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prelude: no church in the wild
00
it is on a cloudless summer night that the foxglove knight finds himself in the lotus house, walking past ancient murals predating his own bloodline, treading deeper into the maze nestled right within the heart of khaenri’ah.
the street vendor that gave him the directions to the temple told ajax that before there existed khaenri’ah, there stood the lotus house, and everything that came after – the streets, the buildings, the gold, the glory– was built around the holy house like a spiralling conch, the lotus being the elusive centre, one that if you listened for, would whisper secrets carried by the winds and washed away by the waves.
“such mystique drew people in, people who had never been granted any sort of magic, and so settled for something manmade. their ships lead them to these very coastlines, and from them rose khaenri’ah,” the fruit vendor continued, smoothening out a crumpled note from a customer in exchange for fresh maltas.
“of course, the gods took notice, but they could trace the grooves of khaenri’ah’s shell back to the core as many times as they wished, but when they pried the conch apart, inside they found limestone and hollow space. no ghosts, no spirits, just something their celestial bodies could not make out.”
this made ajax pause, considering his words. “how could a god not see the lotus house for what it is? it’s a temple.”
the man had smiled crookedly. “their arrogance led them to conclude that khaenri’ah was built for them. they did not understand our prayer, did not recognise our worship. some believed it to be blasphemy.”
“and to whom does the godless khaenri’ah pray to?” ajax asked, taking a bite out of a guava he plucked from the stand.
“look at me, son,” the vendor had answered him, and so ajax did. “do you see god?”
ajax saw a fruitseller with skin a rich and dark brown, and skin which made way for time to cross in the lines that stretched across his eyes, his mouth, his forehead. his eyes were creased into half-moons, blinking away the glare of the sun, but ajax could make out the brown of his irises, warm like roasted chestnuts.
when he smiled, the fruitseller’s teeth were uneven and yellowed, but there was an odd charm to it, like this was a man who would let ajax have his guava and ask his foreign questions. this was a man who had tasted so much sweetness that his teeth had rotted from the juice, which was to say that this was a man who was too kind to be god, too rich in something the heavens would never have.
ajax did not tell him this. instead, he pretended to squint his eyes, and shrugged. “i don’t know what god looks like.”
that wrangled a coarse laugh out of the fruitseller. he shook his head good-naturedly, and muttered, “you snezhnayan folk. nothing passes your lot, does it?”
something reverent in his voice, he went on to explain, “we pray to each other. we pray to the sun, and to the moon, the stars, and the sea. we pray to those who have cursed us, and to those who have blessed us. in khaenri’ah, there is divine in the ordinary, and there is godhood in the flesh.”
ajax had smiled then, charmed by the answer. he did not agree, but found that it did not matter very much. so, he cocked his head to the side, and asked with good humour, “uncle, do i look like god?”
the fruitseller had laughed out a yes, told him he could very well be a fruit-stealing god of guavas, but that was his answer when it was ajax he’d been looking at.
what would he have said if it was the foxglove knight he had seen?
snezhnaya’s most wretched knight is like his maker in the sense that the lotus house welcomes neither – not the god, nor her most wicked servant.
come the day of the summer solstice, and khaenri’ah will be in celebration for the grand union of house alberich and the keepers of the abyss. the streets have been decked for the wedding, the flowers and ornaments and orchestra all in suspension for the much-awaited holy matrimony of the second alberich son to the princess of the abyss.
come three nights, and khaenri’ah will find that amidst their joy and ceremony, they all failed to realise that danger had invited himself over, and that their celebration would last no longer than the time it would take for the very first person to realise that there can be no wedding without a groom.
by then of course, ajax would have made his grand escape, and have left in his wake rumours of a knight that served no master and soon khaenri’ah, too, would grow to fear and spite him, just as his own motherland does.
yet, despite what rumours may whisper, the foxglove knight is as earthly as the weeds and grass he tramples upon. and so, ajax finds himself in the lotus house, carefully mapping out the network of chambers and halls and passageways that make up the inner workings of the temple.
only the temple keepers are permitted entrance into the ceremonial hall where the oathbearing ceremony shall be held, and where every previous member of khaenri’ahn royalty had been wed.
ajax wonders what the ancestors haunting these walls must think of his presence, whether amidst them lies the ghost of an intruder just like him.
a trite thought, of course. spirits like his don’t stay tethered to temples and churches and mosques. they venture free, and so ajax in his shadow of a self treads deeper and deeper within, until he is faced with the doors leading to the ceremonial hall.
curiously, the doors are cracked ajar, emitting from the gap a tangerine glow that pulls ajax like a lit candle would tempt a moth, closer and closer still, until he’s peering inside and met with the sight of another midnight worshipper.
somehow, a lesser beast had managed to worm its way into the heart of the lotus, and this elusive figure stands by the altar, sunken to their knees. the illuminated candelabra casts a weak, warm glow, and ajax can only make out amidst the darkness their silhouette, and the golden tresses of hair that fall down a strong back.
“i wonder, can your winds find their way in here?” the faceless figure murmurs to an audience of none, and ajax stays low, stays quiet, listening to the echo that sounds. “have they told you all that has happened?”
the seconds tick by and the words uttered by a reverent worshipper hang heavy in the air, and there is no response. the winds may careen through the open walls, but they carry with them no message nor prophecy, and they answer to no master or friend.
in the open quiet of the lotus house, ajax privately feels sorry for this man and his unanswered prayers.
act i. fool’s gold
01
as diluc stands before the mirror, the man that gazes back at him is a stranger.
the polished metal of his armour glints beneath the sunlight pooling through the tower windows, and when bathed beneath the sun, the threads of diluc’s hair glimmer like gold, little trace of what it had once had been – nearly vermillion in its hue, like the feathers of a phoenix – as it was in childhood, as his father’s had been, and as diluc wishes it were, still.
almost placatingly, the handmaidens had told him that the blonde softens his features, brings out the mahogany of his eyes, all while brushing out the knots from diluc’s golden mane. scarlet brought out his freckles, made his cheeks appear ruddy. scarlet belonged to the ragnvindrs, and from this day forth, diluc would be made to see only in shades of blue and gold.
he would be made an alberich.
he never placed much thought on marriage, a wedding being a prospect too faraway and unimportant to a young diluc who’d only ever had dreams of knighthood, dreams of war, dreams of violence.
he did not wish to marry, did not wish for love, and only once had he entertained the notion, just enough for it to ruin him. enough that it skinned his knees and tugged at his hair, but not enough to crack his skull, which is it to say that it had hurt, and it had humiliated, but not enough to make him a warrior.
“a princess!” diluc’s youngest servant boy, dhruv, had gushed excitedly once news of the engagement had broken out. “that will make you a prince!”
“his highness is already a prince,” his other attendant, kiaan had scolded, lightly pinching dhruv’s ear. still, kiaan had graced diluc with a small smile, and said, “congratulations, your highness. you must be very pleased.”
diluc’s handservants were young, still wide-eyed and boyish, and diluc did not want to ruin a child’s fantasies of marrying princesses and ruling kingdoms, and so made no mention of how knights were not meant to be gifted princesses.
knights were thrown beasts, and sometimes became them. diluc may don the armour, may have a sword in his scabbard crafted from the finest of steel, but he is no beast. he is nothing at all, in fact.
the thought inspires a terrible bout of shame within him, and so diluc turns away from the looking glass, and calls out, “dain? are you there?”
“your highness?” dainsleif steps past the curtains and into the dressing chamber, his handsome face taut with an expression of concern.
“i’m not wearing this.” pressing his lips to a thin line, diluc casts a final glance at his reflection. “i can’t go out there looking like a show pony.”
dainsleif casts him a meaningful look, frowning still. “i’ll call for the handmaids. they’ll dress you in the brocade gifted by the abyss.”
diluc sighs. “can’t you do it?”
“that would be most improper, your highness.”
“improper? how so?”
making a quiet sound of disapproval, dainsleif takes a step closer so they’re stood face to face, and gently detaches the golden prosthetic from diluc’s right wrist, setting it on the vanity. dainsleif’s steady hands unfasten the workings of the pauldrons covering diluc’s shoulders, and all the while, diluc watches him, privately bemused.
indignant, dainsleif answers, “a knight ought to give his highness some privacy.”
“which is why you came into my dressing chambers so readily?” diluc goads, his smile melting into something genuine when dainsleif levels him with an unamused look. “what? did i say anything untrue?”
“spare the princess the humour, your highness,” dainsleif remarks. “i don’t believe she would take kindly to your brand of jests.”
“but it’s not her i’m talking to, is it? it’s just you. my twilight sword.”
as diluc says it, he watches, waiting for the knitting of the knight’s thick brows, for the inevitable lecturing, for dainsleif to tell him, i am not your friend, your highness.
he thinks he’s been waiting on the latter ever since he’d met dainsleif– post-glory, and left crippled, and given a boy who’d been everything diluc once was.
fate ordained diluc to hate someone like dainsleif, his noble and golden-haired watchdog, but the years made diluc lonely, and at the very beginning, dainsleif treated him roughly enough that it made diluc feel unbroken, like something not brittle.
had they met earlier, perhaps they could’ve met as equals. not as prince diluc alberich, and sir dainsleif, but as the knight of flowers, and the twilight sword. perhaps they could’ve been friends.
still, diluc is inwardly grateful that they never did.
no one might say it, least of all to his face, but it’s hard not to find diluc underwhelming if they’d seen him as he was before his plummet from grace. at the very least, dainsleif could not prove that there had once existed something better, even if the entirety of khaenri’ah knew it.
“no,” dainsleif eventually agrees, his voice uncharacteristically small. “it’s just me.”
02
pacing outside the set of doors leading to the ceremonial hall, diluc’s shoulders relax when he feels the presence of another person in the otherwise vacant hallway.
expecting his brother, he remarks, “isn’t it too late to talk me out of the wedding?”
“i’d certainly hope so,” comes the bemused reply, and diluc stiffens at the soft lilt of the princesses’ voice.
“i wasn’t expecting you, your highness,” diluc amends, turning around. swallowing back the quiet mortification, he continues, “we’ll get in trouble if the temple keepers find you here. you know we’re not meant to see one another before the unveiling ceremony.”
the bridal lehenga the princess is dressed in are a deep blue, with golden thread embroidering intricate patterns of swallows and songbirds, signifying the emblem of house alberich. diluc had picked it out for her, thinking of the blue of the inteyvats the princess loves to wear in her hair. the soft green veil she dons has slipped back, leaving her hairline and porcelain face bared.
at his words, lumine tilts her head in question, and the motion makes the jewellery and ornaments decorating her chime like bells.
“and will you be the ones telling them?”
the teasing makes him sigh. wordlessly, diluc reaches for the fine material of her shimmering veil and pulls it forward as it slips further back, securing it in place. the gesture has lumine peering up at him, something searching in her marigold eyes.
clearing his throat, diluc looks away. “no, but your handmaids will soon realise they’re missing a bride, and you mustn't worry them, your highness.”
letting out a light huff, lumine says, “the ladies will be pleased to hear how much their prince worries about them so.” then, sighing forlornly, she continues, “the lady lumine, however, can only lament how the groom she’d snuck off to see spares her no such sweetness.”
“nonsense,” diluc says, used to her theatrics, “all my sweetness is reserved for you, princess. you look radiant.”
“that’s better.” lumine fixes him with a pleased look, and diluc resists the urge to shy away from her scrutiny. “as do you. i appreciate that you chose the wedding garments my clan gifted you. a knight is his armour wouldn’t look half as handsome as you do in the colours of the abyss.”
draped in fine white muslin that appeared iridescent beneath the day’s light, as diluc gazed into the mirror, dainsleif said he looked fittingly regal, and diluc hadn’t answered. he thought he appeared something of a ghost.
stalking down the arching hallways of the lotus house, his eyes caught onto glimpses of his own reflection, and for a moment he believed that he were being haunted by a phantom.
a phantom that might stand in his place during the ceremony and tip the chalice filled with mead back and let the saccharine sweetness coat his insides, and one that could tell the darling princess of the abyss that he would cherish her in sickness and in health, and one that, in place of him, could marry her and be glad for it.
“do you have your headpiece for the oathbearing ceremony?” the princess asks, making diluc blink away his spiralling thoughts.
“i meant to wear my commander’s helmet, but i rather not don a uniform on my wedding day. i was told i’d be given a fitting substitute before i stepped in.”
smiling, lumine takes a step closer to him. “i hope i haven’t kept you waiting, then. i wanted to give it to you myself. normally, the clan would’ve commissioned something fitting the current trends, but i have something better.”
holding out a folded red veil, the princess continues, “this once belonged to my great grandfather. he didn’t have soldier's helmet to wear for his wedding, or the money to weld one, but he had an intricate knowledge of lacework, and had a great love for his bride.”
“i take that he was not a member of abyss nobility?”
“no,” lumine answers, letting the veil flutter undone as she motions for diluc to tip his head down. she sweeps it over his braided hair, pulling it over his eyes so it hangs just shy of his lips. “my great grandmother, the abyss’s great matriarch, fell for a common lacemaker. it caused a great deal of upset amidst the clan elders of the time.” locking her gaze with his, the corners of her pink mouth tick up. “scandalous, no?”
“it’s romantic.” fingers grazing over the fragile material, diluc feels a complicated pang of affection for the princess. “i don’t know how i could accept this, your highness.”
letting out a quiet pearl of laughter, the princess lets her hands drop. “you will have to. you have no other veil.”
there’s a mischief dancing in amber pools of her eyes, and diluc has no choice but to smile and be grateful that out of everyone that he must hand his life over to, it would be someone like her.
"so you can smile!” lumine laughs, “properly, that is. you always seem so sullen.”
diluc’s mouth parts open. “you’re awfully forward, princess.”
the princess lets out a soft snort. then, in a gesture as startling as it is grounding, she takes diluc’s golden hand and gives it what he believes to be a light squeeze.
“don’t get cold feet, your highness,” she whispers, still smiling that knowing smile. “i don’t much like waiting – at altars or otherwise.”
diluc can't feel it, but he imagines her hands to be warm.
...
the first time diluc met the princess of the abyss, he’d been eighteen.
the abyssal clan had been visiting the capital in celebration of the crown prince’s sixteenth birthday, and so diluc was scrubbed clean of the sweat that clung onto his skin once he’d made his way back from the training grounds. the palace servants had brushed his wild curls, taming them to the best of their ability, all while kaeya stood snickering as diluc whined at them to be gentler.
having been in khaenri’ah for a little under a year, diluc knew from his tutors of the golden stars of the abyss – princess lumine and prince aether – but he was most excited to see the abyss’ first commander, the bloodstained knight. heralded as one of the most excellent swordsmen of the three realms, diluc wanted to see most ardently the proof that he could be more than his lineage.
the bloodstained knight was from the fallen land of mondstadt once, just as diluc was. yet, the bards sang not of his traitor’s blood but of his combat prowess. history remembered him not for his crimes but his victories, and diluc wanted to be like him, wanted nothing to do with the wastelands of mondstadt and the barracks of snezhnaya and all the roughness that preceded khaenri’ah.
“it should be the crown prince and princess you are eager to see,” empress jannah alberich had chided, tucking a stray curl of hair behind diluc’s ear. “you are soon to be a prince yourself, my dear.”
diluc, even then with his limited wisdom, knew better than to declare that prince or not, he would remain a knight his entire life. he knew he would, but talking back to your adoptive mother did not bode well, empress or otherwise.
emperor nikhil alberich had laughed, clapping diluc on his back. “my sweet, let the boy have his boyish dreams.”
“hear that, luc? that’s more insulting than what mother said,” kaeya had answered, ducking his head when the empress reached over to swat him away.
the abyssal clan made their arrival with grant fleets of ships that diluc spotted over the harbour, their flag and emblem flittering against the winds. kaeya had met his gaze, and though they exchanged no words, they both understood each other’s tacit excitement.
the first thing diluc had thought upon seeing the princess was that she did not look like the noble girls that attended the palace balls and galas in the capital. her short honey blonde hair curled into the delicate curve of her cheeks in a way that made her face look soft and sweet but it was her eyes that diluc found different, found that they were not kept downturned and deliberately bashful, as diluc’s handservants told him was very in fashion for girls of the capital.
the princess’s eyes wielded a fire diluc had only seen in fighters, and not from the aristocratic variety, but in real fighters, ones bred from hells like snezhnaya’s northern barracks. it had surprised him.
“the house of abyss thanks the golden sun of khaenri’ah for his gracious hospitality,” the princess had greeted, lowering into a polite curtsey. woven into her hair were flowers diluc had never seen before, their petals a delicate periwinkle.
“what of your brother, my dear?” the emperor had asked. “aether?”
“the crown prince is not well,” an abyssal elder murmured, solemn.
oh, thought diluc, as he stole a glance at the princess who was looking at kaeya. her face was perfectly poised, no semblance of glum defiance befitting unhappy prince and princesses, but like someone who knew the world was bigger than herself and her beloved, bedridden brother.
he felt pity for her, and then felt ashamed for the thought, and so he looked away.
“i’m sorry about your brother,” diluc had told her, much later when the adults were having their meetings that princes and princesses were not privy to. “your highness,” he tacked on, albeit awkwardly, when the princess just looked at him with something curious in those honeyed eyes of hers.
