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morverenmaybewrites · 8 days ago

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Where It Ends (Diluc Ragnvindr x Fatui! Reader)

Summary: Imagine this: you are Fatui. Kept in the furthest, coldest part of Sneznahya, for secrets you don’t dare speak aloud.

Imagine your days in captivity, where one long hour bleeds into the next. Where your screams build up inside you, but lie frozen inside your throat. Imagine feeling cold for so long that you have forgotten what it feels like to be warm.

And then imagine, as someone begins attacking the Fatui camps around your prison: fire.

Pairing: Diluc Ragnvindr x Reader

Trigger Warnings: depictions of depression, implied torture, body horror, graphic depictions of violence

Other tags: Mutual pining, slow burn, enemies to lovers

AO3

Story:

Imagine winter in Sneznahya, in the coldest, furthest part of the region. Where the sun dips below the snow-capped mountains and does not surface again for three months.

(You fear that one day, you will wake and you will have forgotten its face.

(After all, you had already forgotten what it's like to be warm.)

Imagine a river: so wide that it cuts through the continent like a blade. The currents are so vicious that even in summer, few boats dare to cross it.

After all, everyone has heard the stories. Even you.

In winter, the river is deceptively still, the raging currents lying dormant underneath a layer of ice, so dark that it gleams like glass. Sometimes, you will catch the river, gleaming underneath a fresh fall of snow. It looks like candy glass, dusted in powdered sugar.

The thought can sometimes make your mouth water.

(How long has it been since you tasted something sweet?)

And yet, you don't dare set one foot on it.

After all, it does not take much for that stillness to break. A single wrong step. The whole of one’s weight placed in the wrong spot. That is all it takes for the spidercracks to form underneath one’s feet.

And for the river to swallow you whole.

(The drowning, it is said, is perfectly silent.)

In cruel Sneznahya, where even the sharp-toothed river wishes to devour you, your lungs will freeze too fast for you to even scream.

You sometimes wonder if you should do that. Scream.

And yet, the thought vanishes almost as soon as it rises, like the twisting shadows you would sometimes see underneath the currents.

Even if you scream, no one will come for you.

The river makes sure of that.

Imagine winter in Sneznahya, in the coldest, furthest part of the region. Where the sun has dipped its face beneath the snow-capped mountains and does not surface again for three months.

Where the cold snaps come with the suddenness of summer storms.

Where a man can freeze midstride: frost forming on his lashes and blood turning to icicles in his veins. A thin sheen of hoarfrost coats his skin like sweat.

He no longer breathes, yet sometimes you could have sworn you've seen his eyes move. And you wonder if he is still alive underneath that layer of ice.

The guards don't dare touch him. In summer, they laugh and make jokes about how the Tsatsaritsa has taken another husband. But in the endless winter, they avoid his gaze as if it burns them.

You wonder, sometimes, if being frozen like that meant that his soul was frozen, too. That it cannot go where souls were meant to go after death.

(You do not wonder about yours.)

Imagine winter in Sneznahya, in the coldest, furthest part of the region. There, past a river so wide that it cuts across the continent like a blade, past a gate guarded by a man who has frozen midstride, is a fortress. A towering structure of ice and stone.

This place has no cells, your former superiors insist they need none.

You are no prisoner, they say. You are an honored guest, more precious than even Tsatsaritsa's own Eleven.

They serve you steaming bowls of borshct, the meat so tender that it falls off the bone. Thick stacks of syrniki drizzled in warm honey, a luxury even in summer.

They ply you with blackberry kvass, so dark that it stains your teeth. You can still remember that first night, where after a single glass, the weak alcohol had somehow turned your thoughts muddy, your words tingling like spice on your tongue. You had refused kvass after that, choosing to drink only water, and the coldness of it sits in your stomach as heavy as stones.

(Imagine this: you harbor a terrible secret.)

It is black enough and it is vile enough for your superiors to bring you here, at the edge of the world.Where you are kept, not in a cell, but in a bedroom so luxurious that it would inspire the envy of any rich merchant.

(And yet you go to sleep freezing, anyway. You wake from nightmares of forgetting the sun’s face.)

It is here that they bring you.

It is here they wait for you to break.

And then imagine: fire.

