Chapter Text
Childe could smell the fire before the messenger reached the galley door.
He wrinkled his nose, gripping Tonia's letter tighter in his hand. Smoke leaked under the wooden door, and he rolled his eyes, angling his chair away from the acrid stench. The sailors were smoking their tar tobacco again. The hairs in his nostrils prickled. The salt water was enough to make him nauseous without adding cigars into the mix. Above his head, the deck groaned, and shouts punctured the night. The crew was welcome to their festivity, he thought, rubbing his throbbing head, as long as they were retired before midnight. Normally, he'd join them, if not to smoke, but to get out of the cramped, cabin for a few hours. But the letter from Tonia nagged him. He'd spent the day trying to work out what to reply, but the words refused to come easily. He tried to coax them out with candlelight, setting up his ink and his envelopes and seals invitingly as he ate. The lone two sentences in his traditional scrawl stared obstinately at him.
Dearest Ajax,
Forgive me using a messenger hawk for a personal letter, but I simply couldn’t wait for regular mail. Is it true? You’re really coming home?!
It isn’t funny to joke like that brother, you know mother will spend the next week cooking every meal under the sun for your return! I hope the spicy food in Liyue hasn’t completely burned off your tongue, she’s making all our favorites; pierogi, shashlik, borscht and a mountain of syrniki, jam and cream for breakfast…
Even father’s getting in over his head with excitement. I heard him placing an order for a case of the finest Black Goose vodka from the tavern in the market. Do promise you two won’t go overboard, I fear the house won’t survive another of your drunken spars! Mother says to save the horseplay for your work instead of the parlor room.
Are you well? Are you keeping safe? We’ve missed you terribly since you left for Liyue. It’s been so long since you’ve been home, and imagine getting to celebrate the Ice Festival together— we haven’t all been there together for it since you joined the military.
Father’s going to carve ice for us, and I heard he’s managed to get a hold of colored syrup so we can stain it pretty colors before we eat it. Do you remember how cross he used to get with us when we ate the snow off the ground? And you would scowl at him and tell him the ground gave it a particular flavor you couldn’t replicate with shop bought ice. I’ve still got the eyes from the last snowman we made. We can use them again when you return, Anton’s scarf is getting far too worn and we’re plotting to make the largest snowman you’ve ever seen.
Oh, and I’ve been meaning to ask…
You’ve been mentioned Mr Zhongli terribly often in your past letters. What’s he like? He sounds awfully interesting—I can’t believe he’s so young, he sounds like he has a lifetime of facts about Liyue. I’m glad to hear you’ve made such a fast friend. We all worry about you on your own, even if you do have fellow Sneznhayans around you in the Bank.
From what you’ve said, Mr Zhongli sounds amazing! You’d better prepare to bring him home to meet the family. Mother insists on it, so good luck convincing her otherwise.
Teucer didn’t mention him after his visit—though I suppose he must have been busy at the Funeral Parlor. You said he was a consultant, right? Working with the dead… How creepy… You do know how to find the strangest people to befriend, brother. Still, you sound very fond of him.
I must go prepare the pierogi dough with mother, but promise me you’ll be safe until your return!
Write me back with a hawk as soon as you get this letter!
All my love,
Your Princess, Tonia.
Childe put his head in his hands and massaged his temples. The low light wasn’t being kind to his throbbing headache. The ship galley lurched, and he swallowed the pervasive urge to be sick again. He remembered very well why he loathed sea travel. Re-reading Tonia’s letter wasn’t helping, but he needed to finish the damn thing or the hawk in the morning would have nothing to deliver.
I'm set to leave Liyue today. I'm coming home.
He hissed and crumpled it in his hands. It joined the pile of parchment littered around his chair legs.
Mr Zhongli sounds amazing! Are you going to bring him home? Write back!
Fuck. Childe rubbed his eyes. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so free with mentioning the consultant in his past letters. His family loved questions almost as much as they loved receiving his letters. The idea of having to sit through dinner after dinner denying any and all relationship with the man send bile running up his throat. Man, he thought. No. That wasn't right. Zhongli was no man after all.
Childe bit off another piece of bread and swallowed lachrymosely. He'd grown far too spoiled with the free flowing spice that infiltrated every Liyuean dish. In comparison, though he’d paid handsomely for the Fatui to get the best of what the crew had to offer, the meal tasted bland, dry and heartless.
