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Collei has never been to Liyue before.
It’s busy, bustling, far louder and more raucous than Mondstadt, that’s for sure, but it has its charm. She tries not to let the sheer overwhelmingness of it all freak her out.
Cyno had stabled the horse he’d borrowed from the Favonius Knights, and had taken her out for dinner, the two of them huddling around a food stall in the main promenade of the harbor pressed up between groups of other customers.
She’d pretended not to notice Cyno putting himself between her frail body and the crowd. If she were to acknowledge it she’d surely have just gotten emotional.
It seems she’s been feeling a little too much for her own good lately, so accustomed to blocking out all the shit that makes her feel like imploding. Out of sight out of mind, kind of.
“What would you like?” Cyno had asked, gesturing to the sizzling skewers of fish atop the grill and the wok filled with meat and chili that burned her nose when the scent of it drifted by her.
She’d never done good with spice, so she had turned her nose away from the wok. “A skewer’s fine.”
Cyno ended up buying four, and had found a grassy spot behind the waypoint for them to both sit and eat as the sun set, bathing the harbor in golden light.
Everything Collei had experienced with Cyno so far had resonated with her in a way she could only describe as familial. She still doesn’t know how that makes her feel.
She’d watched Cyno finish his food before he reached for some of the just-blooming flowers dotted around them. He’d plucked the heads from the stems and folded the pale blue petals back in on themselves with utmost care, then used a small length of twine he unwound from around his wrist to tie them shut.
“What are you doing?” She had asked as he finished his third.
“I have an associate who uses local specialties from other regions. He can’t leave Sumeru, so his only option is to pay exorbitant amounts for said specialties. I find it’s easier if I collect what I can for him while I’m here.”
Collei didn’t know what sort of associate she’d spend her free time collecting rare plants for, but he must be important if a man like Cyno was doing as much for him.
Then again, it’s none of her business.
Afterwards, he’d walked her from the promenade down to the harbor proper, and booked the two of them a room at Baiju Guesthouse. He had told her Baiju means White Horse.
She isn’t aware of this city’s language enough to know if he’s telling the truth, but she doesn’t really care either way; the beds are comfortable, they have complimentary breakfast, and that’s more than enough as far as she’s concerned.
She’d watched as Cyno had pulled the hefty pouch of mora from beneath his cloak and tipped a small mountain up onto the counter for the Guesthouse staff to count.
Collei’s never seen that much money in her entire life. Admittedly she hasn’t lived long, thirteen pitifully short years, but she’s old enough to know someone only has that sort of money if they’re important.
Cyno doesn’t seem all that important.
He definitely looks it, she thinks, watching him get ready for bed. He folds his heavy woolen cloak over the chair in the corner of the room, the purple insides of the ears flopping over the arm of it, and places the heavy golden mantle he wears across his shoulders on top. She spots his vision, too. Electro.
He’s human, Collei realises, noticing the lack of real animal ears on his head. She’s unsure of why he gallivants around looking like a jackal, but it’s not like she’s going to ask. He looks incredibly no-nonsense, and the most conversation she’s gotten from him has been one-sided at no fault of the man himself.
She’s still getting used to having people want to talk to her, so it’s only natural she has no idea what to say when he asks her about her food preferences, what fabric she’d like her clothes to be made out of.
He’s thorough, and serious, but he’s not all that bad.
Collei doesn’t know if it’s an electro vision thing.
She doesn’t have much experience around those with electro visions, her only encounter in the past aside from Miss Lisa and Cyno being a girl in Monstadt her age. There was no doubt she was a little strange, speaking in riddles and fables and tales Collei wouldn’t even have been able to dream about.
She’d fallen over in the plaza, scuffed her knee and torn her baggy pants, but this blonde girl had come running, another young boy hot on her heels, and asked her if she was okay.
The boy had tripped and fallen as she spoke, landing directly beside Collei with much the same injury and a bloody nose to boot. The girl had stuck a hand out to help Collei and then the boy up, and she had introduced herself as ‘Fischl’.
She had summoned an electrified purple raven to guide them to a tavern called ‘Angel’s Share’, frog-marching Collei and the blond boy the entire way there where a polite bartender named Charles had patched them both up and given them each a drink.
Collei had ran off by the time Fischl had worn herself and the boy out telling her stories, and it was as she wandered aimlessly around the base of the statue of the Anemo Archon that she’d met Amber for the first time.
Compared to the Fischl girl, Cyno was very boring.
And that’s not even mentioning the Knights of Favonius’ Librarian.
Collei is pulled rather abruptly from her thoughts as Cyno waves a hand into her line of sight. “Get some rest. We’re back on the road tomorrow, and it’ll take some time crossing around the Chasm.”
