Chapter 3: Shadows of the past
When I came to, I heard people talking around me, I felt my body was covered by something warm and soft. The lights in this room were bright, it wasn’t artificial light which I noticed the moment I could peek through my heavy eyelids. I noticed a very strong smell in the room and stirred to pinch my nose or turn my head away from the smell. My senses came back to me minute by minute until I recognized my surroundings, the Mondstadt Cathedral hospital. The colors form the painted windows, and the stone brick walls gave it away.
By my bedside stood a nun, one of many that lead the cathedral and the medical center, she held something under my nose, a vial, until I would wake up and push her hand aside. I had no recollection of how I got here or how much time had passed. I believed to have dreamed something, about a luscious glowing forest. It felt like a distant fever dream at this time. “What day is it?”, I groaned as I sat up and rubbed my head.
The nurse did not answer, only looked at me with furrowed eyebrows and an understanding hand holding mine. “What is it? I don’t know how long I’ve been out, so I’d like to know please”, this request seemed reasonable.
She sat on the bed with me and spoke in a very soft and slow voice: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Try to rest, I will get my sisters”. I felt like she was trying to mock me as she sounded out every word. It was true I could not feel my body, it was hot and numb. I touched my lips and moved my jaw, making sure I could move enough to speak and wasn’t mumbling or slurring my words.
Never the less the sister was right, rest was the best course of action, but sleeping was impossible. I had no recollection of what happened, I felt like I was being chased, I ran for my life through darkness and soft blue light and now I was back home, thousands of kilometers from Sumeru’s jungle. The trip alone would take at least a week on horseback, how long did I sleep?
I sat up on the bed looking around more, the room was filled with several patients, most of them up and talking, walking around or laying on their beds. Thinking nothing about it, I carefully put my feet down the edge of the bed and put them against the cold stone floors. My soles were still sore, so it couldn’t have been out for that long, I still felt the aches and pains from the job.
Right, The job. What came from my investigation? Where was my notebook? I must write down what I saw under the tree, nobody would believe a word I’d say without proper proof. I had samples, notes, drawings everything in my notebook. I was sure it would be enough to count towards the ten thousand mora reward.
Never mind that, I wanted to ask my roommates what day or week it was and if they knew anything I didn’t. I was up on my feet, testing how my body would do with being upright. I could walk just fine, enough to get from A to B without needing a walking aid. I stepped up to the other men talking with each other from their beds. “Hello, I’m sorry to interrupt. I just woke up and I’m missing a chunk of my memory, what day or week do we have?.”, was what I clearly said. 100% certainty that these words came out of my mouth
Yet again I was met with stares of confusion, head turning towards me before looking among themselves all of them shrugging “Sorry… what?”, one of them spoke up.
What the hell. That can’t be real, these guys must be from the knights and send here to mess with me. I’m sure it’s just a welcome back prank from the captains. It must be. “Ha-ha, very funny. Okay but seriously I need to know what happened”, I started to insist on it.
​
“I…I got no idea” one of them whispered to his colleague before the second man turned to me: “You’re not from here are you kid?”
Not from here my ass. My parents live a few streets away, I could go visit them right now but just leaving the hospital isn’t the smartest move, I knew that much. “No what, I’m from Mondstadt. Stop messing around, the nurse was already very unhelpful.”, I was getting louder and raspier.
I wasn’t going to get far with them if they were really dedicated to this prank. I would need to trace back my own steps then. I limped my way over to my bed again to sit down and come up with a gameplan. My thoughts interrupted by the nun entering the room yet again this time with company.
I got laid back in bed and was handed a glass of water and a tray of food was put on my small table. They weren’t exchanging any words with me, which was honestly just rude.
“Can you tell me now what day we have? I already know it’s probably captain Kaeya who organized that prank, he’s the only one who could involve so many people.”, I tried to make conversation, unsuccessfully.
However, their heads turned as I mentioned Kaeya’s name, so they did know something. Once I get this man in my hands, I will tear him a new one for screwing me over like that. He will get his payback. They talked among themselves for a moment before they nodded and some headed outside. “We will get the Captain. You, stay here. Eat. Drink.”, the nun in charge of my care was only speaking in the simplest one-word sentences.
