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thevirtualcanvas · 8 months

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Eyes don't lie

Summary:

Just a bit of Thoma fluff because he's my fav.

You're being hunted by the Tenryou Commission and as a working member of the house they hide you with head housekeeper in their wine cellar.

Cue memories, and tackling the past. Thoma helps you through the difficult time,

Notes:

Hi, this is my first foray into Genshin fanfic!

I want to do an original story, but for now here's a snippet with Thoma being a cutie. Let me know what you think.

It's a "reader character" inferred AFAB.

Thanks for reading!

“Quickly now, Thoma. I do believe the wine cellar needs sprucing up. Please take my Lady in Waiting with you before our guests arrive.”

“At once Lady Ayaka. My Lord.” Thoma bowed before revealing the entrance on the dais. He bundled her down the hidden escape and pulled the door down over their heads.

Pitch black surrounded them in the tunnel. Normally he would use his vision to light his way, but right now he would have to rely on the map in his mind to navigate them to safety. He felt her warmth against his back and turned. Thoma reached for her hand in the dark and found trembling fingers; he pulsed his vision’s energy through them to give her comfort.

“Now then, right this - ugh!” He took a step forward, only to be jilted backwards. He let out a quiet laugh. “We kinda have to move this way, My Lady.”

She was frozen. Back there. Again. Black water sloshing in her lungs. The anger of the gods barking above her head.

“I - I can’t move.” She whispered, clamping tightly onto his hand.

Footsteps and muffled voices reverberated above them.

Thoma, looked back in the darkness. “Sure you can, one foot in front of the other.”

“No..”

The officiant voices of the Tenryou commission loomed overhead. They needed to move further inwards to avoid detection. Thoma tugged on her hand gently, but it was like her feet were embedded in the floor. He could hear her ragged breaths, any louder and they would be found.

“I - can’t - the dark..” The words were spat between panicked gaps for air.

Ah. Now he understands. Without asking for his usual permission he pries away from her hand, removes his vision from the loop on his belt; he squats, one arm reaching behind her knees, and the other catching against her back and then stands upright. Using her surprise to his advantage Thoma walks with her in his arms at pace down the tunnel to the Kamisato wine cellar.

He drops his vision into her lap as he picks up the pace. It’s glowing, imbued with his energy. “Keep hold of that for me. It’s so heavy to carry, y’know?” She grasps it in her hands and for a moment he swears he feels it. A cool weight surrounds his whole soul, it almost makes him stumble as he eyes the extension of himself grasped tightly in her shivering hands.

She tried to focus on his warmth, on the object in her hands that he trusts her with. It thrums with a steady heat. Just like him, he exhibits such control even with something as dangerous as pyro. A testament to the person he was; how confident he was in himself. She on the other hand was a maelstrom. Like crashing waves and stormy skies. So uncertain and full of rage her vision was in perpetual tumult, seemingly alive and screaming. She had never met another hydro user with a grey vision.

They reach an anteroom, just off the main cellar. With a bit of core strength, Thoma wrangles the house keys into the lock. It looks like a storage cupboard. With walls of shelves containing trinkets, knick knacks and a mass of wine. Thoma goes to the back, manoeuvring her legs so they don’t knock anything over; he puts her down against one of the side walls and begins to look. It’s not easy in the dark, but he eventually finds the right mechanism and the false wall opens. He doesn’t pick her up again (he doesn’t dare) but his hand covers hers and his vision. A jolt goes through them both, he shakes it off first.

“This way, my Lady.” He coaxes her forward, around the false wall into a small panic room. It has a cot and not much else. He pulls the door closed behind him and feels her visibly flinch. “Home sweet home.”

She sits, or he organises her on the cot and he leans on the wall opposite.

“Can we have some light?” Her voice is so small, and he can feel her squeezing against his vision, there is a definite tightness in his chest.

“I’m sorry, we can’t risk it. We have to trust the Lord and Lady Kamisato to take care of it, but just in case lights out.”

She doesn’t respond, but he can see against the glow of his vision she’s faltering.

“I -”

“I’m sorry Papa! Please don’t do this.” The skies above are angry and purple, the fury of the gods held back by such a thin veil.

“I WILL TOLERATE NO INSUBORDINATION. YOU HAVE SHAMED THIS FAMILY WITH YOUR WILD WAYS FOR THE LAST TIME. TAKE HER TO THE WELL.”

She screeched, begged, and looked for someone to save her. Instead they all avoid her gaze as the family guard bound her and drag her from the house. Her ceremonial robes are torn, the make-up blurred with tears and a bruise blooming under her cheek. Her bare feet are shredded by gravel and detritus as she fights against her captors.

Thunder gurgles on the horizon but she barely notices; the sobbing of her family is louder than any god.

“Father, please! I’m sorry! I won’t do anything wrong! Please…stop…”

“Refusing a proposal! Shaming your father! Your country!”

At this moment, he’s not her father. He’s a general of the Tenryou commission, and he’s punishing a soldier. Her hair whips wildly as the wind rises, sobs threaten to choke her but she holds his gaze as she is dragged in front of him. The family well was once a place of joy, where the farmers watered the crops or maids carried buckets for baths; she can remember summers chasing her siblings round it before they go laughing into the fields. At one time he would have chased her around it too.

“Enough.” He commands, “Into the well. Only the Archon can help you now.”

Her Mother screeches with a sound that pierces the sky, an unlucky soldier is tasked with holding her back. The soldiers on her arms don’t move, collectively they are thinking the General has lost his mind, they watched this girl grow. They watched her laugh, cause trouble and become a woman they couldn’t possibly…

“That is an order.” He barks, electro licks at his body.

