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[Music: "Fix You" by Coldplay ]
As she approached the mansion, Jean was trembling, not just from the cool rain, but because of everything that had transpired that day for two of her best friends. Diluc Ragnvindr and Kaeya Alberich had lost their father, Crepus Ragnvindr, and the details of what happened were mostly just rumors being passed around. All she knew for sure was that something Eroch had said to Diluc in the aftermath had been profound enough to cause Diluc to resign from the Knights of Favonius.
A few hours before, Jean had caught sight of Diluc's red hair and billowing white shirt sleeves as he rode his horse swiftly toward the city gate. Jean immediately looked for Inspector Eroch, wanting the truth about what had happened with the convoy, Crepus, and her fellow Knights of Favonius. In the conference room, though, all she found was Diluc's captain's coat laying on the floor where he had discarded it. She picked it up, took it to her quarters, and hung it up with plans to return it to him later. She ran her hands over a blood stain on one sleeve, and her throat felt tight with a surge of emotion assuming it was Crepus' blood. Crepus was a good man, and it didn't feel real that he was gone. What really happened, Diluc?
On leaving her quarters, Jean crossed paths with two of the knights who had been with Kaeya's squad responding to the incident. She asked where Kaeya was, and they said they didn't know. However, they did give her the details about what they had found in the aftermath of the monster attacking the convoy. Her heart ached for the knights who had lost their lives, and she wished that she could have been there for Diluc at the moment Crepus died. However, she swallowed back her emotions, relieved that Kaeya had been there for his brother. When she said as much, though, the knights said that Kaeya had actually stood back at a distance from Diluc and Crepus, muttering something about the whole situation being "fascinating." Jean was stunned at hearing this, unsure why Kaeya wouldn't have run to be by their side. "Kaeya loves his brother and father, though," she rationalized. "I'm sure he's just in shock."
Jean was at a loss for what to do next. Do I look for Kaeya? Do I go see Diluc? Do I leave them alone tonight and go see them tomorrow?
Now, as the pouring rain drenched the dark night, Jean stood at the sheltered front entrance of Crepus' private residence, using the wrought iron knocker on the large oak door. A few moments later, a young housemaid answered the door. Her face was red, and her eyes were swollen, obvious signs that she had been crying.
"G-good evening, Miss Jean," the housemaid stammered. "M-master Crepus... is..."
"I know," Jean gave her an empathetic smile. The maid nodded and allowed Jean to step inside. "Is Captain Diluc here?"
"M-master Diluc is... with... M-master Kaeya," the maid said, visibly trembling as she closed the front door. Her eyes flickered across the room, past the dual staircases, toward a set of double doors.
"What's wrong?" Jean asked, concerned at the maid's behavior.
"Master Diluc wanted to be alone," the maid explained as she busied herself with removing and hanging up Jean's raincoat. "He asked us to begin packing away Master Crepus' belongings. He said he was going to sell the house and would move our jobs to the winery. B-but... then..." She paused and swallowed before continuing. "Master Kaeya arrived a while ago, and he insisted on seeing Master Diluc. He went into the great hall and closed the doors. It was quiet for half an hour, but then... there was shouting like I'd never heard before. Both of them. And we heard things banging and crashing and breaking. We were all so scared! Everything fell silent again a little while ago, but we didn't dare to disturb them. We called for Elzer to come help since he's more like family to them, so we are waiting for him before we go in there."
Jean, already doing her best to control her trembling, felt her heart pounding in her chest. "Thank you. Please go try to relax, and encourage the others to do the same. This has been a difficult day for everyone, and it's normal for there to be anger and frustration about what happened." The maid nodded and thanked Jean, but then looked concerned as she watched Jean walk straight back to the double doors.
Jean placed her hand on one door handle and pressed her ear to the door. There was only silence: no voices, no movement. Slowly and carefully, she pushed the door open, and a gust of icy air hit her face. Then, as the image inside the room formed in her eyes, she tensed with fear.
The room was lit by candlelight from the chandelier, but half of the candles had been blown out and knocked askew as if a gust of wind had blown through the room. Under the chandelier, everything around her—floor to ceiling—was covered in a layer of ice. Furniture and decor had been tossed around and broken. Wooden chairs and tables had been charred by intense flames, then suspended in blocks of ice. The smell of ash and soot contrasted with the sound of cracking ice.
Jean's eyes fell onto the center of the room, the point from which the ice seemed to originate. There, in a circle of exposed wooden flooring, sat Kaeya with his back turned to the door, hugging his arms to his chest like a frightened child. He was wearing his knight's clothing, his long coattail splayed behind him, and his dark blue hair was wet and mussed from the rain. He sat silent and still as thunder rolled outside, and he didn't move or speak when he heard Jean enter.
