Upon returning from Nod-Krai, Varka finally faces his biggest challenge yet.
you can find the first part here - cross-posted on ao3
The gates of Mondstadt rose against the evening sky, golden and familiar, and Varka had to stop for a moment just to breathe.
Years of ice and blood and the screaming dark. Years of writing letters to a woman who didn't know they existed. Years of carrying a stack of paper thick as his arm, wrapped in oilcloth, pressed against his heart through every battle. And still, after all of it, the only thing he could think about was her.
The guards recognized him. Of course they did. Word had traveled ahead. The Grand Master returning, the Nod-Krai expedition finally over. There would be debriefings, ceremonies, reports to file. There would be questions and congratulations and all the noise of a hero's welcome.
But not yet. He left his men at the gates and walked into the city alone. Through the streets he'd known since childhood, past the fountain where she'd fallen in, past the market where he'd stolen a blue bird many years ago, past the training grounds where their names were still carved in a wooden beam. To the cathedralIt looked the same. It always looked the same. Grey stone rising against the sky, stained glass catching the last of the sun. He stood at the gate for a long time. The stack of letters was heavy against his chest. His heart was heavier. What if she didn't want to see him? What if she'd forgotten? What if she'd moved on, found peace, built a life that had no room for a man who'd spent thirty years too afraid to speak? What if…
The gate creaked.
He looked up.
And there she was.
She was older. They both were. Lines around her eyes and mouth, hands that had spent decades folded in prayer and wrapped around crying children. She was older now, and she was beautiful. She was carrying a basket of herbs from the garden. She stopped when she saw him. The basket slipped from her fingers. Herbs scattered across the ground and neither of them moved to pick them up. For a long moment, they just looked at each other. Then she smiled. The same smile. The one from the barn during thunderstorms. The one from the back of the cathedral, when her eyes had found his in the darkness and she'd smiled like she knew something he didn't.
"Varka…" she said.
Her voice. He’d never forgotten. He'd carried it with him through every frozen night, every battle, every moment he thought he might die. Her voice, saying his name.
"Sister." he said. Like a stranger. Like an idiot. Like a man who'd waited so many years and still didn't know what to say. She laughed. Actually laughed, that same laugh, the one that echoed in the cathedral during choir practice, the one that had kept him alive through years of hell.
"You're an idiot." she said. "You always were." And then she was moving, crossing the distance between them, and he was moving too, and then she was there, close enough to touch, close enough to see the tears in her eyes. She reached up and touched his face. Her fingers were cold from the garden, rough from years of work, and they trembled against his cheek.
"You're alive." she whispered.
"I'm alive."
"I prayed. Every day. Every night. I prayed you'd come home."
He couldn't breathe. "You… you prayed for me?"
"Of course I prayed for you, you fool." She was crying now, tears running down her face, and she was still smiling, still that same smile. "Who else would I pray for?" He reached into his coat. The oilcloth package was warm from being against his skin. He held it out to her, his hand shaking.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Letters.. " he said. "I wrote you letters. For thirty years. I never sent them. I was too scared. Too stupid. Too…" She took the package. Held it in both hands. Looked at it like it was something precious, something holy, something she'd been waiting for her whole life.
"Thirty years.." she said softly.
"Thirty years."
She looked up at him. Her eyes were the same, still bright, still certain, still full of that impossible hope she'd always carried.
"I read some of them too." she said.
"What?"
"Your letters. The ones you never sent." She laughed through her tears. "I found them. Years ago. In your rooms, when you were away. I wasn't snooping. I was looking for something else, I don't even remember what. I found a stack of letters under your mattress. Addressed to me." He stared at her. "You.. you read them?"
"Every one." She was smiling, that beautiful smile. "I read them, and I cried, and I put them back exactly where I found them. And then I waited."
"Waited? For what?"
"For you to be ready." She reached up and touched his face again. "I knew, Varka. I've always known. Since we were children. Since you stole that bird for me. Since you carried me to the cathedral with my broken arm. Since you stood at the back of the church during my vows and looked at me like I was the only person in the world."
"You saw me?"
"I always saw you." She was crying harder now, but she was still smiling. "I always saw you. And I always waited. Because I knew that someday you'd come home. Someday you'd be ready. Someday you'd give me these letters yourself." He couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Couldn't do anything but stand there, in the garden behind the cathedral, watching the woman he'd loved his whole life hold thirty years of unsaid words in her hands.
"Did you mean it?" she asked softly. "All of it? Every word?"
"Every word.. " he said. His voice broke. "I meant every word."
She nodded. Held the letters tighter. Looked at him with those eyes, those impossible, beautiful, patient eyes.
"I know." she said. "I've always known." The bells began to ring, calling the people to the cathedral. She should go. She had duties, responsibilities, a life she'd chosen many years ago. But she didn't move.
"I can't… " she whispered. "You know I can't. I made vows. I made promises. I…"
"I know." He reached out and took her hand. It was cold and trembling. "I know what you are. I know what you chose. I've always known."