At least we were getting somewhere, when Kaeya got here I could confront him and ask him to stop this so I could figure out what was going on. Kaeya always had been a busy man, therefore my expectations were already low that he even shows himself. There was some time to kill.
A strengthening meal later I wanted to find my own way around this place, I’ve been here many times already so no problem. My first stop would be to my parents, I’m sure they had been informed that I was back here, somehow.
Walking out into the hallway the lights were hurting my eyes, the sounds of my footsteps echoed through the corridor filled with people
I just sighed deeply and kept slowly making my way through the hospital. I couldn’t believe it, was everyone messing with me, have I gone mute? Is my voice even there? I needed to find a way to figure out what is going on.
Luckily, they left me some clothes to change into, my shirt and jacket had been cut through, my pants were ripped and messed up and my shoes were also in bad shape. What on earth happened to me?
I wanted to find some help in the cathedral, especially with the guards there, they were my friends, there was this mutual understanding of serving the same job. They would not do this to me but Kaeya’s influence was powerful, maybe more than I thought.
I nun opened the gated between Hospital wing and Cathedral and let me leave. My eyes fell upon the filled rows of the cathedral, never have there been so many people here at once. There must be a special occasion today, maybe it was a holiday, and mess was about to start? Or maybe something horrible happened, Did Dvalin attack again? How many people were hurt? Why did no one inform me of this?
Getting increasingly more nervous I moved through the crowds and spoke to the first guard that I came across. “Otto, thank the Gods, you have to help me. Kaeya is playing a shitty prank on me or I’m losing my mind.”, I stopped talking for a moment to gather his reaction, which wasn’t any different form all the others I got. “Not you too, don’t play with me. Guards must trust each other. I am begging for help and you are ignoring a fellow knight.”, I was getting more desperate.
Well screw it, how many people were involved in this? Whatever might as well go to my parents, they surely would believe me. I pushed past Otto and opened the doors myself. The sunlight blinding me for a moment before I stepped outside. The winds were cold and the stone I was walking on barefoot was rough.
My senses were hit all at once, more intense than I remembered. I hissed out as I covered my eyes and put my hand on the doorframe to keep me up from the pain in my feet. I could hear the wind blowing past me whispering ominous words. My head started to pound and hurt again from all these sensations. I forced myself to open my eyes and my vision was an absolute mess, everything was either moving or blurry, I started seeing bright colored zig-zags in my vision the stabbing pain behind my eyes got worse.
I tried to turn away and go back inside but I couldn’t see and was in such pain. I sat down on the ground and tried to cover my eyes, ears, nose and any other sense that were overwhelming me. I heard more voices talking to me, but at this point I didn’t know if they were real or if I started hallucinating like all the other adventurers from the Corps of Thirty.
I forced myself to look up, covering the more painful eye to at least see anything. The Plaza before the Cathedral was filled with people, all dressed to the nines, strolling past the Statue of their God. Children playing in the water fountains and nuns walking through the gardens praying.
The light was getting too bright again so I had to close my eyes once more, as I reopened them the entire word went dark, but I could still see. Everything was somehow in a dark gray scale the people around me were nothing but shadows anymore. I walked to the railing of the staircase leading to the Plaza trying to catch one clear glimpse of a person.
The people strolling past were fading, flickering and then returning to my view, some vanishing from my sight completely when I wasn’t looking at them. Everyone had a dark and blurry aura around them, except for one gold glowing figure walking up to the plaza in that moment. I could see him clear as day, Albedo the Knights chief Alchemist.
He was the only one I could see clearly from the crowd, and he was heading towards me. I got back on my legs and stumbled forwards down the stairs to catch him. He seemed to have noticed me too as his steps became quicker to get to me. I tripped over the last step and stumbled right into his arms, barely holding myself on my legs crying in pain. “Please help me! Please”, I begged and closed my eyes to shield myself more from outside stimuli.
