Chapter Text
“Big brother, could you continue telling us about your adventure? What happened after you fought the Narwhal?”
Childe finds himself snacking on buttered slices of bread when he is caught off guard by Teucer’s question.
“Well…I got separated from the rest of my crew, because the Narwhal was that powerful. I held it off so that they could flee, and it ate me up.”
Tonia gasps.
“Wait…really?”
Childe nods.
“Yep. It’s no ordinary being, and when it ate me up, I thought I was a goner, but still deep within its belly laid a whole new world that I never thought I would see. You see, the Narwhal was no ordinary being, something that exists between a primordial creature and that of a god. So, when it devoured me, I was still alive, fighting and kicking within its belly.”
“How did you get out?”
“I fought and kicked and punched until it got sick of me and spat me out.”
Anthon lets out a laugh.
“After that, I was rescued by a travelling pair of a swordmaster and a merchant. They found me, and treated my wounds until I recovered. The swordmaster saw potential in me, so she took me in as her apprentice of sorts to train up my skills to help me face off against the Narwhal before it returned.”
Blue hair. A visage similar to that of Master Skirk. Ice, wielded as brutally and efficiently as her Majesty. By her side, a man with blonde hair, who treated his wounds, yet preached that he was but a mere merchant. Both, equally mysterious, each furthering their own agendas.
“From there…we ran into a bigger, larger ship that took us in. Think of a ship so big it’s like an island, no, bigger than an island! The people onboard took us in, and I got to experience what life was like aboard a travelling island.”
Tonia is aware that his story is entering the realm of something mystical and mythical, but Teucer and Anthon are still hooked on by it.
“It was pretty cool up there, on that massive giant ship. Their technology was insanely advanced, so much so that they could grow plants and have a miniature sea aboard that ship! To be honest, it was so massive I couldn't even finish exploring it even if I wanted to. The people there were really good too, and I won an eating competition there.”
Childe recalls his first meeting with the travellers who had sworn to venture across the sea of stars.
“The merchant got me in contact with a group of travellers who traversed the sea with a…very specially designed train.”
“A train? Like those Fontaine Aquabuses?”
“Yep, something like that.”
“Those travellers promised to help me get home, because they were on an adventure to discover new places and civilisations, including that of…Snezhnaya. I began to spend a lot of time with them, and learnt that one of them was also another traveller far from his home, as well as the fact that one of them was a half dragon.”
“Like the…adepti?”
Close enough.
Childe nods.
“Mhm. After that, a few incidents happened onboard the massive island ship, because there were some bad guys who wanted to capture some kids and experiment on them, and well, I happened to be there purely by chance and fought against them.”
“Did you win?”
“Of course I did! I also met another swordmaster, one who was responsible for a living weapon that went out of control when we met. I subdued her weapon, and since it was a living weapon, I exchanged a few words with him.”
Tonia’s gaze sharpens.
“There seems to be quite a lot of swordmasters onboard this ship.”
“Of course. The ship with its people were known for using swords to fight. So when I met another, he was a man but believed himself to be a weapon. A pretty chill guy to talk to, actually, but he relies greatly on his master to keep him in check. This was because he was ill with a sickness that caused him to lose control of himself, and so he relied greatly on his companion to ensure he would not lose himself.”
“In fact, it was a sickness that seemed to be prevalent amongst the people living on the ship. The natives who I spoke to mentioned that it was incurable, and a natural outcome to their long lived lives, no matter how painful the process was.”
“Did you end up fighting him?”
“I sparred with him, and he was a strong warrior too. Thankfully, he has a good set of companions taking care of him, so he’ll be fine in the long term.”
The timer goes off.
“And that’s the cake being ready to be removed from the oven. I’ll continue after dinner.”
Childe ruffled his younger siblings' hair as he stood up from where they had seated themselves by the fireplace, soaking in the warmth in the cold afternoon.
