#lotusbled / antheia

[mercyburned]

@lotusbled

There was plenty that happened in Mondstadt behind the scenes that the jovial, wine-drinking, poetry-reciting citizens would never know of in their entire lives. Kaeya preferred it that way. He and a few others cleaned up the messes and chased away the demons without anyone else the wiser except for each other and Jean. Sometimes he sounded bitter or resentful when he spoke of how oblivious most people were, but that was the farthest thing from the truth. Kaeya didn't want the people of Mondstadt to know about the Abyss Order. He didn't want them to think about the things that moved in the shadows. No, Mondstadt was Mondstadt because people like them existed in the sunlight and people like him cleaned up the chaos where no one was looking.

It was a system that worked.

As fate would have it, however, his patrols around the outskirts of town today were downright... boring. Nothing out of the ordinary, even when he looked for the things beyond it. Or that was true for most of the day, at least, until he was almost back into town, coming up through the fields near Windrise. A strange flash of light caught his eye, and he was quickly and quietly on his way to investigate.

He may not care much at all for the Anemo Archon, but he loved the City of Freedom. He loved Jean. He loved the people who had given him a home and a good life, for the most part.

His first thought was that the Abyss Order was up to something again. If not them, then maybe the Fatui -- no doubt annoyed that Jean had single-handedly prevented them from taking over the city. His hand was not yet on the hilt of his sword, but he could draw it in half of the blink of an eye if ...

... he found a girl? A woman, to be more precise. Kaeya's visible brow pulled in towards the one hidden by his eyepatch. She looked confused - lost - shaken. As he drew closer, he found himself staring into the centers of her eyes.

What he saw should not be possible. But he had to swallow that bubble of anxiety down, try to calm his heart from its sudden uncomfortable racing as it pounded against his ribs. He drew in a breath, scrambling to regain his normal composure as he could not pry his eyes away from the star-shape of her pupil.

Like his. What the fuck?

“ ---- are you all right? Are you injured?”

#lotusbled #lotusbled / antheia #✦ interactions. || kaeya alberich #✦ i could write it better than you ever felt it. || threads #aww here we go

[mercyburned]

ingredients on the surface are still strange and... somewhat repulsive, but she's managed to gather as many as she can that are friendly and familiar. while kaeya was on duty for the day, antheia has spent the majority of it preparing her favorite khaenri'ahn dish that her grandfather had taught to her. as soon as he walks in the door that evening, he is greeted with the gentle scent of food, soft white banners from the floor to the kitchen, and a widely, excitedly smiling antheia. "happy birthday, kaeya. my wish is for you to live many more years in joy and contentment, whatever that might look like."

He'd almost gotten used to having someone in his apartment when he came home every day. Well, someone other than Jean -- for a long time, especially during those four years when Diluc was gone, the two of them had spent more time together than with anyone else. Kaeya hadn't even realized how empty and lonely his apartment had been without Jean coming over all the time until Antheia had moved in, but now he found that the life brought into it was... something that was missing.

It hadn't been a bad day. He'd spent most of the day wandering around the city, helping with this or that or the other thing. Mostly, he'd done a lot of paperwork for Jean that he knew she'd been putting off. Paperwork was always boring, but he got a sense of satisfaction from doing something productive, whether that was for himself or someone else.

As he turned the key and stepped inside his apartment, a savory aroma that was almost approaching the tip of familiar greeted him, and Kaeya stood in the doorway for a moment, brows pulled together just like his father's used to, as he tried to identify the thought that twitched almost like a memory.

He stepped further into the kitchen and realized that she'd prepared an entire meal for him. She looked happy, proud, and it brought a smile to his face. The words - spoken in a language he'd all but shelved since he'd come to Mondstadt - somehow made it even better.

“Thank you, Antheia. It's... been a while since I celebrated at home, but this is ... nice.” How bizarre, he thought for the hundredth time, that he knew the word he wanted to use in the surface language but not his own. But that one would suffice, and she knew he studying more advanced Khaenri'ahn anyway these days. “I'm glad to have you here with me this time.”

#lotusbled #lotusbled / antheia #✦ interactions. || kaeya alberich #✦ i could write it better than you ever felt it. || threads

[mercyburned]

@lotusbled: i want you here. / kaeya and antheia :3

By all means, she shouldn't exist. A woman from Khaenri'ah, alive at the time of the Cataclysm, should not be sitting in his apartment in present-day Mondstadt. Technically, he shouldn't be here either, but his presence here at least has a reason: a powerful father, a royal mage, who found a way to save his son from a fate worse than death. Kaeya still feels uncomfortable thinking about it.

The more time he spends with Antheia, the more desperate he's felt for a stronger connection. Not just to her, but to the homeland he only barely remembers, to the language he hadn't regularly spoken since childhood. The words tasted familiar again now, but the irony was not lost on him that he could say far more in the Teyvat common tongue than he ever could in his first language. The consequences of separating from it at the age of seven, he often thinks. With no one to teach him new words and no books to read or songs to hear, how was he supposed to have learned it?

But now she's in his apartment at Headquarters, and he's hearing those familiar sounds again, a song that he's forgotten coming back to memory. It's risky to involve himself too closely with her. Who knows if the magic or whatever it was that brought her here will let her stay? When she says those words though, I want you here, it's hard to resist the pull. Kaeya shrugs off his half-cloak, hangs it on the wall.

He remembers the first year that he spent in Mondstadt. Crepus and Diluc and Adelinde, all of the winery staff, Jean and little Barbara -- they had all embraced him with such open arms, despite knowing nothing of his origins, or the reason why his father had left him there. And yet he can still recall the times he felt so completely alone, unable to talk to anyone, unable to do much more than follow after Jean and Diluc and hope they continued to include him.

It's different now as an adult. The old barriers are gone, but new ones have arisen to take their place. He's not without friends to call his own, but there's something different about those words coming from her -- from someone even more out of place than himself in the fair land of Mondstadt.

“Well, I'm not going anywhere,” he says, sitting down beside her. “So you've got nothing to worry about, Antheia.”

#lotusbled #lotusbled / antheia #✦ interactions. || kaeya alberich