I was praying to all the Gods that he, as the smart man he was, would not take part in this stupid joke. I had a serious medical issue and nobody else seemed to even acknowledge that. His hand reached around me as he lifted me onto my feet. “I got you Nicholas, hold on I will bring you back inside.”, he assured me and called some guards that helped him carry me.
My legs dragged behind me as they carried me up the stairs and back into the cathedral. The whole place was suddenly empty again, just a handful of sisters and the occasional person praying, nothing like the packed mess hall I stumbled into.
My symptoms started to fade slowly, color returned to my face and my vision was no longer impaired by the blurring vignette effect. I thanked them as I started to recover and sat up on the bench.
I still received those confused stares but at least Albedo acted like a normal person around me. “Albedo, I need your help. I’ve been working on a commission in Sumeru, things went wrong and I suddenly woke up here a few thousand kilometers away. I don’t know how I got here or how long it’s been nobody is speaking to me.”, I gave him a quick rundown of the things I knew.
He was actually interested in my words, listening and offering his support. However, he also seemed a bit off, even if he understood what I was saying he showed clear concern for me. He wasn’t known to show any kind of emotion, this was another sign that something was wrong.
“So they do not understand you? Can you understand them?”, Albedo started questioning me. What kind of question was the even, of course I understood them. “What about now, do you still understand me?". Again, I replied with “yes”, since nothing had changed.
“Interesting”, the alchemist hummed and asked for a medical chart. He was no doctor, but he wanted to run a few of his own tests. I could see the wheels in his head turning as he worked with me to figure out what was wrong. “Tell me more about this Commission, with as many details as you can.”.
I started giving him the long version of the things I remembered, and he took detailed notes of the situation. As I came to the part of the tree I hesitated, I still wasn’t sure what I had seen, if this was still part of my Commission or if my brain was already imagining that in my unconscious state. “Say what you think happened. Every little thing can be important, no matter how unrealistic it was.”, he reassured me as he leaned in to look me in my eyes.
His eyes still had this golden glow, he was still incased in this yellow golden aura, shining like a star, while the rest of the world looked darker, grayish black. I explained what I thought I saw, the tree, the lights, dead withered area with this weird orb. “… and I still think that I’m hallucinating, as I walked out this hall was full of people, nobody left after me but now its empty. The entire world was gray, and no I don’t mean gray as in depressed or I as any type of metaphor. It was all gray. The only way I could see you from the crowd out there was this glow that you have.”, I gestured to him and around him.
He looked down to himself, hummed and wrote something down on the chart. He must think I’m crazy. “I know how it sounds, but I’m not imaging that.”, I insisted and tried to touch the aura around him. My hand easily passed through it and it didn’t feel any different than the air around me.
After I was done explaining I waited for any sort of explanation, anything that might give me a clue. “Could you bring us to a quiet room, I’d like to speak to him in private.”, Albedo asked the nurse who then directed us to a private recovery room, not shared with other patients.
He sat me down on the bed in front of him, dragging a chair over, his eyes glowing with something like fascination. He still had his chart in his hands and kept checking his notes. “What is it. What’s going on? what happened to me.?”, I asked impatiently.
“I can’t give you a definitive diagnosis, but these people are not ignoring you, they quiet literally cannot understand you. You’re not speaking any known language in Teyvat.”, he tried to explain. He sat down with me and put the clipboard down looking in my eyes staying calm as ever. “The language was called Khaenri’ahn. It had been extinct over 500 years ago, I only know of a handful of people who still know about this language.”
I took a deep breath; tried to make heads or tails of this. I was still hearing myself and, in my mind, I spoke as I always had, everyone else was also speaking normally. I’ve heard about this before, people getting knocked out or having a stroke and waking up speaking a language that they never heard before, however usually these languages weren’t dead. I had several questions, which was to be expected. “If this is true, how come you understand me? How come you can speak to me and understand every word.”
He cracked a small smile something he never did, he looked almost proud of himself, this had no longer had anything to do with my condition, this was something between us. "You said you’re seeing a golden Aura around me, right?” I nodded in response. “That’s because I am different then the rest of the people here. You see, I wasn’t born, I was created. Made in a bottler by one of the most powerful witches of the Hexenzirkel. An organization that existed before time and space itself.”
