Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

You are young - so young, so small, barely aware of your place in the world, barely aware of there being a world at all - and your god insists that you call her mother. 

She tells you this before she even grants you the gift of a name. Before she elevates you from the status of a crawling creature at her feet, before you know the meaning of personhood, of godhood, she tells you the eternal truth that will follow you to your grave. 

I am your mother , she says, regal, beautiful, words dripping like melting icicles. She brushes a cold, cold hand against your cheek, and you are young, so young, so it is easy to mistake her possession for love. It is easy to lean into her touch, like the affectionate little thing you are, hungry to love and hungry to be loved. It is easy to allow yourself to be chained. 

You will obey me, she says, as if it were the truth of the world, as if anything else would be ridiculous to imagine. You will be my subject, and my soldier, hm?

It is easy to promise that much, when you don't know what any of those words mean. 

~=~

Your god gives you a name. Such is the right of deities and mothers, to chart out the path of your obedience, to determine who you are before you even know for yourself.

It is telling, isn’t it? Her choice. Brighella . The name of a Fatuus, of a Harbinger, of one of her loyal soldiers. Her enforcer and her servant, her will and her worshipper.

You will be my subject and my soldier, hm?

It is her right, of course. You have no say in the matter - you do not know enough of this world to have a say. You know nothing of chains, of bloodshed, of hands drenched in viscera and the words well done, my subject. You have no context for any of this. You couldn’t have. You never stood a chance.

Your mother-god says that it is an honor. Says that it is a blessing from her to you, a gift, a responsibility, a calling. You are a child, a godling in the making - and so, you take her every word as truth, and you foster the sparks of pride in your heart, pure and honest like the brightest flames.

You will soon begin your training, she says one day. Her cold, cold hands trail across your cheek, leaving impressions of frostbite kissing your skin. I will not tolerate a weak son, she adds. Someone of my lineage should carry my strength. Brighella, stand up straighter - don’t make me remind you again.

You nod and obey, as you’ve always done, to all of her words. You could hardly do anything else, when she speaks the perfect truth.

Good boy. Her fingers dig in, briefly, cutting through the chill - before easing. I’ve asked La Signora to take you under her wing. You will begin working with her tomorrow.

Silence, then. It’s a silence that you know well, when she thinks of him. The man you do not know the name of, the one you only know as an enemy. The one you’ve learned to hate.

...You will be stronger than your pitiful father ever was.

You are already looking forward to tomorrow.

~=~

La Signora is a beast of a different kind. You are used to Mother’s claws, and you are used to the thorns hidden under her permafrost syllables, and you know how to avoid both - with deference, and trust, and relying on the love she says she has for you. When it hurts, you know it’s your own fault, for not following the rules well enough. You know that you deserve it, and that you can do better, and should do better.

Signora teaches you something different. She teaches you hate.

Her hate is blind. It rages like an inferno, and cuts you to the quick with a chill more violent than Mother has ever shown you. It is bare and naked in its honesty, in her inability to keep it at bay with more than rote common courtesies. It burns the skin off your chest and corrodes down through your ribcage, and scratches nails across the trembling mass of your heart.

You are a pest , she says, from the first day she sees you. You don’t deserve the blood in your veins. You don’t deserve the air you breathe.

You have never heard such cruel words before. They make you grovel, shiver in fear, beg for clemency as you are used to doing. Twist yourself in different shapes to try to please her. To coax a smile and a well done, in any form, in any way -

Stop begging, she snarls, losing patience. Are you an idiot? Get up, and stop wasting my time - just like your father -

Something snaps, then, in that space behind your lungs and heart. Something crackles like a flame sparking to life, scoring red-hot marks down your soul, and your body moves without your say-so, and you lunge , like a snake after prey, and -

-and Signora tosses you aside bodily. You narrowly avoid cracking your head open on the stone. You twist, instead, scrabbling, clumsily pushing yourself to your feet to get at her -

She’s smiling. It’s the first smile she’s ever shown you. It’s not for your sake - it’s the savage joy that comes with provoking rage in something that can’t strike back. Poking the bear through the bars of its cage and laughing when it uselessly swipes its paw at you.

It only makes you angrier, and with a snarl - a sound you didn’t know you could make - you lunge again.

Signora hates you , and from this, she teaches you to hate in turn.

~=~

Hate is delicious. It boils behind your teeth sometimes, and when it does you lick your chops and feel its acid burrow into your flesh. It feels good. It feels like something that can awaken you from this chill. It feels like enlightenment, like righteousness. 

You cling to it, and feel it seep into everything you feel.

Signora is the first to reap its rewards. The higher you fan the flames, the stronger you become. The heavier your blows, the more vicious your sword. She does not bleed the way you wish her to, but she smiles in that way again - the one that says she sees you as interesting, not just pathetic. You will take what you can get.

Signora is the first to reap its rewards. You can comfortably say that you hate her. You can say that you hate the palace, without lying. You can say that you hate Mother’s soldiers, also without lying.

