When we land, it is in a blizzard. Childe wakes up before dawn, silently returning my jacket and continuing to stare out the window. I see a muscle in his jaw twitch, as if he is bracing for something.
The blizzard picks up, battering against the sterile white walls of the airport, more suited to a hospital than anything else. Childe squints in the absurdly bright lighting, grunting in approval when he finds the right path.
‘Childe,’ I say. ‘Are we heading towards the port?’
‘Yeah, what about it?’
‘We’re in the middle of a blizzard.’
‘You call this a blizzard? Relax. It’s one of the Tsaritsa’s storms. She won’t hurt you, not when I’m here.’
His words hold true. Even as the wind buffets the little boat, the captain steers steadily on, ignoring the frost that gathers on the windows. I stay as close as I possibly can to the heater, trying to suppress my shivering. Childe sees through it when he returns from a chat with the captain.
‘He says we’ll be there soon, and that he’ll never forgive me for making him transport all my siblings’ gifts in one go. I guess that’s fair, but to move all of those boxes in this state—aww. Are you cold?’
‘No.’
‘Your teeth are chattering. Relax, you won’t die. It just feels worse than it actually is the first time around.’
I wish I could heed his words. Childe finds a seat next to me, finally returning my jacket.
‘Here,’ he says, draping it over my shoulders. It smells like sea and salt, and I breathe shallowly to avoid taking in the worst of it. ‘It’s just forty-five minutes away now. Hold on for a while, okay?’
‘This is—‘ I draw the jacket closer to myself. ‘This is the very same ocean you drowned in.’
There is the cold, and then there is the knowledge that beneath the plush seats and fancy heater of this ship, only a thin sheet of metal stands between myself and the hunger of the waters.
And then there is the underlying unrest, thin threads of woven memories drifting in the storm, wrapping themselves around us. Cold, but gentle. An invitation to a home that is not mine.
Childe reaches out a hand, hesitates, then withdraws it. ‘It doesn’t do that usually. The Tsaritsa told me I was one in a million, to have fallen in there in the first place and then survived. You’ll be fine, especially with her storm active.’
‘Your Tsaritsa,’ I say, ‘I have met her once, and only once.’
He hums, obviously interested.
‘When Rex Lapis—Morax—wished to condense his memories into a separate entity, he called for her help. He had the materials, but he needed a sculptor. Your Tsaritsa’s skill in memories is unmatched. Even now, —‘ I gesture vaguely. ‘Her tapestries have found their ways into the realm of the waking. This place… it smells like a dream.’
Childe lets out a low whistle. ‘I used to think she was human—well, mostly. Maybe thinking she traded away some part of her humanity for her dream-walking—like me—made everything easier. But now that I’ve met you… she’s a condensation, like you.’
I nod. ‘She holds fewer memories than myself, but they are no less painful.’
Childe nods.
I listen to the hum of the engine, barely audible over the crashing of the waves, the whistling of wind around the small vessel. Childe clears his throat.
‘You know… I’ve been wondering if you—or Morax—chose your own appearance.’
‘Yes, and no.’ I meet his gaze. ‘I am a composite, in nature as well as in appearance. All I have, I took from my—Morax’s friends.’ Loved ones.
I am everything he feels. Everyone he loves.
Childe is silent. Then, ‘Your friends must be beautiful people.’
He doesn’t look me in the eye after that, and I make an effort to do the same.
~~~
When we dock, it is at a rickety wooden jetty that creaks when Childe steps onto it. The captain yells something after him, and he returns in kind, accompanied by a vulgar gesture.
Nevertheless, when I find my footing, both men are laughing. ‘Safe travels,’ Childe says to the captain. The captain tips his hat and begins to steer.
‘It’s just a short walk away,’ Childe tells me. ‘Come on, walk. You’ll stop shivering soon enough.’
And I do. The snow here is still thick, but the storm has died down. I stick to walking in Childe’s footsteps, resenting the feeling of snow crumbling beneath my feet. He offers to carry my bag at one point, but I refuse.
Eventually, a picket fence comes into view, alongside the small wooden house behind it, nested within a copse of evergreens, their branches glittering with frost. Hu Tao had tried to make a gingerbread house once, in an attempt to participate in the traditions of a friend from Fontaine. This house looks like the successful version of that attempt, bare wooden walls frosted with a thin layer of ice, icicles hanging off the edges of its roof. If not for the snow, this house would be otherwise unremarkable.
Smoke rises from its chimney, curling distantly into the sky above. I hear Childe inhale, then exhale slowly.
I walk closer to him, feeling him tense up when my shoulder almost touches his. ‘Take all the time you need.’
He shakes his head. ‘I’ve taken enough time. Let’s go.’
