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Within his body exists hundreds of billions of little organisms - a sea of tiny cells, wriggling, coagulated into tissue and skin, bone and flesh. Within his body, his organs function just like any human found in this world - twitching, twisting, shifting, to support the life of a being that eats and breathes and sleeps.
All this, his doctors tell him with excitement. They point to bright, mysterious technology (from Fontaine, he overhears once) that shows him strange numbers and images that he could never read, too busy trembling in pain and fear, screaming until his voice disappears like a wisp of smoke - and then continuing to try and scream anyways, because his mind, too, behaves just like any human found in this world and it will never stop begging for help when it’s in pain.
Sometimes, he is lucky enough to get a shot of anesthesia as they open him up. Peel back the skin, prod at his heart - take a chunk or fiber from something crucial to study, as he stares blankly at the screens of the machines.
In the empty, infinite space between his two hands, his researchers say to each other eagerly, while he - sedated like a wild animal - can do nothing more than blink, is where his body differs.
He frowns up at the board in front of the Liyue Adventure Guild, depicting new commissions for the day. Currently, his attention has been caught by the commission at the very top:
Infested treasure hoarder camp discovered along outskirts of Tiangong Gorge: 100,000 Mora. Posted by: Anonymous
“Wow,” Paimon pops into existence beside him in a burst of constellations. She tilts her head at the written words. “Paimon can’t remember ever seeing a commission worth so much before.”
He makes a distracted noise of agreement. Behind them, several more adventurers murmur in low, excited tones, evidently also aiming for the jackpot.
“Just imagine how much food Paimon could buy with that money,” the little creature muses. After a few seconds of contemplative silence, she declares eagerly: “I think we should go with that one.”
His frown deepens. He points at some of the lower commissions, all posted by people they have worked for before. "We should prioritize our existing work-relations, don’t you think?"
“Oh, whatever.” Paimon waves a small, dismissive hand. “The prize will probably make up for it, anyways. It’s not like you haven’t fought tons of treasure hoarders before, right, traveler?”
A few minutes of arguing later, he reluctantly concedes. "We’ll start with our usual ones, and if we have time, we'll go for that one. Deal?"
“That’s good with Paimon!” She says vindictively, before disappearing back to the pocket dimension she came from.
In the solitude of his cell, the dripping gets difficult to ignore.
Arms bound above his head, ropes intercrossed in painful, restrictive places - he hangs like a human punching bag, or a grotesque display of contemporary art. Blood runs down the length of his body, from the swollen, infected chafing around his wrists and ankles, or from poorly sewn stitches that get opened up when the guards drag him back to his little room after surgeries. It pools in a giant red-brown stain underneath him, dribbling onto the stone floor as his muscles scream and cry for relief.
He bleeds like a mortal, is what his captors say with awe. They break his hands until he can’t even press them against each other completely, fingers pulled back and bent in horrific angles. His left ring finger and pinky were taken a week or so into his capture; all that is left of both digits are stumps, bloodied and showing signs of onset gangrene. Such a wonder …
…that he can use so many elements without a single Vision.
I wonder what makes you so special, hmm? A Fatui agent - one of the few that he has seen more than just once - asks him as he puts on a new pair of stiff, new cloth gloves. His face is obscured by a black mask, but the mirth in his voice conveys a careless interest, as clear as black ice - and just about as cold.
He glares at the agent with as much hate he can muster in his dazed state. The Fatui member clicks his tongue at his obstinacy, and picks up a tool with a metallic clinking. The sound fills him with a spike of apprehension, and he struggles weakly against his leather bounds.
A freezing hand grabs his face roughly, pinning him in place. Hold still, he says. In his peripheral vision, the thin point of a needle gleams in the harsh white light, and his stomach twists. It’ll hurt more if you move around.
In hindsight, he will recall distantly, this is where it all started going downhill.
The first time he lights up a vision against his will, he doesn’t register anything beyond a sick, invasive sense of accomplishment. It doesn’t even feel like it belongs to him - the feeling, which is displayed so clearly by the doctors around him, who hollar and cheer like they have just done something great.