“the clan elders are here to discuss my betrothal to your brother,” she eventually answered. “i am sorry for him, as well.”
taken aback, diluc hadn’t known what to answer, and it must’ve been the look on his face that had the princess cracking a small smile.
“you don’t feel sorry for yourself?”
considering his words, lumine pursed her lips. “no more than you feel sorry for yourself, and i don’t imagine that you do.”
diluc, who’d taken a blade to the chest and been rewarded a family for it, who’d struck down an assassin twice his size and was rewarded knighthood for it, felt very un-sorry at the time, perhaps the most un-sorry he had ever felt in his entire life.
and diluc, who did not yet know of the secrets his brother kept, like kaeya’s devotion to a golden-haired disgrace of a daughter, had answered lumine, “i don’t feel sorry for kaeya. you are clever and beautiful. why would i be sorry?”
at that, lumine had laughed, endeared, and diluc was right in calling her both because as the years passed and dates of a potential wedding were pushed further and further back, the princess only grew cleverer and more beautiful, and it was almost to a detriment how the guards and servants and nobles who spoke of the darling of the abyss only ever spoke of her grace, of her beauty. pitifully, they did not know how much more there was to envy.
it only took a blink of an eye and a swing of a blade for the time to pass, wherein the crown prince of the abyss succumbed to his great disease, and kaeya told diluc of his vow to marry jean gunnihildr, and before the emperor and empress could know of their son’s quiet treason, in the short span of some six years, the great emperor nikhil alberich died the day kaeya turned twenty-two, leaving behind a vacant throne and a heavy crown.
the day of kaeya’s coronation, mere days after they’d buried the body of their father, diluc had seen her – jean gunnihildr, that is – the very girl he once chased through the vineyards of the ragnvindr estate in lands that were now nothing more than ruin. he realised that she’d grown into a woman who had been subjected to as much badness as diluc had since those days of summer decades past, and lived past it just as he had.
and like him, she’d grown into someone unrecognisable, and somehow stumbled into the heart of one kaeya alberich all the same.
so, it was for his boy emperor of a brother that diluc had sunken down on one knee and asked the princess lumine to marry him.
the princess had said yes, and so now, twenty-five and hardened and softened and changed beyond recognition, diluc stands before her once more. no one can see the light tremor in his hand, or catch the hitch of his breath. he lifts the veil to be met with a face that is the envy of goddesses, and as the princess peers back at him, he reminds himself that she is sacrificing as much of her life as diluc is his.
“she doesn’t love you,” kaeya had told him mere days before the wedding. he must’ve known by then that he couldn’t change diluc’s mind, and that anger bled into his words.
“of course, she doesn’t,” diluc answered, quiet. in his chambers, the two brothers sat on opposite ends of the bed, backs facing one another. “you know that’s not why i’m marrying her.”
“how can you just accept that? haven’t you ever loved someone? enough to fight for them?”
diluc had clenched his jaw, and swallowed. in a moment’s weakness, he allowed himself to picture him – the tawny auburn of his hair, and the incandescent twilight of his eyes, and wild grass enveloping them both, shielding them from eyes both powerful and powerless, and the world, theirs. an altar, not for matrimony, but for worship, where he stood by the only boy he’d ever loved.
“i am fighting,” diluc said to kaeya, his voice kept firm to hide the desperation. “i’m fighting for our family.”
kaeya might scorn, and the kingdom might rue, but diluc never once allowed himself to the grieve the fact that he’d never get to have who he wanted. when he sunk onto his knee, feeling the weight of powerful eyes boring onto him, it was to repay a decade-long debt he incurred the day nikhil alberich saw him and found something diluc knew he had but could never prove –worth.
nikhil alberich did not take in the disgrace of the ragnvindrs out of some prophecy-riddled vision of diluc ragnvindr being a surrogate son, one who would bear every weight kaeya was too unbroken to bear. he saw a mutt from the northern barracks, bleeding from a knife not meant for him, and at his feet the writhing body of the wraith who tried to drive a blade into the soft skin of his sole heir, and their twin wounds must’ve meant something, must’ve meant something grand.
for that, diluc can take an entire kingdom regarding him as less than, can take an entire world believing he’d clawed his way to heights undeserving. what he cannot bear is for them to stumble upon the canyon that is his desires, and discover just how deep his wants run, this want to belong, to be kept, even when he is unworthy and inglorious and nothing.
but diluc is not yet an alberich, not in a way that matters, and so he must earn his keep. his brother believes that diluc is doing this so that kaeya can have what diluc did not allow for himself, but kaeya does not know that diluc is throwing himself against knives and blades and swords out of some nonsensical hope that khaenri’ah would see him in this state–bleeding, bleeding, alive–and see what nikhil alberich had seen back then, and want him like they wanted him before.
“your highness,” the princess murmurs, “you’re so tense.”
wetting his bottom lip, diluc lets out a soft breath. the low timbre of the templekeeper’s voice bleeds into a drone in his ears, and he feels an amalgamation of impatience and unease brewing within. diluc thinks the templekeeper speaking of devotion, but he isn’t sure.
“just nervous,” diluc whispers back.
the princess lets out a soft laugh, and in turn raises her hands, ready to lift the veil and see him and be left with no choice but to keep him, even if it is for worse, in sickness and in anguish, till death frees her of him.
what diluc does not know is that before the princess could ever reach him, diluc had already been taken, had already been taken long before the sound of shattering rock and crumbling foundation could sound, before the sight of ash and dust and rubble could burn against the back of diluc’s eyelids, the world descending into madness.
the fates did not ordain for diluc to be kept, instead ordered for him to be taken away, and so from the ruins rose a solitary figure – a knight in shining, glistening armour, at long last.
03
a deathly silence overtakes the lotus house.
once the dust settles, and the silhouette of the lonesome intruder solidifies into an imposing, hulking frame, diluc’s eyes flit over to the halls beyond the collapsed entrance, the shattered seals. his heart stutters at the sight of dozens of bodies slumped on the floors, like the most gruesome of trails left by some greater beast.
diluc knows this is no servant of khaenri’ah.
the knight wears steel with intricate patterns of thorns etched onto its surface, and on his bassinet are welded wings of iron, making him appear less of a knight and more of a mythical creature with his brute of a greatsword slung against his back. the cloak he wears is burned at the hems, and the charred ends bleeds into the red of the tunic, dyed a scarlet maroon.
“you must excuse me,” the knight begins, caustic. “i stand here to impart a message.”
none dare answer, and diluc, sensing the tremble in his own bones, is the one to ask, “for whom?”
“you,” the knight answers, and there is a frightening apathy to his tone. “the groom. it is you i seek. would you care to step forward?”
diluc, who’d been dreading this day as much as he’d been awaiting it, feels stricken, feels as though the arrival of this monster was entirely of his own making – a prayer said carelessly now answered in the form of a madness he cannot contain. a knight who stands to – to what? save him? fifteen years too late?
as diluc steps forward, he dares not steal a glance at his brother who stands amidst the crowd, and keeps his posture rigid, the ghost within him holding diluc’s head high. the veil gifted by the abyss may conceal his eyes, but inexplicably, diluc feels entirely see-through like this hall and its inhabitants both living and undead are coming to a single converging thought – diluc willed this.
looking up at the knight, all that gazes back at diluc is a steel bassinet in place of a face. “why have you come?”
“i go where the wind blows,” answers the knight, and diluc’s skin prickles at those words, uttered so carelessly, yet holding a weight no one else could know, “and they’ve led me to you, princeling.”
“what?” diluc rasps, his throat dry.
a terrible ache settles in his ghost of a hand, one that itches for the kiss of metal against flesh, for the touch of a hilt against skin. the golden replica that sits in place only ever burns, only ever exacerbates the loss.
seeing his weakness, the knight leans in closer, and diluc finds that he smells of blood and wildflowers.
“listen to me,” he begins, slow and cold, “if you run, i’ll slaughter every soul in this room like i did every soul outside, and it’ll amount to nothing, for i’ll take you, anyway. don't play hero, and come with me, your highness.”
and although diluc has no way of knowing the face of this man, he imagines this knight as the man that had butchered off his hand, the very same that had asked him some four years ago, “do you think yourself a hero?”
in that moment, diluc did not believe that he could die. even when bound, with the roughness of fraying rope digging into his skin, and with the lives of a dozen village folk clambering on his back, diluc believed himself invincible, and so diluc had said that he did think himself a hero, because it felt obvious and right and true.
that man had a plain face, not ugly but unremarkable with splotchy skin and yellowed eyes, and diluc believed that such a person could never be a nemesis worthy of the knight of flowers. diluc had conquered greater, escaped graver, and so he was special. cherry-picked by the gods, and having endured an epic’s worth of highs and lows, it would not make sense for a boy like himself to die by the hand of such a man.
and in his unthinking arrogance, diluc did not yet realise that there were worse things than death.
having seen his father killed right in front of his eyes at the tender age of ten, and being barred from touching his lifeless corpse, diluc must have learnt nothing. or rather, the years of lux and light must have tampered with his memory, must have blurred the badness into something as unremarkable as that man and his likeness, and so when someone so unworthy realised he wielded some momentary power over the diluc alberich, even the universe intervened to grant diluc another chance.
so, the man had asked again, “you will save these people? you alone?”
and were diluc cleverer, or more jaded, or wise, he might have noticed the funny anger colouring the man's voice in shades of wrong, but he hadn't, and so he answered, “i’m the knight commander of his majesty the emperor’s grand cross. one of me could save a thousand of them.”
and then the man had kicked him, hard and rough, and diluc endured it as the man spat, “treacherous scum! your life isn’t worth a thousandth of another’s! filthy wretch, what do you know?”
when the beatings had ceased, and diluc had lain there, panting and breathless, it was with sparkling defiance blazing alight in his vermillion eyes, because diluc would not, and simply could not die.
what most do not know is that it was not only diluc’s hand that was taken from him that day.
it was first that shimmering, stubborn light in his eyes that was stolen. it was first his eyes which saw the flash of silver, and the clatter of a sword, and the touch of metal. it was his eyes that saw things it couldn’t have seen, and the luminescence withered just as diluc let out that first blood-curling scream.
thirteen witnesses, and diluc remembers only the most unremarkable of them all. everything, from the blunt curve of his nose to the furrow of his brow, and in the mythos of diluc alberich-snezhevich-ragnvindr, that man is the monster that killed him when no one else ever could.
and in this knight, who peers at diluc’s veiled face like diluc bores into the steel of his, diluc pictures that man, who does not think of diluc, who has forgotten diluc’s face, and who was executed by the emperor but lives on, or rather haunts on, in every other way that matters.
so, diluc turns to look at his brother who stands by the empress dowager, his face dark and angry. kaeya’s frown deepens when their eyes meet. diluc clenches his hand into a fist so tight that his knuckles grow white.
looking back at the knight, he lowers his head, and speaks just enough loud enough to murmur, “you lie.”
“what?”
“it’s me you want,” diluc says, and takes a tentative step back. “it’s me you’re after.”
and the words, while frightening, are strangely liberating, and so before reason can overtake him, diluc casts one meaningful look at his audience – the noblemen and women, the temple keepers, the empress dowager, the princess, his brother – and runs.
a chorus of gasps sounds as diluc dashes down the aisle, but he isn’t listening to them, doesn’t have the time or the words to say that he’s doing this for them, not when the knight is after him, not when blood rushes into his ears and fills his head with a steady thrum.
the red veil he dons flutters with the momentum like a kite in the wind, and diluc clutches onto the lacemaker’s veil like a lifeline, like a keepsake that will return to the princess. he may not love her, but he thinks he could someday, could someday gaze upon the softness of her face and feel something and think with fondness, so this is it.
he will marry her like good princes do even if it kills him.
04
when ajax amidst ash and dust emerged into the ceremonial hall, the first to snap their gaze towards him was a ghost.
the groom’s scarlet veil reminded him of freshly spilled blood, and ajax should have known from that firmly set jaw that this was no daylight apparition, but a haunting phantom, one that would lure him from the heart of the lotus into its mouth.
light on his feet, and with a wildness in his heart, ajax chases after him through the temple’s many winding halls and corridors, and with each step he takes, a jolt courses from sole to knee, sole to knee, and the sound of waves crashing against rock only grow louder, clearer. he’s being led to the temple’s southern wing, facing the grand coastline of khaenri’ah’s capital, where there exists no collateral for ajax to destroy.
clever , ajax thinks, both delighted and irate.
ahead, the groom’s veil dances with the momentum of the passing wind, and ajax’s eyes catches on the crimson, follows it like bait. he thinks if he reaches out, that he could hold it, give it a tug, and with it pull close this curiosity of a prince.
he only slows to a halt when the groom rushes through the southern gate, and toward the backdrop of crystalline seas, and leaps atop the bannisters, stumbling just for a moment. below, the hungry tides await eagerly to claim him, should he fall.
the sight has ajax’s heart giving a lurch.
“you have nowhere to go,” ajax says, catching his breath, “didn’t i tell you not to run?”
“i don’t obey you.”
with his back toward him, the groom faces the sea, and ajax watches with rapt attention as the prince’s feet tease the edge. lips parting in disbelief, ajax takes a step forward, stilling when the motion has the prince lifting one of his feet, a thinly veiled threat.
“careful, your highness,” ajax murmurs.
“what?” the prince laughs, “i’m no good to you dead?”
“your kingdom would be no good to me, either. i don’t care to treasure useless things.”
the prince casts him a glance, and ajax imagines it to be baleful. his thin fingers tighten their hold on the veil. he doesn’t answer.
letting out a dry laugh, ajax goads, “you think i jest? i could burn this whole temple to the ground.”
“anybody could.” turning to face him, the prince’s lips are pulled to a grim line. “it takes no brilliance to destroy brilliance.”
ajax’s eyes narrow, and lingers on his golden hand. “who destroyed yours?”
“i did,” the groom in white mutters, “and may god forgive me.”
that string of words, that slight prayer, makes ajax pause. “what god?”
through the red veil, ajax cannot make out the prince’s face, try as he might to imagine the anger, the fear, the reckless abandon, but the fruitseller made no mention of curiosities like princelings calling out to god.
and for a moment, the fluttering winds lift the veil, and ajax sees him – not a prince, nor a gossamer phantom, but an angel in daybreak, and his heart seizes at the dawning realisation that he knows those eyes, knows the furrow of those brows, knows that rose of a mouth, and ajax feels as though he’s been pulled eight years back to the past.
away washes the walls of the lotus house, and he’s back at the cold barren of snezhnaya’s northern barracks, back in nod krai, and it’s him that ajax is looking at.
his boyhood sweetheart, with his fire of a heart and brilliant sunrise of a soul, and ajax can’t move, transfixed. he aches the same ache he’s ached for half his life, all those sleepless nights wondering what his life would’ve been if he’d never left the barracks for the queensguard, if he’d never left an icy hell for a false heaven, if he’d never left his diluc.
“it’s you,” ajax says, or maybe just thinks, and there’s a stutter in the depths of his chest, a ravenous hunger as his hand reaches out to diluc, to his missing heart, all with a desire to claim him before the winds do.
this diluc a thing of newness and oddity – his golden hair, and his golden hand, and his golden bride – but that face will never not inspire the most wondrous, most terrible and most nostalgic of aches, and so ajax must have him, but he’s only granted this fraction of a moment as a bittersweet reunion because the prince, the fire of his soul, presses his eyes close, and falling back, lets the winds take him.
the roar of fear and desperation escapes his mouth, and a primal hurt erupts in the soul of his soul as he watches the only boy he’d ever loved, now a man, dive into the depths of ferocious waters that will kill him.
the boy emperor stands by him, just as frozen, and ajax wouldn’t have noticed his presence were it not for the alarmed shout–
“ diluc! ”
and that is all it takes for ajax to remember that he’s not a puppet, not tied by strings, and now that the man he’s been endlessly searching for has shown himself, ajax will not let him go. so, in an act he shall regard as faith, he leaps over the bannisters, headfirst into the gaping mouth of the sea.
act ii. scheherazade / horses in heaven
05
diluc is dreaming a dream wherein he stands before the throne of the empress dowager, and finds twin sets of yellow-blue eyes looking down upon him – anguish and anger, mother and son – at the kneeling image of one diluc, not-ragnvindr, not-alberich, but some foul in-between.
“do you not wish to marry her?” the empress dowager asks, and there is sorrow etched within her glacier eyes, sorrow that frightens diluc. her voice comes off thick and distant, and diluc understands that this is not so much a nightmare as it is a memory that has gotten hazy around the edges. “my diluc, you can tell me. what is it that you want?”
and diluc in this dream, or in this version of the past, as much as he is angry at kaeya for intervening, and angry at himself for needing intervention, he understands.
his brother for all his callousness, and his sharp, biting edges, has only ever cared. he loves diluc, just as diluc loves him. kaeya might be staring at diluc with his mouth pulled to a terse frown, a crease between his arched brows, but diluc knows that he worries, and thinks he is doing right.
and it is love, or something close, that has diluc shaking his head, near reverent in the gesture, insisting, “no, your grace. i want this. i swear it.”
the empress dowager’s eyes soften, and she grasps diluc’s hands in hers, squeezes it tight. the touch is unbearable, but not more than proving himself to be as useless as his father before him.
he must have done right, because the image warps and now he is outside the empress dowager’ palace, where the pillars are crafted from marble stolen from the heavens and the streams babble in the language of river sprites and golden fish, and diluc is shoved roughly against the wall, hard enough that his head rattles with the blunt force.
collar fisted in clenched hand, kaeya snarls in his face, “what the hell are you doing?”
