Chapter Text
//
There are times when he thinks he can remember her face. Flashes of clarity in the heat of battle, through snarling pain and frenzied tearing, and he touches on a bloodstained memory long since buried. He hadn’t meant to forget what she looked like. He remembers the rest of it, most nights, most mornings, every time he stares at the sun until his eyes threaten to buckle out from underneath him just as the earth had that day.
The first time he saw her stagger was the first time he heard her laugh. She was always smiling, that much he knew, the joy behind her eyes more terrifying than any malice. She was happy. She wasn’t doing it to hurt him. She saw that one good fight laced tight in his chest and she would tear it free by any means necessary. Hurting him brought her no feeling, no satisfaction. It was just a method. And he knew, staring down the crevices at the writhing creatures crying out at the bottom, what would happen if he failed to rise to the challenge.
The price of a single slip.
And still it felt like home all too quickly.
Her laugh had been sharp and sudden, more a bark of surprise than one of mirth. She had reached up to touch the scrape on her cheek with a grin so wide he nearly flinched. He didn’t flinch. He had learned, by now, what would happen.
You’ve got some skills, she said.
She had laughed often after that, but never so loud and long as she did on the last day, half screaming with it as they curled into their wounded bodies on opposite sides of the roots. She kept laughing as she dragged herself to her feet.
He hadn’t known what to think about that. He had been sure to break both of her legs. He supposed, that after everything, he didn’t really suspect she would let him go.
Your strength is praiseworthy…
His vision stained crimson as he stared at her, the image distorted through eyes full of blood. He felt cold, suddenly, in a way he hadn’t since the beginning. His hands clenched around his father’s knife. Rusted nearly through, now.
I, too, shall use all of mine.
She never did give him a better weapon.
It started with her eyes. Black leaking into the sclera as they seemed to sink deeper into her face, as her matted hair rose from her shoulders with static electricity, the lilac rivers creeping up her broken limbs like veins.
So don’t you dare disappoint me...
Watching wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was keeping his hands at his sides, resisting the urgent need to cover his ears, to get away from the horrible tearing and cracking and sizzling. The smell of it.
... Ajax.
Had she ever called him by name before? He couldn’t remember.
It took him longer than he had expected to realize the sizzling wasn’t coming from his teacher, and it wasn’t the euphoria that caught him off guard; he knew to expect that. He had been cultivating it, sharpening it into a blade to fill the space of the flimsy little thing he had snatched from his father’s bedside table before leaving home. Home.
There was a time when the hoarse scream of laughter that tore from his raw throat would have been impossible to recognize as his own voice. Now he knew, the sound belonged to him more than any that had come before it.
He had a home. He had a father?
He looked down at the electricity sparking up his arms. It hurt, he realized. He reached down towards his vision. He didn’t know how it would feel to be electrocuted. He only knew, as the points of light behind his new eyes grew hot as newborn stars, that he would not die.
What he had.
He grinned and crushed the rusty knife in his fist, let the crumbling dust and blood fall from his hand. She smiled back, the expression bizarrely warm.
The better weapon. Of course that was what it was. Her last riddle. Her last test.
Nowhere to run, he murmured.
Where could he run? Where had there ever been to go? The fight followed. The fight always followed.
Because he wanted it to.
As they collided in a whirlwind of claws and roaring and the stinging taste of metal, he tried to remember his name. Ajax. Her foot connected with the side of his neck hard enough to snap it. He twisted away to smash his elbow into what used to be her cheekbone. Ajax. He couldn’t remember how long ago his lungs had been crushed. It could have been hours. It could have been days. Ajax.
Was he breathing? Was he living? He was happy, and he was bleeding. Something came out on the other side, and there was a name still ringing in his ears, the death rattle of a boy who had not survived the assault.
In the end she collapsed first, felled not by her student, but worn out by the weight of her own foul legacy. It felt like cheating, he thought, dazed, staring down at her, even as he felt his own body begin to tear away from itself. He felt he should wait. He should wait for her to get up. They could fight again. They had to finish it. He couldn’t…
His eyes fell on the handle of the knife, still lying where he had dropped it. Half intact. Just enough to see the initials carved in the sloppy way of a child. Just enough to realize, somewhere deep behind the snarling in his chest, was a child who recognized them.