There is something missing, though.

The symptoms. Despising the symptoms, yet not recognizing the disease. All of this pain stems from something , and you cannot name what it is. There is a reason and a cause for the evils in this world, and you cannot see why this evil belongs to you.

Until -

Until one day, when you return from your training -

You see the smile that Mother has on her face.

It used to fill you with pride. It hasn’t, for some time - it felt rancid, rotten, something hollowing out the falsehood you thought was there, and leaving bare cynical bone. You’ve been ignoring it. Forgetting it. It wasn’t worth thinking about, because Mother loves you, loves you, and no one else does -

You are bleeding. You are bleeding, and Mother smiles at you, and tells you that this is well and good, that you are learning well, that she -

Approves.

She approves of your pain. She thinks it is good for you. Why wouldn’t she? It was her idea, to put you in Signora’s claws -

And to keep you in the cold -

And to keep you from your father -

And to - and to - 

Mother smiles at you, and for a moment, blinding, near maddening, you want to reach out and rake your claws down her face.

It passes. You blink it away. You smile, and feel the blood clot in your teeth, and Mother’s expression does not flicker. She offers you no comfort. Only her quiet, steely approval. Stand up straight, she reminds you. You did well. Wear it with pride.

(You do not know why it feels cold, this time.)

~=~

Your face is betraying you.

Days, weeks, months, years . You’re growing up. Growing stronger. Your height with your strength with your growing resentment at the life you lead -

(No, stop, you have nothing to resent -)

-But that’s irrelevant. Any issue that you face is one you have brought upon yourself.

Except this.

You’re growing up. You’re growing up, and the bones of your face are settling, and your hair is growing longer, and there are flecks of hair gathering at your chin now, stiff and itchy, you’ll have to shave them soon, you hate the feeling of them -

You look like your father, she says one day, and you understand.

She’s been treating you coldly for weeks now, without a word of explanation. Dismissing your every attempt to please her, shunting you aside. You felt scared, then guilty, then despairing. Everything seemed to fall on deaf ears, her eyes clouded over like she was remembering something distasteful and unpleasant.

…It was because of your face. All this time, it was because of your face.

Should you feel relieved? It’s a problem that’s easily fixed - hide your face, and the clouds will clear again, and she will look at you with something like love again. It’s not the most difficult thing you’ve ever had to do.

Should you feel relieved?

You don’t.

You feel something else. Noxious, and poisonous, and corrosive, curling behind your breastbone like a snake, sinking its fangs into your ribs and pumping them with venom. You feel it in the grit of your teeth and the curl of your fists and the sting of your nails digging into your palms, like bitterness, like resentment.

It’s not fair, is it.

It’s not fair at all. It’s another burden on your life, another of Mother’s foibles that you will have to account for, another chain restricting your breathing.

It’s not fair. Why is it you that has to sacrifice, all the time, forever, and never her? Where’s the justice in that?

Justice is a joke, of course. A child’s fancy. The words remain unspoken, the tears unshed. You know your lot in life, and you know it is immovable.

You still loathe it.

(You think you might loathe her. )

~=~

(It was never Signora that taught you how to hate. Only how to name it for what it was.)

~=~

Your heart is burning, burning, burning with injustice.

Your eyes are not fixed on hers, but on a point a little to the left of her face. Your back is ramrod straight. It’s how she prefers you. There is a smile on your face, like not-looking at her is pleasing to you. She does not reward you with any acknowledgement. It is better than punishment.

You still hate her.

Mother , you say, and the word is starting to taste bitter, isn’t it? It’s starting to taste foul. Like rot, and decay, and a promise broken over and over and over again - I will love you I will cherish you I will raise you as my child. A joke. What a joke. It’s all such a hilarious, hilarious joke -

Mother, you say, and you’re practiced at this, you’re good at this, so you can keep your voice steady and respectful and awestruck. I wish to be a better soldier to you. I wish to wear a mask, too.

( I hate you I hate you I want you dead I don’t want to hide I don’t want to hide I don’t want to hide - )

There is silence. There is a part of you that has the same instincts as a beaten animal, and it cowers, and worries that you’ve offended her. There is a part of you that has the same instincts as a taunted wolf, and it wants to reach forward and tear her throat out between your teeth. You keep both at bay, and keep the smile on your face, expectant.

In the end, she treats you like a dog. She laughs, the sound grating like heavy boots crunching through ice, and pats you on the head with one cold, cold hand.

Good boy, she says. Of course you may. What a capital suggestion.

She looks so pleased. You despise her. You smile, like a dog would, and you seethe.

~=~

(The mask, when it is given to you, presses against your face with a stifling weight. It smoothes out your features, your undesirable emotions, your unwanted humanity. It leaves a soldier in the place of a son.

You bear it, as you have borne everything else. The hatred churns under your skin.