A freshly ploughed path leads up from a gap in the fence to the front door. Now that I am closer, the house looks bigger than I initially thought. Childe did mention multiple siblings, after all.
I stand back when Childe lifts a fist to the door, hesitates, then knocks.
I hear footsteps, descending a distant staircase. Then the door opens, revealing a stocky woman in an apron, the red in her hair barely visible through the threads of silver.
She inhales sharply at the same time Childe does.
It is he who speaks first, his voice so small it hurts.
‘Mama,’ he says. ‘I’m home.’
~~~
A girl catches sight of me, peeking out from a stairway, when I follow Childe’s mother deeper into the house. When I turn to look at her, she’s already dashed back upstairs, calling out what I assume is someone’s name.
I put her out of my mind first. We are standing in the kitchen, Childe next to the stove, unable to look at his mother. The woman in question stands in front of me, arms crossed, preventing me from going any further than the doorway.
‘And who, pray tell, are you?’
Her eyes are beginning to mist over, but underneath is the same blue I am so used to, with an extra glint of steel. I clear my throat, using that time to gather my courage.
‘I am… a friend of his.’
‘A friend of Ajax’s?’ I think I see Childe flinch in his corner. ‘I hope you’re not being a bad influence on him.’
Her tone is light, but the steel in her eyes carries a warning.
She steps back, allowing me to enter. She gestures for us to sit at the round table, too close to the stove for my comfort, and joins me. Childe remains where he is, looking resolutely at his feet.
‘Come, Ajax. Join us.’
‘Mama.’ His voice could almost seep into the walls of the house and remain there, far away from the light of day. ‘I am so, so sorry.’
She makes a ‘tch’ sound. ‘Apologise later. Come, tell me what you’ve been doing for this past year! But wait. Tonia!’ She calls out. I fight the instinct to rub my ringing ears. ‘Get your father.’
‘Papa’s here?’
There is a genuine note of fear in Childe’s voice. His mother shrugs. ‘He’s been ill these past few days, but he can afford to come downstairs this once.’
There, in the doorway, the girl emerges once more, her long red hair now in braids. An old man, with shadows in his eyes and years etched into his wrinkles, trails after her. The pallor of his face does not take away from the strength in his gait, and I feel his gaze pass over me, either judgement or caution in its path.
He meets his wife’s eyes for a brief moment, then looks towards Childe, still standing by the stove, trying his hardest to blend in with the wall behind him.
The man holds a hand up to his mouth and begins to cry.
The girl looks at her father, then at Childe, her eyebrows raised. But Childe doesn’t look at her, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looks out of a window. I don’t miss the way he tries to pass off wiping below his eyes as a casual movement.
His mother springs into action, throwing her arms around his father and patting him reassuringly on the back. The girl stands awkwardly to the side, her gaze finally landing on me. It pins me, a butterfly to a specimen board. I feel myself get up, lumber around the kitchen counter, and find my way to Childe.
‘This will soon pass,’ I say to him. He finally lifts his head, eyes meeting mine. For a moment, I see a hint of his mother’s steel.
‘Stay with me,’ he says, resolute. ‘I don’t want to do this alone.’
He lets me guide him back to the table as his parents do the same. The girl is gone, seemingly aware of the unsuitable nature of the approaching conversation. Childe’s shoulders are thin, his bones protruding, but he soldiers on, taking his seat at the round dinner table, spine straight. He watches me as I sit down beside him.
His parents are here too, his father still wiping his eyes. His mother inhales deeply, then begins to speak.
‘Ajax,’ she says. ‘You should explain yourself. Starting from—‘ She jerks her head towards me. ‘This gentleman over here.’
I feel Childe move his chair closer to mine. His mother is staring holes through me, and his father, even with the redness of his eyes, does the same.
Underneath the table, Childe’s hand finds mine. I take it.
‘I met him on a business trip,’ he begins to say. ‘I was in need of his… consultancy services, and local intel led me to him. Over time, we have…’
He stutters, then stops, looking wildly from side to side. I squeeze his hand.
‘Ajax and I became friends. He has specifically requested my presence here, for assistance with his current condition.’
I don’t miss the way he flinches when I say his name. His mother tilts her head. ‘Condition?’
Childe sighs. ‘I don’t know how to explain this to you.’
His father almost sobs. ‘Ajax, please.’
‘I’m leaving,’ says Childe quickly. Seeing his mother open her mouth, he continues, ‘I’ll be back. Promise. The others won’t notice, but I won’t be the same.’
‘Again?’ his mother whispers.
‘Don’t you know? There is only one way this story ends.’
‘Won’t you fight?’ she says. ‘Fight to stay with us. We can be happy again, all of us—’
‘What will you say to Nikolai? Katya? That their psychopath of a brother is back and expects everything to go back to how it was before—before all that? You can’t be serious.’