"Kaeya," Jean said softly. "What happened here? Are you okay? Where is Diluc?" As she carefully stepped toward Kaeya, she caught sight of Kaeya's sword a few meters away on the floor, a swirling formation of ice wrapped around it from hilt to tip.
"Jean," Kaeya said. His voice was weak and broken, and he didn't answer her beyond acknowledging her presence.
"Kaeya? What happened? Where did all this ice come from?" She knelt down next to Kaeya and searched his countenance for answers. Kaeya's iconic eyepatch lay discarded on the floor next to him, and his face was soaked with tears. A trickle of blood mingled with the tears streaming below his right eye. Whatever crying he had been doing, though, had been replaced with an absent stare at his ice-covered sword.
"Diluc left," Kaeya said, the reply scratched and strained. "He is not coming back."
"Not coming back?" Jean asked, confused. "Kaeya, you're bleeding! What happened? Are you okay?"
"It's just a scratch." Kaeya replied, but Jean handed him her rain-dampened handkerchief.
"Were you attacked by a Cryo user? Another Abyss mage? How did they get in here?"
"Diluc has been betrayed. By the Knights. By me." Kaeya 's voice sounded distant as he pressed the handkerchief to his eye. "I don't blame him if he never returns."
"Betrayed? That doesn't make any sense. Kaeya, listen to me," Jean begged. "I need you to tell me what happened here. Is Diluc okay? Who is behind all this ice?"
Kaeya gave a sad chuckle, balled up the handkerchief, and buried his face in his arms. "Me," he said. "It was me."
"What? How?" Jean asked, but Kaeya didn't respond. She knew Kaeya didn't have a Vision, so she worried for him confronting a Vision user on his own or, worse, facing off against his Pyro-wielding brother while they were both in unstable emotional states. Jean waited for Kaeya to explain, taking that time to scan the room in more detail. That's when she spotted an amulet glinting on the ice-covered floor a couple of meters away with the familiar light blue and snowflake emblem. "A... Cryo Vision? Kaeya... do you... have a Vision?"
Kaeya took in a deep breath and sniffled, but he didn't look up or answer. Jean then stood up and walked over to pick up the Vision. She brushed the surface, pondering the implications for Kaeya if this was, indeed, his Vision. She returned to sit on Kaeya's right, holding the Vision in her hand.
"How long have you had it?" Kaeya didn't answer. "What happend to unlock the Vision?" Kaeya still didn't answer. "Fine. You don't have to tell me. I understand. I hope you trust me, though."
"I trust you implicitly with anything I tell you," Kaeya said, sniffling again. He slowly raised his head, then turned to look at Jean for the first time since she had arrived. The corners of his mouth attempted a smile, but failed.
"You just won't tell me everything, right?" Jean guessed, allowing herself a smile on Kaeya's behalf. "Color me not surprised."
"The circumstances of how it happened is... not a point of pride," Kaeya stated, bitterness etched into the words. Jean nodded, accepting Kaeya's desire for privacy. Kaeya was a notoriously private and secretive person in spite of his amicable nature. However, he had always earned and nurtured the trust of those closest to him, especially those who knew him like family.
"When Diluc left," Kaeya continued, his tone lightening, "I may have taken out my frustration on the room." Kaeya used his left hand to gesture at the scene around them.
"Were you fighting with each other?" Jean asked gently. "You're brothers. Crepus was your father. Shouldn't you be grieving together, honoring what an amazing man he was?"
"It's complicated," Kaeya said, his eyes dropping to the space encircled by his arms. He was still hugging his knees, but he had relaxed his posture from what it was when Jean first arrived. She saw fresh tears well in his eyes, and he used a thumb to wipe them away while he continued. "Suffice to say that, as I remain a faithful Knight of Favonius, he now sees me as his enemy."
Jean sighed and shook her head. "In less than a day, he's gone from being our most beloved captain to abandoning us and saying we are his enemy?" Jean's tears finally found their release, and she squeezed her eyes closed against the sting. "Maybe he just needs time to work through this."
Kaeya shook his head, set Jean's handkerchief on the floor next to him, and looked again at the ice-swirled sword. "This isn't the kind of wound that time can heal."
As she processed Kaeya's words, Jean stared at the Cryo Vision in her hands and let her tears flow. "And what about you?" she said after a few seconds. "Crepus was your father, adopted or not. I know you loved him."
Kaeya squeezed his eyes closed and swallowed. "I should have said something... I should have... told him... everything."