Collei has heard of the Chasm in passing, heard of its recent shut-down, but not much else. She doesn’t really care enough to ask, however, so she simply clambers beneath her bedsheets and tries her hardest to get some rest.
Sleep hasn’t come to her easily or quickly in a long time, and it doesn’t now either, escaping her grasp though she knows her eyes are heavy, clutching her pillow to her chest.
The mattress is too soft, springy when she turns onto her other side, and the blankets are too light, airy as she pulls them tightly around herself. Liyue is warm even now, late at night, with the windows pushed open to let fresh air in.
Cyno doesn’t seem to be worried about anyone climbing in and stealing their things. Not that anything of hers can be stolen. She doesn’t have much at all: the clothes on her back, a few outfits Cyno had bought her from a traveling merchant at Wangshu Inn that she has yet to wear, and a boomerang carved out of cedar that Amber had made her before she’d left Mondstadt.
Even thinking about mundane things such as robbery doesn’t help her brain zone out. She listens for Cyno’s even breathing before sliding out of her bed and making her way to the bathroom, pausing in front of the darkened mirror hung above the washbasin.
There isn’t much to see, especially in the near-pitch black, a small jar of fireflies buzzing around on the countertop her only source of light.
She turns, reaching to pull her short length of hair aside, and peers back at her reflection to see the brand seared into the nape of her neck.
It looks like a burn, Amber had told her on the walk back to Mondstadt proper. She was right, it does, just coloured a deep purple rather than the angry red of a fresh burn.
She wonders if it’ll blister like one too.
She’s reaching with her free hand to touch it when Cyno’s voice makes her jump. “ Collei. Get some rest.”
“Yes Mr Cyno.” She scrambles back to bed, burying herself beneath the thin sheets so he can’t see her. He speaks again a few minutes later.
“Are you having trouble sleeping?”
He sounds genuine, she thinks, his voice hushed and gentle where she’s used to it being authoritative, cool, and impassive. There’s some rustling and then he’s there, looming over the side of her bed. He makes the universal motion of ‘scoot over’, waving a hand in her direction much like he had earlier to get her attention, and she does as she’s told.
He takes a seat on the edge of her mattress.
And then he starts to sing.
“Greater Lord Rukkhadevata went to Vanarana, and she brought me a basket of peaches. The peaches are in the pantry, and the pantry has no key,” His voice is smooth and soft, far softer than the silk flower sheets that feel achingly uncomfortable against Collei’s skin.
She can feel her eyes growing heavy.
He isn’t even finished by the time Collei falls into the deepest sleep she’s had in a long time, calm and uninterrupted by the night terrors she’s so accustomed to. It’s uncomfortable but a preferable outcome to waking with a start some few hours into late night.
She instead wakes to the warm light of a Liyue Harbour morning, and an equally-warm cup of tea on her nightstand. Cyno is back in his cloak even in this weather, hood down as he sits at the desk in the corner of the room, working his way through sheafs of paperwork.
Collei stretches and reaches for the little ceramic cup left for her. Its contents are a clear orange-pink, and it smells cloying when its steam hits her nostrils.
“Morning, Collei.” Says Cyno, back to his customary flat-tone of voice. He sounds nothing like the Cyno who’d sung her to sleep mere hours ago.
She says nothing, choosing to sip the warm tea instead. It’s good, sweet, but she can’t tell what fruit it was made from.
“When are we leaving, Mr Cyno?” She asks a few minutes later, draining the rest of the tea in a few mouthfuls.
“Just Cyno is fine. I would like to pick some things up before we go, so an hour or so should suffice.” Cyno's response comes as he shifts in his chair and pulls his hood up, the jackal ears standing tall atop his head.
As Cyno had told her, he walks the two of them from the Báijū Guesthouse to the towering apothecary in Yujing Terrace named Bubu Pharmacy.
Thankfully, he makes her wait at the foot of the steps instead of hauling her up there while he runs in, and when he comes back to her he’s got a hefty-looking parcel tucked under his arm, bound in white tissue and kept in place with what looks like rods of cut bamboo.
“What’d you get?” She can’t help asking as they set off to the other end of the city. If she doesn’t at least try to talk, she never will. She knows this as fact,
“Just some herbs my— associate can’t get readily in Sumeru.” He phrases it weirdly, mentioning that associate once more, but then again he’s a pretty weird guy, so Collei doesn’t think much of it at all.
The promenade is busy when they arrive over the bridge, packed full of people in what has to be rush hour.
