Chapter Text
In the grand scheme of things, Bennett had been having a good day. He’d only been hit with three tree branches when heading back to the city, and even before that, he’d only ended up stumbling into a single hilichurl camp. And he’d managed to escape mostly unscathed!
Truly, Lord Barbatos was looking over him.
Unfortunately, even with this streak of good luck, his bad luck wasn’t able to stay away forever, and it was when he was only an hour away from the city and the warm Adventurers’ Guild that the sky opened up and started pouring on him.
He only let himself sigh once, running a hand through his rapidly wetting hair before he plastered a smile on his face and started running instead of walking.
At least the flora around him wouldn’t have to be worrying about dehydration!
He should have known better than to run while it was raining and he could only see about five feet in front of him.
The falling tree branch came out of nowhere.
With a startled yelp, he felt his knees collapse out from under him as the heavy wood smacked him straight in his left shoulder, crumpling his body as easily as a hammer would a nail. He slammed onto the ground, shoulder and side taking most of the damage, and a hissed breath of pain escaped from his lips as he stared at the muddy ground now much closer to him than it had been before. His shoulder was burning, warm blood already starting to slide down his cold skin, he was familiar enough with the feeling that he was able to pinpoint it instantly, and his left ankle was smarting, having been twisted at a not-fun angle when he crumpled to the ground.
Despite his efforts, a whimper hummed in the back of his throat, and he was forced to sniffle quite dramatically to shove back the reflexive tears of pain.
This was… this was hardly the worst thing to happen to him. He’d been through so much worse, everything was fine, everything was fine.
He just… needed to get up.
He needed to get up and get back to the Adventurers’ Guild and then his fathers would patch him up and give him something warm to drink and everything would be fine.
So wrapped up in his own thoughts, the tree branch still awkwardly balancing on his body and all but covering him in the soaking leaves still attached to the brown wood, he, at first, didn’t hear the hurried footsteps sprinting their way through the forest. It was only once the accompanying panting broke through the downpour that he managed to pull himself out of his own head to twist his face to peer into the raining mess.
Was there… someone else?
Had they been like him? Caught out unwares from the rain?
Ha, well, he didn’t think anyone else would ever be as unlucky as him, but every once and again, Bennett was aware that bad luck could happen to anyone.
Gritting his teeth together, he pulled one arm close to his chest, ready to shove himself up into a sitting position, and shove the branch off of him. His eyes darted around the grey forest, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of whoever it was that was out in the rain with him.
He doubted they were an enemy.
This close to Mondstadt? Or, specifically, this close to the Dawn Winery?
Master Diluc would never stand for it. So, it had to be a fellow adventurer. Perhaps they could find their way back to civilization together!
The blue hair was the thing that finally allowed him to spot the person he’d heard. He would have thought that such a detail would have just allowed them to blend even more into the pouring rain and grey sky, but instead it stuck out to Bennett’s limited scope of view and allowed him to finally see his fellow adventurer.
Though, perhaps, he would have to rethink that description of them.
Because the person about twenty feet ahead of him, picking their way quickly but clumsily through the rain and tangled forest, was no adventurer.
The most obvious sign was their clothes. Even if it had been a sunny if only slightly brisk day before Bennett brought the colossal storm, the person’s thin, white, button up wouldn’t have been enough to keep them warm, saying nothing of the fact they had no coat to speak of. Their pants were clearly not built for anything more than a jaunt indoors, flaring bottoms easily catching on the stray twigs and roots of the flora. Most concerningly of all, they wore no shoes.
That would have been bad even before it started pouring.
Bennett found himself silenced by the sheer confusion going through him, staring at the person, mouth still open slightly to call out to them but now nothing managing to touch his lips. Yes, Mondstadt was as safe as it could be. Yes, it had been nice enough outside before the rain. Yes, this forest, and its prickly underbrush, was not indicative of the rest of Mondstadtian territory.
But at the same time…
No shoes?
That really only spoke of a lack of preparation.
That or… desperation.
