Chapter Text
Dori hurries over as soon as she sees him approaching, leaning forward with her elbows on the counter and her hands clasped together. “Welcome, welcome, esteemed customer!”
Varka nods in greeting, a smile tugging at his lips. Some people might find her attitude off-putting, but he can’t bring himself to feel the same way. If anything, it pleases him to see such friendliness in a place as tense as Nod-Krai. “Hey there. Business going well?”
“Oh, it’s always going well,” she reassures, hands waving through the air. “But now that a gentleman such as yourself is here, it’s about to get even better – wonderful, even! I can just feel it!”
“Aw, shucks,” Varka brings up a hand, rubbing at his neck. “I bet you say that to everyone –”
“Nonsense, nonsense,” Dori cuts in, shaking her head so rapidly that her earrings jingle. “The Knights of Favonius have one Grandmaster alone and my business wouldn’t survive without his patronage. His very, very highly valued patronage.”
Varka bites the inside of his cheek, considering her words. He hasn’t bought anything from her, be it information or an actual product, in a long while, and part of him is fairly certain he’s heard her say this exact phrase to Lauma and the traveler before…
But then again, who’s he to doubt her? He’s no merchant. He doesn’t know what it’s like, juggling customer after customer, each with different needs and whims. If she says he’s valuable, then he’s valuable and that’s that. It’s not a hard thing to accept either – Varka thrives on being helpful. It’s why he became a knight, after all.
“Now, tell me,” Dori brings him out of his thoughts, voice syrupy sweet. “What can I get you today, Sir Varka? Is it…an antique? We have plenty of those,” she rears back with a flourish, gesturing towards the shelves lined up behind her. “Or,” she leans back in, shooting him a look over the rim of her glasses. “Is it information? I assure you, my store has everything you could ever need.”
“Ah, no, I’m actually here to pick up,” he pauses. “Something? Alice wasn’t very, uh, clear on what exactly it is that she’s sending.”
For the slightest of moments, Dori’s face twitches and her smile falls. Then, so quickly that it gives Varka whiplash, it’s back, somehow even brighter. “Yes, yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about, Sir Varka. It’s in the back, I’ll be just a second. While I’m gone, why don’t you take the time to look around, hm? Maybe something catches your eye,” she says, then winks.
Just as quickly as she’d approached, Dori hops away on the counter and disappears behind a curtain-covered door. Varka watches her go, resisting the urge to rock back on his feet. Maybe it’s just old age catching up to him, but conversations with Dori always leave him feeling a little bit – winded, and not in the way in the way conversations with Flins do. With Flins, it’s always fun, hunting for something to banter about, trying to catch the true meaning of his teasing words, the one that he hides in sly looks and twitches of rosy lips. With Dori, however, it’s like rereading Mika’s letter for the fifth time and trying to understand why all of his kids – Razor included – are suddenly into card games.
Mika’s words, his heartfelt plea for Varka to keep an eye out for any new and interesting decks, floats to the forefront of his thoughts. Right. He’s promised the kid he’d bring back cards, hasn’t he? Well, maybe Dori’s got something. She did say she has something for everyone.
Mind made up, Varka casts his gaze across the shop. It’s a quaint little place, crowded despite Dori’s best efforts, but she’s clearly made the most of it. Everything’s arranged just so to maximize the space she has: shelves line the walls, displaying gleaming antiquities and trinkets from all over Teyvat, each one older – and presumably more expensive – than the last. Rising from the floor and almost hitting the ceiling, towers of books form a loose semicircle around the indoor side of the counter, enticing any passersby with their gold-embossed spines. Real gold, at that – not just an alloy, judging by how it shines in the light.
Varka shudders. He doesn’t even want to imagine the price of those things. And they’re so thick too, enough so that he’d need two hands just to flip through the pages. He’s not entirely sure what they do to people in Sumeru to get them to print things like these, but it must be horrifying.
“See,” comes a voice, crowing with delight. “I told you something would catch your eye,” Dori runs right over, a box in her arms. She hefts it onto the counter then leans over, hands clasped underneath her chin as she grins. “Now, tell me, Sir Varka, what is it that you want, hm? Is it the Treatise on the Medicinal Properties of Electrified Dendro Slime Spores? Do tell!”
“Er,” Varka tries, eyes wide. “The package –”
Dori shakes her head. “Nuh-uh, that can wait, good sir. It’s not going anywhere without a purchase!”
