Chapter Text
It’s been three months since Teucer came to visit, and Childe has been a bit lonely. His relationship with Zhongli never quite healed after the whole Osial fiasco, their chats over dinner and long walks falling to the wayside. (It was mostly Childe’s fault, really - he couldn’t see Zhongli the same way after the revelation that he was Rex Lapis. He had found reasons to cancel and dodge their hangouts often enough that Zhongli had gotten the hint and stopped reaching out. The god likely hadn’t been too distraught. ) The Tsarita hasn’t sent him a new assignment either - Childe suspects this is a punishment for a less-than-stellar performance. It’s been torturous - there’s nothing he hates more than inaction. To wait is surely a punishment. In the meantime, without Zhongli to take up all his time, he’s been filling the void by killing as much as he possibly can. It’s the Abyss all over again - slash and jab so he doesn’t think about all the things he’s lost, all the things he’s missing.
Today, Childe had shirked his duties at the Northland Bank onto Ekaterina in the hopes of catching some bigger fish than he normally can reel in. He had trekked all the way to the Dunyu Ruins in the hopes of finding some ruin guards to take down. The Fatui engineer division in Liyue had been hankering after ruin guard chaos cores, anyway, so he’s really just doing more business by being here, he told himself.
Childe had woken up early this morning and set off on the road that leads west of Liyue Harbor, through the pass at Mt. Tianhang, then northwards on the outskirts of the Duyun Ruins. The sun was high in the sky by the time the lake and central ruins were behind him. On the way he dispatched two groups of treasure hoarders. It was pretty boring.
The path itself was fairly typical Liyue - yellow-green grass around a dirt path, the occasional sweet flower or mint poking out from between the blades. Around the Duyun Ruins, the path disappeared, presumably going underwater. On the north side of the lake, there was a cobble path anyway, you just had to walk through grass to get there. Duyun was gorgeous, if Childe had stopped at any point to admire the scenery. Fluffy white-gray clouds filled the sky, the sun poking out between them. The water of the lake glimmered in the sunlight; Sandbearer trees swayed in the slight breeze, their distinctive yellow leaves like gold.
As Childe turned southwards, nearing the ruins on the edge of the Liyuen border, the grass turned a yellower shade. He found the path again and turned left at the fork, towards his intended hunting ground.
In the distance, past an abandoned adventurer’s camp, he could see a ruin guard walking through the ruins, its pistons… well, pistoning. Its core glowed like a miniature sun, and its arms swung loosely as it walked, giving the illusion of a casual guardian, like its name implied. However, ruin guards were not just called ‘ruin’ guards because they could be found in long-abandoned sites, but because they caused such ruin when provoked. And boy, did Childe intend to provoke it.
Childe grinned. He was tired of fighting hilichurls and treasure hoarders, slimes and, well, more slimes, and was excited for the possibility of a higher challenge. Sparring with Fatui recruits is more of a beatdown than anything and monsters are ever so predictable.
Ruin guards, of course, have their set attacks, their missiles and spinning attack, their punches and stomps, but their strength in comparison to the average monster will make this fight more interesting. At least, Childe hoped it would.
As he crept towards the first ruin guard, the skies opened up and it began to rain softly. For any other vision user, this would have been a bonus - free elemental reactions! For Childe, this was just any other day - his enemies would just stay affected by hydro for longer.
The first ruin guard was already awake, wandering down the steps from Lingju Pass. Childe taunted it, jabbing it as he ran up the stairs and through the archway into the ruins.
He turned right at the top of the steps to wake another ruin guard, just before the first one reached him. Dodging backwards, Childe tumbled through another archway and into a ruin hunter.
Oh shit, this was a bit more than he had planned on taking on at once.
The two ruin guards closed in, the ruin hunter at his back. All the while, the rain picked up, wind swirling through the ruined doorways and over collapsed walls.
Childe spun around, trying to keep his eyes on all three of the killing machines at once.
A ruin guard swung, and he dodged backwards, barely missing the swing of the second guard. The ruin hunter whirred, its left arm turning into a blade as it prepared to slash. Childe dodged this attack too.
