have a lizard in your bag?”

She stops drawing. “I don’t know.”

“Klee,” Kaeya says, putting down the Favonius handbook he is crossing out lines off of. “Lizards are happier in their homes. We talked about this.”

“Her home is where I am.” 

Then it is a question of whether Kaeya wants to chase a small reptile in his office. Again. It is a hesitation over the status of the animal. If it’s dead in the bag, he should quickly take it away. 

“Who teaches you these words?” 

“You.” 

“Fair enough,” He says, as if he never promised what he so desperately fears. As if it’s that easy. “How big is the lizard?” 

Klee opens both arms to the sides as much as she can. The same way Kaeya saw her say “I love you this much!” to Albedo on the picnic they all went to three weeks ago. 

“This big!”

“And it fit in your bag that is,” Kaeya stops to gesture to a very small area between his thumb and pointer finger. “This big?” 

“She folds.” 

“Ew,” Kaeya sighs, standing up from the couch across his desk. “Let’s see this magnificent, mobile lizard then.”

“Can we get lunch after? I’m hungry.” 

“Of course.”

“Can we eat three toasts? No, four. Four?”

“As many as you want.” 

Klee manages one and a half slices of toast, a bowl of mushroom soup, and precisely three bites of an apple. Kaeya asks if she wants dessert, to make up for the lizard he accidentally let escape from his hands outside the headquarters. She says no, but asks if she can give the rest of the apple to Kaeya’s horse. Since it’s as big as the moon and she couldn’t finish it in a year if she tried, apparently. 

Kaeya walks her home afterwards, unsure if there are any blessings for the journey he is planning from Alice. Undecided if he wants to see her. 

He is in luck. Alice isn’t home, so they walk back to the headquarters, Klee sitting on his shoulders. He lets her stay with Lisa, who says Alice stopped by earlier, and will again visit soon. She promises to tell him about her dream tomorrow, if she has a good one tonight too. Kaeya tells her he can’t wait to hear, and to rest well.

The next morning opens its ribcage to Kaeya without sleep. In the middle of the night, the howling wind forces the tree’s hand. It knock, knock, knocks against his window. Sounds like: So, not to worry you sir, but how will you carry the body if what you fear has come to pass? It is a poisonous apple, the thought. It’s an ailing pearl dangling from fate’s thin neck. How wretched, how cruel. Kaeya learns the only thing worse than the thought of Albedo’s death is that there is no alcohol of any type in his kitchen to wash it down. Perhaps it is all a dove’s nightmare, a nightingale’s dowry. He gathers every knife he has, and opens the jar of crystal cores in his bedroom. It’s only half filled now. A certain alchemist paid with a peck on his forehead to use from them. No matter. 

Snakes shed skin and sorrow; before, in this bed, Kaeya would whisper what he’d say if ones that dream of dreaming come knock, knock, knocking at his door: Hello. This is how the wind feels on one’s cheeks. Farewell. There weren't enough stars to dream for all of you. There’s soup in the pot. Swords under the bed. This is how kids laugh when they aren’t playing in the debris and dust of an overgrown nail. Take the days I have left, I’ve burned enough.

Ships sink slow and sudden; now, in this bed, Kaeya sits and throws the cores to the wall. Nails them sturdy to the brick and mortar with the knives. It’s the same thing. Isn’t it? Perhaps Albedo shouldn’t have stitched him this well. Perhaps it would be more bearable with his ghosts around. No matter. The sun will rise anyway. Promise? Promise. That easy, even as the sour dust coming from the pierced crystal cores makes him cough. That easy, okay? Even as one of the small knives cut a line on two clumsy fingers, okay? Okay. 

Kaeya only calms down after he dangles dangerously from his window, making the stray dogs down on the street bark. The morning finds him with an empty stomach. Then says: enough is enough, fast on the dead you left behind today. The messenger bird doesn’t come. Nothing good ever does, when he opens both eyes to watch for it. Kaeya imagines himself as one of the maggots crawling around the roots of the great, sparkling silver tree. Only then, he gets to pull open his drawers. Find cotton to wear underneath the wool, which he will hide with the gambeson, chainmail, and fur. It’s tedious. It’s necessary. He dons layers upon layers against a dragon’s bitter dying breath. Drapes warmth over himself against what once was green, and now is frozen and forgotten. Only then, like a glass left alone on a table with a cat, he falls apart. His red shirt, the one dyed with harra fruits the visiting Sumeru sage had said, is gone. It was a gift, among others. A memoir of the time Kaeya led the convoy from Dornman Port to Mondstadt safely. Of that time where some of the researchers among the crowd stole glances of him. Leaned in close and whispered words he did not understand. Save for one. Dahri. No matter. That was some time ago. He had wanted to ask then, does the sins and sufferings of my nation hold enough space on your bookshelves? No? What a pity. He hadn’t. He wouldn’t, even now. His heart beats quiet. No matter, he has greater worries, wonderful gashes to open on his soul.

These are cheap breaths he takes in. And he is the cheapest liar. He stops by the Dawn Winery, as he promised. Gets off his horse, cutting corners of his own words. No matter. His brother forgave him for worse before.

“Diluc isn’t home?” Later he finds himself humming. Hovering at the door as Adelinde purses knowing lips. “What a shame.” It just so happens to be at the time he knows Diluc will be suffering in the boring meeting over new tables for Angel’s Share. Who can blame him? All he does is remember.

“Shame indeed,” Says Adelinde. She seems disapproving. Kaeya briefly wants to ask if she still feels bad for the time she stepped on the farm cat’s tail when it sneaked inside, silent and suspicious. Wants to ask if the same heart stretches toward the spiders she caught and killed in corners as well. “Young Master was recently asking if you visited, too.” 