Jean wrapped an arm around Kaeya's back, and he leaned into her shoulder, sobbing softly. She had never seen him like this, and she was sure she never would again. Jean understood that his vulnerability in this moment was a sign of how much he trusted her. After a couple of minutes, the sobbing subsided, replaced by sniffles.
"Do you... still love him?" Kaeya asked, carefully choosing his words.
"Huh?" Jean felt herself blushing in spite of her grief. "You mean... Diluc?"
"You had such a crush on both Master Crepus and Diluc," Kaeya asked with a soft chuckle. "Do you remember?"
"I-I... I, um..." Jean couldn't help but laugh nervously as she struggled to find words to respond. "I was foolish back then. It's so long ago now."
"It wasn't even a year ago," Kaeya said, sitting up so he could look at Jean. He shook his head to loosen his hair and pushed some away from his face. His injury resumed a slow bleed, but he seemed oblivious to it. "You made so many excuses to be around either or both of them. And you'd blush as red as a valberry every time Diluc bested you in a sparring match. I know you let him win, too. You're far better than him with the standard sword."
"T-that's not true!" Jean protested. "I didn't let him win—"
"Relax," Kaeya said. "I'm just teasing you. Well... and... given how you feel about both of them, you should probably hold on to this. I don't deserve to possess it." Kaeya extended his right hand that he'd kept hidden from her view until now. There, lying in his palm, was another amulet.
"Diluc's Pyro Vision?" Jean asked, recognizing the design and the braided cord attached to the amulet. "Why do you have this?"
"He threw it on the floor when he left," Kaeya replied, his voice once again sad. "I suppose that, like his knighthood, this Vision just represents his father's hopes and dreams, along with an ideal he's no longer invested in."
Jean shook her head and pushed Kaeya's hand away. "No. I refuse to take this, and I refuse to believe that Diluc isn't just making rash decisions right now. His father just died. He's not thinking clearly. He loves Mondstadt and its people, and he will come around and want this back so that he can help protect us all."
Kaeya looked at the amulet and brushed it with his thumbs. "Perhaps. Fine. I'll hold onto it for now," Kaeya said. "Someone needs to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, at least."
After they sat in silence for a minute, Jean held up the Cryo Vision, placing it close to the Pyro Vision in Kaeya's hands. "Fire and ice, huh?" she remarked. "It's as if the gods want to ensure that you balance each other out. Master Crepus must be so proud of you both for achieving what he couldn't."
"Master Crepus was always proud of us," Kaeya agreed. However, Kaeya kept hidden that he'd received his Vision less than an hour ago, and, thus, Crepus would never know that both of his sons had been so blessed by the gods.
The sound of the door opening behind them startled Jean, and she spun around to see Elzer entering. "My, my!" the forty-something businessman commented, closing the door behind him, but standing at a distance. "What's this I hear about the boys fighting? I've not seen them so angry since Kaeya accidentally shut Diluc's turtle in the pantry." Elzer's speech was relaxed, and he seemed unfazed by the chaotic icescape around him.
Jean said softly to Kaeya, "I can stay if you need to talk... or just to have someone here for you."
Kaeya shook his head, and Jean sensed a cue to leave. She handed the Cryo Vision to Kaeya, who took it with his left hand and held it side-by-side with Diluc's Pyro Vision. Jean then patted Kaeya's shoulder, stood, and walked toward the door. There, she said to Elzer, "I'm so sorry for your loss."
"It is a shock to be sure," Elzer said. "Fortunately, Master Crepus and I run the business in a way that protects against major disruptions, so I'm not too worried about that. But the boys... they are still so young. They'll feel this loss for the rest of their lives."
"If there's anything I can do..." Jean began, letting her offer hang in the air.
"Just be the friend you've always been. That will be enough, I'm sure," Elzer said with a gentle smile. He then glanced toward Kaeya who was still sitting and staring at the Visions in his hands. "In truth, they aren't really boys anymore. They are now men, and they have been profoundly changed today. They will each need to figure out what this means for them."
Jean nodded. "Have you seen Diluc?" she asked.
"I did," Elzer confirmed. "He has given me duty to run the household and winery for a while in his absence. He said he needs to track down more information about what happened to his father and a possible larger plot. I didn't press him for more information, but I sensed he was planning to cover all of Teyvat if he had to and would not be back for some time." Elzer paused and sensed Jean's next question, speaking before she could ask. "He is sleeping at the winery tonight and setting off in the morning. Oh, and... I would suggest that we all respect his desire to be alone for right now."
Jean nodded again, debating whether to respect Elzer's suggestion or to ride as fast as she could to the Dawn Winery. "Thank you, Elzer," she said as she opened the door to leave. "I am here if you need me, as a Knight or as a friend. After all... the world is a much colder place tonight."