Bennett was young. He was not ignorant. His fathers would never let him become such a thing. He knew that there could be bad situations, bad relationships, bad accidents, and as an adventurer, he had, at least a little, been prepared to help people if they asked anything of the such from him. If they needed help. It wasn’t his job, but Lord Barbatos would strike his fathers down himself, or so they said, if they let him go out there and get confused by something he should know how to handle.
Something cracked in the distance, perhaps another tree branch, but the person’s head snapped up like they had just heard a gunshot, spinning around to stare shakily in the direction they had come from, tripping backwards. The movement exposed the other side of their face and Bennett realized with a blink that they were wearing an eyepatch, wrapped over one eye. It was also clear that the eye patch was expensive, red thread seeming to embroider some kind crest or symbol prominently on the patch. It was too far away to see clearly but it poked at something deep within Bennett’s brain.
Shaking his head, attempting to banish all the confusing thoughts, Bennett opened his mouth again, ready to call out for the person, but this time, the thing that stopped him was the bird made of fire that ripped its way through the drenched woods.
Thankfully, the person’s own cry of surprise covered Bennett’s, and thus, left him unseen as he stared out at the heart stopping sight, choking on familiarity.
He’d seen that before. Seen that bird. When he was far enough to not get hurt, watching the man he admired take care of a group of monsters as Bennett took a breather.
This person… was an enemy, then?
Why… did he not feel like an enemy.
“No!” The person gasped out, skidding to a stop so they didn’t run straight into the bird that was circling them for a moment before fizzling out, and whatever action they were going to take was stopped when a person appeared from the shadows, easily catching them by the shoulders and throwing them chest first on to the muddy ground. The person yelped, Bennett could now make out that they were a man, if the voice was anything to go off of, and moved to scramble up almost instantly, only stopped when a boot slammed its way onto his back, pinning him into the freezing ground.
“No no!” The man gasped out again, digging his hands into the ground, and squirming, twisting his head up to look up at the man above him. “Please, Diluc, just let me go! I can’t live like this anymore! I won’t even tell anyone, I’ll leave! I’ll leave and I’ll go to Liyue! Or Sumeru!” The man was babbling, scrabbling, and above him, the red-haired figure simply staring down at him. “You won’t ever see me again, no one will ever know what you did! No one!”
Bennett was frozen.
Because that was… that was Master Diluc.
The man who, if slightly standoffish to the older knights and seemed to dislike the drunks that came into his tavern even if they gave him money, still had a near smile for any of the younger knights who came in to pester him about his past as a knight. Who was still seen frequently around the Knights of Favonius Headquarters, even if he no longer was one in an official capacity, in conversation with either Deputy Master Jean or Grandmaster Varka. Who always opened his coffers and winery to every celebration and festival, letting the little ones run circles around his legs as he traded them cups of grape juice for whatever ‘treasures’, usually flowers or nuts, they wished to give him.
Who had once saved Bennett from a contingent of Treasure Hoarders, insisting he stay at the Dawn Winery until he could walk without pain, showing him some pointers for better swordsmanship while the teenager had been there.
Master Diluc… who was giving the man pinned below him a sharp look, literally steaming in the rain, something dangerously blank in his eyes that Bennett had never seen before.
“Please, Diluc,” the man continued, whispering now, hands digging uselessly into the wet ground below him as he tried to drag himself out from under Diluc’s boot. “Please just let me leave.”
Master Diluc rolled his eyes. “You’re getting your clothes dirty,” he muttered, pulling his foot back but just as quickly crouching next to the man, a hand on his shoulder to keep him from going anywhere. “And you’ll get sick in this weather.”
The man’s face screwed up, losing whatever whimpering and crying expression that had been covering his face, and he wrapped his hand around Diluc’s wrist, yanking the hand off of him. “Fuck you,” he spat. “Don’t act like you care.”
“I do care, you just never see it.”
Bennett was barely breathing.