Kaeya hums again. Dressed too thick to walk inside, chest too much of a sparrow for what he will do, he has no other option. All that there is, is a cheap breath. He looks at Adelinde, and the years that didn’t stop on her hands carve lines on her face. Perhaps he should bring Klee here one day. So she can say: Don’t get any older, okay? Okay. Promise? It’s Adelinde that breaks the silence.

“Come inside.”

“I would love nothing more,” Kaeya breathes out. Too quick. Too guilty. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. His pride has left him, it seems. “But I am leaving soon.” 

“On official business?”

“Not quite.” 

Doves, was it? Or foxes? When the wind blows, the wine leaves sing shyly. Finally, there is a slip in the masks:

“Kaeya,” Adelinde says, sounding exactly like the times Kaeya insisted on trying to eat nutmeg as is. “You know how dangerous that place is.” How easy. You know it, she says, the danger. How cruel. You know, she says. And doesn’t add: I know what it is like to wait and worry. Perhaps dragons die for a reason. Funny to stand in front of her, and not have anybody she can tell on him to. 

“Tell Diluc I was here, please.” Kaeya says. Cheap breaths. He wishes it was easier to say I love you now, and I’ll love you even if I won’t return. Instead, what comes out is: “And tell him there was nothing he could have said to stop me.” 

Adelinde looks into his eye, looks at the world waiting over his shoulder. Her eyes are worried, mouth a thin, closed line. Does she remember the time, when they were eight, Diluc stole the milk tooth under Kaeya’s pillow to trick the tooth fairy when all of his teeth were in their places still? Kaeya does. Kaeya always does. “I will,” She whispers finally. Then straightens her spine. “Let me prepare,” She stops, gives a stale, strained smile. “Let’s say… Rations for you.” 

It is only with fresh, fragrant bread; dried, delicate ham; hardy, honeyed apples in his bag he feels any weight on his back. His supplies are nestled in with wool sweaters, a pair of boots, just in case, and the jeweled dagger. They are swaddled and rocked to sleep with dry, thin, wooden sticks in the bag. Alongside pieces of flintstones, of course. The lantern he put the oiled rag inside hangs off his waist. Next to his sword, of course. It is only then, Kaeya feels his heart beat again. Enough waiting for a beak. He promised, after all. 

These are cheap breaths he takes in: They only keep his chin up so long. Kaeya takes the long, winding, whining way. Curling down south, carving a curve around Springvale as his horse sways to the unhurried rhythm. Quiet now, he tells his heart, shh, haven’t we seen enough death? Why do you keep imagining it? It is still green around him, even as the path gets ever so slightly steeper. Birds chirp their complaints, feathers gifted to the cold earth to cover itself here and there. Chrysanthemums sway red, orange, yellow; a sick, sweet ode to fire. What are dawns for, if not to wake the ones you love for breakfast? What good are ghosts, if the blood doesn’t show on them? November fog daydreams of tomorrow’s frost. Swallows spiritedly as it waits for grass to turn its back, so in the morning a sheet of ice will weigh on its neck. Kaeya leans forward. His stallion picks up pace. The cold is good, it drove all the snakes to slumber underground, fast as they count their scales to pass the time. His horse has no worry to stubbornly stop for. Or so he thought.

The wind picks up when he turns, getting ever higher from Cider Lake. There is a forgotten, rotting horse cart to the right. No matter. Because like this, Kaeya has a cruelly clear view of the icy mountain, and the nail above it. There is no use in sighing. He does it anyway. He is that gone for chalk skin and gold hair, after all. 

Quiet you , replies his heart as Kaeya rubs his steed’s neck, approaching gray half mountains, when have you deserved anything but nightmares? When have you loved without their funerals in the back of your eyes? Another hundred meters or so passes. A boar family rustles the tall grass to his side. Snorting and huffing, since he disturbs their rest. Kaeya has dreamt of getting lost before. Never to this view. Mountains here are flat as if some Archon cut their tips off. There are gaps between them. Places where molten snow will feed the rivers from, come spring.

The wind blows part of his hair out of the tie. Tosses it in front of his eyes. He should have a headache, he decides then. That is the only thing missing. As a drowning frog turns to a princess, no more kisses, I’m not who you look for; Kaeya turns his eye to Celestia. “For fuck’s sake.” He grumbles, pushes away his bangs. Had he known, he would save his curses for later:
In the thin neck spared between two rocky sides of the yearning mountains rests a hilichurl camp. Apparently. Why not? It’s away from the city. Guarded against the wind. Tucked away for peering eyes to roll in shame. Why not? He just needed trouble on this journey. There are some hilichurls sleeping on the ground. One samachurl, tending to its staff. And heaven never looks down on Kaeya without spitting. Even the wind is no distraction. He is dressed too warm to ever feel it. So he tells himself he doesn’t see the logs and fabric fashioned into tents. Doesn’t see the ashes of where they cooked recently. Doesn’t notice the sickly one. Where tufts of fur fell from its head, ribcage showing with every breath. Tells himself his heart is ice and steel; reminds his spine he is a traitor. The battle stallion huffs, picking up the scents no doubt.

“Easy,” Kaeya hums to his horse, lifting his weight off of the animal’s sturdy back. “Easy there, boy.” He is the cheapest liar indeed. “No one’s here.” The stallion doesn’t think so. It throws its neck back, grunts. Takes one step forward, two steps back. “Walk on,” Kaeya says, as stern as he can. An owl coos its disappointment. If the sun was watching, it makes no sound as it turns away. Kaeya clicks his tongue at his horse. How terrible. How so, very, him. 