"Then what…"
"Nothing." He squeezed her hand. "I don't want anything from you. I never did. I just, I needed you to know. I needed to say it. Out loud. Where you could hear it."She looked at him. The tears had stopped. Her eyes were calm now, peaceful, full of something he couldn't name.
"I love you." he said. "I've always loved you. I will love you until I don't exist anymore." She was quiet for a long moment. The bells rang on, calling the people to evening prayer. Somewhere in the cathedral, the choir began to sing.
"I know," she said finally. "I know." And then she stepped forward, and she kissed him on the cheek, soft and gentle and full of years of waiting.
"I love you too," she whispered against his skin. "I've always loved you. I will love you until I don't exist anymore." She pulled back. Smiled. Looked at the stack of letters in her hands.
"Thirty years…" she said again. "I have some reading to do."
"Take your time." he said. "I'm not going anywhere." She laughed and bent to pick up her scattered herbs. He knelt to help her, and for a moment they were children again, gathering things from the ground, their hands brushing, their hearts beating. She stood. Held the herbs in one hand, the letters in the other.
"I have to go," she said. "Evening prayer."
"I know."
She turned toward the cathedral. Took two steps. Stopped.
"Varka?"
"Yes?"
She looked back at him, the stack of letters still clutched to her chest, the evening light gold on her face.
"Thank you," she said. "For coming home." And then she was gone, through the gate, into the cathedral, swallowed by the shadows and the singing and the life she'd chosen many years ago.
Varka stood in the garden for a long time. The bells stopped ringing. The sun set behind the cathedral. The stars came out, one by one. He thought about climbing the walls. Sneaking into her room one last time. Watching her sleep, the way he had when they were young. He didn't climb. Instead, he walked to the garden wall. The old hiding place, where he left the little bird. He reached into the gap and his fingers touched something.
Paper. A note.
He pulled it out. Unfolded it. Read it by starlight.
I'll wait forever.
- (Y/N)
He smiled. Pressed the note to his heart. Put it back in the wall for safekeeping.
Then he walked home, through streets he'd known his whole life, past memories of a girl who'd stolen his fishing pole and fallen in fountains and punched boys who called him clumsy. Past the fountain, past the market, past the training grounds where their names were still carved in a wooden beam.
He was home.
And she was waiting.
She would always wait.
And that was enough.
i want to thank you all so much for the love and support on the previous chapter! a bit bittersweet closure, but absolutely fitting!!
Sister says we have to practice writing. I told her I don't like writing. She said write anyway.
So I'm writing to you.
Remember yesterday? You threw my fishing rod into Cider Lake because I wouldn't let you use it. You stood there with your arms crossed, looking so proud of yourself. I was furious. I wanted to push you in. But then you jumped in to get it for me and came out shivering with that stupid, triumphant grin. And I wasn't angry anymore.
I think you're the best person I know.
Don't tell anyone I said that.
—V
To the girl who fell off the tree
You're an idiot.
That's the nicest thing I can write. You're a big idiot.
Who climbs to the highest branch of the oldest tree in Mondstadt just to prove they're not scared? You. You do that. And then you fall and break your arm, and I have to carry you all the way to the cathedral while you cry into my shoulder and get snot all over my shirt. I told you not to climb that high. I told you a hundred times. But when you looked at me with those eyes, I couldn't say no. I never can.
Your arm looked wrong. All bent. I wanted to throw up. But I didn't. I just kept walking and told you stupid stories until you stopped crying. You fell asleep before we got there. Your head against my neck, your breath warm, your tears still wet on the collar of my shirt. I stood outside the cathedral for a long time before going in. Just holding you. Just pretending.
Don't do that again. Please.
—V
To the girl who hides in confession booths
You were found asleep in the confession booth again. The parish came to dinner tonight and told my father about it. Said you told him you were "contemplating divine silence." My father laughed so hard he choked on his bread. I laughed too. But inside, I was thinking about how you always find the best hiding spots. Remember when we played hide and seek with all the kids in the city, and no one could find you for three hours? Everyone gave up and went home. I kept looking. I found you in the bell tower, reading a book you'd stolen from the library. You looked up and smiled and said, "Took you long enough."
I sat with you until the sun went down. We watched the whole city from up there, all the lights coming on one by one. You pointed to your house and said, "That's where I sleep." You pointed to mine and said, "That's where you sleep."
—V
To the girl who fell in the fountain
Remember when we were at the market and you leaned too far over the fountain trying to see the coins at the bottom? Remember how you fell in?
I remember. I remember how you came up shivering, your hair plastered to your face, your dress ruined. I remember how everyone stared. I remember how you started to cry. And then I remember jumping in after you. Fully clothed, boots and all. Standing in that fountain with water up to my waist, just so you wouldn't be alone. We walked home soaking wet, leaving puddles everywhere. Your mother was furious. Mine was too. But you laughed the whole way, and that was worth every scolding.
I'd jump in a thousand fountains for you.
