#dark sorcerer!cyno

[perpetualcynicism]

𝔬𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔲𝔭𝔬𝔫 𝔞 𝔣𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔶𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔢 — 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔢𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱.

𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔫.

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“Your mark, it… it has receded.”

Even as you said it, you almost could not believe what you were seeing: the dark tendrils reaching down the side of her neck had crept back to her jaw, where they stayed, pulsing slightly, as if with resentment towards their lost territory. Part of you was convinced you were merely deluding yourself into thinking the mark had shrunk due to desperation, but no; it was undeniably smaller than before.

“‘Receded?’” asked the little girl.

“It's smaller than before.”

“Oh.” Then, “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“I… I suppose so, yes,” you replied in a puzzled daze, too preoccupied with countless notions of what this meant to answer certainly. 

Was it the berries which had caused this to happen? It was more likely them than any other factor; and it seemed appropriate that only something originating from the woods could have an effect on whatever else came from it. 

You had not realised your hands were trembling until the little girl pointed it out to you. A strange kind of excitement was coursing through your veins. Could this at last be the solution you were looking for?

You inhaled deeply to steady yourself: if you were to tackle the disease, you must be calm as you did so. Excitement could lead to oversights, and oversights to consequences; further hardships you did not need. 

Shortly later, you told the little girl to go to sleep on the account that it was her bedtime as well as needing some time to yourself to make sense of what you had discovered. Once she was dozing peacefully, you slipped out from the bedroom and into your study, where you spent the remaining hours of night grinding the remaining berries into a paste along with some other herbs you had used in previous attempts to configure a cure. As always, you then infused the mixture with a sliver of magic to enhance its effects. 

When morning arrived, after a short walk to the forest wherein you left another flower on the tree stump, this time daring to hold onto high hopes that it would be reciprocated, you conducted another sweep of your patients, distributing as much of the berry concoction as you could afford between them. The results were better than anything you had tried before, with the disease’s dark blemishes reluctantly receding, and a feeling of relief—relief which had not been felt by the community for far too long—settled over the village. 

However, following the course of a few days, you began to discover that this solution, though promising, was far from flawless.

The first problem emerged when you found the demand for the berries required to treat symptoms greatly outweighed what you could provide: though your exchange of flower and fruit became routine, the amount you received in return was simply not enough for everybody—and you could hardly march up to the woods and demand the sorcerer for more. 

Furthermore, it soon became apparent that despite somewhat holding back the symptoms, the berries could not completely eradicate the disease: if a patient went a few days without another dose, the dark roots would regain their lost ground as though they had never been weakened at all.

When you discovered this, you could not help but feel your initial hope dwindle: even after everything, the only solution available was temporary. When visiting your patients again, you learned that it was only you who felt this decline in hopefulness, for the villagers were only more eager to receive their treatment now that they knew of a cure. Once they had tasted relief, they were not keen on returning to the darkness.

You may be selfish for doing so, but you kept a larger dose of berries—or one as large as you could afford to—for the little girl’s treatment. It was true you had a responsibility for all of your patients, but you were her guardian, and the thought of doing her parents ill was one you were far from eager to entertain. 

Some days later, when your supply inevitably ran short and you estimated a day’s wait for the next exchange—from this morning (when you had left your flowers) to the next, (when the sorcerer would return the favour)—a minor outcry arose in the village. 

“We have not received our treatment today. Is something wrong?” “Have you run out?” “Are we to die?” “Please, do not let me die!”

You tried to placate their cries with reassurances that all would resume as normal the next day, but your words of recovery fell deaf onto the ears of the dying. After some time, you managed to calm the townsfolk enough to return to your home unpursued, but still you could not be truly relieved: as desperate as they may be, the villagers had raised a vital point you had been hoping could be overlooked for longer. Today, it was only a one day wait, and making up the lost time was bearable. However, as the disease spread to more victims—for you still knew of no way to prevent this—and as the already afflicted’s conditions grew only more severe, you knew you would not be able to cater for everyone’s needs. 

Of course, they did not know it was another who was providing this supply; and if you told them the very treatment you had been giving them came from the woods, you feared they would refuse to take it any longer. Thus, explaining to them your situation was no more an option than demanding the sorcerer for more.

You sent the little girl up to bed earlier than usual, when the sun had barely begun to set, and gave her the last dose of medicine you currently had. Afterwards, in the quiet house, you sat in your study, feeling the weight of your responsibility heavier than ever before. Grieved by your own helplessness and fatigued by a lack of sleep, you completed no work, nor attempted any new solutions. You merely sat by the light of the dying candlelamp, and watched its lone flame burn the hours silently away. Though the light it cast was sufficiently bright, you could only see the shadows.

It was later that evening that you noticed the little dark patch beneath your ear. Though not unexpected, a sharp, painful cinch seized your heart like a hand suffocating your very being; one from which you could not escape, and which would only constrict around you as time went on. 

You lowered a shaking finger and slipped towards the little girl’s room, opening the door by a crack. She was sound asleep inside. For a moment, your expression softened; ill she may be, but she never complained, the poor thing. Then your face hardened, your smile turning grim. 

If I die, everybody else does, too.

Could you live with yourself if that happened?

And so it was later that night that you found yourself sneaking into the forest, past the copses of trees and troll stones, and to the edge of the maw of the woods. You knew you had reached your destination when the grass began to grow sparse and grey, and when all other sounds beyond the soft creaking of stick-thin trees had faded into silence; although if asked, you could not have placed when. 

Your plan—a flimsy, naive thing—was as follows: you would wait here on the border until the sorcerer came to take your flower, and you would ask him where he grew the berries, in the reckless, desperate hopes that, perhaps, you could find them yourself. If he refused to answer… You looked at the woods and its teeth of trees, and suppressed the shudder which pricked your spine. 

You were hoping it wouldn’t have to come to such a thing.

Despite the rather obvious task of keeping an eye on the woods, there was little to do, waiting at your tree stump. Perhaps in other places, one may have delighted at the sounds of insects trilling in the air, or the haunting calls of birdsong by night; but here, on this thin border separating your world from… whatever it may be that lies across it, there were no such sounds to be heard. No animal of a wise mind would stray this close to the woods.

With a smile edging on sardonic, you wondered what that would make you. 

You soon found you could not tell what time it was, nor track how long you’d been here; the sky was a dull, featureless grey, akin to what you imagined ‘nothing’ would look like if the concept was tangible. Time always seemed to bend out of shape where the woods was concerned. You fought to stay awake, your eyes fixed on the flower offering you had left that morning, determined to find answers, and uncover more about this sorcerer who had walked right out of a storybook and stolen the better half of your intrigue. What does his face look like? you wondered. What does his voice sound like? Why did he help you?

Beyond the border, there was a rustle of movement. You strained your eyes against the darkness, wondering whether it may be the sorcerer, but you could not decipher anything amiss amidst the close-packed trees. The woods seemed to only grow deeper as you stared into it until its thin residents began swimming in your vision. You shut your eyes firmly to banish the image from your mind. Behind your eyelids, you saw slender lines of grey.

You opened them to blink away the shapes, and found yourself somewhere you had only known once, but knew too well nonetheless. The stifling press of empty wind on your neck; the shapes scuttling through the darkness like strips of black cloth, leaving pricks on your skin as they brushed by. The trees and their branches like groping fingers, the countless eyes which were never there when you focused on them, tracing your every movement with hungry, malevolent patience. 

No, you cried, but the not-wind’s silent whisper stole your voice. No. This can’t be. Not again. You turned your head this way and that, looking to find some escape, any direction at all to run in which was not a labyrinth of trees and shadows and snagging thorns. 

Inside your head (against which you could feel your pulse, a hot press on your temples), your mind raced almost as fast as your heart did. You had not moved from the stump: how did this happen? Had you walked in with no memory of doing so? Had the woods advanced across the border? Could it even do that? What would such a thing mean for your village? 

A voice tore you from your frantic thoughts. A voice you didn’t know but somehow remembered, it called a name which was not yours, and yet one which you recognised in a way that felt like the name was older, went deeper than yourself. The sounds struck you as being from ages past, when the world itself was still young. Your chest tightened upon each iteration, ebbing with a pain and yearning you could not place. If anything, it felt like it belonged to somebody else. 

You had heard no shortage of stories while studying magic about ‘true’ names—names which did not define a person as much as they were a person—but you had always dismissed them as the side of magic which took after imagination more than substance. Now, seeing your body remember and respond to a collection of sounds your mind did not, you could not be so sure in your scepticism. This call was a fishing line, and unable to resist, you let it reel you forwards.

In the back of your mind, you were dimly aware, somewhere, of this being a very bad idea indeed. Whether this was a spell, or a bewitchment, or the woods’ way of ensnaring prey, you were walking right into the spider’s web. And yet you could not bring yourself to stop; so you walked, over the bone-like twigs cracking beneath your feet, past the eyes could could feel but not see, between the thicket and the thorns. The trees did not rustle behind you as they closed around the footsteps you left behind. The wind did not whisper as it goaded you onwards. The patient shadows did not slip along your skin, until the first one did. 

You had felt the woods’ shadows before—soft, cold things reminiscent of a strip of torn velvet, which came and went in an instant—but they had never touched you, not like this. Before, it had been as though they were testing you; tasting you. Perhaps ‘tongues’ would be a more apt description.

But their patience must be exhausted, because now they were eager. When the first shadow touched you, it did not let go. It held on with what felt like fine needles, or perhaps teeth, a formless yet sharply cut dark shape on your forearm, only a touch darker than the natural shadow cast by your cloak. With a rustle of movement, the rest moved closer. So plentiful they were, so thick, that they obscured your vision completely, until you were not sure whether one had covered your eyes or if it was only you staring into the mouth of an utter absence of light. 

Though you could not see them, you could feel them. They layered themselves onto the places shadows first should be and then where they shouldn’t. Something closed over your nose and when you opened your mouth to breathe, crept inside like ice water down your throat. In the few spaces the shadows did not cover or had moved from, your skin was dark, a purplish-black, and dry like scales.

When you awakened, there was a new pile of berries on the tree stump, and, making your way into the forest, the sun was rising over distant hills.  

#genshin impact x reader #cyno #cyno x reader #dark sorcerer!cyno

[cynicalmusings]

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔖𝔬𝔯𝔠𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔯

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Also known as… • Cyno (not mentioned)

The sorcerer is a fairytale figure, though little detail is given in the story of his origins. He resides in the woods, confined there by the gods for reasons not specified.

Appearance

It’s generally agreed upon by sources that he has bronze skin, silver hair and ruby-coloured eyes. He’s also described as ‘beautiful’, the implication being to a godlike degree. 

He wears a black cloak, and carries a lantern, which supposedly contains stars he’s pulled down to earth. There is a silver circlet around his left ankle, designed like wind chimes, although on closer inspection some might be inclined to say it looks rather like a shackle.

Personality

Little is known of his personality. Before entering the woods, he was said to be ‘clever and wise’, but there is no further detail given. Malevolence and cruelty are implied by the warnings against finding him in the fairytale and the fact that he has no heart, but the validity of these claims are unreliable and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

History & Lore

A long, unspecified time ago, the sorcerer lived in a village. It’s said that one day, the villagers found him performing a dark spell, after which his heart was taken from him and he was banished to the woods. By whom and how this was done is unknown.

Since then, he has wandered the woods, stuck somewhere in between being alive and being dead. 

Biography

[To be added once more of the plot is written and I can be bothered to articulate this section.]

#dark sorcerer!cyno #cyno #cyno x reader #once upon a fairytale - wiki

[onceuponafairytale-archive]

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[𝔬𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔲𝔭𝔬𝔫 𝔞 𝔣𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔶𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔢 — 𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢.]

𝔱𝔞𝔤 𝔫𝔞𝔳𝔦𝔤𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫.