Collei spots an overrun alchemy alcove packed tight with Liyue and Sumeru scholars alike as they all try to hoard materials to themselves and share space atop the tiny table.
Cyno steers them far from that crowd, instead making a beeline for a small restaurant where the head chef manning the counter seems to recognise him almost instantaneously. It seems so out of place she almost laughs at the absurdity of it all.
“Ah Mr Mahamatra! It’s been too long! To what do I owe the pleasure?” The chef exclaims, ducking out of the main building to shake Cyno’s hand. It’s a little overboard, thinks Collei from her spot at Cyno’s back, peering from behind the curtain of his cloak.
Mahamatra. She’s heard that word before, a few times when she was young maybe, but hearing it now doesn’t ring any bells. It must be an important title however, going by the treatment Cyno seems to get wherever he goes.
“Just passing through, Mao. I wanted to see if you had any of that jueyun chili jam I picked up last time I came by?”
It’s awfully domestic of him to be asking about things like chili jam, preparing rare flowers by hand, and collecting herbal packages for some mysterious associate in Sumeru; but Collei isn’t one to stick her nose where it’s unwanted unless it benefits her, so she just observes.
It’s easy to observe when no one really notices you’re there at all.
“I do, as a matter of fact— give me one second.” The chef ducks back into the restaurant hub and comes back with what must be a jar, wrapped up in brown wax paper and tied around the neck with some red ribbon.
He hands it over to Cyno and accepts the handful of mora he gets in return. “Always lovely to see you in these parts, do tell Lambad I say hello, will you?”
“I will, thank you Mao.” Cyno is curt and polite as always, and he wastes no time guiding Collei away and to the stables on the outskirts of the Harbour, shoes thudding across the wooden planks of the bridge on their way out.
“Who was that?” Collei asks once they’re on horseback, her back to his chest as he guides the animal through what he had told her was Lisha, the southern region of Liyue.
“Chef Mao, he owns that restaurant. Last time I came through Liyue we got to talking, and he knows another chef in Sumeru I’m on good terms with. I tend to say hello if I’m passing through.”
“Ah.” Replies Collei. She doesn’t ask about the jam.
It takes Cyno a good hour or so to make their way past Mt. Tianheng and towards Qingxu Pool before he pulls a sharp right and sets off north. The terrain is rocky in most areas, even on the footpath, and Collei finds comfort in the fact that she won’t fall with Cyno bracketing her in place.
She figures that was rather the point of her being in front.
The hilichurl camp at the cusp of Lingju Pass eye them warily as they pass through, one restringing its crossbow as it stares at her, though it could be staring at Cyno. A rather large mitachurl chuffs, shakes out its mane, but doesn’t get up from its spot.
It’s not until they’ve left the Pass behind them that Collei feels the soft thrumming vibration at her back that slowly fades into nothingness.
It takes her a second or two to realise Cyno had been growling, loud enough for the hilichurls to pick up, but low enough that own ears had just tuned the entire thing out.
Once again, she doesn’t ask questions. Some people are just weird.
The Dunyu Ruins are just as overrun with hilichurls and slimes, all clustered together in groups as the two of them pass by quietly, Cyno’s chest starting to rumble at Collei’s back once more as they steer clear of a chittering abyss mage.
Thankfully, Lumberpick Valley is far quieter when they arrive, the sun long past the horizon and a smattering of stars twinkling in the sky above them.
Collei hadn’t even noticed night had come, though she’s hit with fatigue when Cyno helps her dismount so they can set up camp around the edge of a pond.
She manages to scare off a few cranes as she kicks her shoes off and makes her way to the waterfront, opting to skim her feet into the water only to retract them almost instantly due to the cold.
With the Liyue heat she’d expected it to be a little warmer, but it doesn’t bother her all that much. She acclimates bit by bit until she can paddle through the shallows.
Cyno simply hands her a towel when she comes back to the tent he had set up in that time before using his staff to slice the head off some strange plant growing in the water.
“Lotus seeds.” He says, prying the green head apart to pull out little equally green seed pods. He pries those open too, one by one, to reveal small white spheres of plant matter that he tosses into his mouth. When he offers one to her she simply takes it. She has no reason to distrust him.
It’s pretty good.
She pretends not to notice Cyno slipping a handful of the little seeds into a pouch.
What she does notice, however, is the bandit across the pond feeding a group of ducks, eyeing the two of them in a far more predatory manner than the hilichurls had earlier.
“Don’t worry about them.” Says Cyno once he notices her looking. “They won’t bother us.”
Collei has a hard time believing him, especially as one bandit turns into seven as they all begin to congregate at the water’s edge. She knows Cyno is strong, but is he that strong? At least two of them have heavy hammers hanging from their belts.