It started as a single rumor, some jest made by one of the guards around supper time. They sit apart from you, a necessity your superiors explained. Someone as precious as you should not mingle with the riff raff.

And yet you wonder–

(—you are sure—)

—if this is another tool in their arsenal. To isolate you from the others so that you will have no one to speak to, no one to plead to about your plight, no one who may help you escape.

You have not spoken to another person in months.

(Or has it only been weeks? In this calcified prison, time moves so slow that you imagine even your blood has frozen, thick and sluggish as it moves through your veins.)

The words of your secret sit so heavy on your tongue that you are terrified you will scream it, just for the relief of having somebody to speak to. Of being acknowledged. Of being seen.

You are so lonely that you could weep, if not for the knowledge that your tears would turn to ice against your cheeks. At mealtimes, you strain to hear even the briefest snatches of conversation, as fleeting as birdsong in autumn, just for the relief of hearing another person's voice again.

"Snuck in in the dead of night, I suppose…" one of the guards says, a burly man named Jorge. He has been stationed in this fortress for three months, and misses his wife and daughter. Behind his back, the others make fun of him for his slow wit.

"Don't be an idiot, Jorg, at night? Without a torch? Any man would break his neck fumbling around in the dark–" Another guard, a woman named Undine, says.

Only twenty-one, she had volunteered to be stationed here in hopes that it would lead to a promotion. You know that from the gossip you hear from the cooks in the kitchen.

(If you close your eyes, you could pretend to be part of the conversation. Your lips move silently, as if you are responding.)

(You long for conversation like thirst.)

(You long for human warmth.)

(There is so little of it here, at the edge of the world.)

(And you have always hated the cold.)

I know what I saw," Jorge grumbles. "Somebody burned down one of the camps. You could see the fire burning for hours.”

"Maybe it was one of them Pyro Mages." A blonde boy everyone calls Mole, his thin face drawn tight with fear.

"Maybe," Jorge says. "Wouldn't be the first time the little shits have scaled the walls."

"Do you think they could–" Mole casts a glance at the weathered walls of the fortress.

"Don't be an idiot," Undine hisses. "Pyro Mages can't cross running water. The river would kill them before they ever make it to shore."

They grow quiet after that, their heads bent over their meal.

You leave your own spread barely touched, the stew swiftly congealing in the cold. You had seen what they serve the guards, and it is a far cry from the luxurious dishes you had been served: colorless soup served from a simmering pot, just a single bowl each. Bread hard enough to make one's teeth shatter. Salt beef that they have to worry at with their teeth, the muscles in their jaws bulging as they chew.

If it had been you in their place, you think quietly, you would hate the prisoner being served luxury while you subsisted on hard bread.

(And you would weep, if not for the knowledge that your tears would turn to ice on your cheeks.)

Imagine winter in Sneznahya, in the coldest, furthest part of the region. Where the sun has dipped below the horizon and has not shown its face in three months.

(Or is it closer to four? Perhaps five? For you, the night has seemed endless.)

Where you speak so rarely you fear that the words have frozen inside your throat.

And then imagine: fire.

So bright that, at night, you could see the flames dance from across the shore. The smoke that rises from them is so dark that it blackens the bottom of the clouds.

It is the only color one can see for miles.

(A part of you longs to hold your hand up to it to feel its warmth, even if it means getting scorched by the flames.)

(After all, you had always hated the cold.)

In the morning, all that is left of the camps are ashes.

What started as a single rumor has grown into a swarm, bits of news buzzing around the fortress like an angry hive.

Someone is killing the Fatui.

(Just the thought is enough to make your heart leap in your throat. You swallow it down, the way you swallow down your screams.)

"Madness." You hear Jorge mutter one night over supper. Tonight, their fare seems even poorer than usual: a gruel so thin it seems like water, and the same ration of salt pork you had seen for the past three meals.

"To strike at one Fatui is to strike at all of us," Undine says, shaking her head. "It won't be long before the Eleven get involved."

She speaks of the Harbingers almost in the same, fearful way people speak of the Tsaritsa, as if to speak is to bring them to one's door.

Jorge again, his voice slow and deep and fearful, and you remember with a sudden clarity, that he has a wife and child.

"Do you think he'll come after the fortress?" he asks, casting a fearful look at the barred gate. Made from sandalwood, illegally harvested from Liyue, the gate is more than a foot thick, built to withstand most modern siege weapons.