‘dark sorcerer!cyno’— everything related to the ‘once upon a fairytale’ au. every post is tagged as this.

‘once upon a fairytale - chapters’ — the official chapters of the main storyline of ‘once upon a fairytale’. every released chapter, including the masterlist and this post, is tagged as this.

‘once upon a fairytale - art’ — art of ‘once upon a fairytale’ contents, whether by myself or others. every post about fanart for the au is tagged as this.

‘once upon a fairytale - wiki’ — the wiki pages, including the wiki navigation page, for ‘once upon a fairytale’. every post about the wiki is tagged as this.

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#dark sorcerer!cyno

[awlumii]

Thinking about this soundtrack with either snow prince!Albedo or dark sorcerer!Cyno…

-🎻 anon

this makes me think that falling in love with snow prince!albedo isn't festive. there's no fireworks when you realize it, no brightening colors or fanfare. i think that when you realize that you're in love, albedo is pushing you away because you wandered into his room after sundown.

you walk in and see a figure that's just a little bigger than albedo is, hunched over and shrouded in shadow. when you approach, the wintry winds blow the curtains, allowing for moonlight to pour through the windows. you see albedo — or at least, part of albedo — doubled over. it's albedo, it just has to be, but it isn't him. it's as though you caught him in the middle of a transformation into what you can only assume is a dragon.

"leave," he rasps at you. "please." he's unsightly, immensely so. it's dangerous, your mind tells you. who knows what he could do to you in this state? you feel power overwhelming you; a foreign kind, one that radiates albedo but also something else. you also feel... pain. agony, even. he's hurting. he doesn't want you to see him like this.

when you realize that you're in love with snow prince!albedo, your heart doesn't feel full — it breaks.

#[ 📭 — incoming! ] #🎻 anon #[ 💭 — thinking! ] #swoons #oh god i love him so much...

[leap-loves]

Leap’s Selfship Masterlist!

I’ll try to keep this up to date!

Romantic F/O’s (I wanna date them):

- TFP and Knightverse Bumblebee x Dawn [ Float Like A Butterfly ]

- Nightwing / Dick Grayson x Indi / Gloria [ Sunshine in the Shadows ]

- DBZ(A) Android 16 x Raine [ Fly Away with Me ]

- Pokemon SW/SH Raihan x Chantae x Leon [ My Greatest Challenges ]

- BNHA Taishiro Toyomitsu / Fatgum x Mai Kanemoto / Monarch [ MaiTai ]

- BNHA Keigo Takami / Hawks x Asuka Hoshino [ Winging It ]

- Obey Me! Beelzebub x Faith Holmes  [ Devils Food Cake ]

- Bungou Stray Dogs Doppo Kunikida x Christina Andersen [ Written in the Waves ]

- Bungou Stray Dogs Chuuya Nakahara x Sachiko Yoshihara  [ Red and White ]

- Genshin Impact Childe x Jade [ Soak and Shock ]

- Genshin Impact Albedo x Calla [ Opposites Attract ]

- Genshin Impact Scaramouche / Wanderer x Ava [ Third Times the Charm ]

- Genshin Impact Tighnari x Shiko x Cyno [ From Land to Sky ]

- Genshin Impact Jean x Jia [ For You, Always ]

- Genshin Impact Baizhu x Yuming [ YuZhu ]

- That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime Soei x Meira [ Strings of Fate ]

- That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime Carrion x Elaine [ Deer to Me ]

Platonic F/O’s (I wanna hang out with them):

- TFA and TFP Ratchet + Dawn [ I Needed That ]

- Red Hood / Jason Todd + Indi / Gloria [ Light in the Dark ]

- Red Robin / Tim Drake + Indi / Gloria [ Vigilantes Run On Caffeine ]

- Robin / Damian Wayne + Indi / Gloria [ Tiny But Mighty ]

- DBZ(A) Vegeta + Raine [ Monkey Say Dragon Do ]

- Pokemon SW/SH Hop + Chantae [ We Could Be Legends ]

- BNHA Eijirou Kirishima / Red Riot + Mai Kanemoto / Monarch [ Hardwing ]

- BNHA Tamaki Amajiki / Suneater + Mai Kanemoto / Monarch [ Fly With Confidence ]

- Obey Me! Lucifer + Faith Holmes [ Double Blue ]

- Obey Me! Mammon + Faith Holmes [ Golden Glow ]

- Obey Me! Leviathan + Faith Holmes  [ Game Night ]

- Obey Me! Satan + Faith Holmes [ Hell Hath No Fury ]

- Obey Me! Asmodeus + Faith Holmes [ Beauty with a Hoodie ]

- Obey Me! Belphegor + Faith Holmes [ Nap Time ]

- Obey Me! Luke + Faith Holmes [ Sweet As Sugar ]

- Obey Me! Solomon + Faith Holmes [ The Sorcerer and His Apprentice ]

- Bungou Stray Dogs Osamu Dazai + Christina Andersen [ Calm as the Sea ]

- Genshin Impact Venti + Calla [ Easy Breezy ]

- Genshin Impact Bennett + Calla [ Heal by Fire ]

- TMNT Turtles + Renne [ Turtle Time ]

- Cyborg 009 00 Cyborgs + Ashley Sanders / Cyborg A [ Alpha-Numeric ]

- Cyborg 009 Cyborg 001 / Ivan Whisky + Ashley Sanders / Cyborg A [ Just A Baby ]

- Cyborg 009 Cyborg 002 / Jet Link + Ashley Sanders / Cyborg A [ Gotta Go Fast ]

- Cyborg 009 Cyborg 003 / François Arnoule + Ashley Sanders / Cyborg A [ ??? ]

- Cyborg 009 Cyborg 004 / Albert Heinrich + Ashley Sanders / Cyborg A [ Swiss Army Cyborg ]

- Cyborg 009 Cyborg 005 / G. Jr. + Ashley Sanders / Cyborg A [ Team Yeet ]

- Cyborg 009 Cyborg 006 / Chang Changku + Ashley Sanders / Cyborg A [ Fre Sha Vocado ]

- Cyborg 009 Cyborg 007 / Great Britain + Ashley Sanders / Cyborg A [ Why Mom Doesn't Fucking Love You ]

- Cyborg 009 Cyborg 008 / Pyunma + Ashley Sanders / Cyborg A [ Sand Guardian ]