She doesn’t want to find out.
And she doesn’t end up finding out, either.
They settle in the tent once Cyno’s dispatched some ruin machine a few meters away from their tent and cooked up some rice buns for them to snack on, and much like the previous night in the Harbor, Collei sleeps just fine.
Cyno didn’t even have to sing this time.
By the time Collei wakes up to continue their travel, the bandits are long gone, and their camp is burned and blackened from something she doesn’t want to know about, the two tents they’d pitched barely rags where the stakes stick out from the dirt.
She ignores the hastily-bandaged wound she sees on Cyno’s bare calf as he rolls his pant leg down and swings his cloak over his shoulders once more, helping her up onto the horse.
They pass what used to be the bandit camp, then around the pond and past a few cryo slimes, and it’s not long until Collei can see the thick canopy of adhigama and karmaphala trees that make up Sumeru’s rainforests.
She’s heard of this part of Sumeru, the sprawling expanse of green, but has never seen it, knowing about it from stories alone thanks to her desert upbringing.
Naturally she’d not had the freedom to visit until now.
The brand on the back of her neck tingles and itches, faintly.
Cyno’s sigh of what Collei assumes is relief upon breaching the border between Liyue and Sumeru is enough to put her at ease, even with the wandering herd of sumpter beasts passing them by with their massive battering ram bodies.
They look different here than she remembers them looking in the desert.
“I need to make a detour to Sumeru City before I take you to Gandharva Ville, but it won’t take long.” Says Cyno as they trot their way past what he tells her is Gandha Hill and in the direction of Chatrakam Cave.
Gandharva Ville.
Her new home.
She pretends the premise of it all doesn’t scare her half to death, though her shaky hands where they grasp the reigns behind Cyno’s own betray her true feelings.
He hasn’t told her much about Gandharva Ville at all, besides that it’s akin to a sanctuary to those who want to be far from crowds and the rapid industrialisation of places such as Sumeru City.
It doesn’t sound all that bad.
Sumeru City, on the other hand, is a hellscape from the moment they step foot onto the flagstones leading up to the city proper.
Sumpter beasts aren’t permitted within city walls, and it seems to be the same with horses too, the two having to dismount and leave their tall brown companion at the gates.
There aren’t even stables here like there were in Liyue.
So much for a futuristic city of knowledge, Collei thinks.
She pats the horse on its thick neck as Cyno gestures for her to move in front of him, shucking his cloak off and conjuring a hood out of nowhere with the same jackal ears. It’s an ongoing gimmick, apparently.
He also unsheathes his spear, though now she looks at it it’s more of a polearm, shining in gold and bronze where she assumed it was just plain brown, the core of its double-edged blade thrumming with energy that seems other in comparison to what she knows to be the Archons’ gifts.
Gifts, more like burdens, she thinks, unable to stop herself scowling at the thought.
Walking through the busy, cluttered thoroughfare would be hellish if everyone crowding what seems to be the Bazaar wasn’t giving her such a wide berth.
Not her, Cyno.
It’s not just the townspeople, she notices, it’s the protectors of the city itself, too, dressed in the green of what she assumes is the Akademiya and bearing weapons that look pitiful in comparison to Cyno’s staff.
Even the Eremites eye him warily. She knows of them, though only by reputation, unlike the green-clad defenders of the city.
Both factions as well as the general public seem to avoid him like the plague, but not out of disgust or revulsion. Collei watches a few groups of people whisper to one another, wide-eyed when they pull from their little huddles, adjusting their stares to focus on her, instead.
They all have little green leaves shimmering just in front of their left ears. It’s a little disconcerting, and it’s freaking her the fuck out.
Collei can’t see Cyno all that well without turning to look back at him, but from what glimpses she does get as he marches them out of the Bazaar and towards a set of stairs, he is stone-faced and cold. He looks nothing like the man she’s been traveling with this past week.
He looks at the soldiers at the base of the lengthy staircases with much the same expression, and they say nothing as he passes them by. The first staircase is easy work, though it leaves Collei wheezing once she gets to the top. Cyno turns to her, crouching to meet her eyes. “Do you think you can handle a few more of those?”
She likes the way he speaks to her, asking rather than telling her what she can and can’t deal with.
Realistically, she feels as if she’ll probably end up passing out on the next flight; she can already feel her knees weakening when she taps the heels of her pumps against the polished stone to test how her weakened muscles react.
“I can make it.” She lies.
Cyno squints at her, but says nothing more, simply offering an arm for her to loop her own around. He’s strong, stable where she latches onto him, and by the time they’ve gotten past the second staircase she definitely feels weak, her steps stumbling, but she doesn’t feel like she’s going to faint, which is a win in her eyes.