His hands are trembling.
‘It can’t happen, I know.’ His mother side-eyes her husband, not-so-subtly hinting for him to look at his son for once. ‘I don’t want to lose you again.’
‘Trust me, you’re not losing anything significant. You’ll be safer with me gone.’
‘So you’re leaving.’
Childe nods. His mother sighs, sounding remarkably similar.
‘If there was anything we could have done—if there is anything I can do—’
‘Don’t beg. It’s too late.’
His father finally speaks, voice shaky. ‘What happened to you, Ajax? What happened to my son?’
Childe’s fingers threaded through my hand prevents me from speaking up.
‘I’ve tried to explain, but you won’t understand. It’s okay,’ he says, finally meeting his father’s eyes. ‘You had to be there. What I don’t understand is why you don’t remember. We buried Ajax, papa.’
His mother shakes her head, but he continues. ‘You let me wear his skin, and for that I am grateful. I’m glad you tried, for that boy. I miss him too sometimes,’ he says, more quietly. ‘If it’s not too much… I want to keep this skin for a little while, until I actually go. For Tonia and the others. I don’t want them to be… I don’t want their last memory of me to be my absence.’
‘What are you going to do?’ asks his mother, weary.
‘Spend time with them,’ says Childe. ‘I want to make it up to them… for one year of…’ He inhales. ‘I’m sorry for putting you through all that.’
He gets up to leave, and I follow. Uneven footsteps behind us, and Childe’s father has grabbed his son’s arm.
‘You have my blessing,’ he murmurs. Childe looks at his father out of the corner of his eye, unmoving.
‘No matter who you are, no matter what you’re going to become… for his sake, may your journey be forever peaceful.’
Childe shakes his hand free and opens the door. It takes me a while to realise that he is looking from me to the doorway. I take the hint and leave, letting him close the door behind me.
The thin wood is not enough to block out their resulting conversation.
‘Your friend is very strange,’ says Childe’s mother.
‘He is,’ says Childe. I hear a chair creak.
‘Don’t be so flippant. I mean it,’ she says. ‘Dear, tell him.’
The gentle clearing of a throat.
‘He keeps looking at you,’ says the old man.
‘Yeah, that’s what he does.’
‘He looks at you like he wants to eat you.’
I turn tail and head to the foyer, as if they had found out about my eavesdropping.
~~~
Childe finds me in the foyer later, breathing heavily, eyes hooded, but shoulders finally relaxed. He says we’re staying for lunch, and then he’s going to book a room in a nearby inn. The village isn’t far away, he tells me.
‘It means you’re going to meet my siblings,’ he says. ‘You’re going to love them.’
The brightness in his eyes almost convinces me.
He brings me upstairs in the meantime, showing me around. I catch a glimpse of a bespectacled boy, peeking out from the doorway of his room before he shuts it with a bang. Childe flinches at the sound, walking past without looking at that particular door.
The room is small and awfully barren for a child. I bring it up to him, and he is more than happy to explain.
‘My parents removed most of the stuff from here when I came back from the ocean,’ he says, walking to the small window with metal bars fitted on it. He reaches his hands through the bars and opens the window, letting in a cold gust of wind. ‘They were afraid I’d hurt myself when I got too bored. They were probably right, but I learned how to pick locks very early on. The village… well, you’ll know what I inflicted upon them when you get there.’
There is only one chair, and a small bed. He lets me take the chair.
‘Is there really no other way?’
He looks at me, eyebrows raised.
‘I thought you’d know better than to beat that dead horse.’
‘I can protect you. My dream is more than stable, and your family can join—’
‘Yeah, the dream you share with the god you killed.’
He lies down on the bed, rolling over to rest his chin on his hands. I resist the urge to run my hands through his hair.
‘He cannot die,’ I say. ‘Not with your incomplete destruction. Not without my consent.’
‘Not without your consent?’
‘We are… symbiotic.’ I find my next words. ‘He cannot kill me, and I cannot kill him. My death, or his death, would be mutual destruction. The mind cannot exist without the body, and vice versa.’
He hums as if in agreement.
‘My offer will remain open as long as I am with you.’
‘I’d rather take my fate—and my family’s fate—into my own hands, thank you,’ he says.
‘Yet you trust the Tsaritsa’s dream.’
‘I don’t.’ He rolls onto his back, resting his feet on the headboard. ‘As soon as I am her equal, or her superior, I will no longer depend on her to satisfy my hunger.’
He turns over once more onto his side.
‘I’m taking another nap,’ he says.
‘Okay.’
‘Wake me up later, alright? And tell my parents I won’t be eating anything for lunch.’
me n the mentally unstable demigod i pulled by being autistic
hope y'all are having fun with wuthering waves