(And yet, you remember, how easily sandalwood burns.)

Mole pipes up, his voice so thin and reedy that it is almost swallowed by the howling wind. "I don't think whoever it is would dare attack us while--"

A hush falls over the three guards as they glance at you. You avoid their eyes, keeping your own fixed on the bowl of schi before you. The fat from the meat is so rich that a film forms over the liquid surface. Instead of salt pork, you are served soft pampushky, brushed with buttered herbs, the gold melting gently over its surface.

(A part of you remembers the kvass, and how the weak alcohol made your words feel as thick as tar against your tongue. Your terrible secrets nearly spilling out of your mouth like a cloud of black flies.)

You eat nothing, your stomach roiling.

And you stand, leaving the hall.

And yet you hear their conversation, echoing like footsteps across the stone hall.

"Is it true then, what she can do? Because if it were me, I wouldn't dare climb the walls with her here."

Imagine this: what was once rumor is now fact. What was once a single story is now a dozen, buzzing around the fortress like an angry hive.

Someone is killing the Fatui.

They are burning the camps that surround the fortress, leaving nothing but blackened ashes in their wake.

At night the fires burn higher, as if it longs to scorch the stars.

(You watch them for hours, when you can’t sleep. And for the first time since you were brought here, you sleep remembering what it’s like to feel the sun on your face.)

You no longer have to strain to hear snatches of conversation for news, instead, messengers come bursting through the gates, teams of Cryo users bearing them across the river. When they arrive, the air around them is so cold that it puts out the surrounding fires in the courtyard. You are sure that to touch their skin is to invite death.

(And yet, a part of you wonders–whether it will be silent. Like the river swallowing you whole when the ice breaks under your feet. You wonder if it will really make much of a difference compared to your own quiet hell.)

They bring you with them sometimes, to the burnt remains of the camps, as if to lay their destruction at your feet. The blackened corpses of your once-comrades, their lips retracted to show their teeth, as if baring fangs. Some of them, cleaved apart at the waist, blood and oily ropes of intestines glinting dully in the snow. Others with their limbs hacked, cleanly, as if with a blade. Burnt fingers curling inwards like the carcasses of spiders.

Robbed of their humanity, even in death.

The Regrator’s fingers curl against your shoulder in a gesture that feels too familiar for once-coworkers.

(And yet, a part of you jolts as the contact. There is a sheer pleasure in being touched that you have missed after being deprived of human contact for so long.)

"Whoever it is, they're getting worse." The Regrator always had a nice voice, you think. Soft and strangely compelling.

"Don't you think so?" he asks.

He is speaking to you.

Archons, is there no pleasure sweeter than actually being spoken to, as if you were a human being?

The kvass, you force yourself to remember. The taste of spice and honey and secrets nearly spilling from your tongue like a cloud of black flies. And you take this secret pleasure the Doctor has gifted you and shove it down, to the parts of you that will never see the light of day.

You shake your head at him, but do not speak. On the surface, the Regrator expression is as calm as stillwater, his smile unwavering. And yet, something in his face tightens at your denial. Underneath his furs, his fingers twitch and you wonder if he longs to wrap them around your throat.

None of the Harbingers are used to being denied.

With a nod from the Regrator, you walk around the camp, and there is a sharp, sweet joy in walking somewhere other than inside the walls of the fortress.

All that is left is blood and ashes, the color stark against the whiteness of the snow. Most of the corpses had not been cleaned up, prepared for burial. In harsh Sneznahya, where the ground is too hard to dig through, your people believe that corpses should be buried underneath cairns, so that their flesh would not burden the soul when it rises to Celestia.

Here, your comrades' bodies are left in full view: their bodies blackened, limbs curled inward in the final contractures of death.

You shudder.

Your people believe that burning traps the souls inside one's bodies, forever screaming for release. You think of the man, frozen just outside the gate of the fortress, trapped in the eternal embrace of the Tsaritsa. His pupils still moving like the shadows of fish swimming underneath a layer of ice.

"Horrible, isn't it?"

You try not to jump as you felt the Regrator’s presence beside you, his warmth as inviting as a fireplace.