“i know you don’t want to marry her,” diluc tells him, swallowing thickly. his head pounds for more reason than one, and his heart for no reason at all. “this way, no one can make you.”
“no one could ever make me,” kaeya answers, something vicious in his voice, drawing close enough that diluc can see the thrashing tides beneath his two-toned eyes, “and no one can ever make you. tell her, diluc. tell her you won’t marry the princess.”
“i cannot. i am not like you, i don’t have the right to refuse–”
“bullshit!” kaeya lets him go, slamming his fist against the wall by diluc’s head. “don’t you get it? no one can make you do anything. you are an alberich.”
diluc’s frown deepens. “not by blood.”
eyes narrowing, kaeya scowls. “father doesn’t care,” he says lowly, not unlike a warning. “none of us do.”
were diluc brave enough to break kaeya’s heart, he might’ve admitted that he did.
instead, he says, and not without malice, “the kingdom cares. the people care. the man who stole my knighthood cared. as far as the rest of the world is concerned, i am no alberich, and i need to earn my keep.”
kaeya’s gaze softens into something pitying, and his lips part open to speak, but diluc pushes him away, stepping aside from the pillar. “i don’t resent you for not marrying her, kaeya, but don’t make it any harder than it is.”
...
when diluc comes to, he lets out a wracking cough, heaving. his entire body is drenched. water claws the inside of his airways like a burning fire, but he breathes, no matter how laboured, no matter how shallow.
his head pounds, and when diluc’s fingers press against in his temple, he winces at the jolt of pain. blood mars his fingertips, and he realises that he must’ve hit his head, must’ve fallen unconscious and washed up ashore, some distance from perimeters the capital.
diluc blinks away the harshness of the afternoon sun, wiping the blood on his ripped brocade. the material of his wedding robes stick to him like a second, translucent skin, and when diluc pushes himself up on his arm, he finds his golden hand missing.
the discovery has panic clawing at his throat, at the thought of losing something so loathsome yet precious, at the thought of the late emperor finding out that diluc had always looked at that gift as a burden.
it is only when he lets out another cough that he remembers that he’s just escaped the hands of death, that the late emperor cannot reach him, and no one will fault him, they couldn’t, and so when diluc turns his head and finds the gauntlet-shaped gold lying amidst the sand and grass, he feels foolish, and relieved, and distantly ashamed, and so he holds it, covers the junction where his wrist ends.
some distance away lies the knight amidst the sand and stone and the sight of him has diluc’s breaths stilling. he tries to think just who would want him, and want him enough to jump into a thrashing hell, and pull them both out of it. he has no enemies, none that hadn’t already seen him on his knees and disgraced, and none that would die for him, even if it were to kill him.
it feels like diluc shouldn’t be allowed to bear witness such a sight – a fallen knight, but with no blood and grime to paint a portrait of glory and gore.
the knight’s glistening chest plate reflects sunbeams into diluc’s eyes like a final, futile attempt at keeping him away, but it only paints a prettier picture, lulls him even closer.
diluc crawls over him, and feels strange with his momentary power over this unmoving man. in something of a trance-like state, he hovers over the knight and reaches for the visor to his bassinet, hoping to uncover who’d follow him into the abyss of an ocean, who’d pawn off their life just to have him.
the moment the soft of his skin meets the cool steel of the visor, like a dormant beast rousing, the arms lying limp come to push him away, and with enough roughness to have diluc shoved against the damp sand. the impact forces a frustrated grunt from diluc's lips as the knight holds him down.
“how dare you. how dare you,” diluc seethes, and the sudden anger that possesses him is as vitalising as much as it is foreign, because diluc knows himself to be sad and sorrowful and sorry, but not angry, not anymore.
anger is an old friend, an old vice, and now that it has returned to him, diluc feels drunk on it, feels like lashing out at anything that is within reach – and this man, this knight, with his armour as dark at night and his greatsword gleaming with strength, is the only thing near.
desperate, diluc writhes against the knight’s hold, teeth bared in an ugly scowl like a hungry dog that has survived longer than it ought to, and even if he knows it is futile and pitiful and naive, diluc does not relent. he knows he cannot win, not with his golden hand that pulls him closer to hell and diluc who knows this, struggles still, thrashes still, and hopes, prays, begs, that the knight will just kill him.
victory alone doesn’t make a knight. sometimes, dying does it, too.
“i’m not going to hurt you,” the knight says quietly.
“i am meant to marry her,” diluc grits out. “i need to return. let me go. what is it that they promised you – gold? power? punishment?”
“punishment?” the knight echoes, something strange in his voice. “who gifts punishment?”
"not a gift,” diluc pants, “a promise. a threat. you are not as slow as you are stubborn, yes?”
“you have some mouth for a prince,” the knight says harshly. “just what kind of man would i be to let you go after the trouble of taking you first?”
“ taking me?” diluc scoffs, insulted. “i lured you away from innocents and you gave chase like a wild dog. why would you jump?”
"for you, damn it!”
diluc stops in his writhing, not yet understanding the emotion colouring his voice, not until the knight above him roughly removes his bassinet, tossing it aside. the man that turns back to face him with his mussed ginger hair and sapphire eyes stormy has diluc’s heart sinking, has him recoiling, like he’s been gutted.
“no,” diluc whispers, feeling bile rise in the back of his throat, “no. no, no. why? why are you here? ”
“what’s wrong?” ajax romanov peers down at him, his lip curled up to an acrid smirk. “not happy to see me?”
eight years, and ajax has grown taller and broader, the contours of his face now sharpened to harsh lines that make him look older, world-worn and world-weary, and just as devastatingly handsome as he’d been the day he left diluc and the cold wasteland of nod krai in search of something better.
“what?” diluc laughs, and it comes off as bitter and biting as he feels. his gaze catches on the scar tissue stretching across the hollow of ajax’s cheek. his eyes trace the roughness, hold all the want. “am i meant to think that you jumped after me because you hold some affection for me? i don’t know you.”
ajax narrows his eyes. a wry smile spreads on his lips. “that so?”
a cold, calloused hand comes to hold his jaw, turning diluc’s face to the side where a thin, white line mars his pale neck, a parting gift from the man who’d slaughtered crepus ragnvindr. diluc swallows, and ajax’s eyes linger on the line of his throat.
then, ajax lets his face go, murmuring, “’cause i sure as hell know you, diluc ragnvindr. how dare i forget?”
ajax still hovers over him, warm like the sweltering sun, and diluc can’t stand the proximity, so he forces them apart. ajax allows the slight, and diluc can feel the weight of his gaze on him as he pushes himself away.
“not a ragnvindr,” diluc corrects venomously, not looking at ajax. “alberich.”
“and a prince at that. how?”
“got lucky,” diluc mutters.
“lucky,” ajax drawls, near mocking in his tone. “you’ve never been lucky.”
diluc grimaces. “don’t speak as though you know me.”
“don’t i?”
the ajax in diluc’s mind is a thing of fantasy, a dichotomy of night and day.
daylight was the ajax he’d known growing up, that hurricane of a boy who’d been beat and bruised and bled just like him, but never wrung dry. diluc loved that sunshine, loved it even when the force of ajax’s smile and the feel of ajax’s touch struck him like heatstroke, caused a year-long drought in the field of his desires.
diluc much prefers that version of him, prefers thinking of first loves and late spring, but in adulthood, it’d been ajax as nightfall that overtook the crevices of his mind. night, because the shadows of his hazy memories was where the resentment festered. where daybreak illuminated, made everything so simple and so obvious, nightfall painted ajax in shades of wrong, shades of hurt, shades of envy.
this ajax, however, is neither night nor day, and diluc knows nothing of how to read him, and instead wonders just what the barracks had bred because the boy that grew up alongside diluc only had dreams of polished steel. the man across from him is all rot and all rust.
“how could you?” diluc scoffs, “you stand here today as everything we once scorned. a cruel, brutish, vicious mercenary–”
"not a mercenary,” ajax interrupts. “a knight.”
“a knight,” diluc echoes, disbelieving. “words have meaning, you realise? a knight is characterised by his loyalty. where is yours? to gold?”
“and silvers, and copper, and coin,” ajax finishes, scathing in his tone. “think of me however terribly you like. i care little for what a prince thinks of me and my unprincipled desire for silver spoons and the like.”
“it’s not just me that scorns you. what of my family? my people? my bride whom i left at the altar?”
“so that’s what it is,” ajax sneers, letting out a bark of mirthless laughter. “your princess. you love her.”
“i owe it to her,” diluc spits out, “as i owe it to her people, and mine.”
“is that love?”
“no.” swallowing hard, he says, “it’s not love. it’s duty. i know the princess, and i imagine it is the same for her.”
“and is that not cruel?”
diluc bites down on his lip hard enough to draw blood.
cruel would be the glimmer of amusement in that man’s eye before he swung his blade down, the movement so sharp that diluc had barely managed to catch his breath before there was a solid line between his wrist and his palm, and there was enough blood to take the shape of all he’d lost, but there was no one to save him.
“a ragnvindr scum is no knight,” the man had spat at him with such vitriol, and diluc would dream of him and that moment for years, would dream of it, still. his phantom hand would call out to him, would crawl up his body, and diluc would feel the shadow of his fingers, would feel the hollow weight of his missing bones.
“it’s the way the world works,” diluc settles on answering, subdued. “she accepted it. i accepted it.”
“you accepted it,” ajax corrects. “not her.”
diluc bristles. “she was going to marry me–”
“she was going to have you killed,” ajax snarls, and diluc waits for the wry smile, waits for the joke to find its nasty punchline, but ajax isn’t smiling. “tonight. she would have had her men slaughter you, and she’d have claimed her freedom, and you – you would’ve been dead. you accepted your fate. she never did.”
diluc parts his lips, thinks that ajax is lying because he’s always known how best to wound diluc, but can't think of what more to say.
helplessly, he manages, “my brother would’ve had her killed once he came to know.”
“your emperor would have been fed lies of false enemies. he would’ve had to pick between that mondstadt girl and his dead brother, or the throne and his father’s legacy. it was an entire kingdom vying to have you killed, and the alberichs ruined. advisors, generals, monks. your brother would’ve been blind.”
“and i’m meant to believe you?” diluc feels his own breathing grow shallow, a distant panic finding him. “lumine – she’s known me for years. why would she–? and you ! the hell does any of this have to do with you?”
he runs a hand through his hair, tugs on stray locks falling out of the braid, feeling hysterical.
“you’re always – always showing up, and ruining things, and leaving once you’ve made your point,” diluc continues, saying the things he’s mulled over night after night after night with no one to tell, and the harshness, the roughness, the fierceness, it all bleeds into his voice. “why have you come? why can’t you just leave me alone?”
ajax’s eyes widen.
“me?” he echoes, livid, “i tell you that the abyss was planning on slaughtering you like a lamb and it’s me you blame? do you hear yourself?”
diluc shakes his head, his hands clammy from the cold. “i would’ve married her if it weren’t for you! i would’ve fulfilled my end of the promise!”
“you would’ve been dead by sunrise!” ajax hisses.
diluc lets out a dying laugh, his vision blurring. “would that have been so bad?”
he can picture it – the vision of the princess, and a glimmering blade in her hand, and a glimmering shine in her eyes, and his death – gentle, slow, deserved. or perhaps she would’ve made a handservant do it, a child with trembling hands and a quivering mouth, and diluc would’ve been too pitying to be angry.
or maybe it would be a soldier, a knight commanded by their princess to have diluc slain like some foul beast. diluc, who to lumine, must have always been the big bad, who by proposing had chained her to him, and who must be killed to save the fair princess from her ivory tower.
diluc’s hands come to cover his eyes, and the warmth of skin and chill of metal reach him before the ache of realisation can take root. the princess hadn’t had wanted him, and wanted him so little that she’d rid of him herself. it doesn’t sting, but it burns, makes him wonder what could’ve been if diluc had ever stopped to question what he’d wanted.
“what are you saying, diluc?”
“do you know what it’s like to be a burden?” diluc asks, quiet because he doesn’t trust himself to stay composed.
he draws his knees close to his chest, tucking his chin in the valley between his knees. his cascading hair fans around his face like a curtain, and diluc wishes he could retreat within himself, somehow.
“do you have any idea what it’s like to lose your worth entirely, and be kept out of pity? i bring shame to my brother, to the empress dowager, to the late emperor. i know no one in khaenri’ah respects me. i know this, and yet i dare show my face, and cling onto the alberichs. to marry her was the only way i could–” diluc breath hitches. he doesn’t want to finish the sentence. “and even if it kills me, i’ll do it. i’ll do anything for them to keep me. i don’t care what that makes me.”
the crashing of the tides fills the silence, and for a long stretch of time, ajax doesn’t answer. when diluc looks away from his hands, the tears on his cheeks are dried from the biting winds. his hands fall against the sand in defeat.
eventually, ajax stands, and diluc watches him. his jaw is clenched, mouth pressed to a hard line, and diluc is reminded so potently of how anger looks on ajax, how it makes him vicious and biting, makes him throw a punch, even if it's just to make his knuckles bleed. outrage, however, makes ajax quiet.
like it pains him, ajax tells him, “i didn’t know it would be you.”
ajax is staring out into the distant horizon, at the sun on its course to meet the line where the sky meets the sea. there’s a hollowness in his gaze, and diluc doesn’t answer. there’s a lump in his throat he can’t swallow down. he wants to know if ajax would have come had he known, but doesn’t dare ask.
“who sent you?” diluc croaks, his voice ruined with emotion.
in lieu of a response, ajax digs out a piece of a letter, one soiled and softened from the seawater. their hands brush, and diluc ignores the way ajax’s fingers tremble. unfolding it, he finds the bleeding ink leaving the contents of the letter unintelligible save for the sender’s name – signed by the light of the abyss, the late prince aether.
06
diluc walks some fifteen steps ahead of him, and all the while, ajax’s eyes like a magpie remain transfixed on his golden hand. wrapped around it like a blood-soaked gauze are the remains of his ripped veil, and ajax can’t tear his gaze away, and the question of what happened to you gets stuck in his throat, can’t make its way past his lips.
they walk in search of civilisation, and diluc has not once spoken. with his vermillion eyes glassy and vacant, he had left the ruined letter by the deserted beach. when ajax spoke of seeking shelter, diluc had only nodded in a distant, dazed manner.
ajax has a hard time reconciling the man before him with the memory of diluc preserved in the temple of his heart. he can’t do anything to bite back the gnawing urge to pry diluc apart only to put him back together, all just to know what could have happened in some eight years to make him into someone else entirely.
what ajax can do is squeeze his fists closed and so he does, and pretends like he’s indifferent to the fact that diluc found walking down an aisle to marry his suicide a bearable end, just as long as it meant that for those few hours in between rebirth and death, he would be granted the illusion of love and celebration.
that look of utter devastation on diluc's face as he spoke made ajax wish he really did burn that temple to the ground, and watched as the walls charred obsidian. he imagines diluc might kill him for it, but ajax could elope with death, too, for him – for diluc, from eight years ago.
the diluc ajax remembers had windswept hair that framed his face in a way that made him appear something of an unkempt wilderness, and with his auburn hair askew, seventeen-year-old ajax had wanted to kiss him so fervently that when diluc had cocked his head to the side in a wordless question, ajax had laced their fingers together, bringing up diluc’s hand to his lips, all the while unable to tear his gaze away.
it was an afternoon much like all other afternoons in nod krai, except it had been during the sliver of time that was snezhnayan summertime, and so it must have been the sunbeams and wildflower pollen clouding ajax’s mind, washing the world in a rose-coloured hue. it made ajax want to be brave.
in that memory, diluc’s eyes had widened, but there was a flicker of playfulness in them, the sort that made ajax’s longing grow teeth, that made him rise up to diluc’s unspoken challenge to press a lingering kiss to the back of diluc’s hand, and again, and again, until diluc pulled his hand away and he’d peered closer, his large dark eyes searching.
“just say what you want, jax,” he had murmured, and ajax could hardly part his lips open in offense before there was a gentle pressure against his face, and diluc’s soft mouth was kissing his, and pulling away – so quick, that ajax might have sooner believed it to be the passing winds that were cradling his face, were it not for the splotchy redness sporting the apples of diluc’s cheeks, marking his darling face.
ajax had been transfixed, a giddy smile spreading on his lips, with no way of knowing that they wouldn’t have this again. had ajax known, he’d have kissed him again, and again, and again, until red was burned onto the back of his eyes, until it was in everything he saw.
...
by sundown they find a small town.
the village of adhara is quiet enough that the arrival of two outlanders draws curious eyes, silently watching as the pair weave their way to an inn nestled right by the far corner, overlooking the seashore.
children playing hooky along the streets pause in their little games to look, and ajax catches the way diluc holds the cloak draped over his shoulders closer, as if to shield himself from prying eyes.
the only bed and breakfast in adhara is an old refurbished shophouse, and it creaks ever so slightly with the swaying of passing winds. its keeper is an elderly woman with wispy white hair and a gleam of suspicion in her hazel eyes.
“we don't get very many visitors” she murmurs at the sight of them, and ajax feels the way her eyes linger on his face, right by the scar. “what brings you boys here?”