This pattern continued - dodge, dodge, dodge, unable to get a hit in - until one of the ruin guards seemed to get bored. It turned its back to him, six missiles glowing as they prepared to launch. This pause allowed Childe to hit it once with a quickly fired arrow, afflicting it with Riptide. Then he had to dodge the missiles, but this was solved by running underneath the ruin hunter and letting it tank the missiles for him.
Everything was going fairly well as this pattern repeated - wait for an opening to afflict Riptide, get the three automatons to hit each other whenever possible, and most important of all, dodge that fucking whirlwind attack the ruin guards each kept pulling.
Of course, as soon as he had that thought, that’s when things started to go wrong.
First, he stepped in a divot, a missing cobblestone - this caused him to lose his dodge timing, and consequently one of the ruin guards full-on slammed him into the wall like a ragdoll. The already decrepit wall crumbled like it was made of crackers. Childe slid down, coughing, pounding his chest as he tried to get his lungs working again.
He grinned like a maniac. Finally, something interesting!
The ruin hunter was approaching him now, taking its time like a cat stalking a mouse. It switched its arms to blades, and Childe swapped his bow for his hydro knives.
Their blades clashed and sparks flew. Childe pulled hydro from the rain to throw up a bubble-shield around himself, mimicking an Abyss mage, just in time to block missiles from a ruin guard, but it wasn’t enough to block the strong punch that followed it.
Luckily, he managed to stay on his feet (barely), but the hit broke his shield. He parried another slice from the ruin hunter. He needed to end this fight, and fast.
He kept parrying slashes from the ruin hunter, dodging punches from the ruin guard, getting hits in when he could. The ruin hunter was covered in cuts at this point, and its eye was sparking wildly. Its swings were getting slower and slower.
Childe leapt up, forming a polearm out of hydro, and stabbed it in the ruin hunter’s core. It spasmed once, twice, then burst in a shower of sparks. Childe scooped up the chaos core and dodged a punch from the ruin guard. He slips in a puddle - falls on his ass -
And then a shadow fell over his head, blocking out the rain. Childe looked up, just in time to see the feet of the second ruin guard above him, just before it stomped down.
Then everything went dark.
—
The thing about the Abyss is it is not something that one escapes.
Like an overprotective parent, it lingers on the outskirts of your vision and asks, “Are you sure you’re ready for this? Why not wait a bit longer, with me? You are not ready. You will wait a bit longer, with me.” And the wait will become days become weeks become months.
And it would be so easy to say yes, be agreeable.
It is easy in the Abyss. The rules are simple: survive. Do not waste your energy. Do not waste your time. Do not waste your thoughts. Do not waste your movement. Do not waste your hearts.
The Abyss loves if you do these things, but first and foremost it loves you.
It wants you.
It needs you.
It needs you back. Now.
And like a child to a parent, you cannot say no. The Abyss does not have boundaries, stretching endlessly in all directions, landscape ever-changing, and it leaks into places where it should not be.
You think you are free of it - ‘healed’, ‘better’ - and then it all comes crashing down. One misstep, one slip in the rain, and you fall back into its clutches.
It is so, so, so easy to fall down, down, down, head over heels, because the Abyss loves you, and it has always wanted you back, has always wanted you there, in a way that no one else ever has and ever will.
The Abyss will not lie to you.
It is not nice or happy or safe.
But you do not need nice or happy or safe, because you have not been nice or happy or safe since you first felt its touch.
Everyone else will leave - will tire of your quick mind and willful spirit and the danger you keep at your fingertips - but the Abyss will not, because it made you this way against your will.
The Abyss will always be with you, and this is not a promise or contract or something so fragile, lies that can be trusted, trust that can be broken, because it is love and love does not lie.
This is what love feels like - a twisted darkness around your heart that burns, that pulls and tugs and drags you to the ground when you are too tired to keep your perfect posture intact. Love is when your mask is on and you play the part. Love is when you tell yourself they don’t really mean what they say. Love is when the voices in your head tell you to hurt the people you wish to protect. Love is when it eats you alive.
This is what love is.
You have never known anything else, and any other love you think you feel is a lie.
Do you understand, Ajax? Do you understand?