- Cyborg 009 Cyborg 009 / Joe Shimamura + Ashley Sanders / Cyborg A [ ?? ]

~~~~

Other Links

Self Ship Content Masterlist

Ask Game Masterlist

Also I'm perfectly fine with sharing f/o's!

#text post #leap speaks #self ship masterlist #master list #masterlist

[perpetualcynicism]

it’s nearing 2 am and i’m sorry for spamming everyone but i am seeing into the fifth dimension of cyno content right now.

(this post relates to the lore of my dark fairytale au. read about it here if you haven’t already.)

[SPOILERS AHEAD FOR LORE NOT YET WRITTEN IN THE OFFICIAL STORY]

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i just thought… what if, in cyno’s punishment, the gods didn’t tell him that you’ll return? 

so that basically when you do come back, though you look and sound a little different, he senses something within you that’s so incredibly familiar, but can’t quite place his finger on what it is. so, he grows curious and investigates, and while doing so, finds the old images of your face being replaced by this new one.

he doesn’t know what to think: he’s disgusted at himself for only being able to think of this new face whenever he tries to picture the old one, but somehow his love feels so right and real at the same time.

maybe the reason he thinks you’re so ‘untouchable’ is because he won’t let himself get close: he is still waiting for the return of his lover (though by now it’s only the ghost of a hope and fragment of a dream, worn down by years of aimless wandering)— his true lover, not this newcomer who reminds him so much of them. he hates you for it: for taking these treasured memories and turning them upside down, unknowingly announcing yourself the new centre of his world. he hates you for it, and hates himself even more for letting himself forget you so easily.

he does love you, of course. but he also loves the old you, and so he cannot love this you fully. even though his heart aches to get close to you, every time you speak, every time you move, every time you look at him, he is reminded of painful memories of happier times long gone by, and cannot find it within himself to love you back. not like he loved the you of the past.

and you… poor, poor you. your feelings for him are the same as you had all those years ago, for you are, in essence, the same person, and the bond between the two of you was something not even the gods could break; but because of his grief and his promise to wait for his lover to return, cyno will never allow himself to truly reciprocate, and in doing so, will only cause the both of you more pain.

yes, cyno would tear down the sky for you and plunder the heavens at your request, but only because you remind him of his past lover: in his mind, you are but a fragment of who they once were. he would fulfil your every wish, but only because seeing your smile would bring back imprints of when his old lover used to smile. 

he just… can’t love you like he once did. not any more. as i said, he doesn’t have a heart, so it is imposible for him to love like he once did. his heart died with you— the old you— and has room for only that version of you, because a dead heart cannot grow to learn to love others.

(of course, had he not been cursed, he would have immediately recognised you as the lover of his past and given his heart to you fully and completely without hesitation; but the gods play a cruel game, and that is not a luxury they would grant him with.)

#this… was not meant to turn out as angsty as it did #but oh god i love it #oh no #this is very angsty but i want to write it so badly holy jesus #this is one fairytale that does not seem to be getting a ‘happily ever after’ #this is such a brain splurge and i hope that it’s coherent #cyno #cyno x reader #dark sorcerer!cyno

[perpetualcynicism]

thinking about the way that dark sorcerer!cyno sits with you beneath his cloak and whispers long-forgotten stories and secrets in your ear— forbidden, beautiful things he has never told and never will tell another soul— all the while holding you in his arms so carefully, so tentatively, as though he’s treasuring the most precious jewel in existence, or cherishing the most vulnerable candle flame amidst a breath of dark wind.

to him, of course, you are that jewel and that candle. however, sometimes he fears that he is not the one cherishing you, but rather himself the dark wind that threatens to extinguish your flame.

but as we all know, cyno is selfish when it comes to your love. as long as your flame is not snuffed out, as long as it does not begin to flicker, he will be that dark wind for as long as he can (and loathe himself for it all the more) if it means feeling the glow of your warmth against his skin, if only for a fleeting moment within the aeons of his lifetime.

#i’m sorry i’m getting poetic #i always get poetic when talking about sorcerer!cyno… i can’t not #sigh… cyno… #i love writing for this au because cyno is so… conflicted #on one hand he’s selfish and awful and knows he should stay away from you for your own sake but doesn’t #and on the other he is the most selfless and caring and attentive person who would give up everything for you in a heartbeat #but regardless of whether or not he’s a good person (which is very debatable)‚ he would go to such lengths for you to see even one smile… #the only question is: are some lengths too great…? #anyway. ignore me. i’m getting philosophical again #cyno x reader #dark sorcerer!cyno

[perpetualcynicism]

just a dark fairytale au cyno thought…

he doesn’t fall for anyone easily. in fact, he’s never really ‘loved’ anyone before— it’s not exactly like he gets the most company. some tales even say he doesn’t care for anyone but himself; which isn’t exactly wrong, or at least, not until you come along.

cyno doesn’t fall easily, but when he does, he falls hard and fast. love at first sight would not be accurate to summarise what he feels.

suddenly, he’s not content with roaming the woods alone like he has done for countless years. no, he wants to roam the woods with you. he doesn’t want to have to stay in the confines of the woods while you wander the forest. he wants to be by your side, or you by his.

it’s… funny, really. such a cold, untouchable figure with a cold, untouchable heart suddenly finds himself consumed by an overwhelming desire of, well, you. he’s as much a slave to love as he is to the woods, his passion suddenly flaring like the light of the stars he drags down from the sky and traps in his lantern. to him, you are a star, too, but a different kind of star. to him, you are untouchable. he cannot drag you from the sky and trap you in a little metal box; he cannot use you— force you— to light his way.

if anything, it’s the other way around. he feels like the star who’s been pulled from the sky; he feels like the one who has been trapped in the confines of passion and love, and he would stay in those confines forever, chasing away any shadows that dare come near you.

you may not know it, but you have him wrapped around your little finger. anything you desire, he would get for you in a heartbeat, no matter how hard the struggle or how dangerous the journey.

he’s willing to do anything for you, anything at all, and the funny thing is, he doesn’t know why. he doesn’t know why the very thought of you sets his frozen heard ablaze; he doesn’t know why ever time he sees you, he wants to kiss you and treasure you and keep you from harm; he doesn’t know why, whenever anything bad happens to you, he’s filled with a fury (though he hides it well) that could cause even the gods to tremble. he doesn’t know why he’s so gentle around you when his love burns like a wildfire; yearning to get so close to you and yet so afraid to taint you with the darkness that has come to nestle in his heart.

he just doesn’t know why. why he fell for you at first sight like a star from the sky.

or, no… maybe he didn’t fall for you at first sight. that’s the wrong way of looking at it. maybe he has always loved you; from the beginning of time to the end of everything, there has never been a single moment in his entire existence that he hasn’t loved you. it was only a matter of waiting until you showed up.

and when you did… that was when he realised just how much he loved you.

(it is known that sorcerers do not have hearts. where it should be, there is only a dark void, and cyno is no different in that aspect. but perhaps he doesn’t have a heart himself because he doesn’t need one: you are his heart.)

#it’s sort of a selfish love (if that makes sense) #as in he cares for nobody but you #this came out longer than intended and it’s a little cheesy but who cares #not me‚ that’s for sure #cyno x reader #cyno #dark sorcerer!cyno

[perpetualcynicism]

𝖔𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖚𝖕𝖔𝖓 𝖆 𝖋𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖞𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖊 — 𝔱𝔢𝔞𝔰𝔢𝔯.

——————————————————————

“You shine ever so brightly today, my star.”

You tilted your head at the use of the nickname, an eyebrow lifting in what may have been either amusement or suspicion. “You call me a ‘star’ as though you do not pull one down each night with a heart devoid of love or emotion.”

Cyno thought for a moment, considering this closely, before he shook his head and said, “No.” 

He took a small step closer to you, choosing his next words carefully. “No, you are… a different kind of star. One that I cannot touch, and can only admire from a distance.” (He took another step forwards, advancing slowly as he spoke.) “You are not a simple star of the night sky as all others are. You… you are a star of direction; of guidance. of purpose, not of material matter and magical gimmicks.” (Another step closer.) A hand skimmed beneath the line your jaw, the touch fleeting and gone in an instant, like the shadow of a shadow sweeping past. “I could never pull you from the sky even if I tried.” 

It was then that you realised how close he was, and your breath hitched as your heart caught in your throat, seeming to falter in its beating.

Cyno’s face hovered a mere inch from yours, his gemstone eyes heavy-lidded and almost closed, their ruby stare fixed on your own. He placed a thumb beneath your chin, tilting your head upwards ever so slightly so that your gazes met. Snowy eyelashes tickled your skin, and you could almost feel the ghosting movement of his lips against yours when he next spoke in a low murmur.

“For even when I am this close to you…” His eyes trailed downwards to rest on your lips, and in that one, brief, eternal moment, you thought you could feel everything about him: his scent of old wood and cold, empty winds which seemed to envelop your senses with each inhale, the cobweb whisper of his lashes on your cheek as his eyes fluttered shut, the fanning of his breath over your skin as he leaned in a fraction closer so that your lips only just touched—

He tore himself away with a sigh of heavy wistfulness, leaving only empty space over your lips where his own should have been. He raised his eyes to meet yours once more, their sharp crimson laced with a soft ache.

“For even when I am this close to you, you are still so very far away.”

#cyno #cyno x reader #genshin impact x reader #i have no clue when this scene actually happens but i was brainrotting and gave into the temptation #oops #dark sorcerer!cyno

[perpetualcynicism]

𝖔𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖚𝖕𝖔𝖓 𝖆 𝖋𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖞𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖊 — 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔫𝔢.

𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢. 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔯𝔬𝔡𝔲𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔫𝔢: 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔲𝔡𝔢. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔴𝔬.

——————————————————————

You had not meant to get lost in the woods.

It was well-known in your village that the woods were dark and endless, with narrow, winding paths that twist and bend and lead nowhere but deeper inside. It was known that the breeze which was always so mellow began singing darker songs when it entered the woods, like the distant cries of some anguished ghoul as it brushed past skeletal trees and whispering leaves. In the woods, shadows stalked past shadows, each one darker and more palpable than the last. 

It was also known that there were creatures in the woods. Of what nature, nobody could be certain, for nobody who had entered the woods had ever come out again. Whether dead or simply wandering the dark labyrinth as empty souls until the end of days, there was no telling of their fates: only that they were lost to the twining branches of bone and time.

And sometimes, when the night was quiet and the moon was thin, noises could be heard coming from within the woods: low whispers and murmurs carried by the returning wind, leaving goosebumps on the backs of the necks of those who heard them. Very, very rarely, the wind carried with it the gentle tinkle of wind chimes that seemed to chase the shivers away. 

The townspeople said that this noise was the presence of a dark sorcerer who lived alone in the deepest part of the woods, not to be trusted nor followed. They said he stalked the woodland with a lantern and a chime, bound to the land by a curse and fated to roam the woods forever (though what for, nobody knew; for he was as much a mystery as the woods he resided in.) Children’s tales said he had hair spun from moonlight and wore a long cloak black as night, with eyes like fragments of gemstones. They said he was not quite alive, and not quite dead, and that he pulled down stars from the sky to put in his lantern; a cruel, powerful method only deserving of an equally cruel and powerful being. 

In short, neither the woods nor the man who was said to live inside them was safe.

As a result, you had always done your best to steer well clear of the woods, sticking only to the sunlit forest, where lush trees grew in abundance and birdsong filtered down from gently swaying branches. As the village healer—or what may be better known as a ‘mage’—you oftentimes came down to the forest with a woven basket in hand, picking various herbs and sprouts from the budding soil with which you would create your remedies.

Sometimes, these trips required you to walk the edges of the forest, along the narrow border where the forest became the woods. There were a select few plants which only grew in such conditions, on the slim edge between light and the darkness, and when you came to gather them, you always kept your eyes fixed to the floor, focused only on the plants you were to collect. Only once had you glanced into the woods, and that one short moment alone had resulted in sleepless nights for days to come.

But on this day, you had not been as careful as you usually were. For a terrible sickness had broken out in your village, and you were to gather as many herbs as possible to quell the rising numbers of those infected. There had not yet been any deaths, but you did not doubt that the first would happen soon. And, despite the begging of the townsfolk and the time you poured ceaselessly into your constant work, you had yet to find any cure: the only thing you could do was use one such precariously placed flower to slow the disease from progressing any faster. 

Time was of the essence, and in your haste as you followed the trail of flowers, you failed to notice when the birdsong faded and sunlight grew dim. You only realised how the shadows were thicker and more plentiful when you raised your head to survey your surroundings and head back to the village.

The green forest you had come from was nowhere to be seen. Turning in every direction, all around you only stretched an endless maze of tall, skeletal trees whose branches creaked in a warm wind that was not there. 