For once, it seemed like his bad luck might have actually been good. It was only because of the tree branch, after all, that he was hidden from the two men having their spat. If he hadn’t been hit with it, he probably would have run right past this. And if Master Diluc knew that he was seeing this…
The man spit something, something that Bennett couldn’t make out, and moved as if to scramble away again, but Master Diluc lunged forward and suddenly he was nearly straddling the man, holding down both of his wrists into the mud while keep him pinned to the ground.
The man made a sound that was nearly a scream. “Let go! Let go of me! Just let me leave! Diluc!”
“Calm down, Kae.” Master Diluc barely blinked, the blankness on his face not changed as the man thrashed beneath him, placing a knee on the man’s back to keep him down. He released the man’s wrists, causing the man to tuck them beneath his chest in a way that had Bennett blinking in confusion, and the man glared up at Master Diluc as best he could, face pressed into the mud beneath him and getting caught in his long blue hair.
“If you take me back again, I’ll kill myself,” he hissed, the rain sliding down his face and leaving Bennett to wonder if the tracks of water really were rain or disguised tears. “I refuse to live like this, Diluc, I refuse!”
“You’ve said that before, but we both know I can stop you before you get the chance.” Master Diluc leaned down slightly, running his fingers through the man’s hair in a way that could almost be caring but the man hissed and spit at the action, the words in his throat once again not making any sense to Bennett’s ears. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“I’m not-!”
“Yes you are, you always are. Now, what exactly is this about? Are you mad about the lack of alcohol? Did you choose to run away in a rainstorm because I took away your paper again?” Master Diluc kept combing his fingers through the man’s hair, pulling away for a second and placing something that could have been some type of hair clip that had come undone into one of the inside pockets of his jacket.
“I want to leave! Just let me leave!”
“Mhm, of course. You love home, you’re just pretending you don’t. You’re going to make Adelinde cry if she hears you say that.”
Bennett watched as the man’s face twisted up into a snarl again, growling low in his throat, but Master Diluc continued on before he could speak, pulling his fingers back from the man’s head and instead wrapping one hand around the man’s upper arm, the only part not hidden under the man’s chest. His other hand went into his jacket.
“Enough of this. We can discuss this at home, like civilized people, not out in the mud and rain. Now, are you going to difficult or will you let me take you home?”
Even soaking and shivering, Bennett watched the man’s eyes harden, bare feet digging into the mud for a second like he was futilely trying to push himself out from under Master Diluc’s grip, before he spit on the ground, jaw tight. “If you want me back in that hellhole, you’ll have to drag me back.”
Master Diluc rolled his eyes again. “So, so dramatic,” he muttered before withdrawing a pair of handcuffs from his jacket.
In the end, it was barely even a struggle.
It was so clear that the man was no match for Master Diluc, and even if he did put up a fight, it wasn’t that hard for Master Diluc to wrench his arms out from under his chest and force his wrists into the handcuffs. It was also clear that something like this had happened before, that the man knew what Master Diluc was trying to do even if he couldn’t see him, and suddenly, him hiding his hands beneath his chest made more sense. The man fought as best he could, thrashing and squirming, but it was only about a minute before Master Diluc sat back with a victorious hum, staring down at the man beneath him.
“C’mon, Kaeya,” Master Diluc said, standing up and reaching down, dragging the man up by the upper arm, and the man staggered, glaring and panting at him. He squirmed, trying to yank himself out of Master Diluc’s hold, but even Bennett could see that it was a hopeless effort.
“I’ll scream,” the man hissed, mud dripping from his cheek that he been pressed in it, and when Master Diluc reached out with his free hand to wipe it away, he recoiled with another snarl. “I’ll make a ruckus, you’ll get caught.”
“Yes, yes, you’ve threatened before.” Master Diluc didn’t even seem to be paying attention, instead singularly focused on cleaning the man’s cheek, and when the man inhaled to either start yelling or just arguing again, Master Diluc’s hand abruptly switched its target to instead wrap around the man’s throat, squeezing threateningly.
Bennett choked on a gasp at the same time that the man did.