“Really, Dori, it’s nothing,” Varka meets her eyes, injecting as much sincerity as he could into every syllable. “I was just looking for some cards. For that card game, you know? The one everyone’s obsessed with in, uh –”
“Fontaine and Liyue and Natlan and Mondstadt. Oh, and Inazuma too, of course, although it did get there later than expected.” Dori rattles off, nodding vigorously. “Yes, yes, how could I not know? I’m a merchant – the best there is, I’ll have you know. There’s nothing on the market I don’t know about.”
Varka’s not the type to get headaches, but his temples throb. Just once, just a little bit. This is why he never bothered attending any mission debriefs in his youth – they’re bad for one’s health. “I see.”
“Well?” Dori peers at him over her glasses, eyes wide and sparkling. “What will it be, hm?”
“Just a deck? The latest one,” he clarifies, gesturing vaguely with one hand. “Dunno which one it is, exactly, but you know everything, don’t you?” A blink, then, dropping his teasing tone: “Oh, and the box.”
Dori tuts. “The box is yours, I’m not going to hold it hostage. Here,” she says, and with that, she gives it a push. The box skids across the counter, stopping just shy of the edge.
Varka picks it up – it’s light enough to hold with one hand alone and wrapped up, quite hastily, in red gift paper. For my adorable daughter, the small note attached to the side reads. It’s Alice’s handwriting, no doubt about it – not with how it slants to the side, swirly, enormous loops decorating each letter.
“Any clue what’s inside?”
Dori shrugs, rummaging through a nearby bag. “A trinket or a toy, I assume. I could ask,” she adds after a pause, as if it's just occurred to her. “But I’m not sure when Miss Alice will answer – witches are busy people, you see. It’d cost me…and you, of course.”
“No, it’s fine. I was just curious, but I’ll probably hear about it from Klee herself, so,” Varka waves her off.
It’s kind of her to offer, to take time out of her day and hope Alice isn’t too busy to answer a few messages, but she doesn’t need to go that far for him, just like Varka doesn’t need to know what’s inside to know that Klee will love it; it’s a cute enough gift, whatever it might be. He simply hopes it’s not an explosive this time, however. Jean’s letter was, ah, particularly strongly worded after that one incident.
“Oh.” Once again, Dori’s face twitches. As soon as Varka blinks, however, her grin is back in place, bright enough to make him squint.
Huh.
Must’ve been a trick of light.
“Curiosity is a very good thing, Grandmaster,” Dori says. An undercurrent of something clings to her honeyed words, though Varka doesn’t get to dwell on it, for another object skids across the counter: a deck of cards, held together by thin silk tied in a ribbon around it. “In fact, it deserves to be rewarded! Even this poor little merchant knows as much. See,” she beckons him closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “I’ve been keeping something in storage just for the right person…and I think you might be it!”
Varka –
Varka has duties to get to. He doesn’t like the thought of being away from the Knights’ main base for too long, not when most of his men are gathered there, regrouping after Dottore’s attack on the city, after the evacuations they’d helped the Knave with. There’s injured people to look after, to reassure through his presence that everything’s fine and they haven’t failed, not at all –
But Dori is a very good friend, not only to him, but to the Knights as a whole and to the Hexenzirkel as well. Plus, he’s already here, already a little bit intrigued. He might as well hear her out.
“Oh yeah?”
She nods, her grin sharpening at the corners. On anyone else, he’d call it bloodthirsty. “Mhm. It’s a book, you see, very ancient, very dusty – transporting it was such a hassle, it had to be kept in certain conditions at all times! That’s how old it is.”
Despite himself, Varka grimaces. “A book?” That doesn’t sound like his idea of a good time.
Dori reaches over to pat his arm. “Ah, never fear, never fear, Grandmaster, Sir! It’s a very thin one, not even 50 pages long.”
Okay, yeah, that’s more tolerable, is Varka’s first thought. Then comes the second: still, why am I the right person for it?
It must show on his face, the question, for she continues.
“Oh my, oh my, I’m not sure how to say it,” Dori hesitates, her hands waving aimlessly through the air before coming together once again. “Oh, I’ll just say it: it’s widely known just how deeply you care for Mr. Flins! To everyone but the man himself, that is.” Dori sighs, a soulful burst of air. “And, you see, this poor little merchant always thought oh, what a pity, how sad that the esteemed Grandmaster cannot make himself understood! But then I realized I have the solution! It was sitting in my storage room, just waiting to be put to good use!”
Varka’s mouth opens. “Uh.” Closes. Warmth sears down his ears, starting a slow and steady descent towards his neck.
“After all,” Dori winks, “What better use is there other than romance?”