"He makes a mockery of us, this interloper." His voice is soft and all quiet menace. As sweet as honeyed wine poured down your throat, and you lick your lips, wondering what it would feel like to drink without fear of poison.

"He–?" Your voice is hoarse from disuse, and you wince at the way it scratches against your throat. "You know that it's a he? What else do you know?"

The Regrator’s smile is almost pitying.

"One can collect a great deal of information when they are not cut off from the rest of the world. We know that he wields a greatsword. An ugly thing. More a heap of raw iron than an actual sword. We know that he holds a grudge against us. We know he wields a Delusion."

Your head snaps up.

"Ah," the Regrator smiles, showing all of his teeth. "That got your attention, didn't it, my dear?"

What delusions you had known of, what delusions you had made, you destroyed. And you had kept the knowledge of them so deep within your mind that you hope it would never surface.

(Imagine this: you hold a terrible secret.)

And you would die here, in this frozen prison, if it only meant that your secret would die with you.

"Where did it come from?" you demand. "Where could he have gotten it...? Surely, there aren't any left–”

The questions spill from your mouth like black flies, and before you know it, you are close, too close, and Pantalone’s breath clouds over your face. One hand–ungloved despite the cold–reaches out to touch your cheek and something inside you fizzles at the touch. Something like disgust, something like arousal.

"We would like to know, too," he says. "How can one of Sneznahya's greatest treasures fall in the hands of the enemy...? Surely you, my dear, haven't--?"

You reel back from his touch, head shaking frantically. Your face twists in disgust.

"You know how I feel about those things..."

(Imagine this: you hold a terrible secret.)

A shiver runs down your spine.

“Ah,” the Regrator’s soft sigh barely stirs the air. His smile does not falter.

“I knew you wouldn’t have betrayed us like that, dear. It’s just that this little tantrum of yours…”

He says the word tantrum as if it hadn’t been months in this frozen hell.

(Or had it been mere weeks?)

“A less compassionate comrade might question your loyalty.”

But there is no compassion in his eyes, no warmth. It would have been easier to wring it from a stone.

“I never should have made those things.”

The words settle in your throat, as heavy as stones. They are a condemnation, a confession. They threaten to choke you with the weight of them.

(Imagine this: you hold a terrible secret.)

“Hm?”

The Regrator’s face does not move an inch, and yet, something in his expression hardens.

“Whatever do you mean, my dear? Never should have created delusions?” He tilts his head, smiling placidly at you. “Why on earth would you say that? When you have given us the tools that will let us rival Archons?”

He continues, despite the fact that you are shaking. Despite the fact that you wish to stuff your ears full of snow so you can no longer hear him. "Because of you, we no longer have to rely on the whims of the Archons, because of you–"

“At the cost of our lives!” you snarl, unable to help yourself. “Or our health, or our sanity–”

In the back of your head, images bloom like a cloud of black flies: a young man made old before his time, his dark hair now streaked with shades of gray. His face crumbling in on itself, the flesh of his cheeks growing hollow. A woman tearing furrows into her skin, laying open fat and flesh and muscle, spit-flecked lips begging, begging, begging you to make the agony stop.

A man, screaming as the frost grows over his skin like kudzu vines, his fingernails turning black with frost. He keeps screaming until a layer of hoarfrost covers his skin like sweat. Until all that is left is his eyes, darting fearfully, like fish swimming underneath a frozen river.

“Archons, Pantalone,” you spat. “Can’t you see how wrong these things are?”

But when you meet his eyes, you don’t find horror, you don’t find remorse.

His face does not move an inch, and yet, you see it in his eyes, shining fever-bright.

Greed.

And something else, something that reminds you of the fires that burn at night. Smoke thick enough to blacken the heavens.

Rage.

You remember, too late, that none of the Harbingers are used to being denied.

And then the Regrator’s hand is around your throat.

Imagine this: shouldn’t have been surprised.

You have been his prisoner for months now.

In this cold, quiet hell, where it feels even as if your blood has frozen inside your veins.

You shouldn’t have been surprised.

But you are.

And your first thought, underneath the fear that explodes inside your chest like a gunshot, is finally.

Finally, it ends.

Finally, the secrets of Delusions die with you.

(And perhaps, here, at the end, you will finally be able to feel warm.)

But then, something inside you snaps.

