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Midway through Kaveh's meeting with a client from Fontaine, a Matra bursts in through the doors of Puspa Cafe.
“Master Kaveh, there you are!” he exclaims, heaving a sigh of relief. “Apologies for the timing, but Lesser Lord Kusanali has requested your immediate presence.”
Kaveh's grip on his pen slackens in surprise, scrawling an ugly line across the draft he had been presenting. Lesser Lord Kusanali does not send for her people on simple whims, and on such short notice, unless it is for a matter of great import.
He arrives at the Sanctuary of Surasthana in record time, having sprinted the entire way uphill with nary any time to bemoan his ruined draft. Once he catches his breath, the Matra enters him to the cavernous grand hall with a bow.
Kaveh, you’re here! Lesser Lord Kusanali’s voice calls from… well, somewhere inside his mind. While not the first time she has used this method of communication, it is always an unnerving sensation. Please come to the second room on the right.
The door opens without resistance, and he steps in to find a most intimidating mix of people: Lesser Lord Kusanali, the Traveller, and… Hat Guy, who had left on a mission to Nod-Krai some weeks ago.
“Um,” Kaveh says, trying and failing to not show his alarm. “Good evening, Lesser Lord Kusanali. You asked for me?”
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” she smiles, but it is quickly replaced by a furrow between her brows. “The Traveller and Hat Guy have just returned from Nod-Krai and are in a bit of a pickle.”
“There is no pickle,” Hat Guy scowls from where he is seated on the narrow bed with arms folded and legs crossed. “I am fine. You’re fussing, Buer.”
From the mere tone of voice, it is clear he does not intend on explaining the situation.
Kaveh turns to the Traveller instead—the Traveller, who looks worse off than Kaveh has ever seen them be. More exhausted and burdened, like some invisible weight has sunk on their shoulders since the last time they were in Sumeru.
Even truncated for length, the story they relay of their time in Nod-Krai is so outlandish it would border on fictional were it coming from anyone else. A false moon, a quest to take down a false god— despite the absurdity of their words, the Traveller's voice is calm and steady, almost as if they were a mere narrator observing from the outside, though they must have surely been pivotal to its ultimate success.
“Albedo said he did as much as alchemy allowed, but he is not well-versed in mechanical applications,” the Traveller says. “With Sandrone now… indisposed, he requested that you take a look once Hat Guy returned to Sumeru. Nahida has already confirmed that his psyche seems fully intact, but…"
Reeling from the deluge of information, Kaveh takes a deep breath and tries to compose himself. He had had no idea that the device Lesser Lord Kusanali requested his help with would become such a critical instrument in the mission. Had had no idea that while he was attending to worksites and thinking about what to eat for his next meal, Hat Guy was—
He glances at Hat Guy, and finds his features sullen and shadowed. It would be little surprise if he had wanted this entire thing to be kept under wraps, for Kaveh to never have found out.
The purpose of Lesser Lord Kusanali's summons is clear. The Traveller, Mondstadt's Chief Alchemist, and likely the rest of their friends in Nod-Krai, are surely worried. Nothing like this has ever been attempted.
For a living puppet's core to be removed and brought into such a risky situation, then returned to its vessel after a prolonged duration… Even with Hat Guy's marvellous construction and the Irminsul core, it is nothing short of a miracle that he is still here and intact.
But before all of that, Hat Guy is more than just his vessel or his core. His pride is a fragile, delicate thing Kaveh cherishes.
He turns to Lesser Lord Kusanali and the Traveller. "I understand," he says. "Let me take it from here."
They nod, visibly relieved. "We'll be across the hall," Lesser Lord Kusanali says. "Call me if you need any help."
Once the door shuts and their footsteps have faded down the echoing corridors of the Sanctuary, Kaveh crosses the distance to pull Hat Guy into a crushing embrace. His heart is pounding in his chest, the immensity of what he had almost lost crashing down upon him.
Gone is his Archon's request, gone is the Moon and Nod-Krai, gone is the new cafe in Port Ormos he had been meaning to tell Hat Guy about. All that is left is the living weight of Hat Guy in his arms.
Hat Guy doesn't protest, only reaches around him to draw him closer. Kaveh leans their foreheads together, feeling the familiar coolness of Hat Guy's skin against his own.
After what feels like a long, long time, the hammering of Kaveh's heart their only metronome, Hat Guy breaks the silence. "Not going to tell me off?"
The question draws pause from Kaveh. Had it been anyone else—Alhaitham, Cyno, Tighnari—pulling such a reckless, self-sacrificial act, he would have. He would have yelled at them for not valuing their lives. For not thinking of the people they would be leaving behind, Kaveh included.
But this is Hat Guy, who has never stopped questioning the meaning of his existence and doubting his right to live. Kaveh has debated the matter with him many times over the years.
And yet, in that distant land, he had decided that there was something worth dying for. He had placed his life on the line for the Traveller, and offered his core for Nod-Krai.
How could Kaveh fault him for his choices, when it meant he had found a purpose for his life at last?
"I wish I could," he whispers against Hat Guy's lips.
"I'm not some hero," Hat Guy says gruffly, like he's read Kaveh's mind. "I only wanted to repay my debt."
"Because it meant that much to you," Kaveh insists, his hold on Hat Guy unrelenting. "Who am I to stop you? You know full well the lengths I've gone to repay mine."
That draws a grumble from Hat Guy, but he makes no further complaint. Kaveh pulls away then, runs a reverent thumb over Hat Guy's pale cheek.
"Were you afraid, before it happened?" he asks. "The Traveller said you were… gone for a few days."