Get used to it, he told himself harshly. Even the best of Snezhnayan cuisine lacked the intricacies of the Liyuean palette. Snezhnayan cuisine was built on fat, meat and root vegetable. He doubted even Xiangling could make it taste as good as her expertly prepared noodles and rice dishes, each oozing with scores of spices and topped with burnt sugar, glazed chili and coriander-
Enough.
Liyue was rapidly disappearing with each wave the ship rolled over. His letter to Tonia, on the other hand was still far too extant. He gripped his pen, dipping it into the vial of squid ink, flicking off the excess. He bit his lip, determined to finish the damned thing before he went mad—
The boat roiled violently. His head slammed into the table, sending the ink bottle flying. It shattered on the ground in a tsunami of black ink. A violent jet splattered his face.
"Sir!" A fierce pounding echoed on his door.
"Tell the captain to right the ship, would you?" Childe spat back.
He peered outside through his porthole, mystified. The weather was clear, no wave was behind the sudden assault—
Childe wrenched open the door. The smell of smoke bloomed.
The Fatui envoy panted, sliding off his mask, even as he made a weak effort to come to military attention. "Lord Harbinger! I must ask you to evacuate immediately! There's a—"
"Fire," Childe's blood chilled. He shoved the envoy aside, staggering out into the hall. Immediately, he was met with a wall of heat. Smoke reared at him, suffocating and acrid. "Where are the men?"
"On deck, sir," the messenger panted. "We'd all been out drinking when Piotr smelled smoke and—"
Childe hauled himself across the last stair. The night air assaulted him like a slap in the face.
The captain staggered towards him. Captain Hai was a towering man, almost as wide as he was tall. His black hair was shot with grey, and crusted with a thick layer of dried salt and dirt. For the few hours Childe had had the pleasure of his acquaintance, he’d been drunk for all three.
Childe groaned. He knew he shouldn’t have trusted the only sailor that would port them out of Liyue to lay off the booze enough to do something as important as steer the damn ship.
“Smells like Sticky Honey Roast…” The salty looking Liyuean mumbled. “Not good.”
“Clearly not!” Childe hissed. “Can you put it out?”
The captain hummed, nursing the bottle in his roughened hands before bringing it to his lips once more. “Well, that depends…”
“On what?”
“Well, to start—“ Hai hiccoughed. “How the stores are packed. Makes it hard to navigate if there’s too many barrels you see.”
“Barrels?” Childe’s ears pricked. “Barrels of what?”
Captain Hai droned on as if he hadn’t spoken. “And then, it’s a case of finding the—hic—water to put out the spark.”
Sloppily, he eyed Childe’s hydro vision. “Not all of us are blessed with the power to conjure water out of thin—hic—air.”
Childe resisted the urge to bark at him they were surrounded by an ocean’s worth of water, and instead, grasped the man’s seal skin clad shoulders. "Captain. You need to tell me. Now. What's in the stores?"
"The...what?"
Childe nearly throttled the him. "This is a cargo ship ordinarily, isn't it? You can't make all your coin from stowing away Fatui gentry!"
Though, Childe thought, contemplating the massive bribe it had taken to convince even one ship to take the Fatui convoy after a certain incident involving the Jade Chamber and the God of the Vortex, perhaps he could. That sum alone would have been more than enough to set up a farmer with seed for ten years.
The captain's glassy eyes seemed to clear. "I..."
Childe shook him again. "Where did this ship last dock?"
"The Dawn Winery," whispered a ratty looking deckhand, sliding behind Childe. "I carried the last barrel on board."
Childe's blood turned to ice. "Men!" he roared. "Overboard!"
They hit the water with all the gentleness of slamming into concrete. Childe gasped as his uniform ballooned, dragging him down to the depths. The cold numbed him, and his mind roiled, turning to slime. He shuddered, faintly hoping Osial, where ever he was trapped below, wouldn't trawl him back under for not being able to finish his task.
Next to him, Alexandr emerged, spitting out sea water. He thrashed, a stranger to the water, and Childe grit his teeth before pushing his piece of driftwood his way. He was blessed with a hydro vision. He’d never hear the end of it if he drowned, even if he were a ghost. Alexandr grappled it and gratefully latched on, his blonde hair slicked to his skull.