“shipwreck,” diluc mutters before ajax gets the chance to speak for them, and he bites the inside of his cheek. “we’re castaways.”
the innkeeper’s eyes widen in surprise, before they soften into something pitying. “our seas can be very unkind. what of the rest of your men? did they–?”
“i don’t want to believe so,” diluc answers quietly, “but we waited a very long time.”
as they climb the groaning stairway leading upstairs with two keys and an assurance of a night’s worth of room and board at no cost, ajax bumps his shoulder against diluc’s. letting out a low whistle, he asks, “your noble family taught you to lie like that?”
diluc frowns at him. “of course, not.”
“but you’re a terrible liar.”
“was,” diluc corrects stiffly. letting out a cough, he looks away. “i don’t enjoy lying, or making a habit out of it, and i don’t much like conning a lady, but i haven’t gotten any money on me.”
“i wouldn’t concern myself with such things. your brother could certainly repay her kindness.” ajax shrugs, and by the clench of diluc’s jaw, he understands that he’s upset diluc. “unless you don't intend to return to him?”
diluc deigns to ignore his question, stepping into the room by the end of the hall. he looks at ajax expectantly, and ajax steps in after him, pressing the door shut behind. when he turns to face diluc, there’s an angry firmness to the hard set of his brows.
“we need to talk about this,” diluc says gravely.
“we are talking.”
“do you know where we’re going? or at the very least, how we’re meant to get anywhere? in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have anything on us. exactly how many innkeepers and townsfolk do you intend on swindling? how many until one looks too closely, realises who i am and who you are? what were you thinking –!”
“you would’ve drowned,” ajax sharply interjects, “and no matter how little that frightens you, it would’ve devastated–” me. “–anyone else. children skipping stones by the shore would’ve found your bloated corpse, and that boy emperor you call a brother, he would’ve had to fend for himself in the tiger’s den. your princess would’ve ripped him to shreds.”
“so you save me and bring me what–?” diluc lets out a disbelieving laugh, a flash of indignation in his eyes. “–salvation that can only be found in the outskirts of rural khaenri’ah?”
“not khaenri’ah. sumeru. a place where nobody would know you, and nobody would pry. it’s where the prince awaits you, and where i promised him to take you.”
diluc narrows his eyes. “you serve him, is that it?”
a humourless smile stretches across ajax’s lips. he wants to make diluc squirm, wants to see him grit his teeth, see the way vexation colours his face the loveliest shade of life.
“i serve the highest bidder, and prince aether pays handsomely.”
diluc nods, and takes a menacing step toward him. ajax had always been the taller of the two, and when he looks down at the other man, it’s to be met with a frigid winter.
“would you kill me for a price, then?”
ajax’s smile falls.
angry, he grits out, “there’s no price high enough, and you know it.”
“all bark,” diluc murmurs, a ghost of a smirk on his lips. it’s the closest to a smile ajax has gotten out of him. “you don’t scare me, jax.”
ajax’s lips part open in surprise, and he feels a great wave of longing wash over him, one that makes him want to draw closer to diluc, to taste that subdued arrogance on his tongue, and the thought alone makes his throat dry. diluc, who has somehow grown more alluring, more striking, but who is not ajax’s to hold anymore.
at the silence that follows, diluc cocks his head in question. “do i scare you?”
ajax blinks. in his hand he holds his bassinet, and the question has his grip tightening enough to turn his knuckles white.
yes, he thinks. you terrify me .
“goodnight,” is what he settles on answering, final and tart, and pushes past the door to diluc’s room, letting it click close behind him. his heart sings an old song ajax should’ve forgotten the words to. he lets his breathing bleed out the sound, and ignores it.
07
diluc stands before the dim light of the bathhouse mirror, and the man that gazes back at him appears unfathomably tired. dried blood clings to his face where skin had broken, and his hair is brassy from the sweat and seawater. he needs to draw a bath, but diluc doesn’t think even boiling water could rinse him of the grime a looking glass cannot reveal.
it’s been years since the last time diluc washed his own hair, and scrubbed his own back, and as diluc untangles the knots tethering his dirty locks together, he suddenly so misses dainsleif. dainsleif, who for all his lecturing and grumbling and fussing, stood proud as his sword ever since the day diluc couldn’t wield his own. he might be the only one to do such a thing. except for his brother, and perhaps–
a soft sigh escapes diluc’s lips as he sinks into the waters of the communal bath. the tiles colour the water a cool aquamarine, and diluc’s eyes shut close, granting him a quiet moment of reprieve as the heat of the water eases the tension clinging to his muscles.
he wonders what has become of the capital, if the distance has made his people’s hearts grow fonder. diluc imagines the worry on the empress dowager’s face, the anger on kaeya’s, and the grim hardness on dainsleif’s. he trusts those three would mourn him, and enough to make up for a kingdom’s worth of indifference.
his eyes flutter open at the sound of footsteps, and the sight of naked skin tanned by years of sunshine into something golden has diluc averting his gaze.
healed scars mar ajax’s body like a tapestry weaving a history diluc wasn’t privy to, and diluc doesn’t care to know who dealt him the blow that etched that gash sitting pretty against his clavicle, or the faint lines of scarring trailing his lower ribs. it isn’t history that’s his to know.
“how long have you been in?”
diluc doesn’t need to look at him to feel the way ajax’s eyes linger on the line of his body, tracing the broad of his shoulders, circling the dip of his waist.
“just got in,” he answers curtly.
“ah, well,” ajax lets out a soft sigh, and stretches out his arms. the defined lines of his muscles ripple, boasting how the years have hardened him into something fearsome. “i reckon i could just melt in here.”
the two of them stand in opposite ends of the water, and as diluc with his back flush against the cool marble wall looks over at ajax, their eyes meet. there’s heat in ajax’s stare, and a wanting that hangs low in the air creating a fog of nostalgia, and diluc thinks that they might just stand there forever, watching one another but never breaching that space, closing that distance.
ajax swallows, and diluc can’t pry his eyes from lingering on the column of his throat, six kisses long, and diluc wonders not for the first time if ajax feels the pull as strongly as he does. a tug of a rope that’s fraying, but a rope that’s remained all this long. even when ajax is more myth than man, diluc is left helpless against the desire for rediscovery.
“can i wash your hair?”
diluc blinks, not knowing what to answer, and so he answers, “i can do it myself.”
“i know,” ajax says, softer than he expects, “but i want to.”
diluc has never known how to refuse ajax, and hasn’t picked up on such a needless skill in all their years apart. so, his lips part open but no words of protest follow through. strangely, he finds that he doesn’t want to – refuse, that is.
taking his lack of protest as permission, ajax wades through the water, and it ripples and sounds, and diluc grows impatient, and so he walks too, and they meet halfway, or perhaps one-thirds way, and ajax gazes down at him. he’s not smiling, not exactly, but diluc knows he wants to.
“hello,” ajax says.
“hi,” diluc answers, looking up at him. he presses the pads of his fingertips against the wetness of his palm, and imagines running them along the uneven skin on ajax’s cheek. a nasty burn, it must’ve been.
“who gave you that?” he asks, despite himself. he points to his own cheek – smooth, flushed, full.
“curious about me?” a smile spreads on ajax’s lips, and the sight of it stirs something terrible in the base of diluc’s heart.
embarrassed, diluc scowls. “forget it.”
“it’s not a very fascinating story,” ajax amends, and there’s a shyness to him that makes diluc stay, “were you anyone else, i would’ve said it was from the tsaritsa herself when i left her ranks. because it’s you, i’ll admit it was an accident while welding a blade.”
“you’re too impatient to be a swordsmith,” diluc murmurs, and his hand comes to touch ajax’s face like it's a gesture so natural, freezing only when he notices ajax stiffening.
retracting his hand, he offers a stilted apology.
“it’s okay,” ajax replies. smiling something delicate and sad, he sighs. “you don’t have to– i mean, you know me. you can touch me. we’re not strangers, yeah?”
slowly, diluc nods.
diluc doesn’t allow himself to touch ajax’s face, but the initial discomfort melts away to reveal a pattern of familiarity, and ajax’s hands are gentle and steady as they work lye oil onto diluc’s scalp. the wetness of his curls tickles his cheek, brushes against his naked back, and diluc stands quiet, and allows himself to be tended to by someone who doesn’t have to, but wants to for a reason inexplicable.
the man who’d severed his hand had grabbed him by the hair like the scarlet was a cancer to gut, and by then diluc was left desolate, so he hadn’t felt the searing tug on his roots, or the unforgiving pull. yet, his body had remembered, and so when the rest of his men had found him as the sole survivor of the dozen kept hostage, diluc had shuddered so violently when his own subordinate tried to touch him.
vividly, diluc recalls the widening of their eyes, the first realisation that their commander had been wounded in a way that would never heal the right way.
diluc couldn’t stomach the sensation of another’s hands on him, too reminiscent of fingers digging into the mane of his hair, and so, alone in the bath drawn by the servants, diluc had curled into himself. the very end of his right hand had been wrapped tightly in bandages, and diluc could not bear to look at it.
he didn’t sob, having wept all the tears he had before anyone could find him, and so he just sat there, and sat there for so long that it was the empress dowager who found him and her face had crumpled at the sight of pruned skin and red rimmed eyes and a mouth that would not speak.
the months following, diluc swathed himself in gauze and bandage and cloth, all to make himself untouchable. he would clothe himself, would bathe himself, and would grit his teeth and undo the dressing to his own open wound once the blood began to seep through.
chrome would stain his teeth, and iron would coat his tongue, but diluc did not want to be pitied, did not want to become half the man he once was. and before his own brother, it was dainsleif who diluc first allowed to breach that unbreachable space.
the first thing he’d said to diluc, with his sunbleached hair and his infuriating stoicism was, “your hand will rot, your highness.”
listlessly, diluc had glanced at what remained of his hand, and how the gauze was coming undone but as was diluc, enough so that he hadn’t bothered to dress the wound.
“let it rot.”
“it’ll hurt,” dainsleif murmured.
“it already does.”
“then why let it fester? who exactly do you mean to punish?” diluc’s eyes had narrowed at his words, a quiet rage simmering at the blatant insolence. “there is no point left to prove, your highness.”
then, dainsleif’s gloved hands came to touch diluc’s wrist, holding it firmly. not hard enough to bruise, but with enough force that diluc had relented, just to taunt, “is this what you imagined yourself doing when you were ordained into knighthood?”
if diluc had his way, dainsleif would’ve given up on him like the rest of the palace had, and would’ve left him to his own futile devices.
instead, dainsleif had pressed enough alcohol into the wound for diluc to see stars, and with his hands deft and steady, he pulverised the disease. diluc had allowed it, because he was fascinated, and wanted to shatter this sterling knight’s resolve, maybe just to prove the simple fact that even while broken, diluc was capable of inflicting the breaking.
it was while kneeling before diluc that dainsleif had finally looked up at him, with a stubborn glint in his cobalt blue eyes, and said, “i don’t lower myself to be kind, but to serve, and so you cannot scare me away, your highness.”
diluc hadn’t known what to say, and so he had said nothing at all. his heart gave a terrible keel at dainsleif’s words, reminding him so vividly of himself, and damn it if diluc didn’t miss that boldness, that earnest.
a featherlight graze across diluc’s wrist has him flinching, and ajax murmurs a soft apology. diluc can feel the heat of ajax’s breaths against his back, and the low timbre of ajax’s voice has diluc turning around to face him.
“you can ask me things, too,” diluc says suddenly, albeit with some effort. “if you are curious, that is.”
ajax’s sapphire eyes rake over his face like he’s committing every bit of this moment to memory. he knows how badly ajax wants to ask, and wonders if ajax in turn can tell how much diluc wishes to be asked.
“your hair,” ajax says quietly. “how?”
“foxglove,” he mutters, shelving away how ajax’s eyes widen, ever so slightly. “the palace herbalist brews a tea with wild foxglove to drain the red. i take it every night.”
“why?”
“it inspires less hatred,” diluc says, “when they can’t tell who i am, and for those who can, it makes it easier to ignore. a ragnvindr shouldn’t flaunt his presence.”
his hands card through his hair, absentmindedly untangling at the knots that have begun to form.
the first chalice of the tea had rendered him bedridden for three days and three nights, but when he roused, diluc found his hair the colour of snow. the maids had looked at him like they’d borne witness a miracle.
the royal physician had promised the emperor that the foxglove would not kill him, not as long as he kept drinking it, until diluc’s body grew resistant of the poison. expectantly, kaeya had thrown a fit at the proposition, swearing it was treason to poison an alberich, no matter the reason.
“kaeya was always sweet to me,” diluc admits, sighing wistfully. “he has a strong sense of justice, and even if it is naïve, it is hard not to be endeared by it. i don’t think anyone loves me as fiercely as him.”
“it was meant to be his wedding,” ajax says, and diluc waves away the implication.
“i love him just as fiercely,” he defends, too mild to be argumentative. “i would never want him to forsake his freedom like that. he has someone he loves, someone he wishes to marry. i do not.”
“that doesn’t mean that you didn’t have a right to love, or that it wouldn’t find you.”
diluc scoffs. “the only thing that’s ever found me is misfortune.”
“that’s not true.”
he glances at ajax, and regrets it the moment their eyes lock. there’s a sadness swimming in the stony sapphires of ajax’s eyes, one that diluc can’t bear the sight of.
“you should’ve just told me,” diluc deflects, shaking his head, “we wouldn’t have to do things like this if you found me before the ceremony, and–”
“would you have believed me?”
diluc frowns at the accusation. “if i knew it was you, i would.”
“you don’t think i’m a bad man?”
“i think you’re terrible. you’re brash, and unthinking, and reckless, but you remind me of better, simpler days. when times weren’t so bad.” diluc swallows, and confesses, “there's a part of me that never wants to think that you’d lie to me.”
“a lot has changed.”
“not everything.”
ajax looks away from him. he lets out a soft exhale. the thick, stifling tension between them makes its presence known in the unexplainable force that stops diluc from reaching out to him.
“it’s good, then, that i had no idea the prince i’d been sent to save was you,” he finally says, pensive.
diluc raises a brow. “why?”
“i would’ve left your kingdom in ruin,” ajax admits, not knowing, or maybe knowing exactly how those words make diluc’s heart squeeze. “you might love khaenri’ah, but i don’t forgive it for what it did to you.”
despite himself, diluc lets out a breathless laugh. “khaenri’ah does not need your forgiveness.”
“maybe not,” ajax concedes, “but you don’t need khaenri’ah’s forgiveness, either.”
diluc wants to retort, and say that he may not need it, but he wants it all the same. the shame of admitting such a thing is what has him nodding absently. he doesn’t fear ajax’s judgement, but he fears the echo that will sound in the bathhouse, his own guilt-laden voice rebounding off the walls and coming back to him, half a man and twice a fool.
08
it’s midmorning the following day when ajax returns to the inn with two horses in tow to find diluc waiting for him by the front, his arms crossed against his chest.
he’s wearing a loose-fitting white blouse that’s tucked into the seam of his pants, exposing the line of his collarbones. the length of his golden hair is plated into a braid that falls over his shoulder, and the red veil is still tied to diluc's wrist, the sight of it forcing a prick of annoyance in ajax.
tugging at it lightly, ajax asks in lieu of a greeting, “why carry this?”
diluc ignores him in favour of stepping forward to affectionately graze his knuckles against one of the horses. his eyes soften into something tender, and ajax can’t stand the sight of it.
“where did you get them?”
“adhara’s village chief is plenty resourceful.” when diluc turns to look at him, regarding him strangely, ajax adds, “as am i.”
diluc casts him a sharp look. he narrows his eyes. “you sold your bassinet?”
ajax blinks, keeping his surprise private. he didn’t want to barter it off, but found it more tolerable than giving away any of his blades.
feigning indifference, he says, “we needed the silver.”
“you should’ve told me,” diluc insists. there’s a furrow to his brows ajax wants to press his thumb to and smooth out. “it shouldn’t be you alone making the sacrifices.”
“i think we should keep the little gems on your golden hand for real emergencies,” ajax replies, smiling when diluc’s lips part open in surprise. uneasily, he shifts his golden hand, and ajax takes the two missing emeralds as confirmation. “the innkeeper told me you paid for our board. you didn’t have to, princeling.”
diluc looks up at him, something hard set and stubborn in the dark of his eyes. “i won’t leverage my brother’s kindness. i don’t need him to clean up after me.”
“that's not what i meant,” ajax says, teasing. “you ought to leverage mine.”
“always the charmer,” diluc scoffs. the tips of his ears burn red and ajax’s grin widens at the sight.
they agree to set their course for the bustling port east of southern khaenri’ah, where the pair will leave for sumeru by ship. at the very least, the journey would take seven days and seven nights, and when ajax tells diluc as such, the other man peers down at the fraying map and frowns.
“there are no nearby towns for most of the length if we take this route,” diluc comments, turning to look at him.
“it’s our fastest option.” ajax cocks a brow. “you're not afraid of a little wilderness, are you?”