“It’s not –”
Like that, Varka goes to say, but his tongue is frozen and so are the words, clinging to the very tip of it and refusing to fall.
Thoughts – or, rather, images, each one as clear as the last – rush to the forefront of his mind. First, there’s Flins on the night they met, eyeing Varka with his big golden eyes and a tilted head, lips pursed with the slightest hint of what Varka hoped, even then, was interest.
Then there’s them drinking in the tavern, Varka’s arm slung across Flins’ deceptively slender shoulders, pulling him closer under the guise of warming him up, of getting him to share in Mondstadt’s characteristic party spirit. Even as Flins’ inhumanly cold side touched his, emanating anything but warmth through the several layers between them, Varka had felt warm; content, even, although he’d played it off as an effect of the copious amounts of alcohol he’d had at the time.
More memories follow – representative of them all is the curve of Flins’ mouth, seen through a trained hunter’s gaze as it twitched, as it curved into sly smiles and the occasional grin, as small as it was precious. His eyes as they flit to Varka, lids lowering as he leaned in to tell a joke or a quip or whatever it was that he deemed necessary to say. Varka could not remember anything of that moment save for the way Flins had laughed at his response. It’d been a melodious sound, more akin to the twinkle of a windchime from back home than anything Varka had ever heard.
Even now, remembering it has warmth searing through him, his lips twitching as he fights off the smile threatening to break through. He’d like to hear more of it, perhaps even get a chance to feel Flins’ body shaking with the force of his amusement because it’s Varka who made him laugh, not the traveler, not Lauma, not anyone else –
Oh.
Oh!
“Okay,” Varka says, belatedly. Slowly. He’s not embarrassed, not exactly – he’s the Grandmaster of the Knights of Favonius, the Knight of Boreas himself – but his neck certainly blazes when met with Dori’s arched eyebrow, with her grin, and his grip on Klee’s gift threatens to dent the box. “It might be like that. A little bit.”
Dori’s face twitches. “A little bit, yes, of course.” Then, before Varka can even think of a way to respond to that: “Don’t you worry, Grandmaster! This trusty book of mine covers all sorts of emotional ranges!”
Varka’s eyes narrow, more with confusion than anything. “Why do I have a feeling you’re making fun of me?”
Dori rears back, letting out a gasp that’s just a bit too theatrical as her hands fly to her face. “Me? I’d never. I swear on the Dendro Archon’s name, really! Perish the thought, Sir Varka!”
For some reason, her reassurances are not very, ah, reassuring. Be that as it may, Varka doesn’t dwell on it – he’s got much more pressing matters occupying his mind, such as: “Right. So, uh, how much are you asking for this thing? This book of yours.”
Dori leans back in, her grin widening to reveal sharp teeth. “Oh, I thought you’d never ask, Grandmaster!” she purrs, each word as sweet as honey taken straight from the comb. “Why, it’s only fifty thousand mora.”
Varka doesn’t quite choke on his own saliva, but it’s a close thing. “Fifty what now?”
“Oh, don’t be like that,” Dori scolds with a shake of her head. “Anyone else would be asking for much more – it’s not every day you stumble upon a book this old and this useful too! A guide to courting for, ah, individuals specific to Nod-Krai and Snezhnaya? It’s practically a trove of information, Sir Varka! Really now, it’s only because you’re my most loyal, most esteemed, most valuable customer that I can afford naming such a low price.”
…Well, she does have a point. He’s never heard of a book like the one she’s describing, not even in the deepest, darkest recesses of Lisa’s library. Not that he goes there often, but someone had to approve all of Lisa’s purchases for the library, so he’s glimpsed a few titles here and there.
Besides, if what she’s saying is right – and it must be, she’s the owner of this business and knows it like the back of her hand – nobody would give it to him for such a low price.
Still, maybe if he tries his luck…
“How about forty?”
Dori’s grin falls as she considers it, humming. “Forty nine point nine.”
“...That’s not any diff –”
She sighs. It’s a long, drawn-out sound. “Take it or leave it, Sir Varka. I can’t afford to be any kinder than this with my prices or I’ll really have to close up shop, you know!”
Varka bites the inside of his cheek. He chances a glimpse into Dori’s eyes, glinting with the slightest hint of worry, and says –
…
When Varka returns to his men, he does so with an armful of mysterious gifts for Klee and a wallet that’s mysteriously fifty thousand mora lighter. In his coat’s inner pocket, however, resides a book so tiny it might as well be a diary, its battered spine reading: A Human Expert’s Guide to Courting the Fae, Limited Edition.