—V
To the girl who isn't afraid of anything
There's a stray dog near the windmill. It's hurt its leg bad, and it won't let anyone near it. The adults say it'll die soon. They say there's nothing to be done. You've been bringing it food for three days. I know because I followed you. Today it let you touch it. I watched from behind a barrel as you sat in the mud, not caring about your dress, and let the dog sniff your hand, and then very slowly, very gently, touched its head. It whimpered and leaned into you. You stayed with it for hours. I stayed too, watching. When you finally left, you were crying. You didn't think anyone saw.
I went back later with my father's old cloak. I wrapped the dog in it and carried it to the healer. Cost me all my saved coins, but they fixed its leg. I told the healer to tell you someone found it and brought it in. Not me. Just someone.
You smiled for a week after that. That was enough.
—V
To the girl who wants a blue bird
The traveling merchant came through town with his painted wooden birds. You wanted one so badly. A little blue one, with glass eyes. You stood at his stall for an hour, just looking at it.
You had no money. Your family couldn't spare any. I watched you walk away, and I made a decision. I stole it for you. I know. That's wrong. Stealing is wrong. I'm not proud of it. But I couldn't stand seeing you want something and not have it. I snuck into his stall while he was at the tavern. Took the bird. Left three copper coins I'd saved from chores. It wasn't enough, and I knew it. But it was all I had. I left it on your windowsill that night. Didn't knock. Didn't stay.
The next day, you had it in your hand. You kept touching its wings, its eyes, its little painted beak. You kept smiling. You asked everyone who gave it to you. No one knew. You'll never know.
That's okay. The smile was enough.
—V
To the girl who punches boys
A boy called me clumsy today. In the market, in front of everyone. Said I walked like a baby deer, all stumbling and awkward. Before I could even react, you punched him. Right in the face. Knocked him flat. He was two years older than you. Twice your size. Didn't matter. You hit him so hard his nose bled.
His mother came to your house that night. Your mother made you apologize. You said sorry through clenched teeth, and I could tell you meant none of it. Afterward, you found me at the training grounds. You sat next to me on the beam where we carved our names and you said, "No one calls my friends clumsy."
I wanted to kiss you. I didn't. I never do.
But I wanted to.
—V
To the girl who reads too much
You borrowed a book from the library today. A thick one, with no pictures, about saints and miracles and things I don't understand. "Why do you read so much?" I asked. You thought about it. "Because books take me places I can't go. Because they show me people I'll never meet. Because they make me feel things I wouldn't feel otherwise."
"That sounds sad," I said.
You shook your head. "It's not sad. It's... more. Life is just one thing. Books are everything."
I didn't understand then. I think I understand now.
You were right. Life is just one thing. But you... you're everything.
—V
To the girl who prays
You've been going to the cathedral more lately. Not just for services, but in between. I see you there when I walk past. Kneeling in a pew, hands folded, head bowed. I asked you once what you pray for.
You said, "I don't pray for things. I just... talk. To someone who listens."
"Does anyone listen?"
You smiled. "I think so. Not in words. But in... feelings. In peace. In knowing I'm not alone."
I wanted to say: You're not alone. I'm here. I'll always be here. But I didn't. I just nodded and walked away. I don't understand prayer. I don't understand faith. But I understand you. And if being in that cathedral makes you happy, makes you peaceful, makes you feel less alone then I'm glad you go.
Even if it takes you further from me.
—V
To the girl who told me
You told me today.
After choir practice. You grabbed my sleeve and pulled me aside, and your eyes were so bright, so certain. You said you'd received your calling. That you'd enter the novitiate next spring.
I said, "That's great. You'll be the best nun ever." You laughed and punched my arm. "You're supposed to say congratulations, you idiot." Congratulations.
I walked home and sat on the roof for three hours. Mother called me for dinner. I didn't go down. I'm writing this by candlelight, and my hand is shaking. Not from cold. I should have said something else. I should have said "Don't go." I should have said "I love you." I should have said a thousand things. But I didn't. I never do. You'll be a nun. You'll wear a habit and pray for people you'll never meet. You'll give your whole life to someone who never answers.
And I'll be here. Watching. Wanting. Writing letters I'll never send. This is stupid. You're happy. That's what matters.
I'll keep this with the other ones.
—V
To the girl who is leaving me
Tomorrow you take your vows.
I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be writing this. I shouldn't be anything to you anymore. But I'm sitting in the barn, where we used to hide during thunderstorms. It's late. Everyone's asleep. I climbed through your window an hour ago and I watched you sleep for a while.
You looked peaceful. Happy. Like you'd already gone somewhere I couldn't follow.
I wanted to wake you. I wanted to say something that would make you stay. But what could I say? What could I offer that compares to what you've found? Nothing. I'm nothing. Just a boy with a sword and a stack of unsent letters.
So I left. I climbed back down and walked here, to the barn, and I'm writing this by the light of a lantern I stole from your kitchen. Tomorrow you'll kneel before the altar. You'll speak the words. Poverty, chastity, obedience. You'll give yourself to Barbatos, and I'll stand at the back of the cathedral and I'll watch you become someone I can never have.