Besides this, it was completely silent. There was no stream burbling nearby, no birdsong, no calls of woodland creatures; only the soft creaking of wood and rustle of leaves in the absence of a breeze (although it seemed to you that the sounds of these leaves were more akin to a whisper than a rustle.)

You could also hear your own breathing, louder than anything. Every breath was amplified in the suffocating silence, and every footstep on the dry, twig-laid ground seemed to crackle and crunch like stepping on brittle bones.

You swallowed. Thankfully, you had brought a protection charm with you today, and mumbled a spell under your breath to activate it—though part of you wondered whether it would be of any help at all in a cursed place such as this.

After doing this, you forced yourself to steady your shaking breaths. To lose yourself here would not make the situation any better: the best you could do was gather your courage and walk, sticking to the path as closely as you could. There must be a way out somewhere. 

The path was narrow, winding through the woods like a snake. You walked on in silence, holding your basket close. Tree branches snagged at your clothing as you passed like little hands trying to pull you into the boundless sea of shadows from which you were sure you would never return. 

A branch of thorns caught on your cloak. You tried to free your clothing from them, but the thorns refused, only digging their pinprick claws deeper into the fabric. You pulled harder still, but to no avail. Left with no other choice, you ripped off the caught section of your cloak, and the thorns retreated back into the shadows, as if pleased with their new gift.

The deeper you wandered into the woods, the more you felt like you were being watched. You could feel countless pairs of eyes on the back of your neck, but when you peered into the shrouds of shadows around you, the only thing staring back at you was darkness.

Your breathing had begun to shake again, and you took a moment to try and calm your nerves. You were still living, and as long as that remained the case, you would find your way out of here, no matter how long it took. 

You told yourself this, but the shadows surrounding you only grew darker and more plentiful. They brushed at your legs with a velvet touch, soft and cold; palpable, and leaving trails of goosebumps in their wake.

You passed by a tree stump you were sure you had already seen at least four times before. Had you been retracing your steps all this time, or was the woods itself reshaping around you like a moving maze, ensnaring you in its tree-lined walls? How long had you even been here? It could as easily have been five minutes as two days, and the harder you tried to think about it, the more uncertain you became. 

Leaves rustled as you passed, as if in glee at your rising panic. Perhaps this was how the woods caught its prey: waited until its victim grew weary and disoriented and gave into the panic, and then struck. You did not know what this ‘strike’ would entail, and hoped dearly that you would never find out. 

But keeping yourself calm was growing more difficult. Say it had been two days that you’d been gone: what was happening to the village? How many people had fallen ill? Did they think you had abandoned them? 

And was it just your imagination, or had you just seen a shadow, black as the darkest ink, move closer to you?

It was then that you saw a cold blue light coming from somewhere between the trees, and a clear tinkle of what sounded like wind chimes. The shadow trailing you scurried away. You hesitated for a moment: this light was scaring the shadows away. Should you follow it, then? Was it wise to abandon the path for some unknown light source? It could a trap, a lure; the woods’ way of preparing to pounce.

Either way, your chances of safety were no higher if you stayed here. Taking a leap of faith into the depths of the woods, you trailed after the light.

It moved at a slow, steady pace, and so it was not difficult to catch up. When you got closer, you realised that it was not simply any light, but a lantern. And this lantern was being held by somebody, too. 

He walked in front of you, and so you could not see his face. He wore a long black cloak, dark as night, and a chime around his ankle that clinked gently with as he walked (though it seemed to resemble a shackle, if you looked more closely.) 

It was then that the folktale of the sorcerer who lives in the woods surfaced in your mind, and you swallowed. 

As you walked, the lantern seemed to cut through the darkness, and the shadows once brushing against your legs shrank away, pressing themselves into their nooks and crannies until they were the blackest of black and not daring to come close; only watching you pass by with wary, wary eyes.

You wondered, Is that a star he has trapped in his lantern?

The one before you said not a word as you traversed the woodland, and you not a word in return. He did not seem to show any intentions of harming you, but the woods was a dangerous place, and so you could not be sure. 

Where was he going? you thought. Was he simply going to walk on forever and ever, or lead you to his home, or even deeper into the woods? Was it wise to trust him, much less follow him?

As you pondered these thoughts, you once again failed to notice the change in your surroundings. Golden sunlight began to pierce through the shadows, and the foliage slowly became greener and lush, until you found yourself in an open forest clearing. Birdsong floated through the air, and soft grass and moss coated the ground. Not far off, you could hear the burble of a stream.

You blinked, adjusting your eyes to the light and glancing around in confusion. You were… safe. Out of the woods.

Had he… led you here? 

You looked around. The man was nowhere to be seen, and though you strained your ears, you could not hear any wind chimes. Had he truly led you here to safety, or had you dreamt the whole thing up? 

The sun hung in the centre of the sky: midday. So, if you had been the woods at all, it was only for a couple of hours. Considering this, it seemed all the more likely that you had simply fallen asleep as a result of your exhaustion over the recent few days. 

You absentmindedly reached down towards your cloak. the strip of fabric you had torn off earlier was not there; rather, there was a patch of emptiness, and a ripped edge where it should have been.

…So, this had all been real? Or had you indeed been lost in the woods, and the man was a figment of your imagination?

Unsure what to believe, you decided to leave a flower on a nearby rock before you left the clearing and headed back for the village.

Just in case he was real, you thought, I’ll leave this as a thank you. Just in case.

For though you did not know who he was, and never did catch a glimpse of his face, you did know that without his aid—if you can call it such a thing—you would not have survived the night. 

Or, no, perhaps you would have survived. That thought, however, made you shudder, and brought you no comfort; for there were worse things to be found than death in these parts of the woods.

——————————————————————

𝔫𝔬𝔱𝔢𝔰:

i’ve taken a few phrases from my previous posts about this au, and left some others out, so if you haven’t already, i’d recommend that you also read them to get a bit more context and a stronger feeling of this au as a whole, and what to except from it in the future.

#genshin impact x reader #cyno #cyno x reader #dark sorcerer!cyno

[perpetualcynicism]

𝔬𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔲𝔭𝔬𝔫 𝔞 𝔣𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔶𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔢 — 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔫.

𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔦𝔵. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔢𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱.

——————————————————————

The little girl seemed to cheer up after breakfast, if only a little, and no further mentions were made of her parents, as though an unspoken agreement had been made between you to refrain from speaking of the topic—though the burden of her grief still lingered in the silence, almost tangible in its weight.

When you carried out another check-up on her, you were startled to find the blemish had almost doubled in size since her waking; something which puzzled you as much as it concerned you, for it had grown more over the span of a half-hour than an entire night. 

Clearly, this affliction was even more peculiar than you had initially thought—which was quite a feat, considering the hours already spent toiling away at a cure while hunched over a low, flickering candlelamp. Perhaps now having a victim so close at hand would finally spark some tangible progress.

(The reminder of your own susceptibility to it trickled in an uneasy shiver down your spine just then, leaving behind a trail of cold that made you shift in your place.)

Determined to gather more information on the workings of the affliction, that afternoon you set out to see your other patients, and instructed the little girl to remain inside or in the overgrown garden at the back of the cottage while you were gone, and not to enter your study in the worry that she may misplace your tediously-made notes. In the case that you should not have returned by sunset, you prepared her a meal and left it on the kitchen counter.

Once satisfied with the way she was prancing around the budding wildflowers and not attempting to climb the ivy tendrils weaving like tapestry across the cobbled wall, you made your way to your first patient.

A young woman guided you inside the house a moment after knocking and led you up a winding staircase to a bedroom at the end of the corridor. You thanked her briefly before stepping into the room. The curtains were drawn closed, and a plate of food—sour cream porridge, a couple of slices of bread, and a pitcher of milk—sat untouched atop a crooked oak cabinet beside a modestly-decorated bed, where an older woman, clad in dark garments, was laid down. In her hands (which were trembling, you realised upon closer inspection) she held a square of paper. The clouded haze of her eyes suggested that she was somewhere far away from the bed and the dark room, instead lost in a world entirely of her own making. 

It seemed clear that she had taken no notice of your entry, so you cleared your throat and moved closer to the bedside. She blinked as though torn from her imaginings and turned her head to regard you, slipping the paper into her clothing. Her eyes brightened a shade when recognition dawned upon her.

“Hello,” you greeted her, lowering yourself onto the foot of her bed. Your voice was carefully measured and kept low; she was loath to hear loud noises these days. “I’m here to check on your condition. If I may…?” You gestured to the heavy blanket spilling over her frail body.

“Oh, yes, of course,” she replied, tone drifting aimlessly like one who has lost their way. “But you shall have to help me sit up and lift my night robe; I am afraid my arms are terribly stiff these days.”

“Of course.” You carefully undid the ribbon on the back of her robe and inspected the skin beneath. Unlike the small blemish present on the little girl, this infection had crept from her ear down her neck, its scaly, dark mass finally pooling like a lake between and across her shoulder blades, then down the small of her back. You reached into the satchel you had brought with you and applied an ointment to the afflicted area. The ointment did nothing to stop the spread itself, but prevented the dry skin from cracking. In situations like these, sometimes the only victories were small ones.

As you rubbed the paste into her skin, you asked, “Do you remember when you were first infected, or how?”

“I believe it was some time ago now, perhaps three months or so. As to how, I am afraid I do not remember details; only that I woke up one morning with this dreaded mark on me and it has grown ever bigger since then.”

You mulled over the information she had imparted, but no epiphanies revealed themselves to you. 

“Have you ever had nightmares since catching the disease?” 

Her veined fingers knotted in her lap. “Oh, the most terrible nightmares,” the woman said in a hoarse voice.

You leaned forwards at her confirmation. “What were the dreams about?”

“I am walking in what I believe is the woods.” She spoke slowly, as though she did not trust herself to let her imagination loose. “I am following the voice of my husband and then the shadows, they… they consume me.”

As she spoke, your mind was a-whirr. This disease or… parasite, or whatever it may be, had a direct connection to the woods. 

This realisation should have brought you some form of relief: this was a crucial piece of information. However, you still had no way to know how it originated or how to defend against new cases. What did it matter if you knew the disease came from the woods? You could hardly go trudging through it and sifting around for plant samples.

Unless…, spoke a small, daring voice in the back of your head, Unless I could implore the sorcerer’s help. 

You entertained the notion for a moment before shaking it away: hinging the health of an entire village and your own life on a chance that he might exist, and might come back, and might know something about your predicament and be willing to help, was a choice only a fool would knowingly make.

“My dear, are you alright?”

Your head snapped up at the sound of the woman’s voice. Her head was tilted as she regarded you, concern swimming distantly in the hazy focus of her eyes.

“Oh, yes,” you said, blinking to clear your accumulated thoughts. “I… I was merely thinking for a moment. You have provided me with very useful information.” You smiled at her thinly. What you said was true, but the information in question did nothing to lessen your concerns.

The woman nodded distantly, as if satisfied with her helpful role. “That is a relief.”

“So it is,” you mumbled drily under your breath, then raised your eyes to meet hers once more, careful not to let her witness your pessimism. You drew in a breath to steady yourself. “Well, I should be going now to see my next patients. Keep well, and take care not to overexert yourself.” 

The woman’s gaze had already returned to the slip of paper, and she made no indication of having heard you. With a resigned sigh, you rose from the foot of the bed and made towards the door. 

“You will be able to cure us soon, yes? Because of what I told you?”

You faltered in your tracks, one hand hovering above the door handle. The woman was looking at you with wide eyes from the bed. For once, the line of her gaze was not lost, and instead hopeful. Hopeful, and desperate.

You turned around and forced a smile onto your face. “Yes, I will.” Then you closed the door before the weight of your lie could seize you.

Thereupon you talked briefly with the young woman downstairs, giving to her a bottle of the ointment and updating her on the developments her mother’s health, before you departed to find your next patient. 

The patient in question was a young man of no more than twenty two years, who had been afflicted merely a week ago. He was still active—his symptoms had not yet progressed to serious paralysis of the limbs—but the dark roots reaching down his neck were undoubtedly asserting themselves in his systems nonetheless. 

After your enquiries, you learned his situation was similar to the previous woman’s: beyond the surface-level symptoms, mental infection was manifesting itself also in nightmares. 

However, what struck you as curious was that whereas the little girl and your first patient reported themselves to be wholly consumed, in a way, by the woods, this man was not so affected: according to him, he experienced being reached for and held down by shadows, but never swarmed by them as the others were. 

