Chapter Text
“ NO! ” Kaeya roars. His words echo through the trees. He hugs his brother to his chest, his head buried in the scarlet locks. His broken brother.
He hears the sound of a weapon being unsheathed behind him.
It sets him off.
Kaeya jumps to his feet and whirls around madly to see a massive mitachurl gripping a jagged axe, lumbering toward him.
It never gets to reach him.
“Just fuck off!” Kaeya yells, lashing his sword in its direction. A chunk of bright ice filled with Cryo energy and complete with a wickedly sharp tip impales itself into the centre of the beast’s heart. Blood begins blooming on the crystal’s tip, and it looks like a ruby.
There used to be rubies in his eyes…
Ice forms right over the monster’s body and in no time it is fully encased in ice.
The frost then shatters, showering Kaeya in sharp bits of hoar.
Kaeya stumbled back to Diluc’s side. The wound in his chest gushes with blood still. Kaeya crumples beside his late brother. He sobs. He wails. He screams.
“Why, Celestia, why?!”
Kaeya pounds his fist on the ground with so much force the world seems to tremble.
Then, suddenly… there's a painful yank in his gut. His whole body burns for a second, as if his eyes had been lit on fire, but it dies down almost immediately.
Then…the ground is ice. The trees are ice. His hands are ice and…Diluc is ice.
“‘Luc!” Kaeya’s eyes go wide as tears spill. He scrambles and slides closer, in a desperate attempt to thaw his brother. His hands tremble wildly and his eyes widen and dart.
No,
No!
Diluc!
No!
“Diluc!”
He looks like a madman. His eyes are bright, wide and feral, his hair is dishevelled, his clothes are torn and his face is bloody from wiping his tears with bloodstained hands. He has several small wounds and cuts from the raining ice from that treacherous beast.
But does he give a fuck?
No.
Kaeya gives up. Not only on thawing his already slaughtered brother, but on everything. On friends. On home.
On life.
The next thing he knows, the world has gone black and his head crashed against the hard ice of Diluc’s chest as his eyes squeeze shut, spilling tears as pathetic sobs escape his lips, mixed with useless murmurings of his brother.
When he finally lifts his throbbing head up, he sees new blurry shapes before him. He blinks- once, twice. It’s…Jean. She’s staring at him and the frozen body in horror, her sky blue eyes shattered and wide. She’s got a couple of knights behind her. But why is she here…?
Nobody gives a fuck.
He…he never got to say sorry.
He never got the chance to tell his brother he’s sorry-
No, he did have all the chances in the world, all this while he could’ve-
“Kaeya…” Jean’s voice comes from right next to him. He flinches back on instinct. The look in Jeans' eyes is crestfallen, miserable. She reaches out a tentative hand and carefully places it on his back. She doesn’t say anything. She simply keeps a firm hand on him and her eyes set on Diluc.
“How-how did you know?” Kaeya asks, his voice sore and broken.
“You…you froze the forest. The knights guarding the gates informed me straight away. We’ve never seen something so…powerful.”
Kaeya’s gaze sweeps around. Everything looks as if it is in a winter wonderland. The trees are frozen, each leaf glittering like a crystal. The ground is a smooth plane of ice. The bushes and berries resemble delicate ice sculptures as well.
Such beauty is not allowed to exist when the fire of his life has been doused.
He then sets his stare on Jean. She…she gasps sharply.
“Kaeya, your…your eyepatch-”
Kaeya lets out an acrid little laugh, a sound so pathetic and preposterous as he weakly lifts his trembling hand to feel his right eye.
The golden curse of Khaenri’ah, something that could be considered beautiful is, in reality, a thing so sore and sinful. Just like Kaeya himself.
Heterochromatic eyes- one a freezing periwinkle, another a glowing gold- both with the stars of Khaenri’ah burning like a vexation, bore into Jean’s. He must look utterly demented.
He doesn’t give a fuck.
Not when his brother lays dead before him, before Kaeya, the royal sinner of Khaenri’ah who just could not get around his big head to say sorry.
I’m sorry, brother.
It’s of no use now, is it?
No,
It isn’t.
And it never will be.
The best course of action can be executed right in this very moment.
Before Jean can even comprehend what he's doing, much less try stopping him,
He just does it.
Kaeya wishes to be by his brother's side,
And he will travel even to the land of the dead to see his wish come true.