All you do is run.
So he ran, the legacy ripping free like skin torn from a too-fresh wound, losing its purchase even as he grew more afraid, because it was the act of a coward, to run. The desperate last act of a dying child who had once been called Ajax.
Maybe it was shame.
Maybe that was why he could never remember her face.
//
Beneath a sunsettia tree just outside of Liyue, a red-haired boy perched precariously on a large rock. Beside him sat a man in dark clothing, listening intently to the child’s chattering, looking back across the water only when he paused for breath. He glanced to the side every so often, because there was a mist flower nearby, and the boy seemed like the type to try and touch it, and he would rather head that off before it happened.
Thump .
Someone landed hard behind them and stumbled forward.
“Oh, my-- Teucer --”
The boy yelped in delight and scrambled towards him.
“I told you not to--to leave the--the…”
Childe’s voice trailed off. He had gone very still, frozen by the familiar smell of acid on the wind. He glanced down at the sand and inhaled sharply when he saw the faintly lingering ghosts of electric lettering.
“...bank…”
Teucer didn’t seem hurt. He didn’t seem hurt. Did he seem hurt?
Childe dropped to his knees, at eye level with the still-grinning boy. Proud of himself. He always was.
“Teucer, did something hurt you?”
Teucer bounced on the balls of his feet. “I wish you coulda been here! I want you to see next time!”
“See…” Did he want the answer? “See--see what, buddy?”
“Mister Cyclops saved me!”
Childe blinked. “Mister…”
He glanced around, but found no ruin guards. None except for the doll-sized replica Teucer was waving in front of his nose.
“He exploded all the bad guys! I saw it, he--he even put a big tower under me so I wouldn’t get hurt!”
Childe looked up at his brother’s companion, who gazed back evenly.
“...Right,” he said. “Of--of course. Only to be expected from Mister Cyclops.”
Teucer beamed and raced away to collect sea glass, clearly knowing his sojourn was nearly at an end. Childe pushed himself to his feet and immediately had to lean back on the tree when black spots bloomed across his field of view. Maybe he really had been that out of breath.
“I suppose asking whether you are the brother he spoke of is moot at this point.”
He didn’t answer, watching Teucer as he plucked a smooth amber stone from the sand. “How many?”
“Two mages,” replied Zhongli.
“And?”
“And that was not a problem for--Mister, ah. Mister...Cyclops.”
Childe narrowed his eyes. “And you ended up here because…”
“The Abyss has a very distinct smell,” Zhongli said mildly. “Clings to the denizens quite stubbornly.”
I thought you retired. He didn’t say it out loud.
“Tartaglia.”
“Still really weird to hear you calling me that,” he muttered.
Zhongli arched an eyebrow. “Do you expect me to use your false name, then?”
“Do you expect me to use yours?”
His mouth snapped shut, too late to keep it from slipping out. He looked sideways at Zhongli, saw a flicker of what could have been anger behind the amber of his eyes, and his stomach dropped in sudden excitement--
Zhongli shrugged, the flicker extinguished as quickly as it had appeared. “Fair enough.”
A wave of disappointment rushed through him, quickly boiling into shame when his eyes landed once more on Teucer. Focus, he told himself. Enough gods to pick fights with when your baby brother isn’t in the room.
On the beach. Whatever.
“Speaking of names.”
Oh, fuck.
“He says his brother is the best toy salesman in all of Liyue,” Zhongli continued, watching Childe’s face with a familiar shrewdness he didn’t care for at all.
“Maybe he is,” Childe shot back dryly.
“He also says his brother’s name is Ajax.”
Childe’s face felt cold. I suppose asking whether you are the brother he spoke of is moot at this point. Such an obvious trap. He cursed himself silently. Too slow.
The words of an old mentor echoed through his head: Can’t blame the hunter for the stupidity of the prey.
“Ajax…”
The name settled like dust on his tongue.
“Ajax died when we were younger. He--he was...”
Killed? Died of exposure? Ate himself alive like a snake starving for its own tail?