I should have fought harder. I should have said something years ago, when we were children and the world was simple and loving you didn't feel like a sin. But I didn't. And now I never can.
Goodbye.
—V
To the girl who saw me during your vows
I wasn't going to come.
The ceremony. Your final vows. The moment you became truly, completely theirs. I told myself I had training. I told myself I had reports to file. I told myself a hundred lies.
But I came.
I stood at the back of the cathedral, where you couldn't see me even if you looked. And I watched you walk down the aisle in your white robes, your hands folded, your head bowed, your face so peaceful it hurt to look at. You knelt before the altar. You spoke the words. Poverty, chastity, obedience. Each one like a knife.
And when you rose, when you turned to face the congregation for the first time as a devotee of the Anemo Archon, your eyes swept over the crowd, over all those faces, and for one impossible moment, they stopped. On me. You couldn't have seen me. You couldn't. I was too far, too hidden, too much a coward to step into the light. But your eyes stopped. And you smiled. Just a little. Just for a second.
Then you looked away, and the moment was gone, and I slipped out the side door before anyone could see me crying. I walked to the training grounds and broke three practice swords against the dummies. Then I sat on the beam where we'd carved our names and I didn't move for hours. I should have fought harder. I should have said something. Anything.
But I didn't. And now I never can.
—V
To the girl who still lives in every corner of this city
I saw you today. At the cathedral.
I was delivering a report to the Deaconess, and there you were, walking through the cloister with another sister. You were in your full habit, like you'd always worn it. Like you'd never worn anything else.
You didn't see me. You stopped to talk to a child who was crying about something. You knelt down, right there on the stone, mud soaking through your robes, and you listened. Really listened. Then you wiped her tears with your sleeve and said something that made her laugh. I stood there like an idiot, holding my report, watching you walk away.
You were always good with children. Remember when we used to watch the little ones during festivals so their parents could dance? You'd tell them stories about brave knights and clever maidens. They believed every word. So did I, honestly. I went back to the headquarters and swung my sword until my hands bled.
I don't know why I'm still writing these. I should burn them. I won't.
—V
To the girl who once told me she was afraid of thunderstorms
The storm outside is ridiculous. Even for Mondstadt. Thunder shaking the walls, lightning so bright it hurts through closed eyes. The whole camp is shaking.
I hate storms.
No, that's not true. I used to love them. Remember? We'd sit in your family's barn and watch the rain come down, and you'd count the seconds between lightning and thunder, and I'd pretend I wasn't terrified. You knew, though. You always knew. Halfway through, you'd lean against my shoulder and fall asleep, and I'd stay awake the whole time, just so you wouldn't be alone.
I wonder who you lean on now. I wonder if you ever get scared anymore. You seem so steady, so certain. Like you've found something to hold onto that won't let go. I'm glad. Truly.
But tonight, in this storm, I miss you so much it feels like someone's sitting on my chest.
—V
To the girl with the blue wooden bird
The Nod-Krai expedition is official. We leave at dawn. It will be years before I return. If I return at all. They asked me what I wanted to do before I left. Say goodbye to anyone special. Settle any affairs.
I said no. But I went to the cathedral anyway. Late at night, like always. I stood in the shadow of the bell tower and looked up at the windows, wondering which one was yours. Wondering if you were awake, if you ever thought about me, if you ever wondered why I always seemed to be just out of sight.
I thought about climbing the wall. Like when we were kids, and I'd sneak into your room to show you the stars through your window because your parents wouldn't let you out after dark. I didn't climb. I left something instead. Small. Hidden in the garden wall. A little blue wooden bird, with glass eyes. I carved it myself. It's not as pretty as the merchant's, but it's mine. All mine. You won't find it. Or if you do, you won't know it's from me.
But I'll know.
—V
To the girl who would hate this place
We've been traveling for months. I'm writing this by firelight, huddled in a tent while the wind screams outside like something wounded. Nod-Krai is endless snow, endless grey, endless cold. The kind of cold that seeps into your bones and stays there.
You would hate it. You always complained about Mondstadt winters, even our mild ones. I remember that one year when it snowed for three days straight, and you refused to leave the cathedral except for absolute necessities. I brought you soup every evening "from the kitchen," but really I made it myself, burning my hands on the pot, ruining three batches before I got it right.
You never asked who made it. You just thanked the cook and drank it by the fire, wrapped in blankets, your nose red from the cold that snuck through the ancient windows. I wonder if you still get soup brought to you. I wonder if anyone makes it just the way you like it, extra pepper, hold the onions, with bread for dipping.
Probably. You're easy to love. You always were. The others are asleep. I should sleep too. Tomorrow we push further north. I should be thinking about strategy, about survival, about the mission. Instead, I'm thinking about your laugh. The way it echoes in the cathedral during choir practice, even when you're trying to be quiet. The way it used to make me smile, no matter how terrible my day was.
I haven't heard it in so long.