As you continued to investigate this matter, it soon grew apparent that although the general consensus was shared across all victims—that being following the voice of a loved one through the woods—different people experienced their nightmares to different effects—and not only this, but the ‘intensity’ of the dream corresponded with the development stage of the symptoms associated with the disease. In those whose nightmares were the most frightening, the illness’ dark blemishes spread at an astounding rate; for those whose nightmares were kinder, the symptoms spread not so rapidly.

Useful as this information was, however, it only unfurled further questions in your mind: Why did certain people’s symptoms develop faster than others? Which was the factor that determined the intensity of the nightmare? Why did some patients spend weeks before the blemishes grew, while others, such as the little girl, were overcome at a frightful pace? If this was a parasite, what did it feed on?

It seemed that all these answers were hiding themselves from you, laughing at your efforts to grasp them from a place just out of reach.

And above all of this, a far more troubling question now loomed in the dark confines of your mind.

How in the heavens am I meant to combat something which hails from the woods itself?

——————

The little girl let loose a sigh while she fiddled with the hem of her skirt. The garden had been fun, for a while, but there was little else to do than look at the wildflowers, which quickly lost her interest. It had not been particularly long since you left, but a young girl’s mind is not designed for patience. 

She pushed herself to her feet from the crumbling stone wall in the garden and wandered into the house. Perhaps she could find a new book to read, or something to play with. 

Curiosity and boredom spurring her onwards, she crept through the empty house, casting glances over her shoulder hither and thither as though there was somebody to witness her mischief from the shadows. As she walked she trailed a hand along the wall, feeling the various nubs of wood and plaster under her palm. She stopped before the bookshelves and scrutinised their contents. 

To her dismay, none of them seemed of interest; where she had been hoping for spiralling tales of dragons and princesses, there were only long, boring, grown-up titles, such as ‘Properties & History of Medicinal Herbs In The Eastern Hemisphere’ and ‘Self-Care: How To Deal With Crippling Existential Dread’.

She was not sure what ‘Crippling Existential Dread’ was, but it sounded like too much work to give thought to, so the little girl turned away from the bookshelf with a dejected sigh. Her boredom not yet satiated, she continued to nose around the corridor, poking her head through various doors. She inspected the plants growing by the kitchen window whose leaves were spilling out of their pots; she shifted her weight across a particularly loud floorboard and delighted each time it groaned (as if in protest to her merciless tormenting); she ran up and down the stairs and discovered rather painfully how many steps she could leap over before twisting her ankle.

When her energy was exhausted, the little girl slumped on the carpet, thought of her parents, and cried.

A quiet creaking sound roused her from her tears. She wiped her eyes furiously with her sleeves and twisted her head around in search of the noise’s origin. Her wandering gaze landed on the door to your study, which was hanging slightly ajar and swaying open wider and narrower to a breeze coming in from the window.

She picked herself up from the floor and peeked through the crack in the door. It was true you had cautioned her against entering your study, but as long as she wasn’t to touch anything, surely you would never have to know? 

She nudged the door open by a further fraction and stepped lightly inside, the subconscious knowledge that she was doing something she shouldn’t playing on her conscience and making her take care to keep her footsteps light, even though reason told her she was alone and in no danger of discovery. 

It was not a particularly big room, as was the case with most in this house. At the end of it stood a dark wooden desk piled with papers and ink cartridges in slight disarray. Dust particles floated idly through the air, caught in beams of sunlight shining in from outside. 

What caught the little girl’s interest, however, was the small bowl sitting on the desk’s edge, filled with black-skinned berries. Upon seeing them, her stomach gave a grumble.

Oh, how appetising they looked, with their smooth surfaces glinting in the sunlight—who was she to resist? 

——————

Long shadows of evening stretched across the path to your home when you returned. The day had taken its mental toll and, as if weighed down by this, your footsteps fell heavy and somnolent on the ground. What awaited you was no doubt another sleepless night of recording more information into your notes and making futile attempts to decipher a solution from them.

The little girl stood in the hallway and greeted you cheerfully upon your entering of the house—it seems she must have been awaiting you for some time. You smiled at her and bent down to ruffle her hair, momentarily forgetting all that bore down on you. 

“I apologise for being gone for so long. How was your day?” you asked her, and she replied it was well. She did not meet your eyes when she answered, instead opting to stare downwards at her feet. Her fingers danced along the folds of her dress: she was the spitting image of guilt. 

She has probably broken something, you thought. Peering more closely, however, there was a small purplish smear by the side of her lips. You crossed your arms and fixed her with a raised brow which she once again avoided.

“Have you eaten something from the garden?”

She said slowly, “No…”

“Hmm.” For a moment longer you scrutinised her, to which she shifted, before releasing your suspicions with a shrug. There was nothing harmful growing in the garden: only a collection of various medicinal herbs and some odd kilberry bushes here and there. 

“Well, I need to go to my study for a little while and write down what I found from my check-ups today.” The little girl opened her mouth as if to speak, but shut it before a word came out. “I should be back down fairly shortly. If you get bored in the meantime, let me know.”

You climbed the narrow stairs to the higher floor, keenly aware of her eyes on your back. She was not usually one for such behaviour: the little girl was nothing less than a ball of energy on even her worse days. It concerned you, a little: could the infection’s spreading be causing her mental distress?

When you arrived at the door to your study, you found it left open wider than you remembered. So she was in my study, you concluded with a sigh. Though this was inconvenient, it did not come as any particular surprise, and would give reason to her apparent guilt. If anything was misplaced, it was more your fault than hers for leaving medical documents in the vicinity of a small child. 

Perhaps casting an immobility spell on the door would be a wise idea in the future.

Slipping your satchel from your shoulders, you approached your desk, pushing aside a precariously balanced tower of papers. All of your failed remedies, you identified them as from the all-too-familiar scrawled diagrams on the top sheet. You really ought to dispose of them at some point. Perhaps once you cracked this mysterious illness.

Your eyes drifted to the wooden bowl containing the berries from the woods, and you hesitated.

It was possible you were recalling this incorrectly after a long day, but you were certain the bowl’s contents had decreased. Your mind flashed back to the stain by the little girl’s mouth. 

Oh, gods.

You were downstairs at once, turning the little girl to face you.

“Did you eat the berries in my study?” you asked with a calmness that surprised you. She hesitated, then gave a single nod. Without further hesitation, you were checking her over for any signs of swelling, bleeding, or discolouration. At the same time, you cursed yourself for your foolishness: you should have at least thought to put the berries out of her reach. Of course it would not have occurred to her that eating berries of unknown origin was not the wisest of ideas as long as they looked palatable.

“Do you feel any pain? Light-headedness? Dizziness? Disorientation? Anything at all out of the ordinary?”

“No.” To your shock, she smiled. “I feel very good, actually. I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”

You blinked. She be must be telling the truth, too, for she was a terrible liar. “You’re… completely certain?”

“Mhm!”

You rubbed the bridge of your nose and let loose a long sigh. It could be that any harmful effects of the berries had yet to manifest, you reminded yourself, but relief found you nonetheless.

After supper, you conducted another check-up on the little girl, with the plan of sending her off to sleep before departing for the forest in order to leave another flower at the tree stump, and finally adding your newly-acquired knowledge to your notes. You sat her down on the bed and gently tilted her head to reveal the scaly blemish’s growth. 

Your hand froze on her shoulder.

The little girl turned her eyes to yours, which suddenly swam with fear. “Is something wrong?” she stammered. “Why did you stop? Has something bad happened?”

It took a moment for you to catch ahold of your breath. “No, it…” You willed yourself to swallow. “No. Nothing is wrong.”

Her quavering voice asked, “So what happened?”

“Your mark, it… it has receded.”

#dark sorcerer!cyno #genshin impact x reader #cyno #cyno x reader

[perpetualcynicism]

𝔬𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔲𝔭𝔬𝔫 𝔞 𝔣𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔶𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔢 — 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔦𝔵.

𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔣𝔦𝔳𝔢. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔫.

——————————————————————

Upon returning to the village, it was mid-morning, and the fog had yet to completely disperse. It hung in the air like a thin but cloudy film, almost shimmering as threads of sunlight wove through its opaque haze. Arriving at your cottage, you noted that the curtains were still drawn at the window to the little girl’s room. A slight dampness had crept into the wooden panes of the door, you noticed as you slotted your key into its lock. 

Slowly, quietly, you nudged the door open. A beam of pallid light slid across the corridor, pressing away the snug darkness within. Nothing had been moved since your departure, and all the blinds had yet to be opened; it seemed the little girl had yet to wake.

You stole down the corridor and into the kitchen, where you rummaged around for a small bowl, before slipping into your study. The bowl was placed on your desk, and the berries, still cool with the fresh chill of morning, inside it. Your gaze lingered on their smooth, dark skin for a moment longer before you returned your focus to the matter of the little girl at hand. 

When you entered the bedroom, the girl was stirring in the bed, long eyelashes fluttering between the ease of sleep and the pull of waking. You could not help but notice that the blemish had crept a little further down her neck, a few thin tendrils advancing to the back of her jaw, spread like dark cracks in shattered glass across her skin. Inadvertently, you reached up behind your own ear, and were relieved to find that a similar mark had yet to claim you. 

…But why had it still to infect you? Why was it taking so long for you as opposed to others?

Nevertheless, despite your current unaffected state, you were still ill at ease to witness how fast the symptoms developed. The blemish grew almost as if it were alive, reaching out with its dark, wicked fingers and a mind of its own, slowly weaving its sinister spell of decay into its host’s very essence until all that remained was the darkened, hollow imprint of where life should be.

Not dissimilar to how the shadows of the woods groped for their own prey, you recalled absentmindedly. Ever watching, ever patient. Ever hungry.

A thought struck you, then. 

What if this is not a disease, but a parasite, by some means born of the woods?

…But a parasite feeding on what?

Before you could consider the matter further, however, the little girl bared her tongue in a yawn and sat up, rubbing her eyes with small, delicate hands. You smoothed away the sharp concentration in your expression in favour of a warmer one and watched as she sat up in the bed. 

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?” you queried. She opened her mouth as of to say something, and then closed it again. Observing her more closely, you saw that her bottom lip was trembling. You frowned and leaned closer, keeping your voice soft when you spoke. “What’s wrong?”

Her eyes, a startling shade of green, flicked to you and then downwards. Her hands clenched into little fists on her lap. “…I had a bad dream,” she whispered, as though imparting a secret with you. 

Your mind briefly flashed to the girl’s mother, who had mentioned having nightmares after her infection, and your eyebrows knitted in thought. Her mother had always refused to talk about her own dreams, and so you knew little of whether they were actual symptoms of the infection (or parasite, you reminded yourself) or merely coincidence; but the little girl was more open. Perhaps she could tell you things her mother would not.

A needle of guilt pricked at you for treating her almost akin to a test subject, but this opportunity could not be ignored. 

“What happened in your dream?” Genuine concern twined tightly with your search for information. In response, the little girl swallowed, and you clasped her trembling hands in yours to calm her spirits. “I’m here,” you reassured her. The dip of her head as she nodded was so minute you almost missed it entirely.

“I was walking in a forest. But… it wasn’t the forest. It was darker, and there were shadows all around.” Your breath hitched. The woods. “Then… then I saw Mother behind one of the trees. I miss her so very much, so I followed her, but I didn’t feel happy when I saw her. I was… sadder. My chest hurt. And then…” She faltered briefly. A wordless shudder racked her delicate frame as though the memories were too frightening to recall. You squeezed her hands, offered her a patient smile. 

“T-Then the shadows, they… they came closer and started growing on me, until there was nothing left of me, and—” The little girl shook her head furiously, tears beading in her eyes. 

“It’s alright,” you soothed, running a hand through her long, dark hair. The fine strands were soft beneath your fingertips, but knotted in places from a night of tossing and turning. “It was only a dream.”

As you spoke this, however, the inner workings of your mind were a whirring engine. Dreaming of the woods. Of a loved one. A lost loved one. Being consumed by the shadows.

You could not rule out the possibility that these nightmares were be coincidental, however; after all, the girl’s mother had revealed nothing of the nature of her dreams, so a chance remained that they were unconnected. It was far from uncommon for the village children to have fearful dreams of the woods and the shadows within it; even the older residents were put off by its dark maw.

Nonetheless, this information was something— a development long needed in this shapeless sea of blind confusion. If you asked the other infected villagers details while you visited them today, perhaps you could stitch some hypotheses together. And from those, some way to battle against this mysterious illness— or, at the very least, discover a way to minimise its spread.