Doves and dust; foxes and fog. Kaeya has no time to lose. And he can’t leave his horse to climb up and draw a cowardly curve away from the camp. He nudges with his knees until the stallion grunts once more, and finally trots. 

“There you go,” he tells his steed. “ I’m sorry. Keep sleeping. ” He tells what is left of his people. 

As the hooves strike the earth, the hilichurls jump awake. They frantically fix the masks that grew askew in sleep; growl until spit, desperate and deserved, flies towards him. The samachurl drops its staff in shock. Kaeya tells himself he doesn’t see it. Lifts dark hands with white markings in panic. Kaeya leans even further forward. “ I’m sorry. ” He says again, urging his horse to pick up pace. Nails and nations; daylight and death, what do the once sages of Khaenri’ah cry for, if they do? No matter. None at all. A fox chews its tail for a dog, the world doesn’t turn right for Kaeya ever since his father left him. What good are you, the trees ask. Above the earth, washed off of maggots? What good indeed, Kaeya thinks as the samachurl calls out behind him:

“ Dream-bearer! ” It gurgles, excited. Had Kaeya not had spent hours between books and valleys to run from another fatherly death, he could not understand it. But now that he does, he feels nauseous. “ Wait! We’re here! ”

These are cheap breaths. Cheapest, even. He is no good. A backstabber’s ballad, a landslide’s love letter to the lifeless: Kaeya bites his tongue until he tastes blood. Tells himself he deserves it and more. His heart says nothing. He rides without looking back. 

He reaches the settlement Adventurer’s Guild has set up around noon. Dragonspine, that was nothing but a name, a smear on the horizon, now lays precious and poisonous in front of him. The air already has knives. The air is quiet. He never knew there were trees in that place. Never saw close enough to see all the shades of gray and white. Would rather never learning. No matter. He is that in love with Albedo, after all.

Two people in thick, green capes, dyed cheap and spotty, are hunched over a makeshift table. A man half cooks on, half warms with a fire he lit by the ruins. Several torches are lit. Bulks of supplies are stashed together. A donkey, most likely the one who pulled them all here, grazes somewhere close. Kaeya lets his horse walk leisurely as they enter the settlement. 

There is a crate filled with ice. A barrel full of dirt. Samples for another ambitious Sumeru scholar, perhaps. Or a very rich funeral, maybe. Wouldn’t that be interesting? After what he ran from? No, such luxuries are forbidden to him.

The sound of his horse’s hooves fall like thunder. The man shifts his eyes from the orange glow to him. The adventurers look up. Quiet air fiddles with the ends of their coats. One of them, a woman with chin length hair and a nose reddened with cold, speaks:

“We weren’t told a knight was coming.” 

You wouldn’t need to , Kaeya thinks; and as he jumps off his horse, “I am here on personal business.” he says. 

“Personal business?” She echoes. “In Dragonspine?”

Bring him back, because mommy says I can’t go to the pumpkin patches without him. Promise? Promise. It’s that easy. Kaeya remembers out of nowhere, as Klee’s shining eyes ring in his ears, how Adelinde would sew cotton packs filled with rice for them. Dry, uncooked. Left to swallow heat by the fireplace, then placed under their cold feet when she tucked them in their beds. Perhaps winter was kinder when they were kids. Perhaps Kaeya didn’t mind the silent silhouette of the frozen mountain back then because Crepus was alive. And because Diluc smiled so often, no one dared to forget his crooked teeth. Foxes and dogs; daggers and fools. If every four leaf clover in Teyvat came together, they couldn’t bless him once. 

“Can’t a man go somewhere quiet? Gather his thoughts?” 

“This place is dangerous.” She replies, sounding utterly convinced in his foolishness. Her colleague looks awkwardly on the floor. 

“So I’ve been told,” Kaeya answers, undoing the ties that kept his lantern dangling from his waist. “I entrust my horse to you. He’ll feed himself, have no worries.” The other adventurer looks at the woman, then at Kaeya. Perhaps she’s right: This is stupid. Pointless either in fine, white powder over the mountain that is not snow, and is not blood; or pointless in calculated, cold, compassionate choices. Kaeya doesn’t want to think of either. It doesn’t matter if Albedo was kept from writing to him, or simply chose not to. He’s already here. 

As he walks over to the man sitting by the fire, picking up a dried branch on the way. 

“You don’t mind,” He says as the prince some thought he was centuries ago. “Do you?” He adds as the failure he turned out to be. The man shakes his head no. Kaeya holds the branch to the fire. Carries the flames to the oiled rag ready in his lantern. Like those kids in Springvale wanted to do, days ago. How cruel. It’s only been days. And he is years older. The cloth catches fire faster than a snake lies, and Kaeya closes its lid. Unless he falls, the glass around the lantern will hold. Or so he hopes. 

“I wish you stayed for soup. It’d keep you warm.” The man mumbles as Kaeya leaves. He sounds like he doesn’t think he’ll see him again.

Kaeya rests his forehead on his horse’s, once for good luck, twice for goodbye, then adjusts his backpack. As the path curls downward, green kisses the land. Maybe later, it tells the awaiting snow, later my love when there are more tragedies to see. 

Logs are placed on the ground. Then, a stone bridge starts. Just like Mondstadt, only, pierced in the middle by years of yearning. He huffs. If Kaeya was seventeen, and Diluc was there with a sniffle because his nose is a faucet at the slightest bit of cold, he would run. Open his glider. Slam into the remaining part of the bridge ahead. Then grin and tell Diluc: See that? Your turn! Unaware of everything that would happen in a year. Now, Kaeya leans over the edge of the broken bridge. Then sits to drop himself down to the ice blocks on the water. They dip with his weight when he jumps. Sway as Celestia above laughs. Who can blame him for cursing Crepus’ favorite curse in Khaenri’ahn then? Albedo could. Perhaps. Too bad he’s not here. 