—V
To the girl who made me promise to come back
You never actually made that promise. I realize that now, writing this. You never asked me to come back. You never asked me for anything. But I remember something you said once, years ago, when we were sitting on the city walls watching the sunset. You said, "The world is so big, Varka. I hope you get to see all of it." And I said, "I hope you're here when I get back." You laughed and bumped your shoulder against mine. "Where else would I be?" Here. There. Everywhere but where I can reach you.
We found ruins today. Ancient things, buried under the ice. The kind of place that makes the hair on your arms stand up, that makes you feel like you're being watched by something older than the gods. I went inside alone because I needed a moment away from the men. Away from the constant pressure of leading, of deciding, of being the one they look to when things go wrong.
Inside, the walls were covered in paintings. Faded, crumbling, but still visible. People dancing. People praying. People loving. I stood there for a long time, looking at a painting of a man and a woman with their arms around each other, their faces turned together, their bodies curved toward each other like they couldn't bear to be apart. And I thought about you.
I thought about all the times I could have held you. All the times I could have turned my face toward yours. All the chances I let slip away because I was too scared, too careful, too convinced that your path and mine could never cross. I was wrong. I know that now. But knowing doesn't change anything. You're still there, in your cathedral, living your life. I'm still here, in this frozen wasteland, living mine.
And neither of us will ever be the people in that painting.
—V
To the girl who never liked silence
You used to hate silence. Remember? You'd fill every empty moment with humming, with chatter, with questions you didn't really want answered. "Why is the sky blue?" "Where do the birds go when it rains?" "Do you think the wind gets lonely?" I asked you once why you couldn't just be quiet. You thought about it for a long moment and then you said, "Because if I'm quiet, I might miss something important. Someone might say something, and I won't hear it. Someone might need me, and I won't know." You always needed to be needed. That's why you became a nun, I think. Not because you were particularly holy, but because you needed to be useful. To matter. To be the person someone turns to when they're scared or sad or alone.
I turned to you once. Do you remember? It was after my first real battle. I was seventeen, and I'd killed a man, an enemy, a threat, someone who would have killed me if I hadn't acted first. I know it was justified. I know it was necessary. But knowing doesn't stop the dreams. I found you in the garden, late at night. You were supposed to be in bed since novices had strict rules, but you were there, sitting on the bench, looking at the stars. You didn't ask why I was crying. You didn't ask what happened. You just moved over, made room, and sat with me until the sky started to lighten.
I didn't say thank you. I should have said thank you. Here in Nod-Krai, the silence is endless. Acres of white, miles of nothing, hours of wind and snow and the sound of my own breathing. I've learned to tolerate it, even appreciate it. But sometimes, late at night, I miss your voice. I miss the way you filled the world with sound, with life, with yourself. I wonder if you're quiet now. I wonder if the years have taught you to sit with silence, the way they've taught me. I hope not. I hope you're still humming during chores, still chattering at the orphans, still filling every empty space with the sound of being alive.
Someone should.
—V
To the girl who loved the wind
Today we climbed the highest peak in the region. The weather cleared unexpectedly, the first clear day in months, and from the summit, we could see forever. Mountains and valleys and rivers, all of it white, all of it frozen, all of it beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. The wind up there was fierce. It tore at our clothes, our faces. Some of the men had to turn back. But I stayed at the summit for a long time, just letting it howl around me. And I thought about you.
You always loved the wind. When we were children, you'd stand on the city walls with your arms spread wide, eyes closed, letting it whip your hair and dress around you. "Can you feel it?" you'd shout over the gale. "It's alive, Varka. It's alive." I never understood what you meant. Wind was wind, just air moving from one place to another.
But today, standing on that peak, I understood. The wind up here doesn't care about you. It doesn't know you exist. It tears through you like you're nothing, like you're less than nothing, and for a moment you understand your place in the world. You're small. You're temporary. You're a breath, here and then gone. But you're also here. Right now, in this moment, you're alive. The wind proves it, because you can feel it, can fight it, can stand against it and refuse to fall.
You taught me that. You taught me that being alive means feeling things, even when those things hurt. Even when they tear through you and leave you gasping. I'm still standing. Still fighting. Still refusing to fall.
But gods, I miss you. I miss you like the wind misses the places it can't reach.
—V
To the girl I should have told
One of my men died today.
His name was Henrik. He was twenty-three, from a farming family near Springvale. He joined the Knights because he wanted to see the world, to prove himself, to make his parents proud. He had a sweetheart back home, a girl named Liesl who he wrote to every week, even when we had to burn precious supplies to keep the ink from freezing.
We were crossing a glacier. The ice gave way. One moment he was there, walking beside me, complaining about the cold. The next, he was gone. We couldn't even recover the body. I had to write the letter to his parents tonight. To Liesl. To tell them that their son, their sweetheart, their Henrik won't be coming home. It's the worst part of this job. Worse than the cold, worse than the fighting, worse than anything. Sitting here with a pen and paper, trying to find words that will somehow make it better, knowing there are no words that will make it better. I thought about you while I wrote. I thought about all the letters I've written you over the years, all the words I've put on paper that you'll never read. And I wondered: if I died tomorrow, if the ice swallowed me the way it swallowed Henrik, would anyone write you a letter about me?