When they don’t move, he grabs her by the shackles and shoves her towards the crumbling wall. She locks eyes with him and sees nothing but disgust. There is no love. Lightning strikes in the distance and the air charges.

“Mama! Please! Help!” Her voice breaks, fighting for her life against those who gave it to her.

His strength overpowers her and she stumbles back.

Thunder groans overhead.

“This is your punishment, face it with honour.”

The chill down her spine gives him enough momentum to shove her fully over the wall. He lets go like dropping a piece of paper.

She shrieks.

Her mother shrieks.

The General imparts his final wisdom as she falls. “Maybe if you survive the night, I’ll forgive you. Archon permitting.”

The purple blooms over head and the skies tear asunder as her body hits the stagnant, cold water. It shocks her body, limbs go into overdrive trying to surface. Everything is so heavy, the ceremonial dress, the shackles, her heart. She kicks with ferocity and reaches the surface with a blood - curdling scream as her lung desperately grabs at the squalid air. Her hands clatter against mossy rocks, incapable of griping. Each effort only heightened her fear and scoured the skin from her hands.

Another flash of lightning beckons the monsoon rain like a horn of war. Archon decreed, the rain assaults her from every side. She is drowning above and below the water all at once. She screamed only once for the sound to die in a gurgle as the rain stormed her throat. The drops fall like tiny ballistae, pelting the space around her.

Suddenly the world is devoid of sound, the fear overwhelms her. It can only be one thing.

A flash of bright white and blinding heat covers her eyes as she ducks below the surface. A lightning bolt struck the side of the well, loosening already loose bricks. Debris falls into the tiny space with her, but there is nowhere to hide. A chunk of brick hits her head, another her shoulder. A final piece scrapes down her back and falls below the surface, getting caught in the layers of her ruined gown. It yanks at her, pulling her face under the inky surface.

It’s quieter here, away from the ire of the Archon. Maybe it will be a comfort to be alone in the dark in these final moments. She should stop fighting. Just let go. It’ll be better.

No.

I deserve to live!

Thrashing in the dark, her hands clawed into life with all her might. It would take her kicking and screaming. She would tear chunks out of this world to keep it if that was required. She deserved more than being a dowry in a political game. A calm feeling blossomed in her chest, nestled against the water in her lungs.

Prove your might then… little one.

It only took a moment for her universe to change forever. She pushed from inside, and bent the world to her will. Overpowering and fierce. Grey and clashing like a storm. Then she pushed for the surface. The water rose quickly and inside of it she looked through the murky window, reached for the wall and pulled herself over. The living water fell apart and she clattered against the grass with a slap, the Archon’s will raging above her. Throwing up the well’s water, she fell to her side, arms to her chest. Something cold and bristling lay in her hands… a vision.

The gods have spoken…

“Breathe..”

A voice shushed her sobs, a warm presence anchored her back to the present.

“Just focus on breathing for me - I’ve got the rest of you.”

“Thoma…”

His hand raked through her hair, pulling the matted strands away from her clammy face. His other hand held hers and his vision against her chest. He was steadily channelling his warmth against the slither of bare skin of her chest. Anyone else and she would have questioned his motive, not with him, not now. Her own hands wrapped around his pale forearm. The pressure of her nails turning them red under her touch.

“You’re safe.” He whispered against her ear, head hanging over her right shoulder.

“I don’t like the dark.” The memory was forever fresh, like it had just happened. It was all she ever dreamed about, saw when she closed her eyes.

Thoma’s palm glowed with the magic of his vision, she could feel that warmth in her chest, it was keeping her here. “Then focus on me.”

So she does, he’s lithe and curled around her. She can feel the inside of his thighs against her hips. His broad chest hooked over her back. She can smell him, a foreign scent of valberries and something she can’t quite place. She feels, and hears the blood racing in his veins. A calming sound, so she rests against him and allows herself to mould to his shape.

“You’re so warm.”

He hums, a cheeky sound and it tickles her ear. “Oh, yeah?”

She caresses his forearm with her cool fingers, eyes closed and honed on him.

“I can smell the wind on you, like it chases you.”

There is a pulse of a fireside orange, bright for a moment. “What else?”

“You’re needlessly kind.”

“Needlessly, she says. Maybe I enjoy helping people out.”

“Even fugitives?”

He presses his chin against her shoulder. “Oh, they’re my favourite kind of people.”

“Did you know what I was when I came here?”

The sounds of the ocean rustle against the far wall, she figured they must be near the beach that ran below the estate.

His arm curled around her chest. “I make it my business to know everyone who’s working on this estate. Wouldn’t want an assassin getting in on my watch.”

Her brows furl. “I’m not an assassin”

“I gathered that. Most assassin’s don’t throw blades handles first. But yes, I knew who your family was, I also assumed if you ever wanted to talk about it, you would.”

“They’re monsters.” It was quiet, but dripping with venom.

Thoma rustled, moving his weight so his back was against the wall. She followed with, chasing his body heat, and the comfort he offered. “I often find people can be the most monstrous of all. Now, shush. Time to sleep. It could be a few hours before one of the house guards comes down to give us the all clear."

She tried not to give in, but sleep beckoned. “Be here when I wake?” She regretted it almost immediately, but he reassured her by lying down on the bunk next to her.

“Where else would I rather be?” He said calmly, his voice carrying her off into a slumber.

#genshin impact #thoma x reader #thoma x you #fluff #Fanfic #x reader

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