There are several blocks of ice. His new boots hiss over them in this adventure. Still, Kaeya calls upon his vision. Puts one sheet of cold down himself too. 

Using the ice blocks, one hand on the big, sturdy leg of what remains from the bridge for support, he crosses to the other side. Climbs up the snowy sides of the land to get back on the main road. It’s cold. Strikingly so. Kaeya’s breath fogs. He fixes his gloves back on, since he used his vision. There are wooden planks on the ground. Half beaten fences to his right. Dead, silver, dry branches in random clumps. The thought of Albedo being already gone ages in his head. 

“Down to the Abyss with this all.” He grumbles, half Khaenri’ahn, half Hilichurlish. The mountain replies: This is as hellish as I get. 

It’s a lie. Isn’t it? Kaeya switches his lantern from one hand to another. Keeps walking. Recites the first three pages of the Favonius Handbook just because. The wind kicks snow up his face. The steel of his sword, ice cold now, makes him shiver every time it hits his leg. Trees sway; howling as ghosts wish to do, and wolves duck heads to. Their leaves are an ugly brown. Light loses its luster as it falls here. Still, it’s enough to hurt his eyes as it bounces from the snow. It reminds him of Albedo, somehow. How he would enter his office in the evenings. Lock the door from the inside with a key Kaeya never gave him. I have one question, you have two chances, he would say then. If you answer correctly, I’ll set you free. If not, you’ll write my report for me, and I won’t open the door no matter how much you beg. Kaeya would swallow his grin then. Ask away, he would hum. 

He never answered them right, no matter his knowledge on the topic. And he never wrote Albedo’s reports for him. Yet they stayed for hours in that office, undisturbed. It’s an easy trick, he muses to himself as a sudden wind blows towards him. Gathers frost on his eyelashes. It’s an easy trick with Albedo: He is liquid in Kaeya’s arms if his hands are massaged. Cheap breaths, churning memories. Kaeya loses feeling in his fingers. Switches his lantern to his other hand. Again. 

As he walks, slow and steady and solemn, a huge tree peeks over boulders to his right. It shines in the distance. Looks strange already with red in its center. He sees an animal rush by with the corner of his eye. A fox, most likely.

This is as hellish as it gets, promise? Promise. Kaeya walks towards the tree. Even if it takes him off his path. Even as the fox dulls its fur. Fate is a dog. Fate has a lot of tails to chase. You wound me, it says, I hurt the loved ones of others too! Not just you! What a thought to have, when his nose starts hurting from the cold. The tree is silver; barren of any and all leaves. Unfamiliar, something red awaits its revenge inside the gnarly cracks of the bark. Kaeya exhales. Hovers his hand over his sword because he has nothing else to do. This crimson is just the color of a princess’ blood, he thinks. How cruel. How peculiar. His breath doesn’t fog here. 

“Don’t tell me anything,” He whispers to the tree. Just in case its one of the faces of Irminsul. “Promise?” His lantern placed down on the snow, Kaeya lays both of his palms flat on the pale wood. It’s warm. A fresco flashes in front of his eyes then, unfinished. Something in the tree thrums like a beat, thaws forgotten and obsolete. He flinches back. Gets the horrible thought that maybe the ones died here couldn’t rot in the ice. He turns and asks his heart then: Did you know her? Foxes and dogs; daffodils and frostbite, if all the goblets in Teyvat were molten into one, could it hold a hilichurl’s tears? His heart snickers and answers: Why do you think I would remember? Kaeya takes his lantern back. Keeps walking towards the cold. No matter. He will remember this tree too, if only to pay respects. If only as one who knows how it is to have a home made of dust.

The path curls up. The wind gets stronger with the gray clouds gathered at the top of the mountain. He stops to wipe the snow gathered on his eyelashes and neckline. Finds himself thinking of that one night, when he was nine or so, he couldn’t sleep. How he told Diluc the other day: Time was a jar of molasses. The wardrobe turned into a monster, the moon twisting its shadow. The following night they snuck out of their rooms around midnight to watch the magic, because there surely was some, hurried downstairs to the cold, dark living room now everyone said good night. Diluc fell asleep on the couch, minutes after. Kaeya told him about it the next morning: The fireplace had a mouth, and it opened and closed like a fish’s. The night lasted a year. There was a man-shaped shadow outside. Crepus never allowed them to do that again, alert at what Diluc told everyone Kaeya had seen. The man must have thought it was Kaeya’s father, back then. How cruel time is, how clueless he had been; Kaeya planned to tell Crepus over wine on his nineteenth birthday: It couldn’t have been my father, what I saw ten years ago. He had too much pride. By then, his shadow would no longer look like a man. What a joke. 

Only heaven laughs through the lips of the lives it took. Kaeya feels pinpricks in his hands. More than his vision ever gives him, less than he deserves. You’re late, say the blue, thin, stubborn flowers that sprout everywhere. Do you do anything else but wait and remember? 

Later, he stops by one of the torches next to the path. Gets his dry sticks and flintstone out of his bag. He trembles as he stands still, trying to light a fire. The coal on the torch is wet with snow, wronged with sorrow. It gives Kaeya the cold shoulder. He lies to himself that it’s alright. All alright because he is here alone. All well, because this reminds him of the one evening he returned home to his kitchen table covered with scrolls, sprawled open books, charcoal and bottled ink. How Albedo lifted his tired eyes, said it’s his third day with no sleep, and no answer to his current experiment. No sense in the answers he obtained. Nothing seemingly wrong in how he asks the questions. 