Would they tell you that I thought about you every day? That I carried you with me through every storm, every frozen night? That the only thing that kept me going sometimes was the hope that one day, somehow, I'd find a way to tell you? Probably not. They'd write a formal letter, full of duty and honor and empty phrases. They wouldn't mention the way your laugh sounds like bells. They wouldn't mention the barn during thunderstorms. They wouldn't mention the wooden birds hidden in the garden wall. Only I know those things. Only I remember. And if I die here, in this frozen wasteland, those memories die with me.
I should have told you. I should have said the words out loud, where someone else could hear them, where they could survive beyond me. But I was a coward. I am a coward. Still writing letters I'll never send, still hoping you'll somehow know, still too afraid to take the one step that would change everything. Henrik won't get to be a coward anymore. He won't get to make mistakes or have regrets or wish he'd done things differently. I will. I'll carry this cowardice with me for the rest of my life.
Unless...
No. There is no unless. There never was.
—V
To the girl who probably forgot me
It's been years since I saw the cathedral, since I walked the streets of Mondstadt, since I stood outside your window watching your shadow move across the curtain. Four years since I left that bird in the garden wall. I wonder if you found it. I wonder if you've found any of them. Probably not. You have more important things to think about.
We've found something. Something wrong. Traces of the Abyss. Not just traces. Something active. Something growing. I've seen the Abyss before. We all have. But this is different. This is old. This is patient. This has been waiting. I'm sending a message back to Mondstadt. Official report, full of careful words and measured assessments. But the truth is simpler: I'm afraid. Not for myself, I've made peace with whatever happens to me. But for the men under my command. For the people back home. For you.
If the Abyss rises here, none of us will be safe. Not me in Nod-Krai. Not you in your cathedral. Not anyone. I should tell you to run. To leave Mondstadt, to go somewhere far away, to protect yourself. But I know you won't. You'll stay with your orphans, your prayers, your duty. You'll stay because that's who you are, the girl who couldn't bear to miss something important, who had to be there when someone needed her. I need you. I've always needed you.
But I'll never say it. And you'll never know.
—V
To the girl who gave me courage
The Abyss rose today.
Not fully. Not completely. But enough. They came pouring through, creatures of shadow and corruption, things that should not exist. We fought for hours. We lost good men. I killed more of them than I can count. I'll dream about them tonight. I always do. But I'm still here. Still standing. Still fighting.
When we were children, you used to call me brave. Remember? After I fought those older boys who were teasing you, after I stood up to your mother when she was unfair, after I climbed the tallest tree in Mondstadt just because you said you wanted to see what the world looked like from up high. I wasn't brave. I was terrified, every time. I just didn't want you to know. But you knew. You always knew. And you called me brave anyway, because you understood that courage isn't about not being afraid. It's about being afraid and doing it anyway. I'm afraid now. More afraid than I've ever been. The Abyss is here, and it's growing, and I don't know if we can stop it.
But I'm still fighting. Still standing. Still refusing to fall. Because somewhere, in a cathedral in Mondstadt, you're probably praying. Not for me, you don't know what's happening, but for someone. For the orphans, for the sick, for the world. You're on your knees, hands folded, eyes closed, And somehow that gives me strength.
I can believe that I'll see you again.
One more day. One more fight. That's all I need to get through. Just one more.
—V
To the girl who taught me how to hope
The fighting has been constant for months. The Abyss pushes. We push back. They push again. We're losing ground, slowly, but we're losing it. I've stopped counting the dead. That's terrible, isn't it? That I can no longer put numbers to the faces, to the names, to the families who will never see their sons again. I still write the letters. I just don't count anymore. But tonight, for the first time in weeks, there's a lull. The rifts are quiet. The creatures have withdrawn. My men are sleeping. Actually sleeping, not just pretending.
And I'm sitting here, writing to you, because it's the only thing that keeps me sane. I found something today. In the ruins of an old watchtower, buried under centuries of ice. A book. A journal, really, written by someone long dead. A knight, I think, from some forgotten order. He wrote about his home, his family, the woman he loved. He never went home. I found his bones in the tower, still wrapped in his cloak, the journal clutched to his chest. I read the last entry. He wrote: "If anyone finds this, tell her I thought of her at the end. Tell her I loved her. Tell her I'm sorry I couldn't come home." I buried him in the ice. Said a few words. Took his journal.
And I thought: that's going to be me. Someday, somewhere, I'm going to die alone, and no one will know that I thought of you at the end. No one will tell you that I loved you. No one will say I'm sorry. Unless I write it. Unless I say it. Unless I stop being a coward. I'm going to come home. I'm going to find you. And I'm going to tell you everything.
I promise.
—V
To the girl who waits
Do you wait? Do you ever think about me, wonder where I am, hope I'm alive? Or have you moved on, found peace, forgotten the boy who used to climb and leave birds in your wall?