As black smoke blooms across your vision, something inside you screams.

What was once cold becomes freezing. What was once air becomes frost, bursting into frozen bloom.

Pantalone’s fingers turn black with frostbite before he can pull them back, flesh turning to rot down to the knuckle. He reels back and you find yourself sprawled across the snow, gasping as your lungs burn for air. Around you, the guards turn their faces away as if ashamed. No one makes a move to help you up.

You remember listening to their voices as they spoke, huddled around the fire. Jorge, who had a wife and child. Undine, who is only twenty-one. Mole, with his thin face and fever-bright eyes, always so afraid.

They stood in their places, as still as statues. And they do not meet your eyes.

Your eyelashes are rimmed with frosts, and there are tears frozen on your cheeks.

On your hip, your delusion burns. And if you look, you are sure that it would be glowing. If you look, you are sure that it would look hungry.

You keep your eyes fixed on Pantalone, who examines his fingers with cool detachment.

“Would you look at that?” he says. He could have been talking about some mundane piece of news: the weather, the price of a piece of fruit from Mondstadt.

But his eyes are fixed on the Delusion that burns fever-bright on your hip. The one that makes a hypocrite out of you, just mere seconds ago.

And the expression is one of savage triumph.

The night after the Regrator tried to strangle you, you do not sleep.

How could you? You can still feel his fingers on your skin as if he had branded you.

Instead, you lay awake underneath a sky that is heavy with stars. In cruel Sneznahya, there are few things of beauty, but the night sky is one of them. As a child, you would trace the constellations with your finger, able to name each one from the top of your head.

But tonight, you are not stargazing.

Tonight, you are watching the fires burn.

They are coming from another campsite, you know. You wonder why no one has raised the alarm. While the guards that come with you are lean, worn thin by the poor rations and the relentless cold, there is still the Regrator.

Surely, a Harbinger would be more than enough of a match for any insurgent who dares to raise a hand against the Fatui. And yet one look tells you that Pantalone is peacefully sleeping inside his tent.

Or perhaps pretending to be.

Your fingers lift against your throat, where the skin has gone dark with bruises.

You do not raise the alarm either.

Instead, you watch.

And you wait, as the fires burn higher.

(A part of you wonders, whispers, if at the end, you would finally feel warm. .)

But this time, something is different.

This time, the flames do not look bright enough to scorch the stars. Instead, they sputter.

And they disappear.

You are on your feet before you know it, your heart pounding against your throat, the pulse of it making your bruises ache.

You wait for it to come back.

A spark, perhaps.

An ember.

Something that will tell you that the insurgent is not dead. That someone out there is still fighting. Against the Fatui, against the Harbingers, against you and all your terrible creations.

You glance back at the Regrator’s tent, breath coming out in hard bursts, and you wonder if this is some sort of trap he had laid. If he has triumphed over the insurgent at last, the way he had triumphed over you.

(There is still frost forming across your lashes, the remnants of a Delusion you had never wanted to use.)

But there is only silence, and a night sky that drips with stars.

In frozen Sneznahya, where the cold can make your blood run sluggish, even the guards fall asleep easily. The one who is supposed to be guarding the camp–and you–is slumped over his post.

You glance back to where the fires had gone out.

And you make a decision.

First one step, and then two.

(And you are so scared that you imagine spidercracks forming underneath your feet. That the snow will crack, rather than crunch, sending you plummeting into the water below.)

(The drowning, it is said, is perfectly silent.)

The Regrator has never needed swords or spears or Visions to keep you imprisoned.

Not here.

In the furthest, coldest part of the Sneznahya. Where the sun dips below the snow-capped mountains and does not surface again for three months. Where the cold keeps you trapped just as well as any jail.

To move away from the camp is certain death.

Your hand reaches to touch the necklace of bruises around your throat.

You think of the Cryo users, bearing the Regrator across the water. So cold that the air turns to frost around them. And yet, they do not die. Something in their Vision protects them from freezing themselves solid. You think of your Delusion, burning with a hungry light on your hip.

You think of the Regrator’s words: powers that can rival the Archons.

You had never wished to rival the Archons.

You had never wanted to hurt anyone.

The Delusion, when you take it in your hand, is so cold that it burns. And yet, it is what keeps you moving forward. The knowledge that no matter the cold, it will keep you alive.