“How about now?” Cyno pauses at the foot of the third, bobbing down so they’re face-to-face again.
“I don’t know.”
“Can I touch you?” He asks, waiting for Collei to nod before he wraps a warm arm around her midriff, arm outstretched in front of her so she can grab it for extra support.
Collei feels sort of stupid, using who seems to be an incredibly important figure as a glorified walker when he could have very easily ditched her at some cafe or inn instead of dragging her with him, but he doesn’t seem to be annoyed or irritated, just indifferent, so she lets it happen.
The final flight is funnily enough what does her in, leaving her heaving and coughing for breath and feeling as if her bones are crumbling to dust. That, mixed with the sensation of the strong Sumeru sun being faintly filtered through the Divine Tree’s leaves, makes her brain want to shut down.
“Easy, Collei.” She faintly registers Cyno soothing her, his voice discordant and distant though she knows his mouth is at her ear.
“…Sorry— Non-Akademiya personnel… Have— Leave.” The words that come from someone else are jumbled, split down the middle like the speaker just decided to stop talking mid-sentence then start up again. Though that might be from the discordant nausea that swells in the back of Collei’s throat, rendering her dizzy and unable to understand what’s happening.
It’s no surprise to her when everything fades to black.
“She’s rousing..!” Comes a voice Collei doesn’t recognise, then a pressure against her neck, pushing uncomfortably against where her pulse beats slow and sluggish.
It feels like hell, like fire in her veins spreading from the point of contact, and in that moment there’s nothing other than pain as the touch moves from her throat to her wrist, checking that pulse too.
She can’t help but thrash, wanting the touching to stop, wanting the pain to stop, but all she gets for her troubles is another, worse pressure, pinning her to whatever surface she’s lying on.
She still hasn’t opened her eyes, her eyelids too heavy to even fathom shifting, especially now, when the last thing she wants to do is look at who can only be her assailant.
The bright flash of a needle point comes to mind, blue hair, a sharp prick of pain in the side of her neck.
She screams.
The pressure stops.
She doesn’t have the strength nor the courage to open her eyes even as a thud and a familiar voice breaks the silence, cold and unforgiving.
“I told you not to touch her!”
Cyno.
Collei blindly reaches out, chest heaving with hacking, sobbing breaths, and finds a warm hand that doesn’t make her want to scream in pain.
“She was fighting me, I had no other choice but to hold her down!” Comes a different, unfamiliar voice that grates on her nerves, makes bile rise at the back of her throat.
“I will deal with you later.” Comes Cyno’s voice once more, cold and cruel, before it morphs, settles into something softer, gentler. “Collei, it’s Cyno.”
She doesn’t have the strength to speak, she knows so, can feel the calcified muscles of her vocal chords ache as she breathes in, then out, gulping oxygen into her lungs as quick as she can handle.
She settles for squeezing his hand instead, putting her energy into trying to open her eyes. It takes god-knows-how-long, but Cyno is as patient as ever, and visibly shaken when she finally manages to pry her eyelids open, blinking to adjust to the level of light in the room. He looks more scared than angry.
Not knowing where she is puts her on edge again.
Cyno, ever-observant, takes care of that. “You’re in the Akademiya. You fell unconscious and I brought you inside. It has only been around half an hour.”
She opens her mouth to speak, but the limestone scales forming in her throat refuse to let her do so, so she just nods and allows Cyno to pull her into a sitting position.
The small cup of water he passes to her a few moments later is drained in a few gulps, and the gentle hand that pats her on the back as she chokes on it a little is surprisingly welcome.
She doesn’t recall being so receptive to touch, so accustomed to recoiling from it, whether from pain or just plain discomfort. Cyno is different, it seems.
“Feel a little better?” He asks, taking the empty cup.
Collei coughs once more, clears her throat. “Yeah. Yes. Thank you, Mr Cyno.”
“Just Cyno is fine, Collei, take it easy.”
“Did you do what you came here to do?” She wheezes. She hopes Cyno managed to discuss whatever it was he had to come here for, instead of having to deal with her complicated health concerns.
“Yes, don’t worry about that. Will you be alright on your own for a moment?”
The mere idea of him leaving her even for a second strikes her with something akin to fear. She’s not afraid of being alone, is pretty damn used to it, actually, but she’s had no one but him for the past week, and codependency is a bitch, she’s quickly coming to realise.
Aside from Amber, he’s the first to stay.
Regardless, she nods, swallowing the bile threatening to rise in her throat. Cyno rubs her back soothingly once, twice, and then rises from where he’d sat beside her. It hits her now that she’s lying across a table, surrounded by books she knows she’d not be able to read even if she understood the language they were written in.