“He got caught in a storm.”
Technically not a lie.
“Teucer didn’t take it well. Sometimes he--well, it’s--it’s like he doesn’t realize Ajax is...dead.”
Zhongli fixed him with a steady look that filled Childe with the wild and sudden urge to shove him, just to change his expression, just for an instant. An excruciating moment passed before he nodded slowly. “Grief is a complicated thing.”
I hate it when you do that, Childe wanted to say. I hate it when you look at me like you know I’m lying and you’re doing me a favor by keeping your mouth shut.
Instead, he said: “We’re leaving in the morning. They called me back to Snezhnaya.”
“I see,” murmured Zhongli. “Try not to cause any more diplomatic incidents, will you?”
“No promises.”
Zhongli snorted, mouth twisting into something that wanted to be a smile. He looked at Childe with that same infuriating expression, as if he had something to say and was doing them both the great service of keeping it to himself.
Do it. Go on. Say it.
Call me a liar .
“Travel safely.”
He turned on his heel and started back down the coast, towards the city.
Childe watched him go, and he wanted to lunge after him, wanted to make him stop and tear at the stone with his bare hands and maybe then he’d finally get a fucking reaction--
“Big brother?”
A small hand tugging on his sleeve. He forced himself to smile down at Teucer.
“Are you mad at me?” Teucer asked, clearly anxious.
“No, I--”
Childe took a deep, shaky breath, and hoped the slip hadn’t shown on his face.
“I’m not mad at you, bud,” he said. “It’s--I’m not mad.”
Teucer looked up at him with a smile so genuine it almost made Childe’s own feel real.
“Let’s go.” He ruffled the boy’s hair. “Early morning tomorrow, right?”
That night, he stood facing the dresser in a small room above the Northland Bank. Most lights were already off, so as not to disturb the boy snoring softly in the corner; only a weakly flickering oill lamp remained to illuminate the set of chopsticks resting in Childe’s hand.
They seemed more like art than utensils. Not that he knew how to use them as utensils. He gazed down at the ornate carvings, mouth twisting upon making out the dragon.
Maybe it had been Zhongli’s idea of a joke.
He glanced at the window, at the faint rosy light just beginning to seep over the horizon onto the roofs of Liyue Harbor. He looked back at his hands, and then to the bag lying bolted shut on the bed. With a quiet sigh, he undid the bolt and placed the chopsticks gently between two coats, to keep them from breaking.
They would make a decent weapon in a pinch, if nothing else.
//
There was always something about the shock of a blade making contact. The way he expected it to whistle past as it always did, only to find it sliding across his skin with that strange sharp drag of a feeling that came before the pain. It managed, despite being familiar, to be new every time.
Tartaglia leaped back with a hiss, half satisfaction, half rage. His opponent’s expression remained hidden behind her mask, but he knew the smug look he would find underneath.
He pressed a hand against his side. It came back bloody, but not so much that it would slow him down. Must have barely grazed him.
Thinking she had cut deeper, she lunged towards him, making an indignant sound of surprised when he twisted away at the last minute to land a slash of his own on her cheek. She wiped at it, unconcerned with the blood she smeared into her mask, and smirked.
Seemed the warmup stage was over.
Fifteen minutes later the ring was frozen solid, still sparking with electricity that had charged through the ice. She stood above him, the tip of her claymore hovering above his throat; somehow she didn’t look as triumphant as one might expect, but that might have been related to the arrow trained on her own.
They exchanged curt nods. Tartaglia loosened the arrow. Signora lowered her sword.
“Same time next week?”
“Yeah.”
He poked at the various lacerations covering his arms and torso. She’d hit him harder in the past.
“Tartaglia.”
He glanced up. She had paused in the process of taking off her delusion, radiating a strange half-power that set his teeth on edge.
“Do you ever think about killing me?”
Tartaglia laughed. What a stupid question. “Of course. Do you ever think about killing me?”
“Frequently,” said Signora dryly.
“Glad we’re on the same page with that.”
He tugged the mask from his face, wincing a little at the feeling, like a web of cold tendrils had been pulled from beneath his skin. He blinked a few times, waited for the color of the floor to go right again.