Just before you leave the light of the camp, the guard stirs, and your Delusion flares in response. You think of Pantolone’s hands, getting frostbite in seconds. Flesh turned to rot down to the knuckle.

You remember how they had turned their faces away from you, as if ashamed.

But then you tamp it down.

(You had never wished to rival the Archons)

(You had never wanted to hurt anyone.)

The guard lifts his face, and in the dim light of the fire, you can see it’s Jorge. He does rub at his eyes or stretch his muscles, or do anything that would have suggested he had just woken.

Instead, his eyes meet yours, and they are haunted. You wonder if they are the same color as his child’s.

And he gives you a single nod.

And he lets you turn and walk away without making a single sound.

Imagine winter in Sneznahya, in the coldest, furthest part of the region. Where the sun has dipped its face below the snow-capped mountains and does not show it again for three months.

Past a river so wide that it cuts across the continent like a blade.

Underneath a sky that drips with stars.

Imagine this, on the night of your escape, as snow crunches underneath your feet. As your Delusion burns against your hip to keep you alive: the heavens burst with lights.

Vivid greens the color of a forest canopy, the burning purple of lightning as it streaks across the sky. Reds that mimic the dancing flames. They are so bright that it nearly drives you to your knees.

Not tonight,

you think, letting out a hiss through gritted teeth. Not tonight of all nights.

The lights illuminate the deep holes your feet had left into the snow. Making you easier to track. You are already freezing. Shivering uncontrollably. Frost crystals cling to your skin and refuse to melt. You can’t afford to use more of your Delusion’s powers.

All you can do is keep moving.

Strange shadows dance across the snow, and you bite back a laugh, ugly and bitter and hateful.

Of course it would happen tonight.

In Sneznahya, the sight of auroras are myths made living. They are held in the same reverence as Visions or glowing crystalflies whose lives only last for a few, precious seconds. After all, in cruel Sneznahya, there are few things of beauty. And on nights like these, where the skies are heavy with stars and the skies are illuminated by the light of auroras, it is said that the Archons watch the mortal realm closely. Looking for a mortal to reward with the ultimate sign of their favor.

After all, it is no coincidence that the colors seen in Auroras are the same ones seen in Visions.

(You think of Pantalone and how he had told you that once, he had spent five nights, sleeping underneath the auroras, hoping that he would wake up with a Vision in his hand.)

You think of the bruises around your throat. And the way his fingers have turned black with frostbite.

For what you have wrought, you are the last person to ever deserve a Vision.

You feel that ugly laugh rise to your lips again, and it feels sharp enough to cut your throat. You swallow it down, and think that perhaps it is a blessing that you are so out of practice.

You raise your cloak higher around your neck, as if hoping to deter the cold, knowing that it will do little. It is only your Delusion keeping you alive now.

And you keep walking.

Imagine winter in Sneznahya, in the furthest, coldest part of the region. Where the sun dips below the snow-capped mountains and does not surface again for three months.

Past a river so wide that it cuts through the continent like a blade.

Underneath a sky dripping with stars and illuminated with the lights of Visions.

You come across the blackened ruins of a caravan.

First comes grief: the rising feeling of impotence, that you had arrived too late to be of any help to anyone.

Then comes guilt. It is sudden and vicious.

The next thing you know, you are on your hands and knees, heaving what little contents your stomach had onto the ground. The remains of half-digested jerky you had forced yourself to eat, worrying at it with your teeth until your jaw ached. Then the mulled wine, so dark it look like blood against the snow.

Then, there is nothing but acid and water. Still, you remain on your hands and knees, as if you are praying. Heaving until there’s nothing left of you to give.

Because among the remains of the caravan, you see them. The remains of Delusions. The steel frames blackened and twisted, the precious stones that made up their eyes cracked and dim.

There are ten, perhaps twenty. Maybe more.

Perhaps the last of your vile creations. Perhaps not.

You had no idea how many from the lab the Harbingers had found after you got taken away. Throughout your incarceration, the thoughts of the remaining Delusions had haunted you like a ghost.

After a while, you manage to calm down. Panting so heavily that your breath forms small clouds in the air. You wish that you had enough grief in you for tears. But the prison had left you feeling hollowed out and empty.