“Enough,” Master Diluc repeated, eyes boring into the man’s as he thrashed and squirmed, trying desperately to yank his neck out of Master Diluc’s tightening grip. “I was so worried about you in this weather that I forgot to bring something to keep you quiet, so I guess we’re doing this the hard way. See what you’ve caused?” The man gasped wordlessly, mouth opening and closing repeatedly as he heaved for air, but Master Diluc simply squeezed harder, something Bennett was able to see from even his spot twenty feet away. “You always do this. Run away without thinking about the consequences and then act so surprised when you’re faced with them.” The man’s legs grew weak, collapsing out from under him until he was held up exclusively by the hand around his neck. “It’s been four years, Kae. Even you aren’t this stubborn.”
Whatever answer the man might have had for Master Diluc at that was lost as his visible eye fluttered shut after another final, desperate heave of breath, and he went fully limp, hanging from Master Diluc’s grip. The red-haired man moved, putting an arm under the man’s knees and pulling him into his arms, and when his gaze swept over the woods around them, Bennett felt himself freeze as if he had been struck by a Cryo Vision, heart pounding so loudly in his chest that he was sure Master Diluc could hear him.
Please.
Please, if there’s a force out there that’s been giving him bad luck… Don’t look at him now.
He didn’t know if Master Diluc would kill him, if he realized Bennett was there. Just ten minutes prior, that idea wouldn’t have even crossed his mind, but now…
Thankfully, and Bennett would thank all the Archons, alive and dead, when he got out of this, the rain seemed too heavy for Master Diluc to make him out still pinned beneath the large tree branch and he turned on his heel, stalking back through the rain with the man limp in his arms. The rain steamed off of him, leaving little wisps in the air, and it was barely ten seconds or so before he was lost to the grey sky, footsteps slowly falling silent behind him.
Bennett still didn’t dare breathe.
He still felt like he was dreaming.
Master Diluc, he… he…
That man…
The man’s eye flashed in his memory, his desperate struggles and the anger and fear in his voice, and Bennett felt like he was going to throw up.
This was Mondstadt. The Land of Freedom. Diluc was a Ragnvindr, for Barbatos’s sake!
And yet-!
And yet.
He… he needed to tell someone. He needed to tell someone who could do something about it. Someone who could do something about it and save that man and- and what, bring Master Diluc to Justice?!
Everything felt so far away.
Was he having a panic attack?
He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what to do.
Was he supposed to accuse Master Diluc of breaking one of Mondstadt’s most important laws and keeping someone from their personal freedom? Was he supposed to walk up to the knights who still trusted and relied on Master Diluc to tell them that he was in fact no doubt taking advantage of their trust to keep someone who certainly didn’t want to be with him against his will?
Was he supposed to just… do something?
He breathed in.
He breathed out.
The man, the man, had Master Diluc said a name, did that name jar a corner of his memory, was Bennett supposed to know who that was-?
He breathed in.
He breathed out.
Master Diluc had clearly been breaking Mondstadt’s laws, for at least four years if his own words were to be taken as truth.
He breathed in.
He breathed out.
He could taste mud in his mouth and wondered how many times that man had attempted escape, only to end up shoved into that very mud.
He had to tell someone.
He had to tell the Grandmaster.
At that point, it had been several minutes since Master Diluc stalked off, and Bennett gave himself only a minute more to try and fail to process what he had seen before he placed a palm on the tree branch above him and shoved it off in one single move.
…He had never done that before.
He was pretty sure he was on some kind of adrenaline.
Stumbling to his feet, resolutely ignoring the blood dripping from his shoulder, the twinge in his side, or the pulsing pain from his ankle, he took off into the forest again, deliberately steering as far from the Dawn Winery as he could. He couldn’t let Master Diluc know he knew, he just couldn’t. If not for his own health, then for the man trapped in his clutches who wouldn’t get a chance to be saved if Bennett didn’t tell someone what he had seen.