I was hard to believe that he was telling the truth, he didn’t look a day older than twenty-five. Was this just another prank, no he wouldn’t. “They were alive when the nation of Khaenri’ah was created and lived with them until they fell. My mother made me after the devastating fall and implanted the memories of this nation in my head, including the language.”
His words made sense, if he was not human it would explain why he had a hard time understanding other people. Showing empathy, compassion or any emotion. It was something we all knew how to do since we were born with it. Still, hearing this wasn’t feeling right.
I leaned back in my chair and let my thoughts sort themselves, taking in his soft golden glow while looking around the room. I wasn’t freaking out, yet at least, I let the information sink in and spaced out for a while.
Did that mean I would never be able to talk to anyone again? I couldn’t even relearn the language since I believed I was still speaking it. Would this be the end of the life as I knew it? Could this be cured like any other illness that I could go back to my life? “So what now? I can’t speak to anyone but you. How can we fix this?”.
​
The smile faded of his lips, that wasn’t a good sign. “That’s not true, there still are some people who speak Khaenri’ahn…”, he was about to say more as someone knocked on the door.
I didn’t remember inviting anyone. Maybe it was my parents coming to check on me after they heard I woke up. They could not have had a worse timing, I couldn’t even talk to them, I wouldn’t be able to explain that I was okay and what was happening to me.
Albedo got up to open the door, placing his hand on my shoulder as he walked past me. He spoke to someone on the other side of the door before opening it more and letting the person in. It was no one else but Captain Kaeya who managed to get away from work to come see me. He was as confident as ever. With a smirk on his lips and one hand at his hips he stood before me and scanned me, at least with the eye he could see from.
His hair hid the second which was covered by an eyepatch, he told the knights it was a fashion choice however, that was still debatable. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, so he was here off duty.
I didn’t even start to explain things, knowing I wouldn’t be understood. Albedo also stood by quietly, switching his glance between us. “Who do we have here, our former Knightling, back from your vacation already?”, he teased with a chuckle in his voice. He was known for being unserious and lighting up any tense situation. I never knew how, but it always worked, casting a smile on my lips whenever he spoke to me. I always admired the way he would casually lead an entire army of knights with such elegance.
I wanted to say something but sighed remembering it wasn’t that easy anymore. I looked at Albedo gesturing him to speak for me. Kaeya looked rather confused, I was usually so talkative, especially with my Captain. We often found ourselves on the local tavern drinking together after work talking our ears off.
I gestured some more before I just decided to speak up: “Can you maybe talk to him. Or am I supposed to write him a letter?”, I sarcastically huffed and stared between the two.
I didn’t receive an answer, so I looked back to Kaeya and was about to gesture something else as I noticed the look in his face. He was a master in keeping it cool, not only because of his Cryo vision, but what I saw was anything else than a cool and collected expression.
His mouth was gaping, eyes wide and the color of his skin slowly draining. He was in full blown shock, something that never happened before even when faced with death itself. It was worrisome to see him like this, what could possibly frighten him this much about me speaking gibberish?
Unless… this wasn’t gibberish for him. But how could that be, he’s human I was sure of this. I saw him bleed, he surely couldn’t be the same as Albedo. Then how? “You can understand me can’t you.”, I whispered as I got off the bed
He slowly leaned his arm on the alchemist’s shoulder, steadying himself, his eyes connected with mine in disbelief. “You might want to explain to me why our sweet Knightling can speak fluent Khaenri’ahn.”
Albedo gave him a quick recap of everything that happened so far, from what I told him about my Commission to the fact I woke up and could only speak Khaenri’ahn. He took my place on the bed as he had to sit down to process everything he had been told. A reaction I could only understand. I sat on next to him, studying closely. He could understand, he knew what this language was.
He looked closer as well, especially studying my eyes, as far as I knew they haven’t changed, but maybe they did since I was seeing things in a grayscale from time to time. Things were silent for a long time. Albedo sat down on his chair between me and Captain Kaeya, watching the two of us just have a starring competition.
