Stargaze | Tartaglia (Childe) x Reader (Genshin Impact)

Chapter 16 Light's Last Voyage

Chapter 16 - Light's Last Voyage
A/n: After 2 months and many toiling hours I have finally finished this chapter. Side note: we're nearing the end

Silence was a tiring thing, for no matter the origin of its onset or the length of which it occurred, it was deafening in that everything else drowned in its wake. Your heart marched to the beat of its own silence, foretelling days of where it beats no longer.

"I'm sorry!" You wailed into Tartaglia's shoulder, harshly gripping onto him as you recalled nights of long past and choices you begged to take back. "I should have never done it, but I just couldn't watch it anymore!"

Tartaglia didn't say anything despite having no idea what you were referring to. Instead, he listened intently without so much as flinching at the way you so desperately cried out as if you were a dying wolf praying for the moon to call upon the tides and wash your sins away.

And when you collapsed into his embrace from the fatigue, he lifted your chin to meet your eyes, "Every day, we can only make judgements for what we believe is right. Sometimes, killing is the only option we have."

It was odd coming from him, someone who took pleasure in fighting strong opponents and who must've killed many others before. Maybe it was the presence of those past battles still lingering that dulled his beautiful oceanic eyes, but looking at them then, for once his sincerity gleamed like shattered waves breaking on the shore, for waves do not last forever and his expression as he gazed into your own spoke of regretful days and wishful nights.

"Could you still say the same words if you learned that the person I killed was my sister?" You spat, though internally wincing at the memory.

Tartaglia's expression wavered slightly, surely surprised at the revelation, "Even the wolves can turn their backs on their pack in Snezhnaya. Tell me, for what reason did you turn your back?"

Your eyes began to sting, heart stopping as remorseful tears threatened to overflow from the pool of memories into a bottomless depth of reality that even dreams could not shake. Once upon a time, reality was but a single star in the night sky gleaming afar, yet it was always watching and always another sunset closer, and the moon was a witness to it all.

"I'm so incredibly selfish. I took the life of my own sister because I couldn't bear to watch her anymore. Every day was like a sick dream watching her fall further into her own delusions that it got to a point where I dreaded hearing the sound of my heartbeat as it raced with all of her nonsensical fallacies," then, you could feel the anger boiling inside your heart, coursing throughout your bloodstream to every cell in your body. You were frustrated with her, with them, but more than anything, yourself.

"How long have you been living with this guilt?" Tartaglia's expression was uncharacteristically soft, his tone treading carefully as his eyebrows furrowed in careful thought. Perhaps you had wrongly assumed he was rather thoughtless; a distant charade sealed by ice and frost of which burned in the gleaming moonlight, revealing incandescent wit and an ineffable vulnerability.

The sight of it all welled poisonous tears in your eyes, further staining previous rivers down your sunken cheeks and red, puffy eyes. "I killed her five years ago," you managed to choke out through each agonizing syllable.

Tartaglia hesitated before responding, "Y/n, I hate to tell you this, but from what I've heard, it sounds like it wouldn't have been much longer before she died whether you killed her or not."

His words hung low like fog at dawn; crisp and cool and suffocating. How cruel the world could be, singing tunes of joy in the early morning hours, yet even when the sun breached the horizon's border, something as mundane as condensed water could blur the cold rays of the ever winter sun. With frost-laden breezes and unspoken words, the rhythm of that which could not quite be inscribed conveyed a hopeless dusk and the final twinkle of her constellation before it finally faded away.