She watches as Cyno approaches the only other person in the room besides the guard stationed at the door to this… office?
It looks almost comical when he reaches down and lifts the scholar by the collar of his robes. He gives him a one-handed shake for what appears to be good measure, and seems to relish in how the man squirms, hat tipping to fall onto the ground.
He frog-marches the scholar from the room and then it’s just Collei and the guard. Neither of them speak.
The commotion on the other side of the door isn’t clear enough for Collei to understand, just raised voices and the occasional thump of someone no doubt being slammed against a wall. Collei doesn’t feel any remorse for whatever Cyno exacts upon the scholar.
She left that emotion behind a long time ago, anyway, so she wouldn’t be able to feel it even if she wanted to.
It takes a few more moments for the sounds to cease, and then Cyno is breezing through the door as if he’s just had a satisfying meal. Though Collei can see the twinge of anger that still pulls at his lips as he holds an arm out for her to take and swing herself off the table.
“You okay?” She asks, voice scratchy from something other than misuse.
“Just fine. Come on, let’s go.” Cyno walks the two of them from the office and through winding, open corridors, every wall made from polished white stone and marble ran through with shining metallic fixtures.
It’s as bright inside as Collei recalls it being outside, and she winces as they pass into a library, students and scholars sitting at tables far too big to ever be filled but smothered in endless piles of books.
Her coughs break the frigid silence of this cavernous room, and as quickly as the hundreds of pairs of eyes fall on her weak frame they quickly dart away, no doubt due to Cyno.
She wonders how he copes with the constant staring.
When they leave the Akademiya and are left at the top of the staircases once more, Collei's already preparing to faint again. Her train of thought is broken, however, by Cyno crouching with his back to her. “Hop on.”
“You can’t be serious.” She says, genuinely confused. This has to be a joke, right?
“I’m deathly serious, Collei.” Says Cyno, although the corner of his mouth upticks with a slight smile.
It’s this or torture herself further than she knows she can handle. She’s already pushing her body past its limits, she can feel her joints creaking and aching like old architecture, her blood boiling inside her veins.
It’s not because she wants to, she tells herself, it’s because she’s scared Cyno won’t give her a choice at all.
Definitely not because Cyno is the only person, the only man she trusts to lay a hand on her and not be terrified of the outcome.
She slings her arms around his shoulders and lets him lift her into a piggyback, carrying her down the staircases and back out into the thoroughfare of the Bazaar.
This time, both thankfully and strangely, the streets are empty. It’s a little unsettling, but once Collei notices people staring from inside their homes rather than so blatantly outside, it’s easier to ignore them. She simply closes her eyes and rests her forehead against the back of Cyno’s jackal-hooded headpiece.
The crossover to horseback is uncomfortable, as most things are post-flare-up, but before she knows it they’re back on the path to Gandharva Ville.
It’s a much shorter trip there than she expected it to be, passing by a herd of sumpter beasts taking rest at the waterfront of what Cyno tells her is Devadaha Pool, then a dancing group of hilichurls who pay them no mind as they make their way down the last strip of pathway that leads to Gandharva proper.
They leave the horse with a man Cyno greets with a cordial but curt, “Amir.”, a cluster of dogs nestled in the grass behind him. Cyno leads her over borderless wooden bridges snaked through with vines and down precarious pathways until they arrive at a small hut, it’s large leaf doors wide open.
Inside sits a… person?
Collei can’t tell the gender of whoever is sitting at the desk inside with their back to her, but they seem rather enthralled in the mushroom they appear to be poking at, their long green hair braided back and away from their face, tall matching ears twitching at the sound of the scuff of her pumps against the dirt.
“Tighnari?” Calls Cyno.
The ears turn before the person does, but the rest of their body does soon enough, rising from their seat before they even settle their eyes on Cyno.
Maybe this is the associate he had spoken of.
“Cyno— oh? Who’s this?” The person, Tighnari, says, their voice soft and curious but somehow accusing at the same time. Collei very quickly feels as if she’s being appraised like some strange artifact. She knows the feeling all too well.
“This is Collei, she— needs to rest. We should discuss this privately, anyway. Is Umm busy?” For the first time since Collei met Cyno, he seems unsure. It’s the single strangest thing she’s experienced yet, even after just meeting the long-eared bushy-tailed person that seemed to put him on such an edge.
Tighnari nods their head, tail swishing from side to side that instantly belies their uncertainty at this situation. Collei is startled from her thoughts by Cyno, who guides her over to a comfortable bed off to one side where she sits obediently.