Now that he has spoken it into words, it is a terrifying vision. Hat Guy, his body alone in a foreign land, soul suspended into nothingness. For anyone else, they would have called it death.
Hat Guy laughs, his eyes a brilliant blue as he meets Kaveh's gaze. "Would it make me more human if I said I was? Would it hurt you if I said I wasn't?"
Without waiting for Kaveh's answer, he says, the curve of his lips almost mocking, "When Sandrone touched my core and removed it, all I felt was relief. Relief that I could fulfil my rightful fate. Relief that I could repay my debt. Relief that this long, long life could come to its overdue end."
He places his hand on Kaveh's chest, resting it over his heart. "I felt nothing when she took it," he says. "I don't even remember closing my eyes. There was no void, no emptiness, no moment of truth or regret. It was as if a blink had barely passed before Albedo woke me up and everything was over."
"I will have to thank him for watching over you," Kaveh says. "So that you could return with body and soul safe."
Hat Guy stares at him for a long while, as though he is unsure how to respond. Finally, he sighs. Reaching into the satchel on the table, he pulls out a thin notebook. "Sandrone left some notes before she left. Albedo thought you would find them helpful."
The notes are written in an elegant hand, and indeed very elaborate—with any luck, he might even be able to apply them in some of his other projects. In an alternate universe, Kaveh can't help musing, he would have liked to make the Fatui Harbinger's acquaintance.
"You're wearing the same look she used to," Hat Guy mutters, more to himself than to Kaveh. There is a strange, tremulous quality to his voice that sounds like a deeper, inexplicable grief. "Always got carried away when she found something particularly interesting. You could practically hear the cogs in her head turning."
"She made a lot of backup plans," Kaveh says, keeping his eyes trained on Sandrone's notes. "There are failsafes upon failsafes written down here."
"Never liked going into any situation without a plan," Hat Guy scoffs. "She accepted nothing less than success once she set her mind to something. Made her insufferable, but at least she had standards to her work."
Fabric rustles. Kaveh looks up to find Hat Guy's hands digging into the bedsheets on which he sits. Naked frustration and grief are warring on his face, the expression completely incongruent with his words.
Then, with unexpected venom, he spits, "I guess she would be pleased that her plan succeeded after all."
Kaveh can offer no comfort; he did not know the Marionette, and the depth of Hat Guy's emotion clearly runs far beyond the norm for someone he was supposedly only acquainted with for such a short time.
"She was determined not to make you a sacrifice," Kaveh says, scanning through the small details the Marionette had left in the margins. "She took every precaution and listed every possible variable, to give you the best odds of survival."
"She shouldn't h—"
Hat Guy stops himself with a choked gasp, eyes blown wide as though struck by the gravity of what he was about to say.
"We can't bring people back," Kaveh says gently, pushing past his own heartbreak at how little Hat Guy still thinks of his own life. "But we can live on with the memory of their kindness."
After all, it was Hat Guy himself who had helped him understand that.
The wordless sob that shudders out of Hat Guy is the first crack in his porcelain facade. Grief racks him like an ocean storm ravages a wooden raft; he must have been keeping it in since he awoke, unable to process the loss with everything else that had to be taken care of.
Kaveh can only hold him through it.
Eventually, Hat Guy falls quiet, all the fight vanishing from his body. Curled up against Kaveh, tear tracks marring his beautiful face, he looks terribly vulnerable and open. Kaveh wants to bracket his frame entirely, hide him away from the rest of the world so they may not lay eyes upon his broken form.
"…Do what you need to," Hat Guy says after a protracted silence, the words muffled into Kaveh's chest. "Sandrone would be pissed if my core wasn't restored right, after all those backup plans."
Kaveh cannot help his own laugh. "I'm sure she would."
Much to Kaveh's relief, Hat Guy's core has indeed been reinstalled in perfect form. He cannot bring himself to touch it—it is far too sacred for such impertinent contact—but his eyes linger on the pure white wood and the faintly pulsing light that sustains Hat Guy, seemingly so fragile yet in truth sturdy enough to have endured centuries. Not for the first time, he finds himself wondering at the engineering genius behind Hat Guy's creation, the mystery of his origin.
But the other has never been inclined to divulge the information, and so Kaveh has never asked. He has no need to: even now, despite his exposed chest cavity and defenceless body, Hat Guy lies pliant under his hands, content to merely watch him work without comment. There is no greater gesture of trust he could give Kaveh.
Carefully fastening the chest plate back in place, he is about to pull Hat Guy close when he notices a long silver scar on the other's back.
"A new injury?" he murmurs, running his hand gently down the mark. It had not been there before he left for Nod-Krai.
"The Doctor struck me when I was extracting the Traveller," Hat Guy says, shrugging. "A small price to pay."
"I've never seen you scar," Kaveh frets. Hat Guy bleeds, but injuries don't leave permanent marks on him. And this one seems… different, otherworldly even.
"He was a false god. Normal laws of reality don't apply to him. If anything, I was lucky that a scar was all I got. Now stop talking and hold me."
Then so be it, Kaveh decides, a rare bout of possessiveness flaring as he presses his lips to the scar, softer and lighter than a feather's touch.
If only divinity can leave a mark on Hat Guy's body, then Kaveh will mark his soul instead.
When Nahida and the Traveller return hours later, it is to the sight of a toolbox on the table and two slumbering forms on the narrow bed. Hat Guy's head is cradled against Kaveh's chest, and Kaveh's arms are wrapped around him, their legs intertwined.
They trade a knowing look, and shut the door behind them.