Which they had, by all technicality. The hanging golden circlet, just a few minutes ago filled with a dull gray stone, is now flickering with green-blue light. Within the flashes, he can just barely make out the pale emblem of the Anemo element.
He stares dumbly at the object. Slowly recalls his conversations with three of the seven Archons, of subtle throwaway snippets on the way a god chooses how to distribute elemental power.
Remembers, in particular, a conversation with a green-clothed bard, with a sharp grin and words of freedom.
The irony hits him in the stomach like a fist, and for the first time since his capture, he throws up.
They split up on the way to the camp. His gut has been turning all day in unexplainable nervousness, and he decides that they’ll be able to get this through and over with as quickly as possible if they cover more ground. He tells Paimon to come get him if she finds something first, and they leave at the first junction in the road that runs through the general area of alleged suspicion.
Later, the one thing that would stand out to him, when he’s left with nothing but the puddle of his own blood beneath his feet, was that he should’ve noticed how quiet it all was.
He’s done a great thing. That’s what his captors tell him; everyday, new Fatui agents come in, adorned with multicolored visions - green, gold, purple. If his doctors are particularly lazy, they let those new Vision holders test their newfound power against their very creator.
He’s helping the Tsaritsa’s noble cause. He’s helping usher in a new, better world order. The words bounce off his ruined skin, never quite reaching past that weak barrier. He sways, uncaring, as the researchers’ mouths move like silent Kamera videos.
What a lucky chance it was, for his path to cross with ours.
The worst part of being strung up like this, is how quickly it becomes difficult to tell.
It hurts, yes. Each miniscule movement sends agony shooting through his nerves, like electricity sparking along frayed wires. Rough plastic and yarn dig into his joints, rubbing into already-exposed flesh, cruds of torn skin and dried blood congealing on the ropes. It hurts so much, he can’t remember it ever not hurting.
But it seems, somehow, that this has become his new normal. His tortured, limp body hanging a few inches above the stone-cold ground. Wavering on the edge of white-hot consciousness and blissful darkness. Occasionally, finding himself tied down to a bed, staring at the masked faces of people he has never seen before, and will never see again.
His bones feel like they’re on fire. He remembers learning, once, how even just lying down for a few days without getting up can lead to permanent damage to a regular human’s bone structure. How gravity can usually get away with being so cruel, even to a perfect image of rest. Of peace. One of his doctors told him, once, just a few days after he was captured, that his skeleton will never be able to support itself again. Back then, he had bared his bloodied teeth in defiance at the people who had taken blades to his flesh and poison to his organs.
Weeks later, he couldn’t raise his head to look his captors in the eye, even if he wanted. The weight of his body has become the very source of his torment; in being, it damages itself beyond recovery. He finally understands what that Fatui researcher had meant: there was no hope for escape, not because they made doing so particularly difficult, but because somewhere within the soft, shattered cartilage of his joints, he had already lost the ability to save himself.
He creeps silently into the abandoned camp, apprehension skyrocketing with every second that ticks by without a sign of actual treasure hoarder activity.
"Hello?" He calls out, feeling stupid. Maybe there was a mistake - perhaps the commissioner had been tricked by their own wild imagination. He approaches what appears to be a treasure hoarder camp, but he can tell something is off. The journals are stacked too carefully, the items strewn across the ground with a discreet hand. The weapons leaning against the pole of the tent are brightly polished, seemingly never used.
He stands around uneasily for a few more minutes, before preparing to leave. He turns his back on the scene - and immediately hears something rustle behind him.
Elemental power gathers in a split second at his fingertips, but he’s too slow. Something hard slams into the back of his head before he can twist back around, and darkness bursts across his vision. When he comes to, his cheek rests against the dirt, and there’s a hammering sensation in the back of his skull.
He tries to push himself up, but a harsh pressure is suddenly applied to his back, forcing him back down. Something jabs into his shoulder, and his head lolls, arms suddenly weak. Panicking, he grits his teeth and tries to summon his energy, but it’s no use. His muscles give out, and his vision begins to fade - gradually and deliberately, with an unexplainable sense of permanence.
The last thing he hears before he loses consciousness completely, is a strange, delighted laugh.