“We can’t take this anywhere else?” He asks.
Tighnari shrugs. “Unless you’d like to incur the wrath of the most recent withering zone, no.”
Cyno sighs, but doesn’t ask again, ducking out of the hut for a moment and fiddling with the large leaves until they fall closed over the rounded door frame. Collei watches Tighnari lean over to turn on an oil lamp on their desk.
“Collei, this is Tighnari, the associate I had mentioned to you. He is the smartest person I know.” This descriptor doesn’t seem to settle well with the long-eared man, who scoffs just a little as he raises an eyebrow.
“Associate? How professional of you, General Mahamatra.” The smile that graces his lips is genuine, but doesn’t reach his eyes as much as she believes he meant it to.
“And how did you two cross paths?” He adds.
She lets them talk.
“She was in Mondstadt, on the receiving end of the Cavalry Captain’s sword. She needs some help, but there is only so much I can do in my position.”
“So you brought her to me?”
“You can offer her far more than I.”
“What, just because I’m not gallivanting off around Teyvat you assume I’m not overrun with work and study and making sure this forest isn’t claimed by the Withering?” Tighnari is calm, but his words cut regardless, and Collei can see Cyno sag where he stands mere meters away.
“Tighnari, that is not what I meant and you know it.”
“No, it’s not,” Tighnari visibly softens at the sight of Cyno deflating, “but this is a lot of responsibility.”
“The Akademiya already approved my request for additional aid— she just needs guidance. There’s no one I’d trust with that task more than you.”
“Anything else I should know?” Tighnari asks, irritated as he taps a foot against the floor.
“She suffers from Eleazar. Hence the additional aid. But she’s got fight in her, and she’s stronger than she looks.”
Tighnari curses, running a hand over the velvet of his ears. “You could’ve led with that, Cyno, Archons above.”
“I’m asking a lot, I know, but this is the only place I know she’d be safe in. Like I said, I trust you.” Cyno steps forward, and Collei watches Tighnari accept the closeness without any hesitation or discomfort. It looks alien, but only from her perspective.
With them? It just looks natural.
“Can you read and write, little one?” Tighnari looks up from where he’d been wringing his hands, directing his attention onto Collei for the second time since they arrived, and his gaze is just as heavy and appraising as it was the first time.
She shifts her eyes to Cyno. He gestures for her to respond.
“A little.” Her voice comes out croaky.
Tighnari turns, reaching for a book on the desk behind him and hands it over, flips the first few pages. “Read this.”
Looking at the characters on the pages, how they join together in neat, looping handwriting, Collei doesn’t understand what they mean. “I can’t.”
Tighnari sighs, taking the book back and putting it back in its place.
“I don’t teach preschool-level courses,” he says, holding a hand up when Cyno opens his mouth, “but I’m sure I can handle a few classes, if she’s willing.”
They both turn to look at her.
She struggles with most physical activity, lacks the intelligence to read and write as well as she should at her age; but it isn’t her fault.
All of these things she knows to be fact.
If given such an opportunity, she should at least try, right?
She wants to make sure the kindness and hospitality afforded to her by not only Cyno but Amber and the other Knights doesn’t go to waste.
“I’m willing.”
“Alright. Go wash up at the basin outside, we’ll make dinner.” Tighnari orders. It’s a little jarring, to be on the receiving end of instructions that don’t strike her with instant fear, but it’s nice, in a roundabout way.
On her way out she doesn’t miss the way Cyno smiles, all teeth where he’s leaned into Tighnari’s space. She doesn’t miss Tighnari’s answering smile, either.
The wash basin outside isn’t too hard to find, and she scrubs her hands and washes her face diligently before making her way back to the hut, though she pauses at the door, noticing Cyno and Tighnari with their backs to her as they chop vegetables and dice meat.
“Associate? Really, Cyno?” Says Tighnari, depositing a handful of sliced tomato into a bowl.
“She’ll find out eventually, she’s young, is all.”
Collei watches as Tighnari hums, sidling up against Cyno so he can grab a small glass jar off a shelf.
“How long do I have you for?” He asks, more somber than he was a moment ago.
“I should leave in a few hours, but I’m not actively hunting anyone right now so I should be able to get away with heading off tomorrow morning.”
“So busy.” Tighnari smiles wide, showing off sharp canines.
Cyno nods. “They want a report, so a report they shall get.”
Collei knocks a pattern against the doorframe and relishes in the way Cyno turns to wave her over, guiding her through marinating the meat and prepping the little flatbread pockets they had been warming up on the brazier.
Dinner itself is a quiet affair, and both Cyno and Tighnari are content letting Collei stay in this hut while they go to rest in another.