I don't know. I'll never know. But I hope you wait. Just a little. Just enough.
The Abyss is retreating. We're pushing them back. It's slow, brutal work, but we're winning. The rifts are closing. The corruption is receding. Another year, maybe two, and we can go home. Home. I've been gone so long I barely remember what it feels like. Warmth. Green things growing. The sound of the fountain in the square. Your voice. I remember your voice. I could never forget your voice. Someday, when I come home, I'll find you. And I'll say the words.
I'm coming home. Wait for me.
—V
To the girl in all of my letters
The Abyss is broken. Not destroyed, you can't destroy the Abyss, but driven back, sealed away, pushed into the dark places where it belongs. The rifts are closed. The corruption is fading. We've won. We're coming home. I'm writing this on the last night in Nod-Krai. Tomorrow we begin the long journey south. Years of cold and death and fighting. Years of writing letters I never sent.
I have a stack of them now. Thick as my arm. Every one addressed to you. Every one full of things I should have said out loud, years ago, when we were young and stupid and had all the time in the world. I'm going to give them to you. I don't know how. I don't know when. I don't know if you'll even want them. But I'm going to find you, and I'm going to put this stack of paper in your hands, and I'm going to say… I don't know what I'm going to say. Maybe nothing. Maybe the letters will say it for me.
But I'm done being a coward. I'm done hiding in shadows and leaving birds in walls. I'm done pretending that what I feel for you is anything less than everything. I love you. I've always loved you. I will love you until I don't exist anymore. And when I get home, you're going to know it.
this is what happens when i am left alone with my own thoughts for too long
i love you so much boothill, writing this completely broke my heart </3
The night on Penacony lay under a veil of strange and suffocating quiet, the frantic, glittering pulse of the Dreamscape. Boothill walked without destination, a figure of polished fury and steel aimless in the muted city. Each step was a deliberate, heavy punctuation in the silence, the clink-grind, clink-grind of his spurs a solemn rythm for a man who had long since buried himself. All of it, every cut and weld and agonizing neural splice, was for a single purpose: to become the instrument capable of carving his vengeance across the throat of the galaxy. The only relic he had carried out of that long, self-inflicted slaughter was his face. It was still the original, weathered and worn, a map of laugh lines now frozen in a permanent grimace.
A spill of amber light, warm and defiant against the gloom, pooled from an open doorway ahead, and with it came a sound so alien it seemed to warp the air. The clean, resonant pluck of an acoustic guitar, its notes unhurried and modest, a melody built for porches and patience, for hands that knew soil and tenderness, not trigger guards and plasma burns. It was a sound from a dead world. Boothill halted, his systems running a silent, instantaneous threat analysis that returned only null data. No hostiles. No traps. Just sound. Yet the sound itself was the trap, bypassing every firewall and sensor array to hook directly into the raw, untouched nerves of his face, the last patch of ground where a memory could still take root.
He pushed the door open.
The bar was a pocket of subtle and aching stillness, a cave carved out of the city’s noise. A few lonely figures hunched over their drinks like penitents at a shrine. A bartender moved with a slow, ceremonial grace, polishing a glass to a painful clarity. And on a stage no larger than a coffin lid, a man with a guitar, his eyes closed. Boothill took the last stool at the bar’s far end, its legs groaning in protest beneath the terrible, concentrated weight of him. The cyborg did not order.
The player let the last vibration of a song fade into the silence, then spoke, his voice barely a whisper. “Sometimes,” he murmured to the strings, “a melody is the only key that still fits the lock.”
From the deepest well of shadow in a corner booth, a voice answered, a dry rustle like the last leaf clinging to a dead tree. He said, ‘Son, can you play me a memory? I’m not really sure how it goes.’ The old man paused, the effort of recollection a physical strain. “But it’s sad, and it’s sweet, and I knew it complete… when I wore a younger man’s clothes.”
The guitarist did not open his eyes. He only nodded, a slow, deep acknowledgment, as if receiving a sacred mission. His calloused fingers, which knew every ridge of the fretboard, found a chord, a simple, open, haunting arrangement of notes. And he began to play.
The first chord was not a memory. It was an annihilation.
Boothill did not remember. The bar, the stool, the cold, unfeeling blend of his prosthetics - they were vaporized in an instant of sensory riot. One moment, the pressure of the bar against his prosthetic leg. The next, the familiar, sun-warmed solidity of real wood under the palms of his hands, his real hands, the ones he could still feel in the ghost-limb of memory, with their scars and their strength and their capacity for tenderness. He felt it all: the rough, splintering surface of his own porch on his home planet, the pleasant, deep-seated burn in the muscles of his lower back after a day spent wrestling with the stubborn soil of the field. He felt the faded cotton of his work shirt, sweat-damp and clinging to the skin of his shoulders, a sensation so mundane and so exquisite it stole the breath he no longer needed. The air itself was thick with the scent of freshly turned earth and the sweet, evening-hour perfume of the flowers (Y/N) nurtured by the steps with a patience he’d always admired.
