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Hyacinths are flowers borne from blood.

Then

The blood hunger is a void which subsumes all.

Trapped within the roaring maelstrom, Kaveh sees only the colour red—hears only the beating of that singular, most important heart—feels only the pulse of blood flowing through the rivers and tributaries of that mortal body.

Thought is entirely absent. There is only instinct.

Only that primal red liquid matters, which fills Kaveh’s soul with pure ecstasy as he drinks. It is liquid fire, the ancestral temple that his kind worships, the vital ichor that enlivens he who is not alive. He drinks, and drinks, and drinks, and so—

When his sense at last returns, it is almost too late.

Alhaitham is pale and unmoving in Kaveh’s arms. His head is tilted at an angle so far back as to be unnatural. His limbs are completely without strength, gravity drawing his arms in a straight line to the ground, his legs splayed, his fingers lax. And the heartbeat that Kaveh knows so well—the heartbeat he can identify leagues away, amidst a crowd, in any circumstance—is so entirely transformed as to become completely unrecognisable. It is extremely rapid—while the pulse at Alhaitham’s wrist is extremely weak.

Alhaitham’s face is blanched skin stretched across a skeletal face, his lips without colour, his mouth slack. His eyelids flicker abnormally. He is a doll of a person, cradled in Kaveh’s embrace.

No. He is prey, caught hapless in a predator’s fatal grip.

Kaveh thinks: Ah. Alhaitham is dying.

Like a corrupt terminal, his mind does not immediately react to this thought. There is a gulf between understanding and action. He is a beast of instinct still, an animal without any grasp of the concept of mortality.

And then Alhaitham’s lips move, forming a distinctive mouth-shape: "No."

Kaveh’s gaze on Alhaitham is unblinking. Kaveh’s gaze on Alhaitham is always unblinking. And he thus watches Alhaitham go still, eyes unfocused, as he enters that critical state of shock. His mouth remains open, still saying that silent plea: "No."

And like a bolt of lightning, understanding finally dawns. The blood hunger recedes—and in its wake is disaster, like the destruction after a tsunami.

With all the vampiric speed he is capable of, Alhaitham cradled within his arms, Kaveh runs. One moment he is there—the next he is gone, leaving behind branches stripped bare and a path of debris and detritus.

And as he runs, Kaveh thinks again: Alhaitham is dying.

No. It is not that he is dying—

I nearly killed him.

That night, within the halls of the Palace, there is a brief but significant commotion. The healers are summoned. Medicines are administered, an intravenous line is placed, and throughout it all Kaveh remains by Alhaitham's bed.

One healer looks frequently at Kaveh as she works, amethyst eyes big and wide with concern. Once, she makes as if to speak to him—words of comfort, perhaps, or more likely to persuade him to leave. But her colleague stops her with a single sharp look. His foxlike ears are flattened against his skull, and there is a forced calmness to his demeanour.

His every animal instinct tells him that Kaveh is not to be provoked.

Normally the amiable, kind vampire lord, Kaveh now displays none of his usual affable nature. His claws are out, his fangs still prominent. He looks only at the pale figure on the bed. He does not breathe; he does not blink; he does not move, a silent sentinel.

All of Kaveh's attention is focused on Alhaitham's heartbeat.

The first, softer beat as the valves of the atria and ventricles snap shut, preventing the backflow of blood. The second, louder drumbeat as Alhaitham's ventricles contract, sending blood to the aorta, and then the smaller arteries, and finally the arterioles and capillaries. This is the song that Kaveh listens to, the da-DA... da-DA... da-DA that signifies that Alhaitham is still alive, that Alhaitham is still with him—

Finally, the healers step out of the room one by one. They have done all they could. The primary healer speaks some words to Kaveh, who knows if they are heard or not—Kaveh gives no indication at all—and then he, too, leaves.

Outside, the moon is at her zenith. Then she falls, replaced by the sun, only to climb into the sky again, her cold light falling again into that hospital room, where a vampire lord watches over his human.

And just like that, time passes, as uncaring as ever to the concerns of mortal and immortal beings both.

Now

Kaveh's domain is vast, encompassing not just the Palace of Alcazarzaray but huge swathes of the Lokapala Jungle. Within these lands a multitude of beings reside: the fish and beasts of the jungle as well as the varied diversity of peoples in the villages and towns under Kaveh's protection.

And yet amidst these incalculable inhabitants Kaveh is always able to locate, with pinpoint accuracy, the location of a single mortal human.

Alhaitham's resting heart rate is slightly lower than the average male of his age, even when he is experiencing some extreme emotion—which is not often. His is a rhythm that exactly reflects his temperament: He is a uniquely stubborn creature.

