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Diluc’s not quite sure what he’s looking for.
Kaeya had always been a bit odd. He's known him for over a decade now, and any details about his brother's origins remain painfully unknown to Diluc and seemingly the rest of Teyvat. For all he knew, Kaeya could’ve appeared out of thin air and his father was so impressed by his magic trick, he immediately took in Kaeya as his second son.
Working at the tavern had its advantages. With enough drinks and enough time, more often than not Diluc would be blessed with knowledge he wouldn’t get otherwise without other particular methods. Not only was this procedure better for ever-growing bank of information, a couple of extra Mora never hurt as long as the patron wished for a drink or two.
“I walked into the Grandmaster’s office today trying to report an incident,” one tipsy knight confesses to two others at the bar, “And he was talkin’ to Captain Kaeya. He was super mad… I’m surprised the captain’s still alive after the way the Grandmaster yelled at him like that…”
To the most blabbermouth of patrons, they won’t hesitate to tell you that they suspect Diluc can read minds. He always knows when to slide another drink down the bar- all for coercing more information- and another beer slides down the counter to the knight in question.
Eavesdropping was rude, though. But there comes a point where Diluc can sweetly and innocently ease himself into the conversation without suspicion, with his occupation and status forcing ordinary citizens to assume he’s one of the sweetest people in Mondstadt. ( After cavalry captain Kaeya, some people would say, to Diluc’s disdain.)
As the richest and most popular bachelor in Mondstadt, it helps that Diluc is twenty-two, but his brain works at a level far beyond his years. Carefully he leans over the bar towards the knight, propping his arm up so his head can rest on his palm and accentuate his soft cheeks and twinkling wide eyes. It helps that Diluc is twenty-two, but has only gotten taller and more brooding since the day he turned eighteen.
“For as long as I’ve known the Grandmaster, he never yells,” Diluc adds. “Pray tell, what was he yelling at him about? Surely it’d have to be some horrible mistake on Kaeya’s end for him to get so angry.” Yes , while keeping regular tabs on someone who knows enough information to possibly rival Diluc’s title as the unofficial king of Mondstadt naturally puts him at an advantage, it was fun to watch Kaeya’s hand quiver when Diluc oh-so casually mentions an embarrassing tidbit a knight had spilled to him during an interesting night out. It was his way of subtly showing how much control Diluc had over who in his staff knew certain secrets. On the other hand in the Knights of Favonius, Kaeya’s power lies in his position; but Kaeya does not pay the knights the same way Diluc pays his employees, nor does he think Kaeya particularly likes most of them and thus rumors spread more easily, more covertly because Acting Grandmaster Jean says rumor mongering is forbidden within the Ordo Favonius.
The knight's eyes light up, as though he had forgotten his bartender was and always has been the reveled Diluc Ragnvindr. “They were talkin’ about where Captain Kaeya is from… he said something about being from Mondstadt but the Grandmaster doesn’t believe it because the database has no record of the captain until he was adopted—”
The bell chimes a certain way when he walks in. It’s a screeching tone to Diluc’s poor ears, a sign of the headache to come. The bell chimes a certain way as if its ring and Kaeya were two clashing notes, coming together to form a dissonance when Kaeya walks through the door of the tavern. (In reality, Diluc considers that he is the bell itself.)
It was Death After Noon season. Diluc had forgotten.
Of course Kaeya comes in at the perfect moment for him, the worst moment for Diluc. He watches Kaeya strut towards the bar, plopping onto the bar seat next to the knight and right in front of Diluc. An arm swings around the knight besides him as he leans in, almost too friendly for co-workers. That was how Kaeya worked, after all.
Kaeya knows, but still always asks for answers. “Good evening, Thomas , you sure seem to be cheerful on this dreary Monday.” He gestures to a now-brooding Diluc before him then back to Thomas, “I hope I didn’t interrupt your conversation between you and Diluc, gods forbid. What were you talking about, anyways?”
Thomas smiles a toothy grin. He’s not quite used to the attention. “I was tellin’ Master Diluc about you and the grandmaster today,” he replies simply.
Kaeya chuckles into his hand, and Diluc recognizes the way he does so- by covering his hand, it is much easier to curse under your breath and merely disguise the sound as a moment of laughter. “Oooh… I see.” A gloved hand pointed to the stairwell in the corner of the room, slowly moving to point to the second floor above them. “Though I will recommend, Thomas, that you make sure you are on the second floor when you talk about me. Two is my lucky number, actually.”
Thomas gasps and nods vigorously and says “ sir, yes sir! ” before wiggling out of Kaeya’s embrace and wobbling the way upstairs, likely to share more about Kaeya’s presumably fabricated story, akin to nearly everything else he does. There was no possible way Kaeya’s favorite number was two— he doesn’t even show both eyes, for gods’ sake. But the second floor was less conspicuous, and the second floor was where Diluc was not.
With Thomas gone, Kaeya waves goodbye to the intoxicated knight before turning in the barstool to face Diluc, his one eye twinkling matching with the star within it. “One Death After Noon, please,” He asks.
A grape juice slides down the aisle. Kaeya pushes back fast enough so Diluc has to reach for the moving glass before it falls off the counter and shatters.
“Your bro Kaeya heard from a little dandelion that you asked her for help with an important mission… something involving Dvalin.” He revels in the taste of the new drink sent his way, smiling at Diluc for no more than a moment before turning it on its head. “And I wasn’t invited.”
“So? I asked Jean instead of you. She’s much more capable and reliable than you, believe it or not.”
