Chapter Text
Childe hits the ground in a rough tumble, jarring all of his wounds, torn muscle, fractured bones as the flaring pain brings a sharp reminder and awareness that he was in foreign territory, and in danger.
The All-devouring Narwhal…he hadn’t managed to see it to its end. Opening his eyes, he finds himself skidding on rough ice, his own blood dripping and smearing across its surface, not unlike the thick ice that laid on the surface of lakes in Snezhnaya when winter came.
Now was not the time to reminisce.
His instincts roar at him, as he pulls himself into an animalistic crouch, jolting injured limbs, tearing into the temporary bandages he had managed to administer to himself when he had been trapped in that unending battle with the primordial beast. Aching bones, gnawing pain were replaced by the numbness that came with the sting of freezing cold air, a chill that permeated so deeply that the Snezhnayan felt it down to his bones.
Tapping into Foul Legacy for that long had severely weakened him, the Harbinger distantly thinks, his mind and pure instinct disconnected in a strange hazy fog, as he exhales a misty breath into the icy wasteland he had been plunged into.
His left arm was dislocated, right ankle sprained, with blood dripping from various wounds across his torso and back.
….Master…Master Skirk had come.
She had come for him, pulling him out of that endless battle, and he does not recall anything further than that.
He doesn’t remember how long he had been fighting either.
Hours, days, weeks, or months?
The adrenaline was quickly fading from his system, even as the mania and bloodlust from using his Foul Legacy Transformation remained.
It beckons him to get up, to keep hunting, to keep fighting. Blood dripping from his skin feels nothing but warm, his own blood and its copper rich scent tainted with the sulfur of the abyss and electro from his delusion cocoons him, an incentive to keep moving, to stay warm and to keep devouring.
It would be easy.
So, so easy to slip back into that state, that trance of parry, thrust, dodge and stab, to dig claws into warm, eternal flesh of a being from beyond the stars, to drink in liquid starlight and to take in the essence of the Primordial Sea, to drown in its waters and to submerge himself beneath the waves.
A pleasurable high that lasted infinitely, ecstasy fulfilling and his dream achieved, to be trapped in a state of conflict and violence, throwing his full body and soul to simply just…survive. To devour, and slaughter, to satiate the growing madness that he was forced to bring to the forefront, to resort to his Abyssal Transformation to simply last that long.
Staring into the icy wasteland, the reality of his situation has yet to sunk in as he faces the crash, the sharp fall after losing all power and strength granted to him by Foul Legacy, as the adrenaline that had kept him going fades away, and he collapses onto the ice, surrounded by the fading warmth of blood pooling around him.
He closes his eyes, telling himself to stay aware despite knowing how it was a losing battle.
Something steps onto the pool of his freezing blood.
“...A short life species in my training grounds…”
Childe pulls himself together, even as his thoughts turn foggy, his hands stained in his own blood, and he blinks an eye open.
“...Mas-ter-” He chokes, as blood gurgles from his lips.
She had…she had returned for him! She had not abandoned him to die, just as she had chosen to take him in all those years ago.
“How touching. Unfortunately boy, you are no disciple of mine.”
“...Please-”
Childe grasps onto the last tether of consciousness.
He thinks of all the things he has left undone, back at home, those memories which had kept him sane and rational during his time in the Abyss, and in the Primordial Sea, and even now, on the brink of death in this foreign land.
Perhaps Master Skirk finally realised how weak he was and decided that the effort of saving him was not worth it.
He chuckles, blood bubbling from his lips.
He thinks of Tonia, Anthon, Teucer, whom he had promised souvenirs from Fontaine.
He thinks of the Traveller, and how he will never uphold his end of their promise.
He thinks of Zhongli and Ekatrina, his men who still await his return at Liyue Harbour.
He thinks of the Tsaritsa, who could not afford to lose another Harbinger so soon.
The figure walks away, leaving him behind.
Childe will not let go of this chance. He cannot. He still has a life left to live, and he will do anything to get it back, to get a chance to live.
He reaches out, blood stained, bruised fingers wrapping around what should have been the figure’s ankle, only for his hand to grasp at thin air, a limb moved out of the way.
“...Fascinating. Truly fascinating.”
The cold, unfeeling voice remarks, the slightest hint of interest picked out from that voice of hers, as electricity danced across his skin, sparking from drops of blood to the other, the Abyssal taint fuelling his body and soul once more, this time not for a fight, but simply to live. The urge to devour surges, a mania which claws at his soul, to fill himself with sustenance, with the lifeblood of a living being. It needed to feed, and the Abyss reveled in corruption and tainted madness.
He would tear this woman apart for abandoning him, leaving him to die on this snowy hellscape, and satiate his thirst and repressed hunger with her flesh and blood.
“....You exhibit symptoms of being Mara-struck, yet you are a short life species.”
He growls, something feral and animalistic, a beast pushed to the point of survival and pure instinctive mania.
"Perhaps you may be worth my time still."
She steps closer, into the pool of his blood which sparks and fizzles with ozone and electricity, ice emanating from her person like the coldest winter, as she picks him up simply, from his collar and he lashes out from the jarring movement.
"Quit it. I will help you."
Her hands are cold, freezing, empty, hollow, as she brushes a hand across his wound with her free hand, ice seeping into his bloodied wounds and freezing and halting the flow of blood loss.
The ice is soothingly numb.
It dulls the pain, even as it seeps into his veins and permeates through his entire system. The last time he had felt an ice as cold as this…cold, yet brutal and gentle, was from the Tsaritsas presence.
He ceases his thrashing upon realising how she was trying to help him.
“If you survive long enough for my companion to return, then you will live.”
The coldness seeps into his skin, something creeping, until it devours him and encases him whole.