It is a long time before you realize that you are not alone. Someone else is breathing with you.

And whoever is here breathes like a wounded animal. The sound of a deer with its leg caught and broken between the teeth of a trap. It is the quiet, patient sound of a living thing waiting to die.

With the taste of ash and bile in your mouth, you rise.

“Hello?” you call out, softly.

The words scratched at the inside of your throat. You lick your lips, feeling the deep cracks in them.

Was it a comrade, perhaps? Someone left behind to die from their wounds?

“Hello?” you call out again.

In another life, a past life, before the Delusions and the prison and everything else that came with them, you had been one of the nation’s best healers. Perhaps you can still do something for whoever was left behind.

Whoever it is grows quieter, and fear skitters up your spine like spiders. You move, as quickly as your half-frozen legs will allow.

Imagine this, you move aside a burned cart and you find him.

And your heart freezes.

Imagine winter in Sneznahya, in the coldest, furthest part of the region. Underneath a sky that dripped with stars, lit by the light of Visions.

You find him.

The insurgent.

He is clearly from Mondstadt: he had the high, fine cheekbones of an aristocrat, long lashes that flutter as his eyes roll wildly behind closed eyelids. And his hair is the color of flame, flowing across his shoulders like a forest fire.

It is the brightest thing you’ve seen in months.

He is bleeding, everywhere. Half-healed wounds, clumsily stitched together, litter his face. A shallow cut across his neck where someone had tried and failed to slash his throat. Something had torn open his shoulder, laid open the muscle and fat and bone, bleeding sluggishly out in the snow.

But worst of all is the crater in his stomach, where the blood spurts, not oozes. You remember, once upon a time, how such a sight would have made you lightheaded, blurring the sides of your vision and making a strange ringing in your ears.

How little back then, you knew of violence.

It can’t have been more than a few years, and yet it feels like centuries. Joining the Fatui had made you old before your time. Your vision does not blur anymore, and your hearing is so sharp you can hear the way his blood gouts from the wound.

You stand there, numb, as the insurgent lays dying. The wound in his stomach was almost certainly made by a bracer. You had seen what they can do on the battlefield: shattered bones and torn muscles and people dead before they can even blink.

They had always struck from afar though. And it is only now that you realize what privilege it is to have never seen their victims’ faces.

The insurgent is dying.

His breathing is slow, almost silent. The quiet, patient sound of a living thing waiting to die.

(And yet–

And yet–)

The snow crunches underneath your feet as you approach, and his eyes flutter open.

And his eyes flutter open. They are as red as his hair. As red as the fires you used to watch for hours at night.

And they find you.

And you think this: you were wrong.

You were wrong, you think as you meet his eyes.

You were wrong, you think, as he rises, slowly, painfully. As if each movement cost him. Blood spurts from his open wounds, spraying the clean, white snow underneath his feet. This is not a man waiting to die. There is no exhaustion, no defeat in his eyes.

Instead, there is only hate.

This is a man who intends to kill you.

He opens his mouth as he struggles to breathe, blood flecking his lips, but no sound comes out, except for a terrible choking sound in the back of his throat. You feel sick merely just hearing it.

You reach out to him before you can stop yourself.

“Wait–”

His attention snaps back to you. At the clothes you are wearing, the Sneznahyan coat of arms emblazoned on your chest. His face twists in disgust, and he bares his teeth as if he means to rip your throat out with them.

“Fatui.”

He speaks it as it’s your name, he speaks it as if it’s poison.

And then you hear the drag of steel against earth.

Pantalone’s voice flashes in your head, We know that he wields a greatsword. An ugly thing. More a heap of raw iron than an actual sword.

You remember the bodies he had shown you, cleaved in two. You think of the monstrous strength it must have taken to split a man in two. Out of the corner of your eye, you see it, and it truly is an ugly thing: a lump of raw black iron, it looks too heavy to be lifted by a regular man. And yet, it glows like weak embers when he grips it.

Oh Archons, how his wounded shoulder twists when he tries to lift it, the bone shifting out of place. It is a wonder how he does not scream.

When he cannot lift it, he drags it, carving deep furrows into the earth.

And Archons, there is something in the raw brute will of him that both chills and awes you. The muscles in his arms stand out like cables as he struggles to lift his greatsword. Blood streams from his open wounds. It pulses like a heartbeat from the terrible crater in his stomach.