“It’s all going to be alright,” Kaeya whispers in the way he could never tell his brother when their father died, “It will be okay.” Because that day, when Albedo turned his home into a workshop, he had a reason: I felt as if I would go insane if I didn't see you today. I’m sorry. There’s soup over the fire for you. 

Kaeya didn’t tell him then how the four walls were waterfalls, and spring only visited his kitchen in November because of him. He thought, he will tell Albedo over wine as they celebrate one year together. Kaeya looks up. Doesn’t see the Celestial nail only because of the quiet rage of the snowflakes. Snow piles on his shoulders. Good. It’s better if he doesn’t see them laugh. 

By a stream of water long frozen, longer forgotten Kaeya finds a pair of boots. They are half in snow. When picked up, half sticky with brown. Of course, that happens to blood stains as time passes. Of course. It’s that easy to die, it seems. Okay? Okay. The stare of a white fox pierces his nape. He puts the boots down on a rock. Elevated from the ground, but not too far away that they will confuse the tombstone or monument that will be put here. Most probably the family will have one made. If Kaeya can make it down here, that is. To tell what he has seen. Dutifully, he ignores how he didn’t really feel the weight of the boots, because if he were to lose feelings in his fingers he would have to worry. 

When he is high enough on the mountain, the scenery deems him worthy to sprawl out under his feet. He can see a lake, one he hasn’t seen before. Can see the top of the trees. Can count the ribs that remained intact as Durin’s dreary, desolate body slammed into the mountain. It keeps snowing. Kaeya wonders if there actually is the sound of a lady singing for a blizzard strayer or is it that cold. An owl screeches. It sounds like: Move along, boy. You have enough ghosts as is. Kaeya turns on his heels, ignores how numb his face feels. 

A fox… What was it like? A fox returns back to the man that wants to make a fur coat out of it. That’s what all winds and words are about: A fox goes back before dawn. There is nowhere else the fox could have gone. And the world forgets Kaeya in its corners ever since he had to cover one eye. There was something about a dog too… But he can no longer feel his face or fingers as he holds his nose. The frost on his eyelashes, on the short bangs that never listen to him, grow heavier. Whiter as they invite friends and family to clump together. 

There are parts of a wall, most of some steps. All so very similar to Khaenri’ah: Alike in the way they must have looked before, alike in the way they are broken and beaten. As all younger siblings do, he wonders if he should have listened to Diluc. Wiggling his toes in his boots no longer does the trick. Despite the thick, woolen socks, he notes. What a joke it would be, if his last thoughts are about socks. How wonderful, that reminds him Albedo has cold feet. And he loves to tuck them under Kaeya’s thighs as he lays on the couch while Kaeya sits cross legged at the end of it. He used to love that, should Kaeya say? No. It makes no sense. He hasn’t given up this soon yet. He will see. He promised, after all, okay? Okay. That easy.

When Kaeya reaches the only way to where he thinks Albedo’s camp is, the snow that gathered on him melted with his warmth. Now wet, he trembles like a leaf in every wind that looks his way. It reminds him of the summer rains down on the Dawn Winery. The puddles they’d jump in. The exquisite potterware he and Diluc would fashion out of mud. When they asked Adelinde if they had dried and were ready to use yet, she would say no. Not yet, perhaps tomorrow. Tomorrow would bring fuzzy caterpillars, and the tiny bites they take out of leaves. Tomorrow would bring a race between him, Diluc, and Jean to the stables. They wouldn’t ask again. Perhaps forgetting should have stayed that easy. Perhaps he should have given Albedo some of his seashells. Tell him: I feel like I can thread some stars together when you throw your head back and laugh like that. Did you know an ocean could sway on your collar bones? Where and when should you whisper my name, my love, if I died before you? 

The only way to the camp is a wooden bridge. The only way is more broken than it still is a bridge. Perhaps he should have eaten one more dinner with Diluc. Should have told Albedo he loves him. With words, this time. There is something about foxes, and fog, and fools that fiddle with fate. Kaeya puts down his backpack. With how his legs burn, and how stiff his hands feel, he doesn’t think he can pick it up again. It made no sense to shove his windglider in there. It makes no sense to pull it out now. The bread, with a star on it, the one Adelinde prepared for him falls out in the ruckus. If Kaeya was seventeen, and Diluc was here with a horrible, rattling cough because he could never handle the cold, he would run. Open his glider. 

Call it a dare, a knight’s bravery. Kaeya promised. He can not go and clean the strands of blond hair he complained is everywhere from his house if more won’t fall. Okay? Klee can not go to the pumpkin patches without her older brother. So, of course he promised. Okay. It’s that easy. His teeth chatter as he shakes. There is not much to do but be a knight. Kaeya sets his glider on his back, stiff fingers holding both ends. There is no need to take his bag with him. It will only be too much weight. He walks back, waits for the wind to hold its breath. 

Then, he runs. Jumps where the wooden planks end. Opens his glider and flows. The fox is cunning, small enough to miss. But the man has been making fur coats all his life. When he is almost there, a wind, quiet and strong, slams him sideways to the mountain. He should be very cold. He doesn’t feel the burning of the scrapes on his left leg. Doesn’t register the cut on his left cheek for some time. All Kaeya knows is that he lands on the other side of the broken bridge. He has no thoughts. Can not afford them now. And after walking another meter, he finds the cave. The camp. 

Cheap breaths, cheap breaths, all of them. He runs. And his knees say no more, they will give out at any time. Liars. Both of them. Nothing stops Kaeya’s running, because he can not see anyone in the camp. There is neither the flames nor the smoke of a fire. 