“of course, not,” diluc grouses, “but we’ll need food, and we might need shelter should it rain.”
a compromise lands in the form of alternative path that falls past some smaller villages and the like, with a running river for half of the road as a source of both food and water.
on horseback, the sun shines down on them like a merciless glare, and sweat clings to their skin, but a lightness settles within ajax as idle chatter ebbs and flows between them. diluc, with his bright eyes set on the grand horizon far beyond, and ajax with his eyes trained on him.
like this, he feels like he’s getting a glimpse into what once was, what it would’ve been like to stand by the knight of flowers. he envies all of diluc’s men, men who’ve seen in diluc’s cerise eyes the steely resolve of a battle-hardened commander. ajax thinks he might’ve thrown himself on enemy lines just to be on the other end of that fire, to bear witness with fresh eyes what diluc looks like when he’s fighting to kill.
what were you like? ajax so wishes to ask, just so he can paint a clearer portrait for him to keep, but he doesn’t want for diluc’s relaxed shoulders to straighten into something stiff. so, he just keeps looking.
diluc, feeling the weight of his stare, turns to face him. there’s caution in his eyes, like he’s debating whether to speak.
pink tongue coming to wet the corner of his mouth, diluc finally asks, “how did you cross paths with him? prince aether?”
ajax smirks. “how long has that been on your mind?”
diluc frowns. “i’m asking now, am i not?”
“you are,” ajax concedes, preening at the attention, before he shakes his head. “we met only a handful of weeks ago in sumeru. i didn’t even realise he was noble, much less khaenri’ahn royalty. i was in the market square after an awful job in avidhya, and i was having a bad day, and he made it something worse. if you ask me, the prince was itching for a brawl as much as i was.”
“you’re serious?”
“yes!” ajax insists at the look of disbelief on diluc’s face. “his beastly little companion accused me of being a swindler.”
“companion?” diluc asks, confused.
“there was a child with him,” ajax explains. “an orphan that the prince met in his time away from khaenri’ah. she’s a character, to put it lightly, but aether is very fond of her. i suppose she’s something of a makeshift sister.”
“i thought he died.” there’s a clench to diluc’s jaw. “i attended his funeral. the princess might not be who i thought she was, but her devastation was genuine. what has he been doing in sumeru all the while?”
in their time together, aether spoke in extent of the corruption that took root in khaenri’ah, and by proxy in his own clan. yet, for all he lamented on power-hungry elders and spineless cousins, he seldom spoke of his twin.
ajax suspected that the soreness of that hurt had yet to subside, and when he had first seen her – the princess lumine – ajax was surprised by just how much she looked like aether, enough that it made sense that the pain of losing her would bloom fresh each time the prince would peer into a mirror and have looking back all he’d been missing.
“i didn’t pry,” ajax prefaces, “but from what i could piece together, the prince didn't take his departure lightly. it upset him as much as it did her. even when i met him, all that plagued him in the abyss seemed to follow after him, like some intangible burden he couldn’t seem to shake off. to be frank, i wasn’t interested in his game of politics. he promised good money, and seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. that was all the convincing it took.”
prince aether had left him with a bloody mouth and a black eye and told him that all he needed was a favour. it was just his luck that ajax lived off the trade of favours, and more importantly, he saw in aether an allure that only belonged to those cherry-picked by the heavens. attribute it to hindsight, but even if ajax had no idea some foreign prince would point him to the man of deepest longing, he’d known he would be a fool to turn down the job.
diluc is quiet for a moment. “and all he asked was for you to take me?”
“he wanted the wedding called off. said he didn’t wish for his sister to have blood on her hands.” ajax lets out a soft sigh. “he did it for her. the princess.”
“she must’ve known,” diluc mutters. “she must have known her brother was out there.”
ajax studies diluc’s face. “you think she should have gone after him?”
“it’s her brother,” diluc says, something resolute in his voice. “how could she not? what good could there lie in khaenri’ah when her twin is someplace still within reach?” looking troubled, he mutters, “i can't wrap my head around it – this realisation that i don't know the princess at all, that i never did.”
“diluc,” ajax starts, “she didn’t want you knowing.”
“but if i did,” diluc says, sounding thoughtful, “if i made the effort to know her, do you think she’d still...?”
“what?” ajax prompts, letting out a disbelieving laugh. “are you asking me if you could’ve changed her mind by falling in love with her?”
the bitterness that he feels finds its way woven into his words, and it isn’t the time to be petty, isn’t the time to feel the burn of jealousy. diluc has always been kind, and its kindness that has him wishing he could have saved lumine like he wishes he could have saved everyone else he managed to force into the unending domain of his heart.
“not love,” diluc argues, “understanding. lumine – she was just kaeya’s age when they were engaged to one another. i don’t know what made her into what she is now, but without her brother, who did she have by her side? who could’ve seen her as anything other than an exploit?”
“always a knight in shining fucking armour,” ajax scoffs. “you should first consider that maybe the princess was born a rotten apple.”
"no one is born rotten.”
“oh, but they are,” ajax insists, brows drawing together. “some people are made wrong, and so they grow up wrong, and no matter how much the wrongness festers, there’s nothing that can be done to fix it. leopards cannot change spots, and apples cannot un-grow rot.”
he glances at diluc, and seeing the firmly held defiance in the dark of his eyes, ajax sighs. “you have a good heart, far better than most. i cannot understand why this troubles you so, but i’m sorry that it does.”
for a moment, diluc doesn’t say anything, and the steady rhythm of hooves beating against the earth fill the space between them. then, he sighs.
“don’t be,” diluc mutters, so quiet that ajax barely catches it, “but just so you know, you never needed any fixing. i liked you as you were.”
...
by nightfall, they take refuge inside a crowded tavern.
“were you popular with the ladies of the high court?” ajax asks, if only to make diluc bite out a scathing retort.
the pair are seated by the corner, and the jostle and sound of bodies and chatter drown out in the periphery. here, not a soul cares for anything but the music that courses through the walls, and they are granted their privacy all in plain sight.
across from him, diluc pulls a face.
“i had a betrothed,” he reminds, dry.
“that hasn’t stopped people before,” ajax comments wryly, smiling when diluc makes an affronted noise. “what? i once stood guard for an inazuman baroness, and half of the so-called intruders i was keeping away were paramours!”
“inazuma, you say,” diluc muses. “that’s a long ways from home. where hasn’t the foxglove knight been?”
ajax wrinkles his nose at the title. he had mentioned it offhandedly, and to his surprise, diluc had found the coincidence amusing. poison is poison , he said, almost wistful, but the flower really is quite pretty .
“the world is my oyster, luc,” ajax boasts. “i make morepesok the exception. i haven’t gone back there since i left the queensguard. you can say i spare my ma and the grannies the trouble.”
“where’s home, then?”
ajax raps his knuckle against his chest twice. “i’m all the home i need.”
“doesn’t it get lonely?” diluc asks quietly.
“i see new faces every day,” ajax answers, sobering. “not just faces of people, but faces of the earth, too. my memory hardly does the journeys i’ve traversed the necessary justice, but i don’t imagine myself lonely. i think i’m free. free to roam to foreign taverns in foreign lands, and free to leave as i please.”
“is that what you like?” ajax meets the heat of diluc’s stare. “no strings attached?”
ajax doesn’t appreciate the implication, and makes it known through the sharpness of his smile.
“yes. that is what i like.”
diluc, ever the expert in making him bite his tongue and regret opening his mouth, questions, “that goes for us, too?”
diluc knows the answer to that question. ajax is sure of it. enough so that he leans back into the wooden stool and takes another swig of his beer. he finds the taste leaving much to be desired, but sits up straighter, setting the tanker mug down.
“of course,” ajax says, his eyes crinkling. “i’m with you till you’re safe in sumeru, and then i’ll have my life back, and you, yours.”
diluc fingers tap against the rim of his own drink, untouched. “okay.”
not fond of the imminent bitterness, ajax changes the subject.
“was it a lonely life in the palace?”
“no,” diluc says, after a beat. “before i lost my hand, i had men of my own i commanded, and nobles i’d meet in extravagant galas. the galas lessened after i lost my hand, and ceased entirely after the late emperor passed. even then, i was not alone. i had the empress dowager, kaeya, and dainsleif.”
“dainsleif?”
“my knight attendant,” he clarifies. “the late emperor assigned him to be my retainer. he is a dear friend.”
there is a palpable softness to his words that makes ajax’s gut coil into knots. it should placate him, to know that those years in hallways spanning longer than morepesok’s town square weren’t spent in isolation, to know that diluc had someone by his side. still, just the image of another man in diluc’s orbit, one that diluc trusted enough to keep close, it upsets ajax.
“he must be a man more stubborn than yourself to earn your friendship,” ajax comments, and diluc laughs.
“he certainly is,” diluc agrees. a small smile spreads on his lips. “he’s also a very capable swordsman.”
“better than you?”
diluc presses his lips together. his gaze locks with ajax’s. his eyes clouded by an emotion too muddled for ajax to pick apart.
“that’s hard to say. we’ve never sparred.”
“okay,” ajax allows, before he leans further back into his chair. “is he better than me?”
diluc snorts. “he’s good. you should have met him. dain would hate you, i’m sure of it, but it would be a wonder of a match.”
“not interested,” ajax drawls, crossing his arms against his chest. “this knight of yours sounds like rather dreadful company.”
there is a raise of a brow but diluc’s answer is cut off by the sound of a body crashing against something solid and hard, and when ajax snaps his head to the source, he realises that a bar fight has just broken out. there is a clatter of toppling stools, slurred curses spewed, and before a broken bottle of cheap wine can kiss the head of someone unfortunate, ajax is grabbing diluc by the wrist and pulling him away.
outside, the chill of dusk makes ajax kiss his teeth, and when he turns to his side, diluc is already looking at him.
“do you have an aversion to fights?” diluc asks, something barely teasing, but teasing enough.
“a penchant for getting involved, more like,” ajax laughs, and because diluc is feeling generous, ajax dares to tug them to an open bonfire.
and maybe it’s the burning embers, and the tangerine hue that washes over diluc, making him look something of a distant, fond memory. or maybe, it is the pull and pulse and lull of an open fire, and a heat that confuses him, makes him imagine the heat of the forgiving sun. but whichever it is, ajax feels pried open, feels baited enough into a false comfort, and so he says, “i wrote to you, you know.”
he regrets it the moment diluc meets his gaze, and the look in his eye is nothing reminiscent of a distant past. it’s a dejection that could only belong to the present.
“i burned all your letters,” diluc says, and the admission makes ajax’s heart sink. “i didn’t want to hear of how you were doing in zapolyarny. i didn’t want to imagine what it must’ve felt like to be you, not when back in the barracks, i was stuck as myself.”
casting diluc a furtive glance, ajax bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste iron.
“and then i became a knight. a proper one, with an emperor to serve and people to protect, and it seemed like for once, everything i’d suffered had finally amounted to something. khaenri’ah was kind to me. little children by the gates of the capital liked weaving flowers into my hair, said i was their hero. me. can you believe that? i thought that this was it for me. everything that my life and all its grievances had been leading up to.”
there’s a fragile smile playing on the curve of diluc’s lips as he speaks, and the sight of it is so devastating that ajax’s fingers curl up to fists by his side.
he doesn’t speak, doesn’t know how to convey his fury without meaningless words because he already knows what must come next, what could only give reason to the fact that diluc had been a knight without a blade on the day of the wedding, that the hand that ajax had pressed a kiss to some eight years ago lied severed some place faraway, rotting and abandoned.
“it’s a funny thing, how much idle time i had when i lost my hand. i couldn’t do a lot of what i used to, and so i’d pass the time thinking about useless things like how i wish i’d written back to you when i still could.” diluc casts him a forlorn look, and a weak smile spreads on his lips. “you can laugh. i’d laugh, too, but.”
cautious, ajax prompts, “but?”
“it’s not funny at all,” diluc admits. “not to me.”
“if you had written back, what would you have said?”
a greedy question, but ajax wants to know more than he cares to conceal his desperation. no matter how much growing up he does, it’s like diluc has a way to make him feel eight years younger, and a lifetime naiver, yet just as starstruck.
diluc clicks his tongue. brow raised, he asks, “you’re seriously asking?”
ajax doesn’t trust himself to speak, and he knows that diluc understands. maybe diluc understands far too much, for he takes one look at ajax – ajax, in his open, imploring, desperation – and scowls.
“don’t look at me like that. it wouldn’t have been anything you wanted to hear. i was angry, so i would’ve told you that i hated you for leaving, even though i promised you that i wouldn’t. the barracks were awful once you left.” swallowing, diluc lets out a dry laugh. “maybe they were always awful.”
“it was awful out there, too,” ajax says quickly.
diluc’s features slacken, just minutely.
“yes, well,” he mutters, “isn’t that how it always is? it’s awful everywhere.” he lets out a short breath, and muses, “i suppose i’d never say anything like that back then.”
“it’s a whole lot easier believing in the goodness of the world when you don’t see the bad,” ajax says, and stiffens when diluc chucks a stray pebble at him.
“we did see the bad,” diluc disagrees. defeated, he says, “it just didn’t make us any wiser.”
“why did we have to be wise? we were children. the bad things would have happened regardless. why should we live dreading badness? was it so terrible to hope?”
diluc doesn’t answer him, and so ajax continues, “the tsaritsa’s guard was vile, and i had never been more a wretched man than when i’d answer to her every beck and call like a dog. i thought that it’d be worth enduring it, when it meant that my family would get gold and silvers for every throat i slit.”
he lets out a mirthless laugh. “then she killed my brother, and it dawned on me how little my years of service mattered.”
tensing, diluc asks, “teucer?”
“no. not anthon, or alexei, either.” he swallows, says, “it was nikita.”
diluc doesn’t say anything, just continues to look aghast, and so ajax continues, “you know he never liked me. he’d been the one to convince pa to send me over to the wall, and i’m sure if it came to, he’d do it again. still, i didn’t think... well, i didn’t think it’d ever be him.”
“what did you do?”
of zapolyarny palace, what ajax remembers most vividly is the perpetual chill of the floors. with his knee against the ground, and his head kept low, he remembered how his skin would prickle. snezhnaya was his home, and he’d grown up kissing more blizzards than girls, but even still, the palace had a freezing bite he could never acclimate to.
even then, ajax didn’t fear the tsaritsa, but revered her like he did as an awestruck child. he believed her to be a faultless creature, and foolishly, he believed that he meant something to her. winter after winter, she hardened him into an unfeeling soldier, and ajax allowed it, thought it would make him a better knight, a nobler servant.
his sightless faith crumbled the day he stood outside the door to a cottage belonging to a girl no older than his elder sister, sasha. the girl was with child, a child that would be born into a harsh world unknowing of how he was the bastard son of the previous tsar, one destined to lead a life weaned on poison, and ajax was meant to kill him before he could ever taste the light of daybreak, or feel the touch of his own mother.
the tsaritsa hadn’t had to coax ajax into saying yes, because she’d already told him that he was doing good, that a snezhnaya ruled by anyone else but her was a snezhnaya doomed for ruin. treason, it would be, if he refused. a betrayal to his own motherland.
yet, standing before that girl, and her copper orange hair and young, sweet face, ajax felt weakness like he never felt before. it had been pouring, and rainwater matted his hair, and the girl, that foolish girl, had let him inside.
at a distant clap of thunder, she had patted her belly, and murmured to ajax not unlike a secret, my little baby is scared of storms .
the knife laid flush against his hip, but ajax only thought of this baby who’ll never be kissed by the fall of rain, and found he couldn’t plunge it into the swell of this girl’s belly, or even stomach the thought. he’d skinned foals, snapped the delicate necks of songbirds, but ajax had felt like a child who’d never seen cruelty in the eye for the way he just stood there, sick.
so, it was cold floors he sunk to, and when the tsaritsa had stepped forward, tipping his chin up to look at her, ajax had shivered. her eyes, dark and consuming, were unblinking. she called him soft, told him that girl and her bastard would have to die, anyway, and ajax hadn’t answered. he’d already taken them somewhere far and unreachable.
“i disobeyed, and two days later, ma’s written in to say that nikita was arrested by fatui. they said it was because he committed treason, but i knew the truth, just like my parents knew.” ajax runs a hand through the short tufts of his hair, continuing, “it didn’t matter if i knew the truth, ‘cause when i reached the holding site, he’d been killed, and at his funeral, it was first time pa had seen me in years, and he just grabbed me by the throat and told me to spit out what the hell i did.”
diluc’s face darkens. “and the rest of your family?”
ajax runs a hand along his jaw. “they’re alive. the tsaritsa wouldn’t kill them all. not ma or pa, or the little ones.”
“how do you know?”
ajax smiles bitterly. “they have their replacement. anthon’s a prodigy like me. he’s mastered archery, and he’s only just eight. they’re going to use him like they used me, and as long as he’s useful, they’ll be okay, and i know they’ll be okay, because anthon is better than me.”
there’s a furrow to diluc’s brows. “they’ll break him like how they broke you.”
ajax bristles. “i’m not broken.”
diluc, unfazed by his sudden anger, only frowns. “shouldn’t you break the cycle?”
ajax might’ve first laid eyes on little anthon the day he was a mere baby, with his cheeks coloured pink and mouth wailing from the newness of the world, but nikita had seen ajax too, hadn’t he? before the wrongness found root in him, or the devil started speaking to him, as his babushka liked to say, ajax had just been a boy too, had he not?
or maybe he was simply born a ruined thing, and nikita had seen it, and so had his pa, and his ma, even if she pretended she didn’t. maybe he took too much delight in chasing deer, squealed a little too loud when nikita and alexei would take him hunting, and so it meant that he had to be sent to the barracks where there were no birds to catch or elk to shoot, and just a barrenness that complemented the dimness of his eyes.
but anthon was better, and so he got to skip nod krai and its badness, and was taken straight to zapolyarny where he would not know the taste of winter rations, where he would never hunger. his curiosity was never off-putting, and he never wandered off into dark, twisting woodlands, and never got lost amidst the bark and mist, like stupid boys tended to do.
diluc thinks ajax should save him from the badness that lurks in zapolyarny, the badness that presents itself as goodness, but ajax was born wrong. he never learnt how to tell the two apart. anthon doesn’t want saving, and least of all from him.