They met eyes, and then the ship exploded.
✧
Thankfully, Childe’s last shred of sentience took over his survival instincts, and threw him under the water.
Above his head, Childe saw the faint glow of the burning ship warp and crack before slowing sinking into the sea. Shrapnel pierced the water around him, sending a scourge of bubbles rising to the surface. He stared after it in shock, following it down through the dark teal of the shallows to the inky depths below. Then his lungs throbbed violently, screaming out for air, and the need for oxygen lured him out of his stupor.
He burst out of the surface, choking. Flailing, he managed to grip onto a chunk of the ship’s hull. He clawed at it in vain for a moment before sinking his fingers into the swollen wood and dragging it underneath him. For a moment, he let his cheek rest on his buoy, exhausted.
Then a head surged out of the water beside him. Piotr’s white, terrified face spat out saltwater. The agent’s mask had long succumbed to the waves, leaving his face alarmingly bare. It highlight the fear in his eyes as he struggled to stay afloat.
“Lord Tartaglia!” he cried, choking in a fresh mouthful of water. “Help—“
Childe fumbled for a raft, for a stick, anything—but the water alongside his raft was devoid of anything he could use to offer as a buoy. He reached out his arm, determined not to let go of the hull, but it wasn’t nearly enough to reach Piotr.
Piotr slipped below the surface. Childe yelled.
“Hold on!” he scrabbled at his neck, peeling off his red scarf, winding it up like a rope.
He threw out the scarf, bridging the distance between them. "Hang on!"
The agent clawed through the water, spluttering out water and ash. He latched onto the scarf like it was the last dregs of fire in a blizzard.
Childe grit his teeth and hauled. With a guttural shout, he winched the agent until he could grasp at the buoy. Piotr's hands flung over the slick wood, scrabbling for grip. Childe offered him a hand and Piotr grasped it.
He collapsed on the board, his sides heaving. "Thank you...Lord Harbinger."
Childe spat out seawater. "Don't mention it."
He scoured the inky depths. His eyes adjusted to the dark, and with the increase in visibility, the telltale glints of Fatui masks twinkled among the waves.
Childe let out a shaky sigh. At least, in some small mercy, the explosion had given the agents plenty of driftwood to cling to. The freezing waters of Snezhnaya hardly offered the opportunity for many of her people to master the art of swimming.
"Men!" he called. "Hang on! We're going to be alright—"
But that was a lie, wasn't it? They were marooned off the coast of Liyue Harbor. The red and gold glow of the city had long disappeared behind the horizon, replaced by black wave after black wave. The fishing boats wouldn't loose their mooring until dawn, and who could say how many men would survive drowning until then?
Worse... what lurked in the depths below them couldn't ignore the smell of blood and the broken supplies. If the injuries of his men didn't tempt the sharks, then the salted meat they had brought with them as supplies certainly would.
He cursed the Hydro Archon. Water, they had in abundance, it was land they needed. No, he bit his lip. He would not think about him.
Forget the Geo Archon, even if the Tsaritsa had blessed him in their stead... Hell, if she'd gotten there first, he wouldn't be half submerged in the harbour. He'd even take the sting of his skin freezing to the ice below, if only to get him—and his men—out of the water.
Childe rested his cheek on the soaked board, resigned to to floating in the harbor until the early stirrings of morning. Exhaustion bit at him, preying at him to loosen his grip on the board, but he held tight.
He was the Fatui’s Eleventh Harbinger. Worse things had tried to kill him. He'd fought ruin guards, inter-dimensional travellers of insane strength...even resurrected the long sealed God of the Vortex to lure out the Geo Archon. He refused fall to something as asinine as the water.
Maybe it was the cold water addling his brain, but he couldn't help but wonder what Zhongli would think of him now.
For a moment, the betrayal faded, and Childe allowed himself to forget the clawing sensation that haunted him since the truth had been revealed. Zhongli's glowing eyes seemed to find him in the abyss of the ocean, luring him like a life raft.
Wouldn't that be a cruel twist of fate, Childe thought with a twist of venom.
