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Varka grabs him by the shoulder just before he leaves. “Kaeya,” he says. “Tell your brother about this, yeah? We’ll bring Eroch to justice.”
Tell his brother. Hah. As if said brother hadn’t thrown a flaming sword at his face a week prior. He doubts Diluc would want anything to do with him.
It’s not Varka’s fault, though. He hasn’t—he hasn’t told anyone. Rattled off some story about running into a few rowdy abyss mages. They believed him, of course. Only Jean knows a semblance of the truth, and that’s because she’s fought with them enough times that she knows what Diluc’s burns look like.
So, really. Of course Kaeya would tell him. Always the little aide, glued to his brother’s side, with no secrets shared between them. His eye burns through the bandages wrapped around it.
Bitterly, he nods, which seems to satisfy Varka. At least his bitterness can be played off as resentment towards Eroch. He hopes that’s what it comes off like.
…Fuck, he’s too out of it to play the perfect little knight today. He watches as the Grand Master walks away, footsteps echoing through the hall, and sighs.
Just how is he supposed to tell Diluc about this? For a moment, he considers going to the winery—his mind plays a gruesome image of him waltzing back in, saying hey, I know you tried to kill me the other day, but here’s a message from the Knights—and then what, let Diluc finish the job?
Archons, the thought of having to see his brother again makes him feel sick, and he hates it. Hates it because it’s two-parts-fear and one-part-longing-turned-bitterness. Hates it because he’s woken up half the days shaking after searing flame swept through his dreams, and the other half caught off guard by the fading warmth of summer memories.
He doesn’t know what he would do if he went back. He doesn’t know what Diluc would do if he went back. For once in his life, his brother is—terrifying, frankly, and utterly unpredictable.
If only Jean had been here instead of him. Diluc would probably listen to her. He doesn’t think that anyone could hate Jean, no matter how hard they tried. You couldn’t avoid the goodness radiating off of her.
These thoughts fill his mind as he stalks back to his… room. Room was a generous statement, and it certainly didn’t feel like his. When he’d first arrived, he’d unceremoniously dumped the spare suitcase he’d packed in the closet, then collapsed into bed. It hasn’t been unpacked since. A voice that sounds suspiciously like Jean’s nags at him in his head, bless her, but frankly she’s too busy to check up on him right now and he’s all the more grateful for it. Pity is a look he never wanted to see coming from her face.
She’d even offered to let him stay in the Gunnhildr mansion. He’d appreciate it more if it weren’t a block away from their—well, the Ragnvindrs’—in the city. Sneaking between houses had been far too easy when they were kids.
So, the Knights’ spare dormitory it was. He turns the doorknob, all cool metal drilled into the wall, and lets the hallway light sweep into the dim room inside. He flicks on the lamp, then shuts the door. It’s not an awful room, honestly. Nothing more than the bare essentials are littered inside, though for a Knight, that tended to include things like sword racks and stationery—
He pauses, contemplative. When they were young, and had to go their separate ways (though for the pair of them it would hardly exceed a few hours at a time), bird-carried notes were the preferred (and frankly, Knight-ordained) way of sending messages to each other. Reports, jibes, if you don’t make it back for dinner I’m eating all your food and then Addie will leave you out to starve, and the like.
Hm. Now that could be an idea.
He pulls out a sheet from the crisp stack on the desk, then taps his fountain pen, letting it swirl on the paper experimentally.
Dear Diluc,
Archons, that was so formal. Names had never been needed when you could recognize each other’s handwriting with a glance. He crosses it out, thin line darting across the page like a startled bird.
Now he just has a blank page. Great.
How do you talk to someone who almost— No, that wasn’t right.
How do you talk to someone after you told them the worst thing they could hear on what was already the worst night of your lives?
Dear Diluc,
I’m sorry.
The pen lies perfectly still in his grip. His fingers curl delicately a hair’s width away from the nib, like his first father, and then the father after that, had taught him. And yet, he can’t get it to move.
I’m sorry, he thinks, desperately, like it will somehow drift out of his mind, and be carried by Barbatos’s winds to where his brother can hear him. They’d never needed words to talk, after all. Not before this.
How sorry are you? the paper taunts. Sorry enough to let yourself burn, for him?
Because here is a truth (a rarity, when it comes to those like him): in that moment where Diluc Ragnvindr had drawn his sword and pointed his flames at him, Kaeya Alberich had done nothing but stand there and get soaked by the rain, defenseless.
In his mind was whirring two simultaneous trains of thought: one of betrayal—that he could trust, and trust, and trust, yet not be trusted back—and one of relief.
If Diluc struck him down then and there, he would finally face judgement for his sins. Have the one most hurt by his lies burn the source of them away; let Khaenri’ah’s ghosts finally settle. And, more selfishly—let his traitorous heart finally rest.
So, being alive is a miracle, really. A mercy undeserved, but one that he’ll selfishly take regardless.
Hah. All those years spent writing, preparing, acting the role of the dutiful little brother and knight, and he’s being utterly stumped by a letter.
Think like a lieutenant, Alberich. You’re just writing a routine report.
…Well, that first draft was now useless. He crumples it up and tosses it aside—though if it were Diluc, it would have been snapped to ashes in an instant. (What is he supposed to do with his cryo vision, freeze it? Worst he could do is give anyone touching it frostbite.)
Right. Diluc. Varka wants him to know about the situation with Eroch. He’s just giving a report, in the same way that Kaeya always has for their youngest captain.
To D, he starts, and lets the curving motion of the pen take his mind away. When he’s done, it comes out to a grand total of two sentences. Completely and utterly professional, devoid of any other tone. Surely he can’t find any issue with that.
Now he just has to close off. He hesitates, then writes,
You might not be too pleased to see this letter of mine, but I mean to get this news to you as soon as possible.
And then, to assuage the swirling storm of uncertainty in his chest, he adds:
You don't have to reply.
There. It’s done. All Diluc has to do is read it (if he wants to), and he can put it aside. Or burn it. Nothing he has to do for his traitorous little brother.
And if he doesn’t reply, well, Kaeya put that line in there for a reason anyway. He rolls it up and seals it, rubbing his uninjured eye.
…Now to send it. Hm. Muscle memory guides him to the window, which he unlatches and then leans out of to call a two-note whistle. One high, one low. The same one all of the winery’s birds had been trained on.
To his surprise, a flutter of feathers lands on his arm soon after with a pleased squawk.
“Hey, Dawn— Ow, stop digging into my arm!” He laughs, setting his brother’s falcon down in a more suitable place. When she’s fully perched on his desk, he tucks the letter into her talons. “Send this to Diluc, will you?” She eagerly takes to the skies in flight.
He watches her go, then sighs.