He didn’t remember most of the run back to Mondstadt. Everything passed in a grey blur, his mind replaying the confrontation between Master Diluc and the man over and over again as his feet slammed robotically into the ground beneath him, somehow avoiding more spontaneous falling tree branches.
It was only once he was back at Mondstadt’s main gates, panting and heaving in the rain, that his brain fully slid back into place.
He needed to find the Grandmaster.
Swallowing back whatever bile that was rising in his throat, he took off down the street, blowing pasts the two guards who called over hellos to him. Thankfully, the city was mostly abandoned, the torrential rains chasing everyone indoors, and he panted heavily as he shoved rain from his eyes, choking on his empty lungs as he spied the HQ in the distance.
Please. Please let the Grandmaster be there.
Please let him believe me.
Unfortunately, his ankle finally decided that it had had enough, and he crumpled with a strangled yelp just a few feet from the HQ, hands slamming into the wet cobblestones as he went down. He nearly sobbed, his burning lungs and muscles and mind all making themselves known to him, but he shoved himself back up the next second, eyes fixed on the lighted windows that he could see through the rain.
Please, Lord Barbatos, I’m so close.
A bard raised his head, a frown flickering on his lips. He hadn’t had such a desperate prayer in… a long time.
“Bennett?”
Oh, that was a knight.
Staggering to the left, and nearly crumpling on his ankle again, he almost slammed into the knight who had been standing under the covered area and had rushed over when Bennett fell, his hands coming up to brace the teenager’s shoulders. Bennett shook his head, choking on his next breath, unable to fully recognize who it was standing in front of him, and shoved the man to the side, slipping on the wet stones as his bad ankle rippled in pain again.
“Bennett! Bennett, hey kid, kid breathe, you’re safe now. You’re safe now.”
The hands on his shoulders, trying to stop him.
He couldn’t let them; he had to find the Grandmaster.
With another huffed shove and a sound that wasn’t even human, his throat was burning, he stumbled up the stairs to the HQ’s doors, barely cognizant of the fact that there was now two knights in front of him, their armor wet and slick with rain. Their voices hammered meaninglessly into his brain, mouths opening and closing with only sounds to show for it, and Bennett all but fell into the closed doors, recoiling back with a whimper as the side of his face that had slammed into the ground when he fell smarted in pain.
“Kid!”
“Bennett! Archons, someone find one of his fathers.”
“Hey, hey, kid it’s okay, it’s okay.”
He was… he was in the HQ. It was warmer there, it was warmer and the ground didn’t bite so much into his feet but none of them were Varka, none of the knights surrounding him were Varka, he needed Varka, he needed to tell him before he passed out, he couldn’t let that man remain in Master Diluc’s hands any longer than he already had, he needed-
“Varka,” he rasped out, staggering and nearly collapsing on the ground again and it was only hands under his armpits that kept him up, another on his forehead and one on his back. “I need the- the Grandmaster, please.”
“Varka?”
“Kid, you need to breathe.”
“Easy Bennett, it’s okay.”
Bennett froze at that. No, it wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay.
Bennett had looked up to Master Diluc and look what had happened!
With a near animalistic growl, he yanked himself from the knights’ hold, tripping over his own feet and landing hard on the ground. Around him, he was aware of the knights, aware of the lights, aware of the warmth and the noise and the hands on his body, but that wasn’t what he needed- he needed- he needed-
The next time, when he shoved himself to his feet despite the hands that tried to keep him down, the arms that caught him were thin and feminine and the body smelled like the library.
“Now now, darling, what’s wrong?”
Lisa. If anyone could get him into Jean’s office, who could get him to Varka’s, it was Lisa.
“Varka,” he all but wheezed out, looking up at her blurrily and only getting the vaguest sense of her face. “I need… to speak with Varka. Now.” He shook in her grip, not shoving away from her now that he knew she was a way to get to his goal, and behind him, he was aware of the knights that he had been scrambling from, either all speaking among themselves or trying to speak to Lisa.