The Wangsheng Funeral parlor's newest client would be the very man who helped Liyue’s beloved Archon fake his own death.
The waves bit at his hands, daring him to surrender to the aching in his limbs.
Childe smiled weakly.
Yes...that would be ironic...
A wave lashed at his face. When Childe rose, spitting, he blinked salt water from his eyes.
The hallucination had not disappeared. The amber lights dipped along the horizon, burning like beacons in the dark. They darted closer, fireflies in the dark. And then it was close enough to make out. A powerful bow cut through the waves.
"Sir—" yelled one of his men.
It wasn't a hallucination. It was a boat.
Not a boat. A boat wasn't descriptive enough for the towering monolith that cut through the waves towards the wreckage.
The ship’s bow cut through the water like butter. Its figurehead, a snarling teak dragon, appeared to spit out water with every wave the ship crossed. Lanterns draped over both sides of the ship, turning the water to liquid amber. Banners adorned the mast and sails, all marked with the same crescent insignia. A wave slapped his face, pulling his out of his reverie. It was no dream, the ship was approaching, and fast. Childe winced, spitting out seawater. The silvery outlines of people scurried along the deck, throwing ropes overboard.
Slowly, painstakingly, the lifeboats mapped the debris filled water, hauling them into safety.
"Here," a rough hand extended to him.
Black eyes glinted at him in the darkness.
"Be glad we didn't see your uniforms in the tide before we decided to stop. Fatui scum like you deserve no mercy. It better be worth the interruption."
Childe coughed out a lungful of salt water.
"You'll be rewarded," he muttered, collapsing onto the lifeboat's solid basin. "Handsomely."
"Aye," the sailor growled. "Handsomely indeed. It'd take more than a purse full of mora to stop a boat of the richest people in Liyue Harbour."
A flicker of recognition passed over Childe. "You mean..."
The sailor lit a fresh cigarillo, stamping the remainder of its waterlogged predecessor into the boat. The scent of sugar dried violetgrass and tobacco filled the air. "Aye," he said again, taking a long drag. "Welcome to the Pearl Galley."
✧
"And I thought gliding onto the Galley was the strangest way we've seen a stowaway board," the ship's coordinator muttered, handing out a fresh pile of fleece to the waterlogged men huddled in the centre of the deck.
A man with a severe moustache and expensive, orchid silk robes let out a barking laugh. "A ship explosion...I suppose that in it self earns you a temporary invitation."
"How did the fire begin?" a woman clinging to his arm blinked at him Childe. She was owlishly young, far younger than her apparent partner. Her lips were coated with rouge, her waterlines heavy with a thick slick of kohl. Her hands played at her companion's sleeves, one darting around his waist—
The man turned, nonplussed, peering at the ocean. "And how many crates of wine, survived, I wonder," he muttered, tugging at the ornate rims of his sleeves. "A worthy investment, if we find way to bring them back into the ship, don't you think, Young Emerald?"
Childe bristled. "Is that really the priority?!”
He made a huge attempt to swallow his anger. Sharks or not, he couldn't deny the Galley had saved them by deciding to stop. So what if they helped themselves to the spoils of the wreck. They'd be rewarded far more handsomely by the Northland, and inevitably, the Tsaritsa.
He rubbed his neck, reconciling himself with emptying his coin purse. Thank the gods someone had the wherewithal to gather up his affects before the ship—
His hand froze at the nape of his neck. The skin was bare. He swore violently and pushed the couple aside, scouring the water. His scarf—where had he put it after he'd used it as a buoy to pull in Piotr?
His eyes raked the waves. Nothing. Nothing but boxes of goods and debris. Damn the supplies, they could be bought again, but his scarf—
He swore hard, half a mind to dive back into the surge to retrieve it. But while ocean yawned , a dark, emotionless mouth, there was no trace of his scarf below.
At least his men had the good sense not to question why his missing scarf had thrown him into such a whirlwind.
Childe gripped the deck, sinking his fingertips into the wood until they stung. “Are you sure no-one’s seen it?”
Alexandr shivered, pulling his blanket closer to him. “Negative sir. I will resume the search with the Galley deckhand when the lifeboats are offloaded—“
Childe waved his hand, his heart clenching nonetheless. “Forget it. Get yourselves warm. Tell the men to open a crate of whiskey. Add it to our accounts. If the patrons complain pay them double.”