Kaveh tracks that heartbeat now, following Alhaitham's journey through the gardens, and then the halls of the Palace and finally to the room he now resides in. The door opens, and without prefacing his words with any greeting whatsoever, Alhaitham speaks: "My lord. You must feed."

Facing a vampire lord, most mortals would display some typical physiological responses triggered by fear: increased heart rate, for example. But of course Alhaitham is unperturbed.

Kaveh doesn't answer.

The room is completely unbefitting of a vampire lord of his age and prestige. It is cramped, with only a single window Kaveh is now standing next to, a coffin stuffed in one corner like an afterthought. The room is located in the northern wing, and so protected from sunlight by the cliffs jutting over the Palace like an eagle's open wings.

Kaveh is no fledgling. He is centuries old, and should have no fear of the sun. But in his current state, sunlight burns him, and even the slightest illumination hurts his eyes.

Thus he now resides in this room.

Alhaitham enters with measured steps, walking until he is shoulder-to-shoulder with his lord and master. "You must feed," he repeats. He withdraws a knife, and with a quick motion slashes his wrist right across the radial artery. Blood wells up. Alhaitham raises it, so close that Kaveh need only lean forward a little to have a taste.

Alhaitham's blood is divine ambrosia, and every single beat of his heart is as loud as the roaring waterfall outside the Palace.

But Kaveh does not move.

He asks, as abrupt as an exclamation point: "Since when did we have so many hyacinths in the garden?" As if he cares at all for the sight outside his window.

"I have been growing them," Alhaitham says. "One bulb for every day you do not feed. There are 572 so far." Alhaitham waits, his wrist still upheld. Kaveh can sense the minute movements of his arm, as still as a mortal is capable of. Blood flows in enticing streams; a few drops fall to the floor, each as impactful as a boulders crushing stone.

Still, he does not drink.

Alhaitham sighs. That beguiling wrist falls away. "Very well," he says. "Since you will not feed, I can only assume that you no longer have any use for me."

Kaveh at last turns his head. "You? Of no use to me? Impossible."

"What use," Alhaitham asks, "is a thrall who cannot feed their master? And so, I shall leave."

Kaveh's brows furrow slightly. "Leave?" he echoes. "You are not allowed to take your leave."

"Then command me to stay," Alhaitham says.

Their eyes meet. Kaveh's lips part.

—But no command falls from his lips.

Alhaitham smiles slightly, as if in pyrrhic victory. "Ha. So it seems I am leaving. Will you grant me one request, my lord?" And he takes out a single flower, settling it on the windowsill.

It is a hyacinth—the very flower that Kaveh commented on. Its colour is startling, a deep purple so saturated as to be unsettling. For some reason, looking at that vibrant bloom, Kaveh feels apprehension settle in his ancient bones.

"Before I leave, come and visit me in the gardens. See the flowers I've grown for you." And with that, Alhaitham leaves the room, his exit lacking as much ceremony as his entrance. Kaveh tracks his movements, all the way until he leaves the main building.

With some unwillingness, Kaveh picks up that single hyacinth flower. The petals brush against his lips, soft as the touch of a barely-there breeze. It smells of Alhaitham, and so he cannot resist kissing those petals. And then, entirely by reflex, he draws that petal into his mouth. Flavour blooms like ecstasy on his tongue. At that moment, Kaveh's movements cease. He realises:

It is not just that the flower smells of Alhaitham.

It tastes like him.

It tastes of his blood.

Kaveh's face changes. His fist clenches, the flower ground to nothing from the force of his revelation.

He at once leaves the room. Even in his weakened state, the floor tiles shift under him, the door is torn from its hinges, his movement as fast as a shot ballista. In the small, dark room he leaves behind are the remnants of that hyacinth flower: the stem crushed, the leaves distorted, the petals utterly triturated...

... All of it lying amidst droplets of blood.

In the garden, Alhaitham stands as if in wait.

At Kaveh's abrupt appearance, he displays absolutely no surprise. Rather, his expression conveys that he is merely observing the passing of a predicted outcome. It is infuriating.

Alhaitham is infuriating.

Infuriating and, in this moment, utterly beautiful. For he stands surrounded by hundreds of blood hyacinths, all of which sway gently, malevolently, in the slight breeze.

Some with newly emerging leaves, some tentatively budding like shy maidens, some fully flowered—these grown specimens the most detestable of all, monstrously huge and resplendent, the stems plump like flesh, the petals and leaves plump and blushing, their vascular tissues glowing with all the vitality of Alhaitham's lifeblood.

The scent in the air is indescribably enticing.