“Why didn’t you ask me ?” All Kaeya was doing is complaining now. To be considered second-best compared to Jean Gunnhildr wasn’t rare in the slightest. “Your brother? The amazingly capable and adaptive Kaeya Ragnvindr…?”
The answer was obvious.
“Because you’re annoying as all hell,” Diluc replies.
Kaeya’s left hand makes a point out of shielding the area over his heart. “You wound me.”
“My dandelion informant also mentioned that you were helping Lumine— how very surprising. Were you compensated for your troubles?”
It’s been a week since Venti and Lumine snuck up to the very same second floor Thomas was on, asking him for a place in the tavern where one wouldn’t be seen. If anything, he’s surprised it took this long for the information to get to him. There was no money included in their brief transaction but Dvalin destroying Mondstadt- his most prized place of business- and the Dawn Winery orchard- where most of the wine was grown, produced, and stored- was most definitely his problem. “No money. Is it not enough to care about the fate of Mondstadt?”
Kaeya shrugs. He doesn’t pry into him any further because he knows that one, he’d never get the information he wants; and two, he had other pressing matters to ask about. So he’ll take whatever he’ll get.
“But what do you think about Lumine?” His transitions were flawless, effortlessly controlling the flow in the conversation. Talking about the stars can lead into wishes, which then moves to talking about their own desires, and at the end of the night Kaeya would have the names of the top ten artifacts Mondstadt’s treasure holders were after. Even without his Vision, he was as dangerous as ever.
Diluc recognizes the turn, expects it even. He merely chooses to play along, because the closer he plays into Kaeya’s well-laid out trap the easier it is to spot it. “They’re peculiar. Talented, though. Definitely a nice trophy for the Knights of Favonius to carry around for a couple of weeks.”
“Do you trust them, though?” This is where Diluc can see the spikes in the distance, the propped-up box with a stick and a string and an enticing shiny little object. “Even though they are an outlander?”
He laughs at him. “You ask me this, but then revel in the fact that everyone loves you despite not knowing anything about you. They’ve accepted you as one of your own because you’ve never allowed them to think otherwise.” He never thought Kaeya could be so funny. “Not even my father knew anything about where you’re from, and the entirety of Mondstadt is, arguably, infatuated with you. Is that not the same with Lumine and the Knights of Favonius?”
Back when Kaeya and Diluc were younger, when Kaeya was truly innocent and a tad more vulnerable than the human shield he presents now, their father asked him a question.
“Where are you from, Kaeya?”
Of course, it was rude to eavesdrop. But a young Diluc could not resist sticking his ear against the door, curious about his adopted brother’s origins. He should be allowed to know though, shouldn’t he? They might sleep in the same room every night, share the same last name, call the same man their father, but at some point Kaeya was not a Ragnvindr. They were brothers, and Diluc would say that to anyone who asks, but at one point in time Kaeya was not, and he can’t help wanting to know about a life Kaeya lived before Diluc.
“It’s called Khaenri’ah.”
He should’ve stayed longer. The name barely rolled off his tongue as smoothly as Kaeya said it, and yet he ran to the library to begin his fruitless search for a kingdom who knew Kaeya before Diluc did.
After promptly resigning from the Ordo Favonius, Diluc traversed Teyvat to familiarize himself with the world beyond Mondstadt, to get away from the twisted Knights he left behind after they saw his dead father as nothing more than a lost asset. Though in all the seven regions and in every book he could get his hands on, there is not even one mention about some nation such as " Khaenri’ah ". Even in his youth, there was no reference to it in his frantic skimming through the Ragnvindr library minutes after learning its name.
Diluc widdles down the numerous possible explanations to two reasons.
1. Kaeya lied about his origins, and he's secretly from Snezhnaya, which would connect to his Cryo Vision. (He knew this logic was flawed, as the Ragnvindrs have lived in Mondstadt since the beginning of everything.)
2. Similar to a give-and-take relationship, Kaeya appeared in the world while Khaenri’ah disappeared from every book, everyone's memories, and possibly even the nation itself. (Diluc knocked his forehead against the wall two, three times after realizing how ridiculous of a theory it was. Teleportation was possible in Teyvat, but an entire nation erasing itself from existence was unquestionably unprecedented.)
Now, he acknowledges how futile such a long-winded search would be. Say he finds out anything about Khaenri’ah— what happens next? Diluc would be peeling away only the surface layer of Kaeya’s outer shell, with nearly everything still open to the imagination. He assumes that this is the same with Lumine, where their accomplishments serve as a distraction for the questions that’d come to mind if you thought about them for too long.
Diluc did trust Lumine. They were on the side of Mondstadt, despite barely knowing its streets, and that alone was enough to convince him. He had no doubts that this was the same thoughts Mondstadt’s citizens had about their perfect Kaeya the cavalry captain as well.
At the end of the day, Kaeya will still be Mondstadt’s heartthrob, the Ordo Favonius’ cavalry captain, and the same sheltered person he hides inside. He reckons he’ll die before he finds out whether or not Kaeya’s birthday is truly November 30th.
It’s sad, really. And Diluc would never admit that he is practically exactly the same.
“I suppose you’re right,” Kaeya says. Voice like a cat nails against chalkboard, the silence was long enough for Diluc to board a train of thought and Kaeya’s voice is what let him know he was at his station. The ice in his glass clinks against each other as he shakes the drink.
“Then do you trust them?”
“I don’t.” He looks up at him from his seat, the star in his eye much duller than before. Before him, there’s only a few scratches on the surface. “Why would I?”