-
His siblings had ended up more tired out by his storytelling and the baking than he had anticipated.
As he sits in the shared room of the three youngest siblings, piles of pillows and blankets piled up against the three beds which had been pushed together to form a single large mattress, the eldest ruffles Teucer’s hair.
“...Brother, there was a strange lady who came to visit us a few days ago.”
“A strange lady?” His voice grew suspicious, for the agents he had stationed around his house and the compound would not have simply let anyone through.
“She was really tall, with white hair that had black stripes. Her eyes were really weird too, they had crosses for irises,” Anthon mutters sleepily, as the younger grabbed and hugged onto a pillow with a yawn.
Childe froze mid way, as he pulled his hand back from his siblings.
What had Arlecchino been doing so close to his home? The fourth was not known for interfering in the affairs of others, but it explained why his agents had been forced to allow her to come close. His authority was still lesser than hers, and before a Harbinger, he understood why they had no choice but to let her through.
“What did this strange lady say to all of you?”
“She asked us about you. We told her you were still aboard though, and she thanked us and left.”
Tonia supplies, as she adjusts her hair and lays down on the bed of pillows.
Childe let out a breath he had not realised he had been holding. At least the Knave had remained respectful and polite. Not leaking any information about his cover, or his job as a whole.
He knew he would not have forgiven her if she dared to lay a hand on his family.
“Oh! There was the time mom told us to stay hidden and inside the house too. A day after that incident.” Teucer blinks, as he stares up at the ceiling of their room.
“What did mom call them?...The Harbingers were out and about.”
Anthon murmurs sleepily.
“Big brother, they were so cool. One of them was the lady with the cross eyes, and there were two others with her. Word has it that they were here on some sort of official business, and when Tonia asked the neighbours what had happened the next day, they said that the Harbingers were here to take down a beast.”
Childe stiffens.
He knows the context of what this entire incident was. Three of the top four harbingers had been dispatched to handle him. Capitano, Dottore and Arlecchino. On her majesty’s orders, sent to cleave a path through his village and locate where he was.
Teucer’s description of whom they were sent to subjugate was spot on.
“There was a really loud shrieking noise that came from the lake behind the woods. That was really terrifying. I’m glad Mom told us to stay in.”
Dread pools in his gut.
He had…been so close to his family, and his home. When he reemerged from the depths of the Abyss, and found his way back home so fittingly. Crazed, hungry, and absolutely manic and insane, had the Harbingers not been present to subjugate him…he may very well have turned on his family, who were the closest source of sustenance he could get.
The reimagined alternative outcome plays out in his mind, where as much as he despised the fact that the other Harbingers came so close to his territory, knowing what would have happened if they had not been present was a far worse tragedy.
Foul Legacy was indiscriminate. Especially when he had no control over his emotions or any rational thought left in his mind, alongside the hunger and injury done to the Narwhal, any blood ties, familial love he held would mean nothing.
Prey was prey and food was food, with even how he had sought to turn the Knave into his own prey.
As much as he did not want to glorify the work of what the Harbingers did, he cannot deny that they had protected his family, saved his village from a potential doom had he ran free.
If he had come to realising his home was burnt to ashes, having cannibalised his own family…
He pulls his hand back from his siblings, finding them asleep.
Extricating himself out from the bed without disturbing them, he made for his own room.
He does not allow himself to think of the outcome.
-
Laying in his bed, Childe snacks on more Sushki.
He runs through the items he managed to bring back, holding the broken beacon transmitter in his hand as he sets it aside…unsure of what to do with it for now. Instead, after having had a shower, he delves into the hidden pockets of his clothes and extracts his phone from it, leaning on his bed as he taps it impatiently.
The screen lights up, and Childe has to stifle his yelp with a pillow when the bright light nearly blinds him.
It worked.
It was actually working here.
He forgot that everyone was supposed to be asleep, and that he needed to keep his volume down.