“Captain Kaeya…”, I whispered quietly, “How come you can understand me? Didn’t you grow up in Mondstadt?” It was almost like he was expecting this question. I could feel him shake his head and put a hand on my thigh.
His birthplace had always been brushed under the table, we knew he had been adopted by the Ragnvindr family at a very young age and never spoke about his time before this. Yet he as well was barely in his twenties, Khaenri’ah existed hundreds of years ago, and from what Albedo told me there weren’t any books or relics left from this civilization.
I reached my hand out to him, gently placing my fingers over his, just to feel something, letting him explain himself.:” I grew up here, but I was born somewhere else. I was born far up north, in what is now the nation of Snezhnaya.”
He took my hands, looking down at all the injuries and bandages I had around my hands and arms.“ You see my parents, may the Gods bless them, once were part of Khaenri’ah. I heard only little about what life was like at that time, since my time with them was short. They were alive when the nation fell, when the Abyss took over and left no one alive.” An entire nation erased from the world, it must have been horrible. Everything flattened that nobody would ever talk about this place again. It made me wonder what motive the Abyss had to destroy this place specifically.
Kaeya became more fidgety with my fingers, playing with his hair and adjusting his eyepatch, snapping the strap against his face. “Those who managed to escape or flee were cursed by the Gods, some worse than others. Those who were pure blooded were cursed with immortality, to forever bear the curse of a decaying body unable to find peace. My parents were one of them, my mother managed to flee to Snezhnaya before things went bad, my father stayed to defend his nation. I’ve never heard of the old man again. After millennia of suffering alone my mother found herself another man there, influential, rich, who didn’t know about my mothers past. They had me a few years ago, a half-blood, descendant of Khaenri’ah.”
He finally had enough of his eyepatch and moved it just a smidge aside. The skin under his patch had turned black, blue veins throbbing under paper thin skin. The curse still affected him, maybe not as severe, but this looked like decayed skin. I couldn’t see his eye, maybe he was indeed blind, or maybe just as sensitive as I was before. “Things went sideways as my father found out about… everything… authorities came after us, the only way to keep me out of their reach was to send me far away, as far as possible, to the other end of the world, to Mondstadt.”. He covered his second eye again, letting the hair fall over the eyepatch as well making sure nobody could see a thing.
I was stunned speechless, already tearing up for him. Nobody should have to endure such fate. A curse so brutal going down generations, this wasn’t some attack this was a genocide of the Khaenri’ahn people. To think that our Archons could be capable of such things and nobody was helping, Albedo said these witches were watching and just…let it happen? I really started to lose faith in those who guided us.
Albedo seemed as unfazed as ever, as if he heard that story before. Maybe he did, from one Khaenri’ahn to another, they might have figured each other out and talked about it
I held the Captains hand tighter, not knowing what else to do, I’d hug him, but he never was one to get close. That changed when I saw how his lips were trembling, how he avoided to look at me, almost ashamed of what he was. No, that I couldn’t let stand. I didn’t care if he was from the moon, he was my Captain, the one who taught me how to hold a sword. The one that came to my rescue in the middle of the night when I snuck out and got myself into trouble.
I slowly leaned forward, reaching out, slowly, waiting for him to pull back or resist, but he let me. I put one arm around him, then a second before pulling him from the chair to my side on the bed. “I… I am so sorry. I didn’t want to bring up anything like that. I swear I would have never spoken to you in this language if I knew.”, I kept apologizing,
At first, I thought this was just some unfunny joke he initiated, I felt horrible for my hateful thoughts towards him before that. He was completely stiff in my arms, face hidden in the side of my neck, not even hugging back. But he didn’t pull away, he stayed, which was already more than I ever expected from him. “I can promise you, this will forever stay a secret. You are save in Mondstadt, you are save with us.”. I swallowed hard, my hands tightening in his shirt.
Finally I felt his hand come towards me as he accepted the light embrace. Albedo had come to his side as well, rubbing his shoulders and ruffling my hair. We sat there together for a long time, not speaking, not moving, just accepting it. There was so much we had to start accepting, because what else could we do.