“Miss Lisa, he clearly needs to go to the Church, he’s badly hurt-.”
“I say he needs to speak with Grandmaster Varka,” Lisa said cooly, cutting off the knight with her measured tone. “Clearly it’s important. The Church can have him after.”
And before there were any other arguments, Lisa wrapped an arm around his lower back and led him off, allowing him to all but cling to her other arm as his balance and energy left him.
Varka… He was seeing Varka.
He stared vacantly at the ground as the two of them ascended the staircase, the pain in his body seeming to float away in that moment as he clutched that thought with all his strength. Lisa seemed content to guide him, humming wordlessly as her heels clicked against the ground, uncaring of the way his wet and muddy body seeped into her clothes and left them stained.
“Grandmaster Varka!” She called once they had reached a door that Bennett had been at only once or twice in his life. “There’s someone here who desperately needs to see you.” Bennett choked on his next breath, trying to swallow past a parched throat, and such, missed the moment when the door opened. He did, however, look up when he realized it was open, and such, met Deputy Grandmaster Jean’s worried eyes.
“Bennett?” She questioned and he nearly collapsed then and there.
Please let Grandmaster Varka be in there, please, please-
“Bennett needs to speak to Varka,” Lisa said, meeting her wife’s gaze evenly, and Jean’s eyebrows rose slightly, her eyes falling back down to Bennett.
“Bennett?”
Oh, thank Barbatos, that was Grandmaster Varka.
“Here, come in,” Jean murmured, shuffling off to the side to allow Lisa to guide Bennett in and the teenager raised his head to see Grandmaster Varka standing up from behind his desk, a confused expression crossing his face as he gazed at Bennett. Bennett swallowed again, feeling slightly small, nothing that was Grandmaster Varka’s fault, and when Jean pulled one of the chairs in front of Grandmaster Varka’s desk, Bennett flopped into it eagerly, taking in deep, gulping breaths now that he could finally, finally relax. He was there.
Now all he needed to do was… tell them.
What if they didn’t believe him?
“Here.” He looked up at the glass of water suddenly offered to him, Jean looking down at him worriedly as Lisa called her goodbyes, and he took it from her gratefully, draining the whole thing as fast as he could. His parched throat felt soothed slightly, no longer trying to tear itself apart from the inside, and now that he wasn’t putting any weight on his ankle, the burning was down to only a seven or an eight on the pain scale.
“Well, it must be pretty important, kid, if you’ve clearly run all this way.” Grandmaster Varka’s voice circled around him, until he was standing by Bennett’s side, and Bennett tried not to feel interrogated, he knew that wasn’t what Grandmaster Varka was aiming to do.
He just couldn’t help thinking… what if- what if-
“So, what’s wrong?”
Everything’s wrong, everything’s wrong, and you’re not going to believe me, who would believe me, I wouldn’t believe me if I hadn’t seen it, but it’s true, it’s true, Master Diluc was keeping that man, he was hurting him, I think I’ve heard of him so you’ve heard of him, please listen to me listen to me listen-
“I…” The words got choked up in his throat before he even managed to put a single syllable into them, and he stared at the hardwood beneath his feet like it would open up and swallow him.
He had been so frantic, so determined, but now he was here, staring at the two people who were, arguably, closest to Master Diluc, and he felt his throat close up like he had just run all the way through the woods again.
What was he supposed to say?
‘Sorry to tell you this, but Master Diluc, who is an extremely close friend of yours, seems to be keeping a man imprisoned in his mansion and I think I’ve heard of the man before?’
Master Diluc Ragnvindr keeping someone imprisoned in Mondstadt.
It was a complete insult to their entire history and the rebellion against Decarabian. Against the noble houses.
He was more likely to be believed if he told them that he was completely sure that he had just stumbled across Lord Barbatos’s human form and that he was waiting for the Grandmaster to meet him.
But he knew what he saw.
“Bennett?” Jean’s voice broke through his spiraling thoughts, and he looked up to see her kneel down in front of him, taking his shaking hands in hers as she stared deeply into his eyes. “Bennett, please, tell us.”