“I promised.” Kaeya thinks he mumbles. Doesn’t know in which language. Does it matter? Does anything? He doesn’t see anyone in the cave, doesn’t see light or smoke. Albedo is- 

The camp is unusual, Kaeya finds. The crucibles, flasks, and alembics are empty. Clean, save for the most stubborn of their previous lovers: Some smudges from the liquids they carried and boiled before. They are tied together. Set to wait on a wooden crate’s closed lid. There is a bookshelf balanced on one jagged cave wall. A big, torn fabric is draped over it. The last year’s Weinlesefest ’s charity stall awning, Kaeya remembers. From the gap on it he sees jars of herbs. Orbs. Glittering ores. There is a pit on the floor, small and dark, the spent coals still in it. But there is no fire. Still, Kaeya would be lying if he said he notices his fogging breath now. 

Albedo is in the thin, red, harra fruit dyed shirt; underneath is a simple pair of black pants. At least those are thicker. Velvet. Kaeya makes a choking sound. And Albedo whirls around, dropping the cloth he was trying to drape over a board stabbed numerously with pins and paper. His golden hair sways first, the sword strapped to his waist second. The wind howls outside. Kaeya shivers. How wicked Archons are, if they are watching.

Albedo’s eyes catch the light from the entrance of the cave. Shining like a cat’s for a moment, and Kaeya wonders: Why did I ever find that unsettling? It’s perfect.

Quietly, “Kaeya?” Albedo breathes out, marching towards him. Waves greet ships under their feet. Would you like to be upside down, they ask. No? Then don’t fall in love like these two did. “Kaeya!” Albedo exclaims. Crashes right into him. He sounds somewhat angry. Kaeya tells himself Albedo repeats his name to not forget. It’s cold, terribly so. His love whom he couldn’t hear from for almost two weeks squeezes his arms. See, Kaeya’s heart hisses, didn’t you want it to hurt a little more?

There is something about always returning home. Some words about how every book is a guide on how to return home. And how that is it. The entire thing. There is no home. Kaeya has a million things to say. About how evenings last months without him. How fucking stupid they were in thinking they don’t need to have breakfast together every morning. They do. 

I thought, Kaeya should say, since two fathers already left me, I thought you died. I sometimes still worry that the people I love die just because of it. Diluc expects us both over for dinner, he should say. And I couldn’t throw away that red leaf you found that day on our walk. Because you said you liked the shade and the shape. What are the odds? Liking both of these things? Did you know, he should ask Albedo, did you know I love you? 

“ You haven’t written to me. ” Kaeya hears himself whisper instead. It’s in Khaenri’ahn. It sounds as painful as burning. These nails drop for a reason, it seems; there is a home. Something sick and slow passes through Albedo’s eyes at that. Kaeya watches his face. Every missed inch of it. Albedo’s lips have teeth marks on them. The star on his neck looks duller.

“ I have, ” He answers. His hands, with no gloves on this Archon forsaken, frosted and forbidden mountain cup Kaeya’s cheeks. His thumb brushes over the still bleeding cut. It isn't warm at all. “You haven’t written to me , starlight. ” His voice breaks, ever so slightly, just how Kaeya’s nose is crooked. It’s wonderful. It’s horrible. If the stars are watching, they don’t coo out of respect.

“ But I have , ” Kaeya says, placing his hands over Albedo’s. “ I wrote to you.” He says, in the way he tells his ghost he never meant to forget them. The desperation in his voice unnerves him. “Nothing came back. ” Mindlessly, he tugs at Albedo’s hands then. Kisses both palms once, twice, three times just because he can. Albedo shakes his head. Opens his mouth, closes it with no words. He then leans his weight on Kaeya, slumping over in his arms. Khaenri’ahn brilliance: Chalk is a fine, pure powder. Albedo is so heavy he makes Kaeya’s feet slide back on the ground before he steels himself for the weight. He always does. How perfect, how utterly flawless. A dove somewhere fills its chest with a deserter’s escape route. They stay like that. Quiet in the dusky cave, hugging one another as if they never got to before.

“ Did you pack everything to come down?” Kaeya asks after some point. Albedo’s hair smells of smoke. He must have had concoctions boiling over flames, then. Perhaps even had some coffee brewing next to them. In a cucurbit too, of course. There aren’t simple pots here. Kaeya nuzzles his chin onto the top of Albedo’s head. “To see me? ” He adds. Some frostbite on his fingers and nose can’t shake all of the pride out of him now, can it? What a joke he would be then. One of the most sought out and swooned over men in Mondstadt. And his knees are cherry jam when his genius looks his way. 

Unexpectedly, Albedo snaps his head up. He has a frown on his handsome, handmade features. It reminds Kaeya of that one evening they shared in his home. How Albedo said he doesn’t get cold, unless he lost what is his equivalent to blood. But, he had said then, I have the utter privilege of not needing excuses to be under a blanket with you. Kaeya was in the old shirt he got some summers ago just out of pity for the old man who sold it. Was already sprawled out on the couch. Albedo had simply laid his head on Kaeya’s chest then. The dark blue blanket Adelinde knitted for him draped over them like a prayer. 

Kaeya didn’t tell Albedo he forgot to blink or move his chest for minutes back then. He didn’t need to. The sound of two hearts beating swelled in the living room. He is used to Albedo’s eyes by now, even if they do or don’t blink at the same time as humans’ do. Still. It takes Kaeya a moment to realize at the present: He has never seen the alchemist teary eyed before. 