You were so lost in your musings that you didn’t register the little girl speaking until long moments had passed. Pausing, you turned your attention to her, and asked her to repeat what she had said. 

The little girl hesitated and fidgeted with the hem of her nightdress. Then she mumbled softly, “Mother isn’t coming back, is she?”

You hesitated.

The previous rising excitement you had been nursing shattered like glass, her words the cold impact which struck the pane. You opened your mouth, jaw working to form some manner of reply, but any words you may have found died swiftly on your tongue. 

In the absence of your voice, she filled it with her own. “I won’t ever see her again,” she said, her voice held quiet but near to breaking all the same. “Just like Father. Mother said he had only gone on a long journey, but nobody goes on a journey for that long. Both of them will never come back, will they?” The tears brimming along her eyelids finally spilled out and over her cheeks, running in silvered channels down her face. She raised those glistening eyes of emerald to you, wide with a silent, desperate plea for truth. “Will they?”

Your lips were pressed together in a thin line. Lying to her now would prove fruitless, and you—all of you—had held her from this long enough.

“No, they will not come back,” you said slowly. The words were thick tar in your mouth. “They… they died. Your father to an accident five harvests ago, and your mother to the same disease which now afflicts you.” A prickle in your throat forced you to swallow, and it felt like needles scraping your skin. “I’m sorry.”

The little girl’s eyelashes, wet with tears, lowered as she fixed her eyes onto the hands in her lap, now balled in trembling fists.

“Will I die, too?” Her words were the ghost of a whisper. A bud of silence unfurled grave petals into the air between you. It swayed precariously in the breeze of a too-long moment.

“No.”

A firm confidence propelled your claim forwards. It almost shocked you to hear how assured you sounded; how certain of a life which, in all truth, you did not know whether you were capable of saving.

But gods be damned if you failed to try.

“No,” you said again, as much for your own sake as for hers. Conviction took root in your heart. “I won’t let you.”

“But if I did…” she choked out, “would I see them again?” She turned her eyes on you once more, begging for an answer, for a comfort, for anything. Anything at all. You faltered.

So small, she was. So very vulnerable. A tug ached in your chest where you knew the absence of her parents stung her like an open wound. A wound that, no matter what you or the old woman did, could never truly be closed by your presence. 

“…I don’t know,” you finally said. It was the only honesty you could offer her, and a comforting lie would do neither of you any good. You sighed, swallowed, shook your head. “I’m so sorry, I… I truly don’t know.”

#genshin impact x reader #cyno x reader #cyno #dark sorcerer!cyno

[perpetualcynicism]

𝖔𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖚𝖕𝖔𝖓 𝖆 𝖋𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖞𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖊 — 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔣𝔦𝔳𝔢.

𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔣𝔬𝔲𝔯. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔦𝔵.

——————————————————————

Each day, the sorcerer thought. Each day, a flower was left for him upon that same tree stump, and each day he paid it little mind and passed it by; for he had no particularly affinity for flowers, nor any particular affinity for the one who left them there each morn.

(Or so he told himself.)

If the sorcerer were to truly be honest with himself, he must resign to the admittance that ever since leading you through the woods on that fateful day—and though the sorcerer believed not in fate (for he scorned the concept with his very being), he could not deny that if such a thing existed, this would be a prime example—memories of yore, long lost to the blank expanse of the woods, had been surfacing amidst his consciousness. 

Though faded imprints were all he could decipher at the best of times, corroded with empty space where vibrancy once prided itself, through them he recalled bygone impressions of contentment, and of a warmth spreading through the cavity inside his chest. It was a funny thing, the fickleness of time; so quickly did it erode the truth of old times, and yet he (and that which he felt) remained unchanged. 

The sorcerer’s mind leafed back to those lost days, and found them to be like old pages in a storybook, the ink so smudged and paper so yellowed and crumbling that he could barely make out a word.  

Sometimes, he considered the curious familiarity that he had felt in your brief presence, and began to think, Would accepting these flowers truly be so troublesome? 

For he recalled a kindness in those days gone by; one that had filled his heart, when he still had one, and would still sometimes nestle in the cavity of his chest when it was not too painful to remember. A selfless sort of kindness, that would surely have reprimanded him for leaving your gifts without reply.

Though he could not place his finger on it, something about these flowers and the one offering them, who intended on persisting despite never receiving a response, reminded him of this kindness. 

In the woods, the sorcerer stopped. The chime around his ankle fell silent, and even the soft creaking of wood seemed to cease.

Surely… surely acting in memory of this kindness—in honour of it, even—could not count as a transgression? For the sorcerer knew that without a heart, he could never again love another, and only ever cling to inklings of passion in days long past. As long as that passion remained true, as he knew it would—for it must—he was not renouncing them; because he would never renounce them, even if it meant a second, or third, or hundredth eternity spent in these gods-forsaken woods. 

(As he contemplated this matter, the sorcerer would not let himself admit that, in truth, deep down in the dark cavern that once housed his heart and where no light had touched for lifetimes, he yearned for another touch of that kindness—the one he had found in you—but was too afraid, too bound by his own word, to reach out for it.)

One flower. That is all there was to it. 

He was still staying true.

With these thoughts in mind, the sorcerer traversed the woods for a little while, the lantern-light pressing shadows into corners and casting pale blue slices between trees. Through the bone-twig paths he wove, threading between close-pressed forestry and expelling shadows in his wake, until he stood before the stump. 

Upon it was a flower, as always. This one had wide petals tipped with pale amber, which deepened to the rich orange of a sunset as his eyes traced down their length. Or at least, what the sorcerer assumed was the orange of sunset. It had been a long time since he had seen his last, after all, and his memories of the phenomenon, as all memories of his beyond the prison of the woods, were unclear.

He set his lantern down by the withered grass on his side of the tree stump. Bathed in its silver-blue light, sunset hues turned to colours of dusk. The sorcerer reached out towards the flower, and hesitated. 

No. This was wrong. It must be.

…So why was every nerve in his body aching so desperately to seize it?

The sorcerer drew in a breath to steady himself, though he knew not why he was so conflicted, and extended his fingers towards the offering. They brushed once against the stem, and the next moment, closed.

This action was largely inconsequential, he reasoned as he lifted the flower carefully between two fingers from its resting place, and served no greater purpose than to accept a gift he cared little for and to appease what they would have wanted for him. It was only picking up a flower; he was certain nothing would come it.

The moment the flower crossed the border to the woods, its maned head of petals wilted and proud colours dimmed to diluted ghosts of their past vibrancy. The sorcerer had expected this, however, and it came as no surprise to him that little life could ever flourish here. Nevertheless, he did not abandon the poor thing, and held the dipping stem firmly between index finger and thumb. 

The deed was done. Surely, now, that kindness would have been pleased.

The sorcerer rose to his feet and walked a little while, acutely aware of the sensation of the flower in his hand. He had not touched such a thing for what must be… well, he did not know, for the time that passed in the woods bore no semblance to that outside it. A very, very long time since holding such an item was all he could determine.

Though it was waning, the sorcerer felt the pulse of life beneath his fingertips.

Then, as he walked, the most peculiar of thoughts struck him.

Perhaps he should give them something in return.

——————————————————————

The old floorboards groaned in protest as you pulled yourself upright, eyelids bleary with the crust of sleep. You rubbed your eyes and your vision focused to reveal that the little girl was still sound asleep, curled up under your plush duvet, her breathing restful. She mumbled something quietly and rolled over in the bed, dark hair spilled around the pillow like an ink puddle. 

The need to yawn arose within you and you adhered to it, internally cursing the arrival of daylight hours.

Truth be told, you had only spent a matter of hours in slumber. Not only had your bitter discovery last night spurred you onwards to develop your research for far longer than usual, but the thin blankets laid upon the floor proved to be no alternative for a bed, and hours had been spent shivering, tossing and turning beneath the blankets in a futile effort to wring some semblance of comfort from the things.

You slipped into a nightrobe and walked into your study, treading quietly as not to wake the little girl (though the floorboards creaked beneath your feet anyways). The whole world seemed suspended in a cloak of morning silence, and against the stark quietness, the old floorboards were ever the more disruptive.

In your study, the thin curtains to the window were pulled aside—you had forgotten to close them last night before you retired to bed—and because it was a misty morning, the temperature seemed to drop as you stepped into the room. Shuddering at the sudden chill, you tugged your robe closer to your body. You wished you had donned some slippers beforehand, for the newfound cold nipped the soles of your feet. 

The pale light scattered inside the room was a diluted blue, and droplets of mist clung to the glass outside the window. Glancing out of it, the whole village was a faint imprint in the fog. 

You looked to your desk, and found the recent medicine you had devised sitting in a small glass bottle. Ideally, you would have time to better it first, but the little girl being infected invited a more urgent sense of pressure, and you knew that the rest of the village was not boding too well, either.

You turned to a small mirror mounted upon your wall, its round surface speckled with blackish spots, and inspected your reflection. No dark blemishes had made themselves known yet, and there was no stiffness to be found in your limbs beyond that of sleep.

Nonetheless, you felt that you were stood upon a clock face, and the hand was counting down. 

You sighed and turned from the mirror, picking up the vial from your desk and slipping it into an inner cloak pocket. It was still early morning, so you expected you had some time before the little girl awakened. Perhaps you could visit the forest briefly in the meantime and then return to make her some breakfast, and tend to her and your other patients. 

You returned to your room, wherein the drawn curtains retained an area of snug darkness, and dressed yourself. Then you picked up a quill and notated a simple message regarding your absence for the little girl, placing it beside her bedstand upon its completion.

After this you walked down the corridor and pulled on your boots, fastened your cloak around your shoulders, and stepped outside, closing the door quietly behind you.

Mist clung to the village like a blanket. Wreaths of pale wisp hugged cobblestone walls and wove between buildings. Your breath steamed in the chill of the air, and the subtle smell of petrichor was settled upon the ground. Blades of grass whispered against each other as you walked, mud sucking gently at the underside of your shoes.

In the forest, the birdsong was muted, each call muffled and faraway. The fog lay over the leaf-dressed ground, a veil which turned trees to hazy silhouettes amidst a cloudy grey. Little pools of water puddled around your boots whenever you stepped on the moss covering the forest floor, and full buds of water hung from each leaf edge, falling occasionally to the forest floor with a heavy plap. When your leg skimmed a low bush as you passed by, a cascade of droplets shook from its length, dousing the end of your cloak in a shower of dew. 

By a felled tree, a cluster of red-petalled flowers rose from the shrubbery. Their striking colour seemed to be dulled, too, by the weather, now more a smoky merlot than ruby. The beads of water adorning their petals were round and clear, resembling crystalline pearls.

You had read once that the sorcerer had eyes of a similar red; perhaps this would entice him to your offering?

The flower heads shivered against each other when you skimmed a hand over them. You selected the one with the fullest petals and richest hue, and when you had lifted it from its flowerbed, your hands were damp with raindrops.

Once you arrived at the clearing, you took a breath and readied yourself for the tug of disappointment you would feel when you saw yesterday’s flower lying in its usual position, untouched as always. 

The mist was laid thicker here, an ocean of hazy clouds spanning the opening, and you could barely discern the trees on the other side of the grassy circle. A peppering of subdued colour poked here and there from beneath the undergrowth as flowers struggled beneath the weight of water. The tree stump was a smudge in the background. You neared it slowly, for you knew that the woods was close by, and wished not to stumble into it by accident.

When you reached the stump, you stopped. The flower you held almost fell from your hand. 

On the wood lay a handful of berries glistening with dew, the likes of which you had never seen before. Their smooth, dark surface had a curious sheen to them which reminded you of polished jewellery. In fact, they truly looked to you like a collection of immaculate beads, presented on an altar of wood and chosen from the stringed necklace of wealth herself.

In awe, you reached out and picked up a singular berry, holding it up to your eyes. You turned it around, enraptured by its foreignness. It was small, no larger than your fingernail, and round as a pearl. It felt to you that even if you were to scour every text on forest plants in existence, this species would receive not a single mention.

Did this mean…?

You had not realised that your hand was shaking until the berry slipped from your fingers, rolling a little across the tree stump’s surface before coming to a stop beside its brethren. 

Lightly berating your own excitement, you steadied yourself and carefully collected each berry, slipping them into one of the many pockets of your cloak. As you did so, your eyes gravitated towards the cloak’s hem, and found the patch you had sewn onto the tear. At that moment, your memory of the woods felt very clear, and your heart began to thrum. 

Fingers still quivering, you lowered the red-petalled flower onto the tree stump, as always casting a simple animal-repelling spell to ensure no birds nor squirrels made away with the gift. You stumbled upon your words once out of tremulous enthusiasm, and had to recast the spell.