He swallowed roughly.
He remembered the man’s desperation as he clawed at the ground, all but sobbing as he tried and failed to wrench himself out of Master Diluc’s grip.
“You- You have to believe me,” he whispered hoarsely, trying to hold Jean’s hands back but finding that he didn’t have enough feeling in them to do. “I’m not making it up, I swear it, I swear it on Lord Barbatos’s name.” If they didn’t believe him, or worse, told Master Diluc what Bennett claimed to see, Bennett didn’t know what he would do. “Please, you have to believe me.”
Jean reached up, letting go of one of Bennett’s hands to instead run her fingers through his hair. “Believe you about what? We’ll believe you, Bennett, you just have to tell us.”
He was aware of Grandmaster Varka in his peripheral, shifting back and forth on his feet, seemingly content to let Jean do the comforting but not straying far.
“I- I think-!” He swallowed roughly again. His whole mouth had gone dry. Jean’s eyes darted back and forth across his face, her thumb rubbing soothing circles into the top of his hand.
The words he wanted to say failed him.
“I think Master Diluc’s done something really bad.”
He was just a teenager.
Archons, he wished Razor and Fischl were there with him.
They wouldn’t be stumbling over their words. Or at least, no more than normally.
In the end, his voice was barely louder than a whisper, but he could tell that both of the knights in front of him heard what he said perfectly. Jean froze, eyes going wide in confusion, and whatever creaks that had slipped from the wooden floor at the Grandmaster’s shifting abruptly stopped.
“D-Diluc?” Jean echoed, shaking herself out of her stupor within a second, and Bennett nodded shakily, ready and prepared for Jean to pull her hands away from him, but was surprised when she did nothing of the sort.
“What do you think Diluc did?” Grandmaster Varka asked, voice low and firm, and Bennett looked up at him, realizing with a lurch of his heart that the Grandmaster wasn’t looking at him at all and was instead staring intently at the wall across the room. Bennett didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing for him.
The Grandmaster… didn’t sound surprised.
Like he knew? Or like he expected this?
“I think…”
This is the nation of Mondstadt, of Freedom. Master Diluc is a Ragnvindr. He’s beloved by the City, by the Knights.
Bennett licked his lips. He dropped his eyes back down to Jean.
Somehow, she was easier to look at.
“I think he’s got a man trapped in his mansion,” Bennett revealed, hearing and wincing at Jean’s strangled gasp. “A man who really doesn’t want to be there.”
“What?” Jean breathed out, her hand going lax around Bennett’s and the teenager nodded. He knew- He knew what he had seen.
“What man?”
There was no inflection in Grandmaster Varka’s voice at all.
Bennett shivered. He couldn’t bring himself to look back up at the man.
“He had blue hair,” Bennett started and Jean gasped again, but this time she stood almost frantically, tearing her hand out of his grip and stumbling back until she slammed into Grandmaster Varka’s desk, clutching at the thing behind her as if it was the only thing keeping her up. She stared at him like he was a ghost, a hint of tears in her eyes, and Bennett knew he was missing something, knew that there was something he should know, should remember about the man in the woods, but he didn’t he didn’t he couldn’t-
“Did Diluc call him anything?” Grandmaster Varka asked and Bennett finally managed to wrench his head up to look at him again, hiding his shaking hands under his thighs. Grandmaster Varka looked down at him and Bennett felt pinned, like a butterfly on a corkboard, as the Grandmaster’s eyes bored into him. “Did Diluc call him by a name?”
“I want to tell you about the knights of the past. They deserve to be remembered, Bennett.”
“Kaeya,” Bennett breathed out, the name hammering its way into his head but never truly clicking until then. Not making sense in his head until Grandmaster Varka stared at him, something deep and almost divine in his eyes as the very wind around them, drifting in from the open window, seemed to still.
“Knight Kaeya Ragnvindr. He was Master Diluc’s brother, actually.”
“He called the man Kaeya.”