“You have a new target.”
“I tend to hear about that when it happens, you know,” Tartaglia muttered.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “It makes me look bad.”
Tartaglia rolled his eyes and turned away, making a mental note to do something stupid as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
It seemed like nothing but war to war, when he was home, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“Let’s not draw this out.”
He twirled an arrow between his fingers, grinning widely at the pair of blank-faced mages. These Celestia loyalists...always so emotionless. On a good day he might be able to get a flinch out of one of them before it was over.
Usually he didn’t have the patience for that sort of thing.
The blast hit him square in the chest, snapping his head back with force that might have thrown another man to the ground. Tartaglia stumbled, regained his balance.
...Unexpected.
“What was that?” he called out, stalking forward. “Teaching you some cute new tricks up there, are they?”
The taller one muttered something that sounded like “softly.” Tartaglia was getting bored.
“...Fine.”
He waited for the mage to twitch forward before whirling away to stab the other in the shoulder. It felt -- different. The same resistance as normal flesh, but as if he were making contact with something hollow. He twisted the sword, heard the mage grunt --
A chill up the back of his neck, a rush of furious joy, and the second blast sent him flying back into the brick wall of the abandoned townhouse he’d cornered them in.
Blood. He tasted blood. He heard singing. Enough that he needed to cough it up, but when he tried his chest felt like it had more pieces than usual. He couldn’t move any of them. He heard singing. He reached for his mask --
-- he was on his feet, he was off his feet, his body was twisting, his eyes were cold didn’t mean to do that didn’t mean to taking up the required space finally feel the air rising to meet him, the charge building in a suddenly damp room didn’t mean it meant to do that the singing grew loud enough to turn everything else into dead silence hurts at last, at last he saw fear on the mages’ faces.
And then there was nothing left to remember.
Nothing at all.
…
Childe looked down at the hands that belonged to him, and the blood that didn’t. He had cut it close that time. Cracks ran up his arms, running with a thick dark substance that burned like acid. The hands that belonged to him shook; whether with exhaustion or withdrawal, he couldn’t say.
Icy wind rushed through the open window and he became suddenly and painfully aware of the tears in his clothing. He shivered. He felt empty, and cold.
He would have to tell Signora about the new weapon -- tactic, spell, whatever it was. The energy had been strong enough to tear into even the legacy’s armor, and he was in no hurry to go through the experience of pain in that form again.
Pulling his scarf tighter with a sigh, he kicked open the door, not bothering to deal with the aftermath. The Fatui had people for that, and he wasn’t one of them, and he didn’t want to be.
Luckily he was close to home. He wasn’t sure he would have made it had the walk been any farther. His heart sank for a moment when he approached -- had he left the window unlocked? -- and relief swept over him when he found that he had. He didn’t quite remember doing it, but old habits seemed to die hard. He dragged himself through, being careful to land softly.
They wouldn’t see him like this, he thought, as he collapsed onto the bed. They would never see him like this.
Warm light was streaming through the window when he opened his eyes. He had slept from sunrise to sunset. Shorter, then, than his usual post-legacy recovery periods.
He moved to rub his eyes and groaned when he saw his bloody sleeve. Remembered everything but the stupid clothes. Bloodstained sheets were hard to make excuses for.
Well, he could get away with washing it himself. As long as he kept a low profile. But he had practice with that, when it came to keeping secrets.
Still half-asleep and with a tongue dry as sawdust, he shoved the sheets and ruined clothes into their designated burlap sack and dragged them towards the door. His head hurt, sharp, like someone was banging a six-inch nail into it.
It really was like being hung over, sometimes.
The house was quiet, still in the sunset limbo of dimming windows and unlit lamps. He flicked a few on as he passed out of habit. No one in sight but Teucer, who was standing in the middle of the hallway, holding a piece of toast and looking at it as if he had forgotten why it was there.
He tapped Teucer lightly on the head. “Get lost in the one-story house again?”
“...Ajax?”
Something in Teucer’s voice stopped him dead in his tracks. “Yeah?”
His brother turned towards him with furrowed brows.
“Where’s that singing coming from?”