You looked towards the woods, overtaken by a sudden, confident curiosity. Unlike the forest, which was swathed in mist, the woods was dry and dark, as it always was. For instead of occasional fog, the woods had constant shadows, which lurked around each corner and slithered between those tall, thin trees. Somewhere inside the cursed labyrinth, you thought you heard something skitter.

You held your breath for a long moment and were silent, hoping, perhaps childishly, that you would hear the sound of windchimes carried on the wind.

All that met you was the rush of your own blood, and silence. 

And yet this absence did not bother you as much as it may once have done: for now you were knew that whether or not he was close by or far away, there must be a sorcerer in this woods, or some other figure the stories were drawn from. Perhaps one day, you would come to learn his name.

The little girl, a sudden voice in your head intruded, and pulled your fantasising back to reality. She was likely awake by now; you had been gone for longer than intended, distracted as you were by this new confirmation. It was best you hurry back now and not keep her waiting. Focused on this, you walked briskly back through the forest, biting back the smile tugging at your lips and forcing your tingling nerves to settle. 

The mist had parted, a little, and the way was clearer than it was upon your departure, though the air was still thick with moisture. Between the forest trees sat small, round boulders, sporting patchy cloaks of moss, like they were covered in a damp carpet. In the children’s stories, these were stones were steinfolk—trolls—who played tricks on unsuspecting passersby and stole their shoes. You had always been content to entertain the notion that they may exist, but now as you passed by, you could not help but wonder if they truly did. 

Once you had left the clearing, the woods seemed to pass a mutter amongst itself. The shadows since lying in their nooks and crannies crept out hungrily towards the stump, and the trees themselves seemed to inch closer, creaking softly as absent, tuneless winds probed finger-like branches forwards. A quiet murmur of dry leaves sounded, like an audience anticipating the beginning of a show. 

Eager yet patient, the woods was awaiting what would happen next.

#genshin impact x reader #cyno #cyno x reader #dark sorcerer!cyno

[perpetualcynicism]

𝖔𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖚𝖕𝖔𝖓 𝖆 𝖋𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖞𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖊 — 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔣𝔬𝔲𝔯.

𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔢𝔢. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔣𝔦𝔳𝔢.

——————————————————————

When you returned to the forest to find the flowers still untouched, your hope began to dwindle like the ember of dying flame. With each passing day, the fateful encounter you had experienced seemed all the more a daydream, details slipping through your fingers like river water. 

Crouching by the tree stump, you brought the flower to your face and scrutinised it closely. For a long, silent moment, you held your narrowed gaze on its head of white petals, as though you could uncover its secrets merely by looking. Secrets about whether the sorcerer had seen the flower, and why he had chosen to ignore it. 

A pinched sigh left your nose and you placed the flower in your basket, shaking your head at your own foolishness. Here you were, dreaming of some fairytale figure as though he were real, as though he would appear before you with merely a wish, no wiser than a young child yet unmarred by the knowledge that fiction did not bleed into the real world as it did in stories.

You rose to your feet and turned from the clearing. This interaction was not the primary reason of your coming here, and it would do no good to keep lingering upon such wistful sentiments; for wistful sentiments did nothing to combat real-life problems, and the wicked illness plaguing your village had yet to show intentions of subsiding. 

(And yet it was precisely this reason you had stumbled into the woods those days ago on a search for medical herbs, and why you were consumed by curiosity now.)

An inkling of an idea arose in your mind. An idea that was dangerous, and reckless, and teetering on the border of insanity. You allowed yourself to spare one single glance into the dense forest thicket, where you knew the greenery began to waver and shift into grey, before shutting that window of opportunity firmly from your mind.

You may be curious, but you were no halfwit. To even consider such an option was tantamount to idiocy. For there was only one wind that could pass through that window, and it was a dark one.

One flower a day, you decided, and no more. No more hoping for a reply that was not to come, nor dreaming of a nameless figure who may only exist between the pages of old storybooks. 

(One flower, just in case. One flower to keep your glimmer of hope alive.)

You reached into the woven basket hanging at your side and drew out the new flower you had brought to replace the old one, this one different, with round, flat petals the orange of sunset. As you had grown accustomed to doing, you placed it on the tree stump, and thought no more of it as you left the sun-smattered clearing. 

The forest was flooded with daylight, and a chorus of birdsong bounced between the woven canopy of gnarled tree branches. Shards of sunlight lay scattered upon sections of the twig-path like fragments of yellow glass. Patches of dark green shadow carpeted the rest of the forest floor in the shapes of leaves. You paused to kneel down here and there, plucking various flowers and herbs from the soil and placing them in your basket before moving on. When you only had one flower left to gather, the basket was filled to the brim like a bucket of petals and leaves instead of water. 

As any sensible person would, you had left this remaining species for last, for it was the one which thrived on the narrow, shifting border that split sunlit forest from deep woods; the very same that had caused you to stumble into the woods because of your absentminded foolishness some days ago, and many nightmares long before that. 

This time, however, you would not allow yourself to stumble blindly at the mercy of fickle chance. Instead, a ball of coloured yarn borrowed from the old woman lay snugly in your inside cloak pocket, enchanted by you with a simple binding spell. Perhaps the enchantment would do little good when the woods was only an arm’s breadth away, as your protection charms had done little good before, but it offered you a sliver of comfort nonetheless. 

You closed your hand around the yarn and focused on the softness against the palm of your hand as you moved away from the deer run you had been trailing, and towards the edge of the forest. The moment the birdsong stopped, you knew where you must be. 

You glanced down at the toes of your boots. Grass still sprouted beneath them. You hazarded a glance towards the mouth of the woods that lay before you and felt a cold shudder breathe down your spine. It was all the same as you remembered; a yawning grey expanse of close-packed trees, thin as bone and tall as the sky, that rustled and creaked although there was no wind to move them, with neither stream nor rock nor mole-mound to differentiate one corner from another.

You wondered if, somewhere in there, a sorcerer was walking with a lantern in his hand.

The warmth of the yarn in your palm summoned your focus back to the goal, and you scolded yourself for allowing another instance of such inattentiveness. You lifted it from your cloak pocket and wrapped the end of the yarn around your wrist, there securing it with a tight knot. Then you tied another ring around the nearest tree trunk, and began to walk slowly, scouring the earth for sights of the flower. Every now and then you would pause to tie another knot of yarn around the nearest tree, and looked back to check that the line had not broken. 

In the corner of your eye arose a speck of colour against the dappled green-grey earth. You bent down to inspect it. 

The plant was small, with a thin stem that arced into a downwards curve at its tip. Along its length hung delicate bell-shaped buds of a pale violet, dappled with white star-like flecks. The end of each petal was tipped with dark grey. You plucked the flower from the grass bed and laid it on the floral mound rising from your basket. Then you tied another ring and continued, stopping each time you caught sight of these flowers and keeping your eyes on the ground all the while.

When you felt a tug on your wrist, you glanced down at your hand. The knot of yarn was pulling against your skin, and the wooden strand stretching from the nearest tree was taut. In truth it had lasted longer than expected, and you were quite pleased; it was a sizeable patch of flowers you had collected, and likely enough to last a couple of days. In the meantime, you would use this successful reaping to attempt developing a more effective medicine. 

Carefully you unwound the yarn from each tree and, following the string path you had laid out for yourself, found yourself where you had first began. The sunlight pouring through the trees was richer now, like puddles of gold instead of glass, though a sharp crispness on the air reminded you of the approaching harvest season. Already a few leaves were deepening in colour, flushed with the crimson touch of autumn. 

The trees became sparser as you approached the village. Forestry became knobbly stone fences and the moss-covered earth to a little cobbled path winding around the village. You sifted through the assortment of materials you had collected, silently mulling over potential potions and medicine developments. 

Suddenly a child, who had been crouching behind a rose bush, leapt out with a gleeful cry and ran towards you on short legs. She wrapped her arms around your knees and beamed up at you, eyes brimming with joy. 

“You’re back!” she cried, fixing you with a toothy grin. You breathed a chuckle at her youthful felicity and placed a hand upon her head.

“You last saw me yesterday,” you pointed out, to which she pouted and tugged on a corner of her skirt.

“It felt like so much longer. I waited all morning by that bush to surprise you.” Delight replaced the sorrow in her eyes as quickly as it had come. She asked eagerly, “Was I good? Did I surprise you?”

“You definitely surprised me, yes,” you admitted, and the little girl giggled.

“You’re so silly. I thought you were less of a scaredy-cat.” She stuck out her tongue playfully, marvelling pridefully at her success.

“Don’t make such a face,” you scolded lightly. “If the wind changes direction, it will be stuck like that forever.”

Her eyes widened and she clasped small hands over her mouth. “Forever and ever?”

“Forever and ever,” you confirmed, and found slight amusement in her horrified shock. Then you unclasped yourself from her iron grip around your legs, and said, “I must make my way home, now. I have lots of work to do.”

“Wait!” she cried and latched onto your leg again, like a most endearing leech. “Mother said I should stay with you today, and with Grandmother some other days. She said she was feeling poorly and is going on a journey to see Father.”

Your mind drifted to the little girl’s mother, whom you had visited many times to check on her condition. All you could envision was memories of the woman lying in bed, skin patchy with hard, black scales. Poorly, indeed. 

Nobody ever had the heart to tell the little girl that her father was long dead. 

“Is that so?” you asked, and the little girl nodded cheerfully. A sharp twang ached inside your heart at the sight of her blissful ignorance. “…I see.”

However, since her mother had already reached this stage of infection…

“Have you found any numbness or stiffness in your limbs recently, or had difficulty moving? A dark rash on the skin? Any coughs? Headaches?”

“What is nu… ‘numbness’?”

“It is when you can’t feel any sensations in a particular area.”

The little girl shook her head firmly. You frowned: it would be ideal if you could check her for symptoms, but often they did not show until after the patient had been infected for quite some time… 

If she had procured the disease, however, it was likely best she stays with you; you could keep yourself relatively safe from risk with some magic, and keeping an eye on her would do nobody harm. 

Nonetheless… if you were to catch the disease yourself, it would endanger the whole village; the townsfolk were reliant on you to provide a cure, and should you yourself fall to the illness… 

“Do you promise?” you asked. “This is very important.”

“I promise.”

“Hmm.” You scrutinised her for a moment, trying to unearth any signs of lying from beneath her smile. 

“Why don’t you look happy about that?” she frowned, tilting her head. 

“Oh, no reason,” you said quickly. “It is not a matter that concerns you. Now, shall we make our way home?” The little girl nodded and clapped her hands together. You gestured down the cobbled path with a hand. “Well, then, little mistress. Lead the way.”

The little girl bounced down the path like a young foal while you followed a few paces behind her, slowing yourself so that you would not overtake her. A slight breeze picked up, pinching you with cold, and you pulled your cloak tighter around yourself, ensuring that none of the plants in your basket were swept away. 

A brief walk later, you arrived at your home. From your cloak you produced a ring of keys, and inserted the largest into a rusty lock in the dark wood. You pushed the door open and allowed the little girl to trot inside first. Once you were both inside, you shut it with a click and slung your cloak over a small hook protruding from the wall, trying not to think about the recently sewn patch at its hem.

“Will you help me organise the plants?” you asked as you laid the wicker basket down upon a small table. 

“Yes please!”

“Very well. In which case, let me show you how to do it.” You pulled out a chair, and the little girl clambered up onto it. Because you only had the one, you remained standing. Carefully you took handfuls of various herbs and flowers and placed them on the tabletop until the basket was empty and a pile of fragrant greenery was scattered across the wooden surface.

“Do you see the ones with the green leaves that look like ovals?”

“Oh, yes! I do!” She reached into the basket and pulled out a long-stemmed herb, and glowed with pride when you praised her. “It smells odd,” she commented.

“Many of these do,” you replied. “Now, search for the herbs which look the same as this one, and place them in one pile.”

The little girl nodded and set to work immediately, filtering through the leafy pile with eyebrows set in concentration. Meanwhile, you busied yourself with all the other items, and finished before she did. When at least the girl ended her task, her fingertips caked with green, you said, “Very good. I have some work to do, now, so will you be able to entertain yourself in the meantime? I have some storybooks in that shelf over there if they would interest you.”

“Okay!” she said and hopped down from the chair. You helped her choose a book, settling at last on a collection of tales about a princess and a dragon, then gathered the organised piles and retired to your room. 

A book, pages thick with black-inked scribbles, lay open beside where you placed your elbow. Every scrawl so far was a testimony to your failure of finding a remedy for the illness, and you filled up almost a whole page each day. 

You sighed and looked to the assortment of plantation on your desk, already feeling the energy draining from your bones. It was a long day that awaited you.