“i’m not a fucking martyr,” he snaps. “i don’t care to die valiantly.”
when ajax looks at diluc, he sees the exact moment his vermillion eyes dim, like a fire put out by a flash flood, like the last remaining hope of an ajax romanov left untainted by selfish desire coming to face with the ajax romonov that stands in his place – a man governed by desire alone.
09
a terrible storm brews the third day on the road.
ajax sits across the fireplace in the only vacant lodging they could find and rainwater drips from his damp hair onto the bridge of his nose. the crackling of firewood is interrupted by a distant roar of thunder, and ajax thinks that they might just have to waste the entire day inside.
“you're getting water all over the floors,” comes the low baritone of diluc’s voice from behind him.
“it’ll dry,” ajax says, gruff.
diluc settles on the divan facing him, his legs spread apart, as he wrings out the wetness clinging to his darkened locks. his torso is bare, and ajax allows himself to rake his eyes across the smooth expanse of diluc's chest, the tone of muscle down his abdomen. diluc might think himself a disgrace to knighthood, but ajax knows what a seasoned warrior looks like, knows that there’s more to battle than spinning a pretty sword.
he keeps these thoughts to himself because diluc is fond of his pity parties, and ajax is coming upon the bitter discovery that they’ve grown more dissimilar in their time apart than he’d care to admit.
he doesn’t regret jumping headfirst to what could’ve been death’s door, and he would most certainly swallow an ocean’s worth of salt water again if it would mean he could pull diluc to shore, but ajax must’ve been a fool to hope that things could go back to what once was.
the man across from him loathes him.
ajax knows it, feels it in the lingering bite of diluc’s stares, the open longing for an ajax romanov that gave out the day he had to gut a man for something he did not do. it’d been his first day amidst the tsaritsa’s men, the luscious fruit for all his years’ worth of labour, and ajax, freshly nineteen, found he did not much like the taste of blood.
his family certainly believed he did, and believed it so much that ajax as a child had convinced himself the same, that the bad he did was so he wouldn't do something worse. if he was going to hurt things, and break things, and leave ruin, then it only made sense for a boy like him to be given daggers and knives so he’d never come upon the discovery that his hands made for pretty weapons, too.
only in adulthood, ajax found that brandishing a shiny sword did not excite him, not when the people he would maim and mar and slay only had their shaking hands raised in surrender as a weapon. their hands, that could not tear and gouge like his could. their hands which had no dirt beneath their fingernails, no splinters kissing the knobs of their knuckles.
clearly, it was not blood that fuelled him all those years in the barracks, it was battle. but life in the queensguard was nothing of a battlefront. it was a slaughterhouse, and the swine could plead with their large, wet eyes, drooping and sorry and defenseless, but ajax would not save them, like he had done nothing to save the cattle and the sheep and the poultry.
“you’re staring,” diluc says, his eyes dark and large and encompassing.
he’s looking at ajax the way he always seems to look at ajax, like he’s scrutinising every inch of him, like gauging if there’s anything left to salvage.
a lesser man would look away, but ajax meets the fervour of his stare and wishes not for the first time that the times never became as bad as they did and he could relive those childhood summers over and over again, through all the rough, and all the hurt, and all the mundane, just to have that diluc again, and to be that ajax again.
“so are you,” ajax answers, his words slow and pointed.
diluc scowls, muttering something ajax can’t catch. ajax wants to kiss him, and thinks he’ll be given a black eye if he tries. it does nothing to stifle the want.
the thick tension only continues to unfurl as the sun sets, and ajax decides to turn in for an early slumber. he settles on the settee by the window, his legs curling into his chest as he fluffs up an old pillow.
from the canopy bed, diluc quietly watches him in that moody, brooding way of his which ajax would have once found charming but now considers inscrutable.
having seen enough of ajax trying to fit himself into the confines of a tiny settee, he says, “just take the bed.”
“i took it the night before,” ajax dismisses, lying down on his back, and covering his eyes with his arm. “i’m no quivering maiden. you don’t have to concern yourself with my comfort.”
“then stop being so blatant with your discomfort,” diluc grouses. there’s a deep sigh. “come.”
ajax squints over at the other man. the lit candle by the bedside paints diluc’s silhouette in an amber that reminds him of marmalade from back in morepesok, that rich bitter tang, and the childishness of the comparison has him huffing, and pushing himself up. he misses the taste of home, even all the dishes he detested.
diluc blows the light out, and the bed creaks beneath their shared weight, and like everything that exists between the two of them, the present scene is so doused in nostalgia, so belonging to a time of the past. they’d have their fights back then, too. a week without talking, a month of quiet, bubbling resentment. what dance have they not yet learnt the steps to?
back pressed against the soft bedding, and eyes staring into the open dark, ajax can feel every rise and fall of diluc’s chest next to his, like it’s his body and his lungs.
their shoulders don’t touch, but diluc’s hair ghosts the knob of his elbow. ajax’s fingers furl and unfurl, restless in knowing that mere inches away rests another hand, close enough to reach, but further away than it’s been in a lifetime.
“what do you do when you can’t sleep?”
ajax feels the way diluc shifts beside him, his back turning to face ajax’s shoulder. he thinks diluc isn’t going to answer.
rough from exhaustion, diluc murmurs, “i count horses.”
ajax swallows. his eyes, still open, imagines the night sky in place of the dark ceilings. “really?”
“we used to have them, back in the winery.” there’s a brief pause. “i don’t think of mondstadt, and there is a lot i cannot remember, but when exhaustion creeps in, i always go back to the horses. i count them over and over again, trace and retrace the pattern of their coats, and all else of that time might be in ruin, but i’ll never forget the mares and stallions and foals. i like to think that they’re wild horses now, even though i know they’re not.”
“but they could be,” ajax whispers, enchanted and devastated and thoroughly wrecked by this picture diluc paints.
“yeah,” diluc answers, just as soft. “they could be.”
...
when ajax awakes, it’s to find the other side of the bed empty, and in the sanctity of utter solitude, he crawls over to the outline of a warm body no longer there and presses close to the warmth that lingers. skin to hollow space, he lets that barely-there trace of rosemary and leather caress the roughness of his cheek, the way diluc had wanted to, but did not.
act iii. sympathy is a knife
10
because he is ajax romanov, and quietness has never known him, the madness of a life on the road catches up to him soon after.
knelt over a babbling brook, ajax cups his hands and gulps back fresh water, uncaring of the way it trickles down his jaw, dampens his tunic.
by his side, his steed drinks up its fill, making small noises of contentment, and though ajax has grown fond of its subdued temperament, he did not name it
he knows diluc named his, calls his spotted beauty aspen, in that quiet, soothing voice of his, because diluc ragnvindr can be gentle if he wants to, can be so tender that it’ll make a lesser man keel over, and what is ajax romanov but lesser in the face of a brilliance like that?
wiping his mouth with the back of his arm, ajax stands up and dries his hands against the seam of his pants. ajax doesn’t know where diluc ventured off to, and he thinks of calling out to him, telling him that they ought to get moving, but the lightning-fast bolt of an arrow, followed by the sound of his horse squealing has his shoulders straightening, alert.
the agitated equine bolts, and before ajax can rush forth to pull it back by the reins, a searing burst of pain blooms in the meat of his flesh. letting out a low curse, he curls into himself, raising his arm to find an arrow pierced through his skin.
distantly, he registers the snapping of a branch, and before his hand can ghost the hilt of his sword, a calloused hand is pushing him to his knees with a force that he doesn’t expect. baring his teeth like an animal, ajax snaps his head upwards, ready to snarl and bite and halting only when he stares down an arrow that could tear through his eye quicker than ajax can blink.
“stay down,” growls the man, crossbow in hand.
he has dark shaggy hair that makes the light of his eyes gleam like moonlight in a midnight sky, his face twisted into a harsh scowl, the sort of face you’d see on tattered wanted posters outside of shoddy inns. by his side stands a younger girl, and where the man brings with him ferocity, she wields all the reckless trouble. she looks just like him, and ajax thinks they must be brother and sister.
letting out a shaky breath, ajax sinks to his knees, praying to any god that cares to listen that diluc deserted his pretty principles where they were better left, and left ajax to deal with this himself. fraying jute digs into the skin of his wrists as the man binds both of ajax’s hands together.
“where’s the rest of you?”
gritting his teeth, ajax answers, “it’s just me.”
“how unfortunate,” the girl coos. “i’ll take pity on you if you’re generous. come, fork up whatever it is you have. don’t be stingy!”
ajax kisses his teeth with his tongue. “everything i had is currently bolting through these woods, frightened out of its wits. if you give chase, i reckon you could reach her by tomorrow.”
a sudden strike to the jaw has ajax staggering back, wincing hard. tasting the coarse tang of iron in his mouth, ajax spits out fresh blood. when he looks up, the man is gazing down at him like ajax is the filth coating the underside of his boots.
“take his blade,” the man mutters, and in compliance, the girl unsheathes the sword in ajax’s scabbard, sucking in a sharp breath as she runs a finger along its glistening surface. blood beads at the pad of her fingertip, and she licks the cut clean.
“this is some blade,” she marvels, looking at ajax with interest in her eyes. a delighted smile spreads on her lips. “must've cost a pretty penny.”
the man narrows his eyes. to ajax, he demands, “what are you?”
“knight,” ajax says, biting back a grimace when the girl snickers.
“where’s your suit of armour?” the man asks.
“sold it off.”
“why?”
eyes flitting between twin faces of derision, ajax shrugs. “i needed the money.”
“a knight with no horse, no armour, and no pride,” the girl mutters, before casting a sidelong glance at her brother. “i’m starting to feel a little bad for him, annan.”
“quiet, thangachi,” the man warns, before peering closer at ajax. “i know you. you’re the man that destroyed the lotus house, and stole the abyss’s bridegroom.”
“what?” ajax asks, disbelieving, just as the sister demands, “ him?”
“your weapon,” the man says, before shoving the crossbow into his sister’s hands, and taking ajax’s sword. “this is not khaenri’ahn metalwork. sandhya, don’t you see? this man is snezhnaya’s fox devil.”
“foxglove knight,” ajax corrects.
“where’s the prince?” sandhya exclaims, ignoring him. in her excitement, she waves the crossbow, letting out a slight cough of embarrassment when her brother gives her a sharp look. “vihaan and i have been looking for the emperor’s brother ever since news broke of his capture!”
ajax frowns, growing wary at the mention of diluc. “why?”
“ why? ” she echoes, incredulous, “do you know much gold is on the line? half the nation is in search for him ever since that village chief in adhara claimed to have seen him!”
“thank you, sandhya,” vihaan mutters, pushing his sister away. “foxglove knight. where are you keeping the ragnvindr captive?”
ajax can allow his sword to be handled like a plaything, can tolerate his dignity being questioned. what he can’t have are people thinking diluc is something of his to take.
feigning nonchalance, he says, “i lost him.”
vihaan scoffs. “a prince is an expensive thing to lose.”
“why else would i barter off my things?” ajax drawls, fighting the desire to resort to break free of his binds and resorting to fisticuffs. “i don’t have him on a leash.”
“i don’t believe you.” the sword he wields comes close to ajax’s throat, flush against the line of his neck. “i’d be a fool if i did. you risked an entire kingdom’s wrath for the man. you wouldn’t allow his escape.”
ajax tilts his neck away from the cool press of steel. “moment of weakness,” he grunts.
a flash of anger in vihaan’s eyes is all the warning he gets before the arrow through his arm is pushed deeper through. ajax lets out a guttural sound, keeling over in pain. taking in a ragged breath, he lets out a low curse.
“i can tell when you lie,” vihaan snarls. “take us to the ragnvindr.”
the pain makes his tongue feel heavy. still, ajax finds the clarity to probe, “what’ll you do to him?”
sandhya parts her mouth open in response, pressing her lips together when her brother shakes his head.
“you don’t need to know.” motioning for ajax to get up, he orders, “take us to him.”
shakily, ajax manages a nod. when he stands, there’s a slight tremor to his steps, and as vihaan turns his back to them, facing the road ahead, ajax leverages that sliver of opportunity to shove bodily against sandhya, so forceful that the crossbow in her hands clatters to the ground, and the two tumble onto the wild grass, a mess of body and bone.
“annan!” sandhya screams, but ajax hooks his bound wrists over her head, pressing the smooth expanse of her neck against the corded muscle of his arms and squeezing tight.
she makes a strangled sound, and when vihaan whips his head to them, there’s vivid fury coursing through the grey of his irises at the sight of his sister on the ground.
with his feet, ajax kicks away the crossbow, and warns, “kill me with my own blade if you want, but don’t think that i won’t take her with me.”
sandhya’s fingernails dig into the skin of his arms, her feet kicking uselessly against the hard of the ground in futile purchase, and the picture only paints a more gruesome image for vihaan who lets out a roar, raising ajax’s sword, and ajax holds his breath.
except, the sword doesn’t meet its natural trajectory to cut into the tough of his skin, and ajax stares as solid rock bashes the back of vihaan’s head with a violent sound, and the force of it has the man jolting, falling to the ground with a dull thud.
behind him, diluc stands tall with a stony look in his eyes. his thick, strong brows are furrowed together, smoothening into something relieved at the sight of ajax. in his raised hands, a bloodied rock the size of his own head.
against him, the sight of her fallen brother and the victor has sandhya writhing in his hold, like a newfound desperation has possessed her.
“ vihaan!” she gasps, and ajax hadn’t realised she’d been crying until he feels the first teardrop falling against his arm.
the corners of diluc’s mouth pull downwards, and he is quick to cut the binds holding ajax’s arms together with a knife he pulls from his boot. sandhya attempts to fight, thrashing viciously the moment ajax releases her, but with one hand, diluc delivers a swift blow that renders her unconscious.
letting out a soft grunt, ajax untangles his body from hers, catching his breath as he lets his back fall against the ground.
above him, the woodland canopy blocks harsh sunlight from blinding his eyes. it’s uncomfortable, with rocks and dirt digging into the soft of his back, but ajax evens his breathing, eyes locking with diluc’s when the man steps into his line of sight.
“where were you?”
there’s a hard set to diluc’s jaw as he lowers himself. he doesn’t answer ajax’s question, and instead cradles ajax’s face with a startling gentleness.
uncharacteristically docile, ajax allows diluc to angle his face to the side, and tries not to get drunk on how beautiful diluc looks when he plays hero, when righteous anger colours the planes of his sunkissed face.
“i’m sorry i didn’t get here sooner,” he says, softer than ajax expects.
“i had it covered,” ajax deflects, just as quietly. “i’m just unhappy that they scared off nutmeg.”
diluc frowns. “you named her?”
“no, you did,” he murmurs, and it must be the look on diluc’s face, like he’s coming upon something he’s never before noticed, that has ajax feeling strange. “don’t look at me like that. i just overheard. that’s all.”
“okay,” diluc allows, “we’ll find her, then. nutmeg. she wouldn’t stray too far without aspen.”
absent-mindedly, ajax nods. some inches away, sandhya’s dark hair tickles against his skin. prodding at her with the sole of his shoe, ajax notes the faint rise and fall of her chest.
“she’s still breathing.”
“i don’t kill women,” diluc says temperately. “it’s a matter of principle.”
rubbing a hand against his cheek, and wincing at the flash of pain that blooms in his jaw, ajax mutters, “forget your damn principles. either you kill both, or you kill neither.”
vihaan lies limp on the ground, and the blood pooling around his head form a murky halo. going over to his side, ajax crouches. fingers pressing against the damp skin of the man’s throat, wiping the grime on his pants when he feels the stutter of his weakened pulse.
when he looks up, diluc is peering down at him strangely.
“why?”
“they’re brother and sister.” ajax takes diluc’s hand and gets up. when diluc continues to look at him oddly, he prompts, “what is it?”
“you have principles, too.”
ajax shrugs away the implication. “’course i do. what do you take me for?”
feeling brave, he dares to look at diluc, and take in the way he’s piecing apart ajax in his own mind, his mind which swarms with thoughts that ajax has no way of knowing, except the desire that can’t help but make itself known through the way diluc wets his bottom lip, his perfect sharp teeth biting down on the soft of his mouth.
“a brute,” diluc answers, and he must be pleased with himself because his mouth lifts to the most darling of smiles.
“shut up,” ajax groans before he’s taking diluc by the jaw and pressing a bruising kiss against his mouth.
against him, diluc is warm and soft and just the first taste of him has ajax thinking that he could never get enough, could never pry himself off. his hands trail down the length of diluc’s body, before they hold onto his hips and squeeze. diluc grunts at the contact, and ajax uses his tongue to pry open the seam of his mouth, coaxing pretty sounds out of the man.
“there’s an arrow in you,” diluc pants, breathless when he pulls away for air.
his eyes are half-lidded, his lips spit-slick, and ajax noses along the sharp of his jaw, taking in the rich scent of earth and lye.