“Albedo? What’s-”

His alchemist lifts himself away. It hurts more than frostbite. “You can’t come here alone!” Albedo snaps. The cave says it back. An empty echo, just to make Kaeya hear it twice. “You could have gotten seriously injured. Could have frostbite. Or,” He stops, taking in an uncharacteristically wheezing breath. “Or slip, fall-” It’s terrible. It’s the biggest compliment. Kaeya has only heard such scattered talk from his lover once before. When Klee managed to sneak a box of ever flammable, never fragrant, pale yellow sulfur powder out of his workshop. They had been worried sick then. “Archons know it’s ice and rocks everywhere. Hidden under the snow. You could have broken a bone. Or,” Albedo stops once more. This time to curse in Khaenri’ahn. It’s strange to hear. Blue blue eyes look away, look back into Kaeya’s only bared one. “Never again,” He whispers. Or, rather, whimpers. Perhaps he too knows it’s all about foxes and homes? Kaeya trembles again. “Never do anything this reckless again.”

It is not a bright moment for him. Dreamer or not, Kaeya is a man. Days of worry, hours of ice slip through his teeth before he can stop it:

“Don’t make me have to do this again then.” 

Quiet, quiet air. Regret finds him late on the mountain. This is like the first heart Kaeya broke without a single cloud in his voice to soften the words. He was nineteen then, same as the boy who asked to attend Windblume together. No, he had said, maybe I’ll go with someone else later, I don’t know. It took him a day to realize the other meant as a date. 

Dreams of wolves, honor of insects; Albedo doesn’t blink as he answers: “I never would have wanted you to undertake such a dangerous journey with a pack of knights, let alone by yourself.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kaeya says before regret roots in his chest. It doesn’t. Because there are still foxes, free and flawless, out there somewhere. One of his gloved hands land on his alchemist’s neck. The other cups his chin. “I would do it, no matter what,” He says. Makes sure to press a thumb to the star that repeats in his own eye. Doesn’t care that he barely has feeling in his fingers. “I love you.”  

Quiet, quiet, cruel air. He has come to where the fire is worst. Never with an intention to hurt anybody. Fate is a dog, words are snakes, fruit flies. His love doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe. His face, too symmetric, too kissable, remains frozen. Perhaps Kaeya shouldn’t have come here. Perhaps-

Finally. Albedo smiles, and the sun decides to set a little later today. Just this once. 

“It took you a cursed mountain to confess.” He whispers. Knows this pride looks the best on him. “Perhaps I should have done this months ago?” A peace offering. Forgiveness powdered with sugar. Albedo smiles at him, and Kaeya vows to never tell him he did get frostbite. Just a little. It’s nothing. Who would give him away? The moon? Perhaps if someone resurrects the corpse. 

“Who knew the Chalk Prince needed a confession like us mere mortals do?” Kaeya says first, caresses his way down to wrap an arm around Albedo’s waist second. When foxes die, it should be doves that carry their souls. It’s a peculiar thing, how his alchemist always goes a little boneless in his arms. As if he truly is. As if his joints say: Oh, good, hold this soul up for me for a while, would you? It’s too golden. 

“If you have no objections,” Kaeya adds, trembling when a howling wind enters the cave. Outside awaits yesterdays unlived. “I’m going to kiss you now.” 

Albedo trails his hands down to his neck. Wraps pale fingers around Kaeya’s coat. Pulls him down. First, he kisses Kaeya’s lips. Tasting like nothing and metal. Toying at the cut Kaeya bit into his tongue as if Albedo himself places it there. Then, licks at the fresh, fledgling cut on his cheek. 

“You,” Albedo says. Kisses even Kaeya’s eyelids. First, the bare one; then, lifting the snow wet, cold eyepatch up, the scarred one. “Are everything,” A kiss on his nose. “And so,” A bite on his jawline. A cold nose nuzzled under his chin. “You will never have objections. In fact,” Albedo goes on, stopping only to push his face into Kaeya’s uncut, unknown, untouched cheek. He takes a deep inhale. An owl screeches outside. Kaeya imagines this is how it would feel to be the pink, pristine, proud dawn. “You always have my permission.” 

The morning will come, one way or another. Some mothers sing lullabies to empty cradles; one time, a knight died in his arms. Torso facing the other side his legs do after a ruin guard’s enormous hand swatted him away. That was the second skirmish he led as the Cavalry Captain. He thought he could never stop waking up and puking his dinner out in the middle of the night. He thought, as he carried the banner on the knight’s funeral, he could never forget his face. Now every time he remembers the other it’s with a different set of eyes. 

The morning comes, whether one waits or not. The sun shines. Farm cats have kittens every spring. Four, six, two of them. Kaeya never forgot how death settled. How heavy, how stiff the knight was as they carried him back home. 

“I will still ask.” He tells Albedo.

“I know.”

He kisses his alchemist this time, slow, until he has to break away to breathe. “I need dry clothes,” He stops to kiss his temple. “And something to drink.” Even if he doesn’t deserve it.

The morning comes anyway. “I know, love.” Albedo leans into him. Something about foxes and dogs and daggers and fog, Kaeya guesses. “Leave yourself to me.”  

The fire crackles because there are no cicadas in November. And the mountain only knows how to weep on its own. Albedo cleans his cuts with something that smells sour, something that burns as if it wants to devour. First, the ones all along his left leg.

“Sorry,” He says, kissing Kaeya’s knee just because. “Does it burn?”

“No.” He lies. 

“Because I’m the one administering the care?”

“Just a little ago you were angry at me, and now you want to compliment yourself?” 

“No, I want you to compliment me.” 

Kaeya takes a deep breath. Tells his heart: You’re ready, aren’t you? I’m going to give you to him. Every single, sinner part of you. Okay? Okay. It has been that easy all along. The next time the cotton lands on the cuts Kaeyae hisses fake and dramatic. 

“Easy there!” He says. “That burns like hell.” 

Albedo smacks his good leg. 