[You wonder who your father is, sometimes. A man who left you with this face, with no warmth to remember him by. A man who wasn’t strong or kind enough to save you.

…For this, at least, you feel grateful. As little as you know of him, as much pain as it causes you -

At least he was kind enough to grant you with his face, instead of hers. ])

~=~

You do not know their name. You do not care to. Mother’s soldiers find it fitting to reach above their station, under her tacit approval, and challenge you.

Often, you can fight them off. Sometimes, not. This is one of the times - panting, clawing at the floor - where you know they will try to bleed the guilt of existence from you.

Their hand wraps around your neck, forcing your head down, pressing your face against the stone. Their fingers are cold and unyielding, and carefully out of the range of your snapping teeth.

I wonder if you’ll finally cry, they say, voice cruel, ringing off the stones like madness, if I rip your back open.

There is no time to brace. Their claws tear , scraping down your back, ripping through the skin and flesh and muscle, down to bone, down to - it’s blinding -

(Not as blinding as the hate you feel.)

Not even a scream. They sound disgusted, in a fascinated sort of way. Watching the struggling of a dying mouse. You really are beyond redemption, aren't you?

…Redemption.

Redemption. It’s so funny. It’s such a hilarious word. Something about it squeezes your mind until it creaks. Something about it makes that ever burning hate boil over - something about it -

It bubbles in your throat, violent, burning, like a tempestuous sea, like acid corroding, like bile rising in the back of your throat, like rot, like a plague -

You open your mouth - to vomit it up, to rid yourself of it, to purge the poison. You open your mouth, and your throat hitches in all the right places, but there is no bile. There is no vomit.

No. Something else rings off the stones. High and sharp and vengeful.

Laughter.

You are laughing, until your chest burns, until your body shakes. You are laughing until the pain of your existence fades, and you are laughing until they snatch their hands away from you -

- he’s gone mad -

- and you laugh, as you drag yourself to your feet, and you laugh, as you pick up your weapon, and you are still laughing, still vomiting up this poison, as you plunge the blade into their chest.

(They die. It is not the first time you have seen death. It is the first time that you smile at it, however, and that rots your soul more thoroughly than any pain ever did before.)

~=~

The marks on your back turn to scabs, turn to scars. It takes many months, because Mother has standards, and they do not become less exacting simply because her child is bleeding in front of her eyes. Perfect posture, perfect composure - don’t flinch, child, or the world will eat you alive.

You bear it. You have the tools to, now. The smile on your face is strained, rabid, and it is your sword and shield against the world.

(The soldiers do not challenge you anymore. You intimidate them, apparently. How droll.) 

You see Signora again only once. When she fights you, there is no smile on her face, because your smile is sharper than even hers, and more fearless.  When she drives a blade through your arm, you laugh, long and loud, and it makes something in her finally snap. 

You disgust me, she says, and her face twists like she means the words - like you've managed to reach down into the marrow of her scorched, rotten heart, and extract some semblance of feeling from her. Even I have standards. You’re below them.

There’s something wrong with her tone - you’ve never heard that from her before. Something that falters minutely, like someone tripping on a stone. It’s well-hidden, because La Signora hates being seen as weak more than she hates Mondstadt, or the gods, or living. But it’s there.

Get out. It sounds like a snarl. The posturing that a frightened predator does to scare away something bigger than it. I don’t want to see you again.

Obeying is easy, despite how much it hurts. Your back aches as you straighten - perfect posture tearing at the scars, as always, as is right and proper. You grin at her, full of teeth, full of venom, and she hisses, and the sound is animal and fearful and delicious to your ears . 

You leave with a laugh on your lips and a different kind of poison lodged behind your ribs. One that tells you that you did well.

(One that tells you you’ll no longer have to be helpless. )

~=~

When you are offered a chance to leave, you take it.

Signora has failed miserably in Mondstadt. This is expected, because Mondstadt is a land of soft, warm creatures that bristle their fur and bare their teeth at her scorching, hateful flame. She knows only one form of diplomacy, and it is force.

You are not known for anything different. But you have a connection to the land that is more recent than hers - your father was from Mondstadt, Mother tosses out casually, like it doesn’t matter. They will look at you more kindly when they see you bear his face. 

There is a violent irony there that makes you bite back coyote-laughter. 

Regardless. You have no intention of either succeeding or failing. This is distance, this is something new, and so you hunger for it. Some time without Mother’s oppressive presence will be good for you, you think.

You accept. You smile, and defer. It is a dance you know well. She sees the way your teeth are eager to be soaked in blood, and she offers you her blessing, and her approval.

(You spit on both, somewhere out of her sight.)

~=~

Mother taught you what love truly means. It means possession, and claiming. To be loved is to be owned - to refuse to love is to refuse to be controlled.

You do not love anyone here. You do not know how. It means that leaving does not hurt, and it lends to you the cold, cold air under your wings as you soar to warmer lands.

It is not happiness, you think, but it is the closest you have ever felt.