He blew into his hands. Forget cryo, he’d traded his hydro vision for a pyro if only to warm him up a little. They could spare the mora.
That scarf...that was irreplaceable.
He groaned into his open palms, reconciling himself to a sleepless sail back to Liyue.
He slouched over the traffail, letting his chin jut into the finely carved wooden rail. For all his excitement to leave port and return to Snezhnaya, they were being sailed straight back into Liyue’s open mouth. An odd sense of relief needled at him, though he could not quite pin down why. It’d been years since he’d had a chance to return to his family home. Life as a Harbinger seldom presented the opportunity to take leave, and his ambition had quelled any longing to take it when it arrived. Far better to course Teyvat, fighting and pillaging whatever he could in the name of the Tsaritsa than sit at home coddled and bored.
He tried to offset the guilt of leaving his younger siblings while he traversed foreign soils the best way he knew how—with a Harbinger’s salary. Weekly letters, souvenirs, glittering gems for his mother and Tonia, crates upon crates of toys… he had to admit none could substitute for them growing up without their older brother. But they would have to suffice. Childe bit the inside of his lip. It seemed now, when finally presented with a chance to atone for his long absence, Celestia wanted to quash it.
And what a way to do so. He watched the burning mound of the cargo ship disappear below the oily surface. Flames danced on top of the waves, sending embers flaring across the water like fireflies.
The Pearl Galley…
Their saviour— if he could call it that—was a hulking masterpiece of smooth sanded teak carved into the shape of a pagoda.
Finely carved clouds and a spread wooden fans tidied off the sides, creating a red and green shimmering monolith that glided through the waves like a knife carving through hot butter.
His mission had never led him aboard before now, but he’d be lying if he hadn’t heard more than one rumour about the behemoth. The curiosity had lured more than one of his soldiers aboard, and they were more than willing to regale the rest of the Northland Bank with stories of the utmost luxury—exquisite food, wine and, as the men would admit under duress, women.
Childe eyed one of these “flowers” now, who teetered along the deck in an impossibly tall pair of scarlet heels. She fluttered her fan, and then her dark eyes at him. He snorted, turning his face to hide the flush in his cheeks. She giggled, turning in a spin of fine silk and intricately braided hair, clutching onto the arm of one of the wet Fatui agents paying off the crew of the Galley for drink.
Well. At least his men would find something to do on the trip back to the harbor.
Perhaps he should join them. The lizard part of his brain longed for something warm beneath him so he could take his mind off his soaked clothes. At least finding something hot to cling to for the voyage would take his mind off his fucking scarf—
“Childe.”
Childe turned.
The wind whistled through his skin, suddenly turning his drenched clothes to ice.
"You," he whispered. “What are you doing here?”
Zhongli extended his hands. "I heard word you were looking for this."
A scrap of wet, red fabric rested in his long fingers.
Childe couldn't breathe.
At first, he thought it was the cold, sapping the words from his tongue.
He met Zhongli's eyes. And then it transmuted into white hot rage.
This man.
No, he thought hollowly. This was no man. This was a god, who had played him like a damn flute. Every meal, every day they had spent side by side was nothing more than an intricate puzzle the Wangsheng Funeral Coordinator had assembled. This creature was colder than the ocean broiling below, and just as impenetrable.
He looked at Zhongli, at Rex Lapis, at Morax, the God of Geo, and he saw Signora, sweeping his gnosis into her bony fingers.
Childe looked at Zhongli and he saw his own folly.
He had bought into every part of it. Every scrap of information about the land he fully intended to betray, every fact, every part of its mythos. Little did he know that mythos included his guide himself. He’d spent months learning about Liyue, trying to soak up every bit of it he could. He studied the language, its cuisine, its history, its gods…
Somewhere along the line he’d crossed the precipice of simply studying for the sake of the mission. He’d begun to enjoy the time he and the peculiar Wangsheng Funeral Consultant spent together—he actively sought it. He'd shared much more than his coin with Zhongli, he'd shared his meals, his home, his trust...
Now that was shattered like cor lapis under a boot heel.
He’d really been a pawn the entire time.