All of it—the human man, the flowers, the garden of lamentation all lit by the cold light of the moon, who shines alone amidst the inimical stars. But the most unfeeling beauty of all is Alhaitham. It is he who is the mortal human, and yet as he looks at his vampire lord with eyes like the deep, pitiless ocean, it suddenly seems as if it is he who is the true master of the Palace of Alcazarzaray.

As if pulled by an invisible string, Kaveh takes a step forward, and then another. His hand raises up, reaching for Alhaitham's side—and yet between their bodies is a hair's width of space. And that exact distance, both close and infinite, is maintained as Kaveh draws his hand up and up and up, following the exquisite contours of Alhaitham's arm—the sharp elbow, the curves of his biceps, the contours of his shoulders—before finally resting just so at the vulnerable neck.

Just by exerting the slightest force, he could crush Alhaitham's jugular.

"Haitham," Kaveh says, "what did you do?"

Kaveh's claws are fully extended. When Alhaitham draws breath to speak, his throat moves, and the sharp points make contact with his skin.

They pierce skin, drawing blood.

Kaveh's claws are usually blunted, but to who else but Alhaitham could this duty of maintenance and care fall to? The same Alhaitham Kaveh has not touched for many, many, many days?

And so when Alhaitham speaks, each minute movement of his throat invites Kaveh's needle-sharp claws to deepen the lines of blood on his skin. He says, "I was preparing for my departure, my lord," but Kaveh hardly hears the words.

On that pale neck, the lines of fresh blood are highlighted by the moonlight, glistening and red, smelling alluringly of sweet and salt and metal.

Kaveh says, voice hoarse: "These flowers—"

"Are to sustain you while I'm gone. Have you tasted them yet?" Alhaitham raises his arm—the same limb with which he earlier tempted Kaveh. On that delicate wrist is a newly-scabbed wound, and the sight of it shakes Kaveh's still heart, so that when Alhaitham's fingers curl around Kaveh's wrist he is able to guide Kaveh's hand to a nearby flower despite the disparity in their strength: one immortal, the other not. Alhaitham could not move Kaveh even a micrometre if he did not allow it.

But Kaveh does allow it. Allows Alhaitham to guide him in picking another flower, in holding it, in bringing it to his lips to bite and—

Taste. Eat. Devour.

It tastes exactly of Alhaitham, as if that hyacinth is an extension of Alhaitham himself: the fibres his bone, the plant tissue his flesh, the xylem and phloem his veins. Kaveh's ancient soul roars—with hunger, with feeling, with fury—

—With life.

He did not realise it, in the year and a half that he starved himself, but his senses were reduced to almost nothing, his thoughts slowed to mud, his powers macerated. Just this single small meal revitalises him, so that his ears hear every slight sound, his nose smells even the soil beneath their feet, the blood-tinged sweetness in the air…

… And the acrid scent of Alhaitham's turbulent emotions.

For all of Alhaitham's ethereal beauty, he is still only human, and so his scent is of all that is mortal and fragile: The salt from his sweat, the lingering remnants of food on his breath, and all the other bodily secretions his kind are prone to. But that sharp, acrid smell. What is it?

Fear, Kaveh thinks. It is fear.

"I never asked you for such a gift," he murmurs.

Alhaitham raises his chin, staring down at Kaveh as if in challenge. As if he could ever hope to win against Kaveh.

But then, does he not often win against Kaveh? This mortal human, with laughable strength but immutable will, does he not bend Kaveh to his will? Look at them now, in this garden. Is he not securing himself a victory at this very moment?

Kaveh wants to burn every single one of these hyacinths to ash, but he cannot. He will not.

When Kaveh twists his wrist, breaking Alhaitham's hold on him, Alhaitham's eyes round in startlement. "You asked me to command you," Kaveh says. "But you know I cannot. Instead I ask you: Did I ever permit you to leave me, little one?" And then it is he who is holding Alhaitham. His fingers are slimmer, his palm less broad, and his hand encircles Alhaitham's wrist in a deceptively loose, delicate hold.

But even were Alhaitham to exert enough force to dislocate his own bones… he would be unable to break free.

Alhaitham, of course, does not make the attempt. He never has. But his heart rate speeds up, as does his breathing. "Then command me to stay," he says.

"Never," Kaveh replies. "But even if I don't, you wouldn't truly leave me, would you?"

"I would," Alhaitham insists. The rapidity of his breathing increases. "I will." But he does not move. Because if he did—if he stepped away, if he made to withdraw his hand from Kaveh's hold—

—Kaveh would let go.

It is a certainty more immutable than the laws of physics themselves. In Teyvat, the fabric of space-time might tear, memory might be changed and rewritten, but Kaveh will always do as Alhaitham wishes.