Shit, but seeing the screen light up and display the date and time of some other place, even if it was…oddly very, very fast made his heart beat with anticipation. W███ had warned him that the connection may or may not work, and now it was time to see if the upgrades he had managed to put into the phone would enable him to connect to the world beyond.
Some words of Dottore’s regarding the nature of Forbidden Knowledge flies over his head, as he eagerly clicked open and into the messenger chat, and had already found it filled with countless unread messages.
March:
Hey Childe, did you manage to reach home safely?
Dan Heng:
I am curious as to whether the phone remained intact.
Welt:
The phone has been upgraded by both the Luofu tech and my own brand of upgrades. It is built to withstand dimensional travel through the Sea of Quanta. However, whether it is able to continue functioning in the realm he is in is a different question.
Himeko:
The only thing we can do now is to wait for his response.
Stelle:
I bet he’ll wake up and see this after some time.
Child squinted his eyes as he gazed at the time stamp.
The messages…had been sent five days ago.
Had he been lost for that long?
Scratching his chin, the ginger begins to type his response back out, remembering what it meant for time dilation to occur between the Abyss and the surface. Three days down there had been equal to three months on the surface.
You:
I reached home after some nasty mishaps, but made it out alive :)
Error: Message not sent.
He tries again.
Error: Message not sent.
And again.
Error: Message not sent.
Fuck.
Time dilation. Celestia’s bullshit rules.
It was supposed to work. Judging by how he could receive their messages, and yet he could not send out any from his end, it meant that Teyvat was very much cut off from the rest of the universe.
Beyond that, he tried again to troubleshoot by looking at the settings, and user guide that Welt had thankfully downloaded for him inside the notes app, and spends a significant amount of time perusing what he can do to resolve this issue.
Even the navigation app does not register his approximate location, showing a scramble of numbers and digits in no order when he checks his coordinates.
The system time flows unnaturally fast, much faster than the time that flowed in Teyvat.
No matter what he did, nothing worked.
It is a painful frustration, being so close yet so far, as he scans through the other unread messages.
Jing Yuan:
I have heard from the Astral Express that you departed for your homeworld. I hope you have managed to reunite with your people safely.
Yanqing:
Remember to pay us a visit when you can!
You:
I reached home alive
Error: Message not sent.
He trusts that Welt’s upgrades were flawless. That the Luofu technology was unparalleled even throughout the cosmos. As he holds onto the jade pendant that hung around his neck, and buries his head in the red scarf gifted to him by the Express, he can only think of how…he might never be able to go back.
Not until he tore Celestia down from its heavenly throne, and shattered that which isolated them from the world.
So much for him to accomplish by then, and so…so little time.
Time passed by far more quickly for the T███l██a█z█s than him, which meant that so much would change by the time the Fatui eventually reached their goals and tore the false gods down from their throne.
Time…time changed things.
Would they still remember him?
Three months in the Abyss had shaped him from sweet young Ajax into something else unrecognisable. He knows how cruel time is, and how its passage would change a person, change someone, change the circumstances of things.
He thinks of that, and wonders whether the Astral Express would still remember him when he returned.
He sets the phone down, as he glanced at so many other unread messages by a few others.
From Blade, and even an anonymous sender.
He cannot bring himself to read those messages, knowing that he could never give them a response.
The ginger tightens his grip, buries his hands within the fabric of the thick blanket and red scarf that had been gifted to him.
For each day that passed by in Teyvat, a week passed by back there. With how her majesty’s plan was progressing, her goal would take a few more years to achieve which would easily translate to a decade that had gone by in the other world.
Stupid time dilation.
Stupid, stupid laws of the universe and Teyvat.
He keeps the phone away before he accidentally does something he regrets.
To give him a connection so tantalisingly close yet infinitely far, a distance of immeasurable time that stood between them and him, it is a punishment. The anger boils in his person, underlying frustration simmering until it would reach its breaking point.
Childe leaves through the open window in his room.
He needs some fresh air.