His fate was sealed and signed with a secret contract before he’d even set foot in Liyue.
But Signora’s betrayal meant nothing. It was no skin off his nose. Everyone knew the Harbingers loathed each other, it was inevitable they would try and usurp each other where ever the opportunity presented itself. She’d simply taken the juicy apple offered to her and taken a bite.
She could rot, but she didn’t incense Childe like him.
Because it wasn’t Signora that proffered the apple to begin with.
It was Zhongli.
Zhongli studied Childe warily, maintaining the distance between them with scrupulous attention. He extended the scarf out to Childe like it was a scrap of meat before a hilichurl. “This is important to you.”
Faintly, Childe wondered just how poisonous the look on his face was to elicit this kind of reservation from Zhongli.
His nose wrinkled, turning up with a dismissive snort. “Didn’t expect to find you here. Didn’t think this was your scene.”
He didn’t bother to hide the poisonous note in his voice.
The wary glint in Zhongli’s eye hinted he knew Childe was a simmering cauldron ready to broil over.
They hadn't even come into sight of each other after the gnosis incident.
Childe had high tailed it out of that room faster than a lightning bolt could streak through a sky. He wanted no-one to see how deeply the betrayal scarred him. Not the traveller, not Signora, not that flying rat Paimon, and gods forbid, not Zhongli.
Now, seeing him was a conduit for all the anger Childe had pushed down deep within. No amount of brawling and senseless violence had been enough to make it disappear. He'd slay a thousand ruin guards before he could forgive Zhongli making a mockery out of him in front of half of Liyue.
Childe clenched his fists tightly, digging his nails into his palm.
He didn't want to make conversation. Hell, what he wanted was to summon his hydro blades and throw this man, this archon into the deck. One good punch would be enough, even if Zhongli's sculpted face broke his hand—
Childe tried in vain to suffocate his anger. The Fatui were already on delicate ground aboard the Galley. Only mora kept them on board after the Osial incident. Childe doubted that a Harbinger brawling one of their esteemed patrons would go over well with any of the Galley's crew.
Zhongli smoothed the front of his suit, trying and failing to look unruffled. "The Galley, despite it's darker...crevices..."
A prostitute took the chance to float past them, winking, advertising her services with a deliberate grind of her hips against the mast.
Zhongli averted his eyes. "Remains a vital conduit for academic discovery. Many of Liyue's finest scholars and archaeologists meet here regularly. This particular evening, I was invited to give counsel to a group interested in Guili Plains and the history of the Archon War—"
Childe let out a hollow laugh. "None better than you, xiansheng. It's only fitting to hear it out of the horse's mouth."
“Indeed,” Zhongli said guardedly. “Though, that, admittedly was not the intent—“
“Of course.” Childe let out a cold laugh, cutting him off. “How could I forget. I’m more than aware of how you like to amuse yourself with mortals dripping off your every word.”
Zhongli’s eyes seared into him. “You’re upset.”
“Upset?” Childe grit his teeth. “Yeah, that’s a safe assumption.”
“I never intended to lie to you.”
Childe flushed. Salt water stung his cheeks. “You think I care about that?” he lied. “You made a fool out of me. Congratulations. You managed to trick the Eleventh Fatui Harbinger. Not many can say the same. Nor can many say they conned him out of as much coin—“
“I will arrange payment—“
“With what mora?” Childe sneered, knowing even as he spoke he didn’t care if Zhongli drained the banks coffers and never paid him back.
It wasn’t mora Childe wanted. It was shame, and Zhongli refused to bow his head.
“Mortality doesn’t suit you, Morax.”
Childe spat out the name like a curse. Even if Zhongli minted the whole of the Northland Bank out of thin air it wouldn’t be enough to dispel the bad blood between them.
Zhongli’s expression didn’t shift, but Childe saw a shadow flicker across his gaze. “Let me explain.”
“Go find yourself another wallet,” Childe hissed.
Zhongli drew back, stung. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Is that all you think I see you as?”
“It’s better than nothing, I suppose,” Childe drawled. “I should be so thankful.”
He snatched the scarf back, gripping it so tightly water spat out of it, shooting Zhongli one last poisonous look before he stalked back to his men.
“Stay out of my way. This ship isn’t big enough for the both of us.”
✧