And then he is bearing down on you, the greatsword raised like a guillotine. And its blade is wide enough to blot out the sky.

And then he is bearing down on you, and you are scrambling backwards, a scream breaking free from your throat, terror crystallizing in your veins, and oh dear Archons, something in you wanted to live.

And then–like a puppet with its strings cut, he stops. The greatsword slips from his fingers, the blade growing dim and unremarkable without his will to power it.

And he collapses, face first and bleeding, into the snow.

Your first frantic thought is to thank the Archons for saving you, though you are sure that they had turned their gaze from you long ago. Perhaps, you think, you can get out of here. Salvage what little you can from the camp. Cross the border and make a life for yourself in some small village in Liyue.

You rise to your feet, shaky, but alive. Thinking of pathways, the nearest route to the mountains, where perhaps you can find a cave to sleep in for the night. You actually take a single step away before you pause.

And you glance back at the insurgent.

He is still alive.

But not for long. His breathing is growing slower. The snow underneath him is getting steadily redder.

(He just tried to kill you.)

(You owe him nothing.)

How different he seems in death. How young he looks without hate clouding his features.

You think of the fires he caused, and how it was the only color you could see for miles.

You think about how you used to watch for them at night.

You think of your Delusions, so blackened and twisted that they will never be used to hurt anyone ever again.

You think of the Regrator’s hand, wrapped around your throat. And the look of savage triumph on his face.

And the next thing you know, you are on your knees again, hands pressed against the bleeding wound, feeling the sickening pulse of his blood against your palm.

(Imagine this: for that one small second, you remember what it is like to hold another’s life in your hands.)

(You remember, for a second, that you had never wanted to hurt anyone.)

“You can’t die–” your voice cracks. “You can’t…you have to…someone has to…”

(Someone has to keep fighting. Against the Fatui. Against the Harbingers. Against you and all your terrible creations.)

The Delusion on your hip glows, and you can feel it take something from you. You feel a gust of freezing wind, and you shiver violently.

A price is paid. The same way it had been paid when you had fought off Pantalone. The temperature around you drops. And when you breathe, you breathe pure frost.

The blood underneath your fingers begins to slow, no longer pulsing as if trying to escape. Through snow-flecked lashes you can see the muscles in his shoulder beginning to knit together.

You grit your teeth against the cold.

“Again,” you say.

You do not know who you are speaking to. To yourself, perhaps. Or to the dying man. Or perhaps to the distant Archons who are said to watch mortals closely on nights like these.

The Delusion glows again. Another surge of cold rises.

The bleeding underneath your fingers stops. The terrible wound on his shoulder closes. The air around you is so cold that it crystallizes: water vapor turning into snowflakes in midair, gently drifting to the ground.

To your horror, you can see frost growing across your fingers like moss, the nails turning black with frostbite.

You think of Pantalone.

And you keep going.

“Again.”

As you grit your teeth, you hear a horrible sound from the back of your mouth. One of your teeth, grown brittle from the cold, has cracked. Blood floods against your tongue.

You swallow it down.

You think of Pantalone.

You think of that terrible, frozen prison.

And you keep going.

Your Delusion activates one final time, and you feel it: a hardened lump of metal being pushed against your hand. The bracer’s bullet, pushed out of the man’s body as he finally heals completely. And though his clothes are in tatters, the skin underneath is smooth, unblemished.

He will not thank you for this, you think. He won’t even think of you as anything else as Fatui before he cuts you down.

And you are so cold that you think that you will shatter instead of bleed.

But it had been so long since you’ve actually done the right thing.

And perhaps, this man can finish what you had started.

Perhaps, somehow, you can be free.

White is beginning to cloud your vision now, and it is clear you had overused your Delusion. Your nails are black with frostbite and rot. Ice grows over your skin like moss.

Laughter bubbles up inside you, ugly and bitter and hateful, but you make no sound. It lies frozen inside your throat. What an irony, you think, to die survive Pantalone’s prison, only to freeze to death underneath the open sky.

And you collapse, right on top of the insurgent, and the two of you are so close that you can feel the beat of his heart against yours.

And you think to yourself: this is the first time in months that you actually feel warm.

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