"it is no question, but an order. it is for our people."
"we cannot do it, he is our son. our SON!!"
"lower your voice. you know i love him more than i do life itself. we do not have a choice,"
"we no longer have herbs to numb the pain, i cannot bear it."
"you think i can?"
"if so, do something. must it really be him?"
"he has always been the one."
kaeya's throat dried as he heard his parents whisper among themselves.
he didn't want to do this. he didn't want to leave his family, he didn't want to feel pain, but the archons don't care what they want, let alone what he wants. they never have, they never will, what's left of them are just the sinners and there is no use caring for them, is there?
he slides down the wall hopelessly as he continued to listen to his mother beg his father to try to change their leader's mind. it really was no use, ⎓ᒷ↸⍑ᔑリᒷ never makes such a decision with no reason.
once his name was said, kaeya had already accepted what was about to be done, what needed to be done.
the light that encompassed him as he was born, he was of the child their legends had long foretold.
the legend which had been passed from generation to generation from the moment khaenri'ah had ever formed itself to the kingdom it had now become-
the king himself, his uncle, held him as a newborn, his eyes glowing a powerful blue close to that of azulawings in carefully shaved azurite. his skin, tan and sun-kissed, courtesy of his mother, smooth and soft as any bayi would be, tiny fingers and tiny toes and a nose, small and round.
"our hadiah," his king had said, with a heavy khaenri'ahn accent you could only find in their people of pure royal descent.
his chest shivered, his eyes shut tight as tears dribble down his hollow cheeks. kaeya could barely bear the weight digging into his chest. he had always feared this 'destiny' everyone he knew shoved into his face. besides the hatred and jealousy, subjects looked at him expectantly, longing, a mournful plea for help from their so called 'gift'.
he is only six with tiny fingers and tiny toes; a small and round nose, and already desperate to live up to his name, to save his people. instead, he woke everyday to the same reality he is expected to, yet cannot change.
darkness enveloped them whole.
he could barely see anything at all save for the scarce foxfire ivy which that wrapped itself around their crumbling walls.
he had never seen the sun shine, he had never seen grass grow, rainbows are but a folktale and he'd yet to know the existence of snow.
for a child so young, he had seen more people dead than he had seen people alive. he was so used to the concept of death then that it no longer affected him how it should have.
his father shut the door close with a grunt and halted at the sight of his son shivering into abandon against the wall. desolation seeped deep into his narrowly working heart, and he grips at it.
his son was 10 months old, laughing and giggling because he hadn't a care in the word. his son was now six years old, crying and shaking because he would soon have to gouge his right eye out without anaesthesia.
he knows his son would not fight it, even if the pain would give him night terrors for as long as he lived. he hates that his son is that way, and he loves him for it so much more.
kaeya used to cry upon someone's death.
he used to.
YOU ARE READING
of the loved and the unloved
Fanfictionthe last time diluc had seen the harbinger was at a dark time in his life. so, when the man walks in his tavern hours past midnight, he's flabbergasted. and maybe, eager as well, not that'd he'd tarnish his pride and admit it. or kaeya generously (a...