“i don’t care,” ajax slurs, pressing close to kiss him again. he lets out a grunt when diluc presses the rough pads of his fingertips against his mouth and pushes him away.
“it’ll get infected,” diluc hisses, and then his eyes soften as he says, “let me take care of you.”
“i don’t need to be taken care of.” he pulls diluc closer, and their heads knock together. chest to chest, eye to eye, and heart to heart, ajax lets the rough wanting overtake him, and so he says, “don’t want it either.”
“don't be so–” diluc bites down on his bottom lip, harsh enough that it draws a sharp gasp from ajax. “– difficult .”
scoffing, ajax leans away just long enough to murmur, “when have i been fucking easy?”
in retaliation, ajax mouths along the smooth column of diluc’s throat, and when diluc bares the soft skin to grant him better access, he sinks his teeth like knives into the junction where his neck meets his shoulders. diluc winces, and his grip around ajax’s arms turn iron-hot.
a flare of pain courses through his arm, enough so that he lets out a low groan of pain, rolling his head back.
“what did i say,” diluc mutters, peering closer to observe the wound. when he lifts his fingers, he finds them stained chrome from the blood trickling out where the arrowhead dug into the soft of ajax's skin. “how much does it hurt?”
ajax shrugs him off. “it doesn’t.”
narrowing his eyes, diluc gives ajax’s arm another tight squeeze, letting go when ajax closes his eyes and hisses, “ fuck , luc. don’t be cruel.”
his arm pulses like it’s grown a second heart, and ajax grits his teeth, locks his jaw. he doesn’t want to be looked after. he doesn’t want to get used to something he won’t get once their eleven odd days together are up, and ajax is alone again in a world that never stops feeling so senselessly large. ajax just wants to have diluc close to him, to map out the heat of his mouth with such diligence that it’ll brand his memory like a nasty burn.
diluc, unknowing of the extent of ajax's longing, insists, “i’m taking that thing out of you. i don’t care if you don’t want me to.”
by their camp, diluc forces a rag into ajax’s mouth and tells him to bite down. deciding to play docile, ajax does as he’s told, the ragged sounds coming from his throat stifled through the cloth. diluc’s hand is steady and expert, and once he bears through the brunt of it, ajax’s breathing evening out, he watches quietly as diluc works, notes the needle between his lips, the line of concentration across his forehead, the bead of perspiration rolling down his handsome face.
the murky red of ajax’s blood is stark against the white of diluc’s blouse, the golden of his hair, and the pearlescence of his milky skin. it paints a gory image, makes diluc look something wild, unfitting of princes and noble boys, and someone possibly deserving of him–ajax.
using his teeth to rip a strip from his own tunic, ajax watches as diluc wraps the makeshift gauze around the stitched wound, taut enough that it stings. he thinks of telling diluc why he kissed him, thinks of lying and blaming the heat of violence, how it can make anyone beautiful.
so quietly that ajax barely catches it, diluc murmurs, “are you truly leaving me in sumeru?”
“you say it like i’m abandoning you,” laughs ajax, and finds that it’s not funny.
diluc’s looks up, and he’s not smiling. “aren’t you?”
“no,” ajax answers immediately. “how can you say that?”
“i don’t know.” diluc sits up straighter, hands falling from where they were touching ajax. “forget it.”
“you’re not going to be alone. aether will be there, and all his supporters and all his allies. you know him, and he tells me you’ve known him for a very long time.” ajax tries to read the look on diluc’s face, tries to discern whether it’s anger or sadness or something else entirely he sees. “i’m not abandoning you. this is a job–”
“a job,” diluc echoes, incredulous. “a job ?”
“you know what i mean to say,” ajax defends. “you were never supposed to be you . it was meant to be some prince i didn’t bother learning the name of, from a kingdom i could care less about, with a future that mattered nothing to me.”
“but it is me,” diluc interjects darkly.
“yes, it’s you!” ajax concedes, now angry, “why must that change everything? why must that make me a bad man for keeping my end of the deal? i don’t owe you. i don’t owe you anything. i searched for you! believe me, i searched! i searched for so long that i wondered if you were even out there, and when i saw you – you, who i could never forget – of course, i’d follow after you like a fucking dog. i just didn’t think–”
“what?” diluc demands, something tight in his voice. “what did you not think?”
“that i wouldn’t be the person you were waiting for.”
a pleading quality takes over ajax’s voice, one that makes him swallow back his years of hurt to finally admit, “our time together these meagre few days, while precious, only shows how much we’ve grown into incongruent entities. we’re in different worlds entirely. i don’t have a castle to offer you, or a kingdom with horses, more than you could ever count. i don’t even have knighthood in the way you always dreamt of it. i don’t have anything to give you. what else can i do but leave you with someone who does?”
“then why are you angry?” diluc demands, his own voice raising. “if you chose this, why do you look at me like i’m the one putting you through this anguish?”
ajax frowns. “i don’t–”
“i think i know why. i think i’ve always known. you look at me, and you ask yourself, why did he never look for me? why was i the only one searching? tell me i’m lying, ajax. tell me that i’ve understood incorrectly.”
ajax, eyes wide, finds himself unable to do so. his fingers curl into themselves, and he feels a deep, distant shame.
“why didn’t you?” he asks, startlingly vulnerable.
“i moved on.” diluc looks away. “i got over it the hurt.”
ajax sucks in his cheek, bites down hard. bitterly, he mutters, “at least one of us did.”
“was i supposed to wait for you?” diluc asks candidly, and ajax tenses. “was i supposed to hold onto the hope that your life would somehow become as horrid as mine, and pray that it was that mutual withering that would bring us back together? doesn’t it sound stupid when i say it like it is?”
and ajax as much as he thinks of a diluc eight years in the past, he seldom thinks of that final memory. he thinks not of his packed bags which barely had anything at all – some old and fraying clothes, a comb he’d nicked from the nurses’ tent, a pouch of coppers and silvers. least of all would he think back to the last, haunting image of diluc.
diluc, who was then seventeen, and had a storm in his eyes that the both of them pretended not to see. diluc might have festered up the kindness to mask his bitterness, but ajax knew he wasn’t happy, and yet, they’d both danced around the matter at hand that there would be a slim chance of a future together.
ajax’s finals words hadn’t been a i guess this is it, or a i’ll see you soon , because it would’ve been too much of a truth or too much of a lie, but it was something that fell into neither, somehow worse than everything and anything else ajax could’ve said.
“i’ll miss you,” he’d murmured, and meant it so fervently that even getting the words out hurt.
diluc hadn’t answered, just stood there, in that dark, brooding way of his. he’d been like that when ajax first met him, when the spark within him had been dimmed to a hazy glow.
angling his chin to the door, diluc had muttered, “just go.”
ajax at seventeen had listened, and looked back, a long, lingering thing. diluc’s eyes had met his, before he turned away, defiant.
ajax at twenty-four now stands still, and takes in the sight of battered and weathered diluc, at how he glistens despite it.
“it was mutual withering that brought us together the first time,” he finds himself saying, pained. ajax wets his bottom lip, feels the way his heart throbs. “but it brought me to you, didn’t it?”
conjuring all the viciousness he has left, diluc tells him, “i never asked you to stay, and i never asked you to come back. you know this. you never asked me to wait, but i wouldn’t have, even if you did.”
11
amidst the lesser weeds and wild grass, diluc meanders along the river bay, watching as passing travellers cross over a distant stone bridge. deliriously, he thinks of catching a fish with his bare hands and roasting it over a fire, even though he doesn’t like the taste of fish. his hands hunger for something to do. his soul hungers for something he cannot have.
here, diluc stands equidistant from his home in the capital and the southern port, and equidistant from the point of ajax romanov barrelling back into his life, and deserting him once again.
here, he thinks of ajax’s hands on him, the plain desperation that spoke its name through the hurried press of fingers to flesh, as though they hungered for bone. he thinks of the way ajax marked his neck, and how no matter how harshly ajax bites, all reminders of him will fade like how old wounds tend to do.
it shouldn’t fill diluc with such bitterness, but it does still, and the hurt that courses through him and thrums beneath his skin is old.
ajax isn’t alone in his anguish, and the hurt that has remained bound to diluc takes the shape of ajax’s back, how he’s gazed upon the broad of those shoulders and that mess of his hair enough times for it to be burned against the back of his eyelids.
ajax, who never knew that diluc after turning away had looked back, and stole a final, longing glance. diluc, who is always following too slowly, trapped in his perpetual journey of progress and regress, and ajax, who despite it, is always leaving.
now older, and newly ashamed of his own longing, diluc tries to let ajax do the chasing, whether it’s through the unending twists and turns of the lotus house, or on horseback as aspen gallops further than nutmeg can catch up, he wants for ajax to have his gaze trained on diluc’s back, for him to see gold threads flittering against the winds like something to follow but never to reach.
most of all, he wants for ajax to believe that diluc can do the leaving, too.
so, diluc had been the one to leave ajax behind in the clearing, had been the one to ignore the blatant heartbreak in ajax's eyes as stark as daybreak in the summertime. he didn’t know where he was going, didn’t know what would come after, but privately, secretly, shamefully, diluc had wished that ajax would have followed.
the sound of a horse grunting has diluc slowing, and turning around.
at the sight of a white mare, diluc squints and frowns. he thinks the mare looks like lady, dainsleif’s equine, but that alone is an impossible notion. yet, he draws closer, and even if it's the trick of the light and a week-long exhaustion creeping into his bones, diluc wants it to be her, wants it so badly it frightens him.
the white mare, sensing his presence, and to diluc’s surprise, begins galloping toward him, making a high-pitched whinny. diluc finds himself smiling, not quite understanding the enthusiasm, not until–
“lady? where are you going?” calls out a voice that could only ever be dainsleif’s, sounding unamused.
“dainsleif?”
across from him, dainsleif stalks after lady with his mouth pulled to a frown. he’s dressed down in an ebony black tunic, his royal blue cape trailing behind him. his hair falls over his eyes, and it’s not like him to forgo the armour but diluc feels such an intense rush of relief at the mere sight of him that he doesn’t think of propriety when he runs towards him and pulls dainsleif into a tight embrace.
dainsleif is stiff at first, heavy and guarded, but his shoulders relax the moment he peers down and feels the soft of diluc’s mane brushing against his cheek, and the sight of his prince in his embrace.
“your highness,” dainsleif says, so quiet like he’s in disbelief. he squeezes diluc closer, betraying his own desperation. when he pulls away, he holds diluc by the arms, his grip firm. “your highness, what happened?”
diluc looks down at himself, the tear of his blouse, the mess of his hair, and the blood on his skin. “far too many things,” diluc admits.
large, warm hands come to hold his fingers, pressing against the dried blood. “are you hurt?”
“no,” diluc assures, “the blood isn’t mine. how did you–? how are you here?”
“his majesty saw you at the southern wing. fleets of ships searched the waters for any sign of you. i found your shoe washed ashore in adhara, and followed your trail. your highness, i’ve always known you to be reckless, but to jump into the sea? are you mad?”
there’s a deep furrow to dainsleif’s brows as he speaks, a marriage of anger and worry in his voice, and diluc holds him close once more, terribly fond.
dainsleif presses close to him, and mutters, “if you believe acting coy will placate me, you are sorely mistaken–”
“forget that,” diluc dismisses, “what happened to the wedding?”
“the wedding? why would that–?” dainsleif catches himself, lips pressing into a thin line. he lets out a short breath. “your highness, the kingdom has gone into a state of chaos in search of you. all else is secondary only to your safe return.”
“so, it’s not called off?”
mouth pulling to a terse frown, dainsleif shoots him a look of exasperation.
“his majesty nearly had the whole board of advisor’s dismissed in trying to find who took you. the wedding is the last thing on my mind, or anyone else’s for the matter. where is that damn brute that took you?”
sobering at the mention of ajax, diluc schools his features into something grim.
“dain, listen to me,” he says, “the wedding was a ploy. the princess was going to have me killed.”
at that, dainsleif pauses. there’s a look in his eye diluc can’t name. “what are you saying?”
“the abyss intends to stage a coup against the alberichs. they believe my death would leave kaeya vulnerable enough to oust.”
dainsleif narrows his eyes, mouth contorting into a scowl.
“i take that he told his highness this?” he questions, spitting out the word he like merely uttering it stains his mouth. “those are the words of your captor, your highness. you cannot be as foolish as to believe him.”
“i trust him,” diluc insists.
“you trust him?” dainsleif echoes, displeasure colouring his face. “your highness, how can you?”
“because i know him. i hadn’t realised at first––nor did he––but we were comrades back in snezhnaya’s northern barracks. i’ve known him longer than i’ve known the alberichs.”
“you knew him from nod krai?” dainsleif asks, sounding upset. “that was a decade ago! people can change in less, and can change into things you don’t need me to spell out. what stops him from lying to you now?”
“dainsleif,” diluc interrupts, growing impatient, “look at me. what do i have to give? say he wishes ill – what would he take?”
“your heart would sell in the forbidden markets for the price of a sizeable estate. your eyes – red, something belonging to the ragnvindrs and the children of xbalanque – would sell for even greater. forgive me for putting it so crassly, your highness, but there is much to take from you.”
“he jumped after me into a gaping sea all to pull me ashore,” diluc defends. “why would he do that?”
even as diluc says it, he realises that he’s genuinely asking, wondering what it is that ajax saw that had him come charging right after, wondering if the only answer diluc could think of were true, despite its impossibility because love couldn’t last that long – how could it? what could it have had those eight years to feed off?
“because you are of value to him,” dainsleif says, and when diluc parts open his lips to respond, he continues darkly, “the only people in this world who value you are those who love you, and those who want to take something from you. do not confuse the two, your highness.”
diluc frowns. “is it so hard to believe that he cares for me?”
“he placed your life in peril!”
“i did that myself!” irritation bleeds into his tone, and diluc continues, “i came here on my own volition, and i’ve stayed this long because i chose to. i don’t want to return to the capital where nobody wants me. why can’t you understand that?”
“where nobody wants you? nobody? ” dainsleif echoes, furious. “why should you care what anyone else thinks of you? why should you allow them to control you like so?”
“you’ve known me a long time, dain,” diluc mutters, “and you know exactly why.”
“but i can’t accept it,” dainsleif answers, stubborn. “your highness, you demean yourself more than anyone else ever could. can’t you see it?”
when diluc doesn’t answer, only furrows his brows, dainsleif continues, “i may have never seen you wield a sword, and i may never will, but i have seen you in all other ways that matter. you are clever, cleverer than most, and you have a mind for strategy that other rulers would hunger for a taste. don’t you recall that time when the emperor was bedridden, how wonderfully you made do as a surrogate emperor? yet, all you do is rue and lament all you’ve lost–”
“i was the best swordsman there was! undefeated!” diluc fumes, “it was no small loss!”
“i know,” dainsleif replies quietly, something akin to burning desperation swimming in the blues of his eyes, “but it would be a loss like no other to forfeit the rest of your brilliance. you can become something fearsome, diluc, something that will make an entire kingdom regret all they have done to you.”
shaking his head, diluc takes a step back. “i don’t care for their remorse. i just want to be as good as i was, dain, and you can’t give me that. nobody can.”
“i could,” dainsleif insists, holding diluc by his arm. “if you’d let me, your highness, i swear i could.”
gazing into the face of his closest friend, diluc hates that he cannot share dainsleif’s vision, cannot see what it is that he sees.
“no,” diluc refutes, scathing. “you can’t.”
the anguish in dainsleif’s eyes hardens into something steelier, like bitterness. he makes a harsh sound, something like the kissing of teeth, something not befitting his typical demeanour.
“you make things so difficult, your highness,” dainsleif mutters, and that’s all the warning diluc is granted before he strikes diluc in the abdomen, watching quietly as diluc crumples to the ground at the sudden blow.
letting out a low grunt, diluc looks up at dainsleif to have the knight gazing down back at him with a coldness in his eyes that diluc is much accustomed to, just never from him.
his mouth parts open in question, but dainselif commands, “please stay still, and stay quiet.”
sinking to one knee, dainsleif pushes diluc down against the ground with a firm hand, and the unfolding situation is so absurd that diluc knows no better than to lie pliant by the fresh grass, staring up at dainsleif who looks no different but feels terribly faraway.
“what are you doing?”
a delicate sigh leaves dainsleif’s lips, and diluc would call it pained, but knows it to be tired. “you know.”
“i don’t,” diluc answers, words coming out quicker than his understanding. “tell me.”
“you know,” dainsleif repeats, his voice growing colder, firmer. “diluc, do not lie to me. you know why i am here.”
“for me,” diluc’s voice takes on an urgent, distantly panicked quality. dainsleif never calls him anything but your highness . he doesn’t understand what’s wrong, but understands that something is wrong, and that wrongness has everything to do with himself. “you’re here for me. you’ve always been here for me.”
“for you?” something darkens in dainsleif’s eyes. “your highness, do you know why i became a knight?”
there’s something hidden in dainsleif’s words, like a shard of glass diluc can’t sift out, but he knows the answer, and he says, “your father made you. he told you it was your duty. you didn’t say no, but you wondered what would come of your life if you did. still, you are grateful for it. you like being a knight.”
dainsleif’s lips part in slight surprise before he smiles, albeit bitterly. “you remember.”
“of course, i remember,” diluc answers. “why wouldn’t i?”
for a moment, dainsleif doesn’t answer but just looks at him, a strange vacancy behind his eyes. “you can be so foolish.”
diluc’s brows draw together, but he doesn’t speak.
