Khaenri'ah's King

One

Kaeyas POV
< Flashback >

It was practically us against the world, or so I imagined. Coming into the Ragnvindr's family, finally being treated like a son and having a brother felt like the world to me. Common nightmares of occurrences flood my mind on certain nights that bring lightning, which always jolts me awake to tears and Diluc's comfort by my side with internal pain.

The second most unforgettable night for both me and my brother. Hell used to be all I known until the light that was bestowed upon me by that family until the word "family" was ripped away from me once again.

Father collapsed, a shining emblem clutched in his grasp at his sudden downfall. The wagon was stopped beforehand in front of a wicked monster, all the men tried to slay it but only two survived... or so we thought.

Blood was all that was in eyesight, it was as if my childhood before landing in Mondstat fiddled again apron my mind like stars. Yet Father was the last one to try and defeat this monster from the abyss. He used this technique that surely wasn't new to me, a marron wisp of darkness overshadowed his wrist and in tune with saving his son and avenging his men, the toll for the magic came with a bitter price.

Ones who called them visions never knew the reality of those delusions. Handcrafted false gifts from the gods in retrospect of power that was only granted to the few humans that roamed Teyvat.

In admits to protecting his son, he sacrificed himself for his blood. Blood on blood. I couldn't rescue him in time. I couldn't rescue both of them in time. The damage was done to both sons.

It was deadpanned to me. My fault. It was my fault. I should have gotten there in time, if only the few minutes, he'll the few seconds before the act I would have saved the trauma and fault.

So forth Diluc shunned me. Shut me out. No matter how many times or cries of "sorry" didn't do it for him. I wanted to rid myself, take upon me what I should have done for my family. I should have been the sacrifice. Father was too good of a man to die, how did he find himself in the ownership of a delusion?

He had everything, a family, wealth, a winery, friends, joy what made him tap into such a dark thing? I knew of that weapon before Diluc found out. I didn't risk telling him or he would have slaughtered me although he was fuming when he found out I knew.

"You knew didn't you?" Diluc cried out with a shaky voice, his claymore covered in mud from the harsh rain being radiated from the clouds above. My silence gave him his answer.

Dipping my head unable to control my emotions a tear dripped slowly from my eye. "Diluc... it was a mechanism from Khaenri'ah. Monstrous humans used them to their advantage which brought the downfall of my homeland." I protested trying to maintain my composure.

His eyes burned through my soul. He possessed a vision, a red, fiery, pyro one at that. One of the huge reasons he made himself into the Four Winds.

"Monstrous humans?" He spit out, with clear disgust in his tone. "Our Father, no my Father was never a monsterous human you are speaking of." The agony spilling from his lips.

I looked up to meet his eyes and doing so he lunged at me. Dilucs claymore burning bright, flames emitting his weapon in hand aiming for me.

It almost took too long to process. My brother never fought with weapons hand in hand with me other than playfully as children. Oh how I missed those days. Yet those days are crisps of dust left in my present.

In attempt to shield myself, not only shutting my eye but wielding my sword the impact never came. A cold sweat erupted my body as my fingers felt cold. A shiver down my spine in the beginning of March on a rainy, empty night was not the feeling of death and warmth I was expecting.

Prying my eye open to adjust to the discomfort, Diluc was tossed on the ground a few yards from me by the unusually chilly impact. A glimpse at my wrist was covered in shear ice, coated with a chilly mist that was foreign to me.

My sword I've wielded for years crumbled in chuncks of cubes of ice, falling to the soaked grass. "What in Barbatos..." I let out with fear coating my throat. I felt almost light weight, yet the strange feeling of a heavy mass was in my grasp. Opening my fingers i exhaled shakily to have my single eye frown upon a vision.

Not any vision though. A cryo vision at that.

Diluc rose to his feet, he was just as speechless as I was while holding the heavy object that reflected my heart. A sorrow yet slumped emptiness was casted in casing us. The quick taps of rain bellowing from the sky above as if Celestia declared this as mine from above.

He turned on his heel and grasped his claymore tightly. "Do not come to my home again. You're not welcome anymore, Kaeya." His boots slushed up to the Dawn Winery and a low bellow from the creaking door that was shut just as fast signaled his unwanted of me and his last words he wanted to speak for the time being.

No more brother.

The cherished childhood I got to experience here was long forgotten to my brothers eyes. Did he never feel the same?

It was all me, my fault.

<Present>

My men dragged in a hunched over figure through my palace. Panting breathlessly and a bit bloody. The red, flowing long hair, tied in a high ponytail the human was bestowing intrigued my newfound eye as well as giving grief to my opposite eye.

A shift in my position on my icy thrown and as almost the rays of light seeping through a small hole above gave a small spotlight to the man in front of me, some may say an old friend or brother yet I would say a ruthless and careless boy I used to care for and shed all my love to.

He was now below my heel, the beauty and figure he had worked on and grew into left me a little breathless myself.

Cracking my knuckles I tisked in front of him. My eyes trained on his body crushed by the weight of a soldier to get on his knees in front of me a fuming expressing on his bloody face with his arms drawn behind his back in shackles.

"Welcome, brother, to the place I bestowed upon you as my rightful home".