She almost asks Cyno to stay.
When she wakes the next morning she thinks Cyno is gone already, leaving her feeling just as lost as she was when she first arrived in Mondstadt, but surely enough she finds him and Tighnari sitting at the riverbank.
She sits and watches them for a while. She’s never seen Cyno interact with anyone the way he does with Tighnari.
He’s holding the packages he’d collected in Liyue, the tissue and bamboo wrappings spread open in his lap as Tighnari reaches over to touch the tied heads of the blue flowers he’d collected a few days ago.
“You mentioned needing some more qingxin and violetgrass, and they also had some dendrobium so I grabbed some of that too. It’s not much, but it should tide you over until the next shipment.”
Tighnari seems to just blink at him, mouth agape as he runs his fingers along the stems of a couple red flowers Collei’s never seen in her life.
“How much did you pay for these? These are rare and expensive, Cyno.”
“Enough. Baizhu drives a hard bargain but when I told him they were for you he knocked the price down some.” Comes Cyno’s response, warm and affectionate as he wraps the red flowers back up in their silk bags.
“What an infuriating man you are.” Says Tighnari, bringing a waterskin to his mouth and taking a long drink.
“Anything to aid your studies, my dutiful scholar.” Cyno is joking, Collei can see the uptick of his mouth as he speaks, but his words are filled with genuine affection regardless.
Collei turns back to look at the wooden walkways of Gandharva Ville. It’s early, earlier than she’s used to waking up, the sky a bright yellow morphing into its usual blue as the sun rises above the treeline.
No one besides herself Cyno and Tighnari are awake it seems, other than a few of the forest guards she’d seen on her way in yesterday. Much like she’d done at the door last night, she raps her knuckles against the trunk of the large tree that hosts the village, alerting them of her arrival.
“Good morning.” She says. Her voice is clearer now, after a meal and a decent rest in a comfortable bed, and her limbs don’t ache every time she moves, though her joints still twinge painfully as she hops down to meet them both at the waterfront.
Both Cyno and Tighnari smile at the sight of her.
“Good morning. I trust you slept well?” Asks Tighnari, cocking an eyebrow inquisitively.
In all honesty, she did, the ever-present backlog of forest sounds a soothing lullaby. She had tossed and turned, but no night terrors had come to harass her, so all in all things went pretty well. She nods.
“I’m glad. I have to head off soon, but we have just enough time for breakfast. You hungry?” Cyno stands from the riverbank, rinsing his sandals in the water for a few seconds as Tighnari securely shoulders the packages of foreign plants on his back.
Breakfast is much the same as dinner, the three of them huddled around a table far too small to fit and laden with too many plates. It’s nice, though, not being rushed to eat or forced to add certain things to the little pocket of bread she holds in her weak hand.
She watches Cyno and Tighnari share a mug of tea in the midst of passing bowls and plates of vegetables and meats and sauces around, cracking open the jar of chili jam Collei remembers Cyno tucking away into his bag like a secret.
Before Collei knows it Cyno is already preparing to leave.
“I trust him.” He says to Collei, glancing back at where Tighnari is cleaning the tableware.
“Then I trust him.” Collei agrees. It’s terrifying, the premise of having to do whatever someone says, your only choice being this or wandering alone until someone puts you out of your misery.
But she told him she was willing to try.
So she’ll try.
“When will you come back?” She can’t help but ask, that aching part of her heart needing to know, yearning for the only semblance of normalcy she’s ever had as it’s torn away from her.
Cyno looks conflicted for a second, brows furrowed as he adjusts his bag, polearm looming a good foot above Collei’s own head.
“I don’t know. But when I have time I will be here. I’m not leaving you behind, believe me.”
Despite everything, she does.
“Alright.” She says, and lets Tighnari pull him aside for their own goodbyes.
She gets a headstart to the outskirts of the village, stopping next to the ranger who’d taken their horse in the other night. She pets the hoard of dogs nosing their way through the tall grass as she waits.
Both she and Tighnari see Cyno off, on foot, surprisingly, and then it’s just the two of them.
“You ready?” He asks, voice gentle, once they’re back at the hut. He pulls the table out from its usual spot against the wall, laying out stationery and sheafs of empty paper.
“I don’t know.” The prospects are scary on their own, but she swore she’d at least try.
"It's okay if you can't read or write. We all start having no knowledge— in this you are no different from anyone else." Tighnari reassures, picking up a pen and writing something down in neat, curling handwriting.
“Collei.” He says, underlining the text.
“Collei.” She repeats, attempting to replicate the word in her own messy scribble.
She can do this.