And so they stand, two figures under the moonlight, one the unmoving vampire lord, the other a distraught human thrall. Kaveh's eyes track the trails of blood on Alhaitham's neck. What a waste, he thinks, but he does not lean forward to drink. Alhaitham's lips twist.

"Why shouldn't I leave?" he says. There is a strange, rough quality to his voice. Suddenly he is no longer the cool, manipulative human, but like a child expressing a deep grievance. "You don't want me anymore."

"… Do you think," Kaveh says slowly, "that I don't want you?"

"I think," Alhaitham says, "that you haven't wanted me for five hundred and seventy-two days."

"Five hundred and seventy-two days ago," Kaveh says, still speaking in that slow, measured tone, "I nearly killed you."

Alhaitham does not reply. He continues staring down at Kaveh with his superior height. Without words, all his body language communicates a single meaning: So what?

Kaveh's lips curve. "Oh, you foolish, mortal human," he says. "Of course you do not care."

Alhaitham's jaw tenses, his lips quivering with tension.

"Little one, I could never not want you," Kaveh says, and he draws Alhaitham's wrist to his mouth. "I am terrified of how much I want you."

Finally, Alhaitham deigns to speak. "Whether or not you want me, it doesn't matter," he says. "Not when you won't drink from me. To me, the meaning is the same."

Kaveh's eyes close.

Against his lips is the drumbeat rhythm of Alhaitham's pulse-point. He breathes in, and smells again that sharp smell. It is undoubtedly fear: caustic and bitter. But it is not the fear of  prey facing a predator.

It is the fear of desperation.

It reeks of the same stench that doused Kaveh, on the night when Alhaitham was dying in his arms. But perhaps to Alhaitham, what was even more terrifying than death was—

Being unwanted.

Kaveh's lips part. And in a practised motion repeated innumerable times previous, his sharp teeth piece Alhaitham's skin.

Blood rushes into his mouth, rich with nutrients and sugars and oxygen and all the minerals and vitamins necessary for life. And Alhaitham…

He gasps, the noise ragged, his body curling in reflex, his spine describing a curve. He is a stoic, and yet now his strength leaves him—his legs weaken—and he slides down, going to his knees. Kaveh follows the motion, but he does not let up. He does not show mercy.

He cannot.

It has been too long. He drinks, and drinks, and drinks. Only he knows what he feels deep in the darkest regions of his soul. Only he knows of that black hole hunger reawakened inside him. Only he knows the supreme effort he is now exerting to keep that blood hunger leashed, to keep that poised tsunami wave at bay.

He does not pull Alhaitham closer, as he has previously. He does not hug him so that they are face-to-face, chest-to-chest, groin-to-groin. He dares not. They are two figures in the garden, their knees pressed into cool grass, the moon's cold glow cast upon them, and their only point of intimate connection is Kaveh holding Alhaitham's wrist.

And yet, it is the only connection that matters.

Kaveh drinks, and Alhaitham opposite him shakes. His eyes are squeezed shut; tears gather at the corners, some escaping in fat liquid drops to roll down his cheek. His hand is braced on the ground, and his fingers clench, with such desperate force soil and grass is caught under his nails. His muscles are taut.

A particular smell meets Kaveh's nose, a certain scent that is especially common when Kaveh feeds—or when Alhaitham is alone at night, in the privacy of his room.

Kaveh shows mercy, then. Or perhaps it is cruelty, that he pulls back—that he extends his tongue, pressing it flat against Alhaitham's wrist, against the two puncture points. His saliva melts into the small wounds, and the flow of blood slows. Kaveh licks the puncture wounds, again and again, until the injury seals.

And then it is done.

For the first time in 572 days, he drank Alhaitham's blood.

Were it not for Kaveh's grip, Alhaitham might have fallen entirely to the ground; as it is, he is curled pitifully, chest on his knees, elbow against grass, his mouth open, his chest heaving with such force that the gem on his chest rises and falls furiously with each intense breath. His eyes are reddened.

They gleam with tears, and the sheen of victory.

Kaveh sighs, all exasperation. At last, he moves—exerting force on the wrist still in his grip, pulling Alhaitham towards him.

And just as Kaveh has always allowed Alhaitham to direct him, so too does Alhaitham allow this. His human thrall settles at once into his embrace.

Alhaitham whispers: "You haven't commanded me to stay."

"And I never will," Kaveh replies. "But even if I don't—would you truly leave me?"

His eyes fix onto the hyacinths before them, behind them, around them, every single one of them violently purple with stolen vitality.

In his arms, Alhaitham places his head on Kaveh's shoulder like an overlarge feline claiming his throne, his limbs lax and lazy. And he admits, with all the superior relaxed tone of someone who got exactly what he wanted:

"No, my lord. I could never leave you."