Hours later, it was only the knocking on your door that surfaced you from your thoughts. A stone mortar and pestle was dyed green from crushed herbs, and a handful of flower petals drifted inside a bowl of boiling water, a heavy aroma seeping into the air as their coloured pond bubbled away. An ocean of melted wax surrounded the base of your candle-lamp. You had drawn up a theory of how to improve your current remedy, but this, as all the others did, was only able to slow the progression of symptoms; it seemed there was still a steep mountain path to conquer before you arrived at an effective cure.

Your eyes prickled with dryness when you glanced up to meet the sound. It took a couple of blinks and some rubbing to truly re-immerse yourself in the present moment, so lost in your own musings you had been. 

Standing outside the door was the little girl. In her arms she hugged the book you had lent her. 

“I finished the book!” she announced cheerfully. 

“All of it?” you said in disbelief.

“Mhm!” She then frowned and raised a finger to her lips, tilting her head to one side in contemplation. “By the way, are we going to have supper soon?”

You rubbed your brow and attempted to dredge up approximately how much time had passed from the sludge of your mind. It was to no avail; you must have lost track long ago, and there were few fruits to bear from meaningless speculation. “What is the time? I’m afraid I forgot to pay attention to how long I was working for.”

“The stars are still hiding away, but the sky is orange and getting dark blue.”

Early nightfall. A good many hours since you had entered your study. 

“I see. Well, would you care to help me cook?” The little girl nodded, as she always did, and you smiled at her. “Come, then. Let us to the kitchen.”

The kitchen in your home was small, lined with some dark wooden counters and bunches dried herbs hanging from the walls. A succulent sat in a rotund flowerpot by a window from which evening light streamed in square beams of gold onto the tabletops, a trinket from a faraway land the old woman said she had once visited; it had been in your house as long as you could remember. Idly floating specks of dust were caught in the honey-tinted light, and despite the room’s close quarters, it maintained an air of spaciousness.

You decided to prepare some mushrooms and fresh cod caught in a nearby fjord, and the little girl showed the most enthusiastic display of seasoning some fish you had ever witnessed. By the time you had eaten, the tangerine sharpness of sunset dwindled and a deep blue took its place, scattered upon it here and there the jewels of stars. 

It was at night that you always felt some of your energy return; the stars were commonly believed to be the origins of magic, and whether this was truth or fable, it remained that sitting beneath them if only for a moment was enough to breathe new life into the magic that thrummed beneath your fingertips. Henceforth, it was a habit of yours to whittle away at theory in hours of sunlight, and bring into existence whatsoever you had discovered during nightfall. 

However, on this day, this would have to wait, for you first must put the little girl to bed. Your house, only designed to house one person, had only one bedroom, so you had to gather some blankets and pillows from elsewhere, and decided that she ought to take the bed, and you the floor upon a layer of spare bedsheets. 

Once the little girl had donned her sleepwear, you tucked her beneath the woollen blankets of your bed— though now you supposed it was to be hers— and set a candle-lamp by her bedside to ward away her fears of darkness. You yourself had found such shadows less comforting in recent days, and so were not ungrateful for the light. 

“Good night,” you said and brushed the backs of your fingers across her forehead. She smiled up at you, expression laced with fatigue, then let her eyes fall shut behind a curtain of long, black lashes. Mere moments later you noted the even rise and fall of her breath, and deduced that she was asleep. A little smile crossed your own features upon gazing at the peacefulness of her slumber, warm but tinged with the sadness of knowing that this girl would never again see her true parents, and that she had still the innocence to believe they were merely away on a long, long journey. 

Lost in thought, you tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear, and froze.

Behind her helix was a slight discolouration of purplish-black, the same shade of a bruise or an ink stain, and the texture of her skin there was hardened like scales. 

She had said she did not experience any symptoms. It may have been a lie, or perhaps they’d merely had yet to show themselves; but regardless of this matter, a foul truth remained, one that left a bitter taste upon your palate: the little girl was infected. 

And if she was infected, it was surely only a matter of time before you, too, succumbed to the same fate. 

If that was to happen, it would spell the end of you all.

——————————————————————

𝔫𝔬𝔱𝔢𝔰:

sorry, no cyno this chapter. i promise he’ll come soon, though. also, i may be a touch guilty of taking some inspiration from shiva to write the little girl… but hey, she’s too sweet not to influence me, okay?

#genshin impact x reader #cyno #cyno x reader #dark sorcerer!cyno

[perpetualcynicism]

thinking about how dark sorcerer!cyno calls you ‘my star’…

probably because after so long spent in aimless, endless darkness, you became his light and his point of direction; and also because he sees you as some otherworldly, almost divine being whom he can only bathe in the light of and never quite touch or reach…

and that’s the thing: you’re always just out of reach, dancing in his mind’s eye like those twinkling lights he used to (and still does) tear from the heavens and capture on earth; except that he can’t pull you down like he did with those stars. and even if he could, he wouldn’t dare touch a being as pure as you, because he would never wish to taint you with his darkness…

#dark sorcerer!cyno just lives in my brain rent-free by this point #god i love this au #cyno x reader #cyno #dark sorcerer!cyno

[perpetualcynicism]

𝖔𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖚𝖕𝖔𝖓 𝖆 𝖋𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖞𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖊 — 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔴𝔬.

𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔫𝔢. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔫𝔢: 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔲𝔡𝔢. 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔯𝔢𝔢.

——————————————————————

Over the next coming days, the memory of your encounter in the woods lingered in your mind like a mist that refused to dissipate. 

Questions gnawed at your mind in a constant stream of Who was he? Why did he help you? and Was it all even real? 

You had heard of the myth of the sorcerer who dwells in the woods: of course you had. It was well-known folklore around these parts, used to keep little children from straying too far into the forest. It had oftentimes piqued your curiosity, for the myth was one shrouded in shadows and mystery, and you had tried many times to gather more information on the tale from various townsfolk, but to no avail. Subsequently, or at least until now, you had been unsure what to make of the myth. It was true that the woods existed, but the presence of the so-told sorcerer who lived within them was uncertain. 

(He could have been a figment of your imagination. A lie you had convinced yourself into believing to quell your fears as you wandered the woods. But… he had felt so real. Out of reach, yes, and beyond your comprehension, but how else would you have found your way out if not for him?)

You asked around the village and your patients for any further details about the story, but all anyone seemed to know was that there was a man who lived in the woods, and who must under no circumstances be trusted. 

…So why had he helped you?

Curiosity still burning bright, you turned to asking one of the village elders—or, the old woman who was known to most of the townsfolk as ‘grandmother’, no matter their age. 

You, too, regarded her as a parental figure: it was impossible not to. After all, she was the one who had found you all those years ago wandering along the edge of the woods, stumbling about in a bleary-eyed daze, and taken you in as one of her own. 

An old woman, she had survived through times thick and thin, sturdy as an oak and lively as a burbling brook: age had done little to dull her spirit, and there were deep laugh lines around her eyes that crinkled with every smile. Her eyes themselves sparkled with the mischief of a jovial youth, and she was regarded as the town’s storyteller, often reciting tales to the little village children around a campfire that burned long into the night. If anyone were to know the details of a folktale, it was her.

She lived on the outskirts of the village, in a modest cottage overgrown with blossoms and ivy which crept up the uneven cobbled walls and painted pictures of vibrant colours and blooming vines. The house itself leaned precariously to one side, and you often found yourself worrying that it may one day collapse without warning, but it seemed to have a spirit as steadfast as she did, for it had braved the hardest of storms for dozens of years. 

You walked up a winding stony path leading to the cottage, mind drifting and lost in thought. 

Now that you thought of it, you had not been to see her in a while. Ever since the disease had broken out, you’d had hardly a moment of rest to pay anyone but your patients a visit. You wondered if she was doing well.

You had arrived at the cottage. The door was old, made from wood that stood shockingly strong for its age. The warm scent of blackberry pie wafted through the open windows. You raised your knuckles and knocked on the wood.

A moment later, the door swung open to reveal a short, frail-looking old woman, her silver hair tied in a long plait behind her. She was wearing a knitted pair of oven gloves, and her sparkling blue eyes widened when they saw you. 

A beaming smile broke over her wrinkled face, and it felt as though the sun itself were shining through her features. 

“Hello, grandmother,” you said sheepishly.

“Oh, my child!” she gasped. “It has been so long since I last saw you!” You rubbed your neck, a guilty smile settling on your face. “Come in, come in!” She ushered you eagerly inside and sat you down in a wooden chair. Then she hobbled over to the kitchen, insistent on making you some tea despite your weak protests that you were not staying for long.

However, you could not help but smile at her attitude. She had always been a woman of great conviction, and there had never been any stopping her.

She soon returned with a mug of tea in her hands. She handed it over to you, and you recognised the scent as forest mint: your favourite flavour since you were a young child.

“What brings you here, then, love?” she asked, and teased, “Have you finally come to pay your poor grandmother a visit?” 

“Yes, I have,” you answered, and took a sip of tea from your mug.

“What do you need, then, hm? Any help with your studies? Herbs from my garden? Flowers? A new book to read? No… oh—I know.” A mischievous twinkle sparkled in her clear eyes, and she winked at you. “Do you need a lover? I heard you’ve been awfully lonely recently, all cooped up in your house, and I recently met the most wonderful young man who works in the bakery down the street—”

“Grandmother, please,” you sighed exasperatedly. The old woman laughed, and the sound was bright and cheerful.

“I’m only joking, of course. So, what is it you are here for? Anything I can provide you with is yours.” 

You waved away her generosity. “I appreciate the kindness, but I only have a question for you.”

“A question? What is it, child?” The old woman smiled.

“Well… you know the myth about that sorcerer who lives in the woods?”

She nodded. “Of course I do. It’s a very good story. Old, too. But why do you need to know about such a tale? It’s only to keep the little ones from wandering too far.”

You shrugged. “I know, but… do you happen to know any details about the story? Or the sorcerer in particular?”

The old woman frowned as she considered the question. “What kind of details are you looking for?”

“I’m not sure… anything about him, I suppose: his origins, personality, details about his appearance… where he came from, and such.”

The old woman sighed. “I’m afraid there is not very much to say: it is only a fairy story, after all. The sorcerer is of course fictional, and many of the details of the original telling story have likely been lost to time. It isn’t as if there is a real figure to base the rumours on.”

You looked downwards in defeat. “So… you really don’t know anything?”

The old woman sighed. “There are… some things. I usually leave these details out for the sake of the young ones, and I do not know why you wish to know them, but I will tell you them if you’re this insistent.”

Your eyes lit up. “Really?”

The old woman nodded. However, now her face was solemn, and a dark shadow passed over her eyes. She stared at her gnarled hands as she spoke and did not meet your eyes. You had never seen her this serious.

“This sorcerer… he is a heartless, cold figure whose heart has long grown over with thorns and darkness. The story goes that he practiced the magic arts, but not the ones that you did, which help and save lives—rather, he practiced the dark arts: a forbidden branch of magic better left untouched. So, he must be a man of evil who cannot be trusted. He is dangerous as well, for he is said to have meddled with the affairs of life and death: even the gods could not stop him without banishing him to the darkest parts of the woods. Not only this, but tales tell that anyone who comes across him is burdened by misfortune for the rest of their days.”

You swallowed, shaken by the morose tone of her voice. A moment passed before you eventually mustered up the courage to ask, “Do… does he have a name?”

The old woman raised her eyes to meet yours, and the expression in her crystal eyes was dark and grave.

She said, “If you wish to seek him out, child, I strongly advise against it.”

A heavy silence fell upon the room. You felt as though you were shrinking under the weight of the old woman’s eyes. The smile lines around her mouth and eyes had vanished, and at that moment you felt very unsettled, and very cold.

Then a warm smile broke over her face again, as though the things she had told you were happy as anything. 

“But it is only a fairytale, of course. He doesn’t exist, so you have nothing to worry about, love.”

You opened and closed your mouth but found that your speech had left you, finding the sudden change in her attitude uncharacteristically jarring. The old woman seemed not to notice this reaction.

“But enough of this talk,” she said, standing up and making her way to the kitchen. “This tale always gets me feeling a little dreary. Would you like some blackberry and apple pie?”

Not waiting for your response, she vanished behind the kitchen door and walked out again with a plate carrying a slice of steaming pie in her hands. The inside was a deep purple, and the smell of blackberries and apple rose into the air. You could not hold yourself back even if you had wanted to.

After you had cleared your plate (which was really not very long at all), you thanked the old woman for her generosity and made to leave.

As you walked out of the door, she called,

“My love, do you believe in fairytales?”

You stopped, and lingered in the doorway in silence for a long time. You needed to think carefully before you answered. When you did, it was in a quiet mumble, unable to meet her eyes.

“…I don’t know.”

#genshin impact x reader #cyno #cyno x reader #dark sorcerer!cyno