There are gold lines, afterwards, swirling and swaying. Albedo moves as quickly as he can to collect Kaeya’s bag where he left it. He helps him out of the wet, clinging clothes. Hangs them on the line he set up near the fire. 

“How did your brother even let you come here alone?” He asks.

Kaeya keeps eating the sweet apple, bundled in a blanket. Long decided to leave the ham for foxes outside. “Since when do I ask his permission for such things?” He answers.

“Kaeya.” An orange flicker in the flames. The wind screeches. It sounds like the people of this mountain die a second time out there.

“I didn’t tell him I’m coming myself. Adelinde will relay my message.”

“That,” Albedo says, stretching the damp clothes as much as he can. “Was a terrible idea.”

“I know.”

It takes hours. And enough kisses to make for the days lost. But, sooner or later, since the sun has long set, they tidy the camp again. Kaeya packs his bag again. Albedo makes him drink a warming potion. Laughs at how Kaeya scrunches up his face at its taste. Kaeya vows to never tell how he didn’t find it that bad, actually. They leave the cave hand in hand.

This, and that, he tells Albedo as they take a different path down: Klee made a candle that smells like summer. When they first took me into the Dawn Winery, I hid food in my room for my father. Adelinde found them when they all rotted under the bed. We did a counting in the library, you’re so lucky you missed all that paperwork. Though, jokes on you, dearest, you didn’t get to smell the new books from Liyue. They ignore the hilichurls in the other caves they pass by.

That, and these all, he tells: Diluc is ordering new tables for Angel’s Share. I made sure to water the thymes you planted on my windowsill. Did you know? Some nights are exactly what they were when I was fifteen and every joint was aching with the growth spurt. The world still has a mouth open to get me. 

Albedo keeps his hand in Kaeya’s. The other holds their lantern. He listens, squeezing gloved fingers in his bare ones ever so often. He leads the way. Knows where to step. Where to avoid. Where to act like he doesn’t see anything at all, because the columns are exactly how they were sculpted in Khaenri’ah. Albedo lifts his hand to kiss the back of it. And Kaeya thinks there is a ghost of a princess here to be dragon’s friend. No matter. They keep walking.

This, Albedo tells him, and that: Did you know, mint somehow evolved to survive here? Fascinating, is it not? I drew some pages of you here. Seven pages to be exact. Sometimes, when the moon can’t be seen on the sky, I hear my brother’s voice here. I have no siblings. 

These all, and yes, that too, Albedo tells him: It took me sixteen tries to find the correct starsilver ore and blue azurite mixture to paint your eye. At least, when the noon sun is shining in it. My other experiments were slower than I hoped, but successful. The wind blew out my fire one morning. Then I realized, I love you enough to create an undying you, one day. A mortal body doesn’t suit you. How scary. How odd to hear.

There is nowhere else for the fox to go. Kaeya throws his head back and laughs. It echoes all over the mountain. Albedo opens his mouth to shush him. A tree crackles under the weight of the snow gathered on it. Albedo tugs at his hand to stop him. Lifts the lantern up to look. 

There is no danger of anything falling on them. But as the flicker of the lantern paints the tree in fire’s favorite colors, something moves on a branch.

These are cheap breaths they take in: They only kiss their lungs at the corners. The stars swaddle the night. There, they sing to it, there, there you velvet veil. You will etch names on yourself soon. Stitch by stitch all over your body, have no worries. Haven’t you heard? The stars are poked holes, nothing more, everything less. Kaeya wouldn’t listen to such a lullaby, of course, had he not stood with Albedo by his side. He tries to focus. Holds his breath so the fog won’t alter his sight.

On one of the short branches of a silver, dry tree sits two birds in a nest. 

“Oh,” Albedo says. “Oh, I think neither of us were in the wrong.” 

One of the birds is Kaeya’s messenger; the other, Albedo’s. They peck at the pieces of a star marked bread. Uncaring of letters they failed to carry. Of places they should have visited. Uncaring of anything but each other, it seems.

“For fuck’s sake.” Kaeya mumbles. All that agony for two bird’s love? Cheap breaths indeed. No matter. Albedo laughs, and it makes Kaeya snort. Okay? Okay. It’s that easy. 

“I can’t believe this,” Albedo chuckles. “I should write to Zhenyu about this. Perhaps he could weave this into a story.” 

“I’d prefer this as just a story,” Kaeya grumbles, but it’s all for a show. The wind throws snowflakes around. The birds huddle closer. “Guess fate needs something to laugh at, too.” 

Albedo hums, nodding. He turns to him, face lit by the lantern. In a ridiculous thin shirt and coat among the frost. Kaeya leans in, just slightly. Albedo rises on the tips of his toes to meet him halfway. There is home, indeed, Kaeya decides. Be it mud and branches, moss and betrayal, memories and blood. 

“When we’re home,” Kaeya mumbles into Albedo’s cheek. “Teach me how to draw.”

Farm cats have two, six, four kittens every spring. Perhaps foxes take care of some. Perhaps they turn out okay in the end. Perhaps having two fathers, and outliving both, doesn’t have to be a curse. Albedo laughs like he believes it isn’t. Like he believes Kaeya truly is his starlight. What a joke. No matter, though. It is wonderful to have one’s heart in the hands of another.

“It’d be my pleasure, Kaeya,” Albedo says, nuzzling back. “Although I must warn you, it would take some time to master that interest.”

“I know.”

“You don’t mind?”

“No,” Says Kaeya, lifting their intertwined hands to kiss the back of Albedo’s hand once more. Then one more time. Just because the foxes don’t have to return to men and women that will make fur coats of them. There is nowhere else to go. But there is home, somewhere. “Because you’ll be the one tutoring me.”