“have you ever fought for anything?” dainsleif asks, and from his person he pulls forth an ornate dagger that diluc had gifted him four winters ago.
it was given as a gesture of goodwill, but diluc had meant it as something more personal, more childish, like a friendship bracelet.
“have you ever thought that perhaps, everything good that had been taken from you, it had been you who had handed it away? does it make sense now, why the world scorns only you? you– always the martyr, always the victim, always the tragedy.”
and as diluc with his back pressed against the soft bed of flowers and face kissed by the gentle rays of sun gazes up at dainsleif, the blade in dainsleif’s hands pointed towards the line of diluc’s heart reflects the afternoon sunshine like a twinkling star.
ah, diluc realises, so belated it feels cruel, dainsleif is here to kill me.
“i will tell you one thing, diluc ragnvindr,” dainsleif murmurs, his voice muted and low, “i hail from the abyss, and i have never served you, nor have i ever served the alberichs.”
diluc lets out a bark of devastated laughter, and it comes off as something broken. “must you be so frank, dain?”
“it’s not personal,” dainsleif tells him, and there’s something tender in the blue of dainsleif’s eyes as he stares down at diluc, at diluc who he must have always loathed, who he must have always known as his princess’s pawn, and by proxy, his own.
“liar,” diluc whispers. “bastard. you were kind to me.”
“it’s not personal,” he repeats, and he angles his face lower, the weight of his body is as grounding as it is suffocating, and diluc hates dainsleif, hates ajax more, and hates himself most.
“was i ever your friend?”
“no,” dainsleif answers, and there should be a grand wave of thrill that overtakes him, having everything he’d feared be confirmed, but diluc feels none of it, feels like he didn’t want to know the truth, would’ve rather died by his hand and knew not a thing of it.
“but you meant something,” dainsleif admits, the closest thing diluc will get to an apology. “you meant something to me.”
intermission: to be too good too young
12
when diluc turned his back to him and stalked off, ajax hadn’t once considered letting him out of his sight. he knew diluc could find his way back, that there was no orienteer better than him, but it was for another reason entirely that ajax had followed, had kept his footsteps light and the distance between them large.
at any point, ajax could have called out for him, but he was afraid that he might scare off birds and woodland creatures, worried that he might trample upon his one chance to let diluc know that even if ajax kept saying the wrong things, that he would not shut up, not until he made it right, no matter many tries it took to cough out the true extent of his devotion.
it was only when he realised that it was not him alone coveting for the attention of one diluc ragnvindr that ajax stopped, and watched as the two embraced, as the man wrapped his arms around diluc’s waist, how diluc buried his face into the crook of his shoulder.
there was desperation to the touch, and tenderness, how diluc pulled away and studied the face of a man he must love, and ajax, stood shrouded by the shade of woodland green, felt like a voyeur, felt like he wasn't meant to bear witness what diluc ragnvindr looked like when his eyes held unbridled affection and not an old, poaching anger.
the man must’ve been the famed twilight sword. dainsleif.
ajax ought to have turned away, but he was afraid of looking away and looking back, frantic and desperate, all to find that diluc had left. he was afraid that dainsleif could coax diluc someplace ajax wouldn’t be able to find him, and most of all, he was afraid that diluc wouldn’t need any coaxing at all, would follow after him gladly.
so he stood and watched, and when diluc landed on the soft grass with his glistening hair askew, and dainsleif had lowered himself in suit, his body above diluc’s, ajax had drawn out his hungry blade, uncaring of what secret conversation the two were having, uncaring of how diluc allowed dainsleif to press him down, only thinking that diluc wasn’t dainsleif’s to take.
the blade poised with the intent to strike causes something violent to rupture in the deep of ajax’s gut, something that tells ajax that he’ll never have diluc again if he’s taken away like this.
fight back , he thinks, but the look on diluc’s face is torn between wretched despair and a glassy hollowness and so ajax charges forth with a fierceness he hadn’t felt in a long time, and as if sensing a looming, dangerous force, dainsleif with his agility and might drives the sword right through diluc’s heart.
the scream that erupts might have been diluc’s as much as it might have been cried out from ajax’s own lips, and by then the savage buzzing in his head erupted into a crazed roar, and he was tackling dainsleif to the wild grass. interlocked in a bloody tousle, ajax dares not once to look at diluc, and focuses on the man beneath him, and the delirium and resolve in his icy blue eyes.
“i’ll kill you,” ajax spits, and he means it, means that he’ll kill dainsleif as many times as he needs to if it means it’ll save diluc, and it means that even with eight summers to know better, ajax has only ever known how to lose diluc, how to keep him away, how to never get him back.
act iv. my kingdom for a kiss upon his shoulder
13
and as ajax raises his fists, swords and daggers left abandoned on the wild grass, diluc can only stare up at him in awe as he lands a blow, and another, and another, and with his knuckles coloured red and chrome and pupils blown wide with an animalistic vigour, diluc thinks that ajax has never looked more stunning, more handsome, more darling.
and when diluc looks down, it’s to see the dagger plunged into his useless, golden hand. it had broken through the hollowed structure, but stopped just short of piercing diluc’s flesh.
letting out a stuttering laugh, diluc holds up the golden hand and finds that it’s as hideous and heavy and burdensome as it has always been. nothing has changed, and so diluc throws it with as much force he can summon, and he doesn’t bother to see where it lands, finds that he feels as hollow as he feels whole, as loved as he feels desolate.
laughing still, diluc has to blink away the tears and sunbeams that cloud his vision, and his one good hand comes to cover his eyes while his stump lies useless against his quivering mouth, and diluc is so tired.
a sob escapes his mouth, and then a laugh, and it is a grotesque amalgamation of two that wracks him, that makes his shoulders shake and stomach coil into knots.
it is ajax’s touch that has him looking back up, his vision refocusing onto the sight of ajax with hands stained with blood that isn’t his, and his face that diluc has so wanted to kiss since he’d been seventeen and had everything to lose but knew nothing of it.
ajax’s hands are trembling as they press down against his chest, and it takes a moment for diluc to realise that he’s shaking because he’s afraid, and he’s searching for the proof of it.
“i’m not hurt,” diluc manages.
“thank you,” ajax breathes, and pulls him close and tight, and diluc leans into the touch like a man starved of any, and a startled laugh escapes his lips as diluc returns the embrace, just as firmly.
it’s ajax who first pulls away, just to murmur, “do you want to kill him?”
slowly, diluc blinks. looking down at the abyss’s bloodhound lying limp against the earth, his golden hair matted with blood, diluc wishes they could’ve met as equals, wishes he could’ve delivered not only the killing strike but every one that came before it. he thinks dainsleif would’ve wanted it that way, too.
“petty vengeance is unbecoming,” diluc answers, looking away.
“you are something awful,” ajax tells him, except he says it all wrong, because he’s looking at diluc with much too much softness in his eyes, and his words come warm and quiet like something sweet and stifling. “we’ll do it together, then.”
that evening, the twilight sword dies by the hand of the prince he’d meant to slaughter, and the wilderness that gave chase. they find a clearing to dig a grave, and diluc does not grant him a casket to lie on, thinks that dainsleif would do better being held by the very earth and soil that will swallow him whole.
dainsleif is granted no headstone, but diluc drives his beloved sword onto the fresh dirt. maybe the farmhand tending to this land will find him, or maybe the vines will take over until the twilight sword’s blessed blade is more rot than iron, like how its master is more decay than flesh.
ajax grants him the privacy of a parting message, but diluc finds that he has very little he wants to say, apart from–
“i hope your princess mourns you,” diluc says quietly. he wipes at the wetness clinging to his lashes, rubs it rough against his skin. he ties the remnants of the lacemaker’s veil around the hilt. “i hope it was worth something.”
14
it is after dusk falls that ajax and diluc stand by the river bay. the skies are made of violets, pinks, blues, the setting sun painting them both in fading gold. if they were to squint, they could make out the distant, weak glow of a waxing moon.
ajax’s hands are wet from washing the blood off in the running water, and diluc can’t stop looking at his hands, can’t stop wanting to reach over and touch him.
“you were right,” ajax suddenly says. “i didn’t ask you to wait, and i would’ve never asked that of you. you were always meant to be something, and something more than just mine.”
“yours?”
“you can laugh,” ajax allows, “but you were mine. mine to love, mine to long for, and mine to find again. i had to go, because the not knowing would’ve consumed me whole if i hadn’t, but i thought of you every single day, luc.”
“and even after i grew up and left the queensguard, and realised that i wasn’t what i thought i’d become, i still wanted to see you again. so, i went back to the barracks – of course, you weren’t there, and neither were all the people we knew. it was all fresh faces, people who’d never heard of you – and our old commander, that piece of shit, he was still there, and he told me you were sold, probably dead, and i can’t say i did right but he had it coming–”
“you killed him?”
ajax sucks in his cheek, looking thoughtful.
“no. i scared him, made him feel small. he gave us hell, and i wouldn’t have given him anything less. he’s still at the barracks, i think. the boys tell me he’s less of a bastard.”
diluc carves half-moons into his palm. “why didn’t you kill him?”
“’cause he was the only one left that knew you. sure, he might’ve known something of where you were, but i just wanted to have proof that you were once there. i needed a testament to your existence. it was so hard to trace back to you at times i thought you might’ve just been a dream.” letting out a dry laugh, ajax rubs at the corner of his jaw. “i sound crazy, right?”
“no,” diluc answers, looking down. “no. i know what you mean. i never told you how i met the alberichs, did i?”
letting out a soft exhale, ajax shakes his head.
biting down on his lower lip, diluc reveals, “it was at zapolyarny that the imperial family found me, or i found them, but i only ever went there in search of you.”
there’s a sharp inhale. “what?”
“i ran away, jax. i despised the northern border. i felt like i was wasting my life away. i wanted to do it right, wanted to be picked, but no one was going to pick me. not there, and maybe not anywhere, but i had to see for myself. i had to know what there was where you were.”
he’d nearly died, in that trek to the only railway station by the north, but seventeen-year-old diluc knew that he’d die in the barracks, too, if he stayed. he’d scrimped up copper and gold, just enough to hitch a ride to zapolyarny where the air was warmer, where ice and snow didn’t bite his cheeks and burn the soles of his feet.
“it was during krsnik noc, and i knew that you had to be there, and it was insurmountably foolish, to think that i could’ve found you amidst it all, but i believed it.” diluc presses his lips together, voice breaking as he admits, “you were mine to find, too.”
instead, he came upon a knife that was meant for a boy who’d been granted more fortune on the day of his birth than diluc had his entire life, and because he was diluc ragnvindr-snezhevich-not-yet-alberich, he had taken the blow to the gut like it was his to endure. it might have been the best thing he’d ever done.
“and even through all the bad that happened, climbing to the top and hitting rock bottom,” diluc pauses, worries his bottom lip as he finds the words, “i don’t regret it. i don’t know what led me to kaeya, but i thank everything that it did, even if it was the same force that kept us apart. you understand, right?”
“of course, i understand,” ajax says, frowning. “you deserved a family. you deserved the looking after.”
“then why do you look so upset?”
“because i hate that to earn it you first had to risk your life for it,” ajax grits out. “i hate that it made you think that the only way you can be wanted is by being useful, or by being expendable. i hate it so much, and i can’t help but loathe your brother for it, and every soul that cherished you when you were killing yourself to prove something you never had to. khaenri’ah never deserved you.”
“but i wanted this life,” diluc confesses. his throat feels raw with shame. “i wanted it so badly. i liked being useful. i liked being needed. before all was lost, you should’ve seen me. i was–” he pauses, feeling winded. “i was so good. the best i’d ever be.”
ajax’s hands come to hold his face, and he peers closer, just to tell him, “you’ve always been good, and i’ve always known it.”
“back in the barracks, i was hardly–”
“fuck the barracks,” ajax cuts in. “i’m looking at you now, aren’t i? and you’re good. you’re so good, diluc.”
diluc gnaws on his bottom lip, eyes widening when the pads of ajax’s thumbs come to press down against his mouth. “you believe me, right?”
“yeah,” diluc manages, his own voice shaky. “i do.”
“good,” ajax mutters. his fingers fall back to his side, and diluc rues the touch, feels its ghost against the soft of his lips.
looking away, diluc’s eyes trail the river stream, how it winds and bends and disappears off into the horizon.
“it’s a long way to sumeru still,” he muses, thinking out loud. “i can’t believe through all that happened, we’ll still be on the road for another seven days.”
“we don’t have to,” ajax replies, and diluc pauses, turning to look at him.
“but you promised him.”
smiling something soft and delicate, ajax brushes his thumb against the curve of diluc’s cheek. “all my oaths belong to you.”
diluc allows his hand to cover ajax’s, relishing the warmth that brews. “you know i’m not him, the boy you met back at the barracks. too much has happened since then.”
“no,” ajax agrees, “you’re something else entirely, but so am i.”
letting a soft exhale escape his lips, diluc leans in, only hesitating when their faces are mere inches apart. the years have gifted ajax a tan, painting his skin a honeyed bronze. the freckles are the very same, tugging at the corner of his mouth, the hollow of his cheeks.
“i missed you,” diluc tells him, quiet. “more than anything you could imagine.”
“princeling,” ajax murmurs, “you’re breaking my heart.”
diluc’s face twists to a frown, and ajax lets out a delicate laugh at the sight of it. roughly, diluc’s fingers bury themselves between ajax’s tawny curls, pushing their heads closer so diluc can finally kiss him, his other arm winding around ajax’s back, unable to hold on, but holds close, regardless.
ajax sighs into the kiss, tilting his head to bring them impossibly closer. his arms hold onto the small of diluc’s back, and squeeze hard enough for diluc to understand that he’s not the only one wondering if any of this is real, or if he’s only a blink away from waking up eight years in the past, lying next to ajax on the wild grass, so close that their hands brush, but a lifetime away from doing anything about it.
when diluc pulls away, it’s to murmur against rosy lips, “don’t call me princeling.”
“princeling,” ajax repeats, near reverent.
“you’re saying it wrong,” diluc mutters, looking down at the green earth. “nobody says like that.”
“like what?”
feeling brave enough to meet ajax’s eyes, diluc gazes into them, searching for something to give away his cruelty, to prove that it’s a joke, that he’s poking and prodding at old bruises, all to see the pink give way to something uglier.
“like you serve me. like i’m your highness.”
“but you are,” and when diluc looks away, feeling complicated, ajax holds his face, holds it firm and soft and with meaning and with much too much tenderness, and says, “not an alberich, but a ragnvindr.”
diluc looks away at the mention of his family name, something uncomfortable twisting in his gut. seeing this, ajax sighs sadly.
ajax runs his hand through the length of diluc’s hair, fingers curling around the golden tresses that have grown long enough to reach the dip of diluc’s waist.
“i miss your scarlet,” he says softly, and brings up his hand to press a featherlight kiss to diluc’s hair. “it feels like forever since the last time i’ve seen you.”
“what do you mean?”
“you’re diluc,” ajax starts, his tone unfathomably soft, “and you will always be my diluc, but when’s the last time you’ve looked at yourself and seen the man who isn’t just what the world wants him to be?”
diluc lets out a helpless laugh. he doesn’t answer.
“do you trust me?” ajax asks, and when diluc nods, he tells him, “close your eyes.”
huffing, diluc complies, and when the world is dark he feels ajax’s hands tangling through his hair, softly grazing his scalp, and then the grip tightens, nearly hard enough to hurt, and there’s a brush of cool steel, and before the gasp is stolen from diluc’s lips, he opens his eyes to find pools of gold by his feet, tickling his skin, glistening beneath the sun.
letting out a shuddering breath, diluc’s fingers reach up to his scalp, feeling the short tufts of hair that kiss the skin of his palm, uneven and soft. dropping to his knees, he crawls to the riverbank, peers at his reflection in the blue-black water and startles at the sight of himself.
with his golden hair sheared off, all that’s left is scarlet. without the cascading curls to frame his face, his jaw looks squarer, his eyes softer. his cheeks are flushed a ruddy sort of red. like this, he looks nothing like a prince, looks more like a wilderness.
letting out a laugh of quiet disbelief, diluc turns to ajax who’s been quietly watching him.
“i knew you hated it,” ajax offers, and maybe it’s something about being known so ardently that diluc has forgotten the feel of.
“i haven’t had hair this short ever since i was a child,” diluc murmurs. he glances back at his reflection. “what happens to us now?”
ajax takes a step closer, sinks to the ground by diluc’s side, and runs his hand through the water. he flicks some at diluc. “whatever you want. whatever we want.”
“i don’t need you to save me,” diluc says, feeling complicated. “i don’t need a knight.”
ajax laughs, the sound rich with something diluc wants to taste right off his mouth. “haven’t you heard what they call me?”
allowing the indulgence, diluc shifts a little closer so that their bodies touch. “what do they say?”
“they say that i’m a beast,” he whispers, “one that speaks in tongues of madness. if the folks back home had a say, they’d say i need to be tamed. i have no need for a prince. i need a keeper, a wrangler, whatever else that’ll mean you’ll let me have you, and you, me.”
keeper , diluc mouths, and finds himself drawn to the thought, drunk on the idea of having ajax, so much so that he turns his head to face ajax and finds himself short of words to convey just how much he wants, and so he kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him and means, i love you, i love you, i love you.