And then the laughter. Oh, gods, the laughter.
Maya’s giggles were a high, bubbling fountain, a sound of pure, child-like joy that seemed to fracture the golden light of dusk into a thousand glittering pieces.
“You’re it, Papa! You’re the slowpoke grumpus monster!”
Boothill, was on his hands and knees in the red dust of the yard, play-snarling, his own laughter a rich, rolling thunder in his chest. His daughter, a sun-kissed joy of six years with grass stains on her knees and infinity in her eyes, danced just beyond his reach, her bare feet kicking up tiny constellations of dust that hung in the sunlight.
“Slowpoke?” his voice, his real voice, a warm baritone untouched by the synthesized modulation of the Ranger, was thick with mock outrage. “This ain’t slow, darlin’. This here’s advanced tactics. Lullin’ the wily outlaw into a fatal sense o’ security. Textbook Ranger maneuvering.”
“Is not!” she shrieked, spinning in a circle, her pigtails becoming bouncing all over the place. “You’re just old!”
From the sanctuary of the porch, a laugh like clear water running over smooth stones, struck like a sweet melody. (Y/N). She leaned against the support post, her arms crossed, her entire being focused on the spectacle in the yard. The setting sun caught her from behind, setting her hair ablaze in a halo of molten gold, and her smile, oh that smile, was a thing of such devastating beauty and warmth it could have melted a frozen star. Boothill caught her eye, and (Y/N) winked, a slow, secret communication that held a universe of shared understanding. Boothill’s heart, the old, foolish muscle in his chest, did that ridiculous, swelling thing it used to do, a sensation so vividly recalled he felt its phantom ache in the hollow cavity of his artificial chest.
“She’s got you running in circles, my love,” (YN) called, her voice a melody of amusement and adoration.
“She’s wearin’ out the last of my patience, is what she’s doin’,” He shot back, but the love in his tone was so potent, so undiluted, it seemed to sweeten the air between them.
With a theatrical groan, Boothill lunged. It was not the silent, lethal, hydraulic-piston strike of the cyborg he would later forge himself into, but a loud, graceless, wonderfully human lunge. He caught Maya around the middle, making a monstrous ROAR! that was mostly breath and affection. Maya screamed with sweet delight, a wild, wriggling bundle of limbs and laughter in the cage of his arms, her joy a visible, vibrating thing against his chest.
“Gotcha! Now, by the sacred law of this here homestead, the sentence for a captured outlaw is… the ticklin’ judgment!”
“No! No ticklin’! I surrender, Sheriff!” she gasped, breathless and giggling, as his big, work-roughened fingers found the vulnerable spots.
He relented, his resolve crumbling instantly before her joy. Instead, he hauled her up, lifting her as if she weighed nothing at all. Maya was light, a warm, breathing anchor in the strong crook of his arm. She pressed her dusty, sun-warmed cheek to his, her skin impossibly soft, and Boothill could feel the delicate flutter of her eyelashes against his temple like the beat of a bird’s wing.
“You’re a mighty dangerous bandit, you know,” He murmured, his voice dropping to a whisper meant for her ears alone. He carried her, his prize, back toward the sanctuary of the porch. “Gonna have to keep you under lock and key. Can’t have you terrorizin’ the local wildlife.”
“In the fort?” Maya asked, pulling back just enough to search his face, her eyes wide and solemn with the importance of the question.
“In the fort,” Boothill confirmed, his own voice growing thick with an emotion too large for words. “Guarded day and night by the fiercest, smartest deputy this side of the galactic rim. Your mama.”
He reached the worn wooden steps and sank down onto them with a grateful sigh, settling Maya into the cradle of his lap. (Y/N) sat down beside him, her shoulder finding its familiar place as a firm, warm line against his. He felt her heat seep into him, a soothing comfort.
Maya’s small hand, gritty with the honest dust of their home planet, came up and patted his cheek with tenderness. “You’re all scratchy, Papa.”
“That’s ‘cause I’m a tough old boot, darlin’,” Boothill said, leaning in to nuzzle her nose with his, a gesture that made her squeal with a laughter so pure it was music to his ears. “Seasoned by the wind and the work.”
“Nuh-uh,” she declared, her tiny fingers caressing with the ruthless accuracy of a child. “You’re all soft right here.” She found the spot, just below his ribs, and poked.
He flinched, a real, unguarded, belly-deep laugh bursting from him, a sound of such uncomplicated happiness it felt foreign even in the memory.
(Y/N) rested her head on Boone’s shoulder, and he could feel the curve of her smile against the side of his neck, a smile he could feel in his bones. “Give it up, cowboy. The verdict is in. You’re a certified, grade-A marshmallow.”
Boothill looked at his wife, at the love and laughter etched into every line of her face, then down at the miraculous creature sleeping now against his chest. The love that swelled within him was a physical force, a sweet, agonizing pressure behind his eyes, a tightness in his throat that promised tears of a kind he would never permit himself to shed again. The sun finally dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in a deep violet and warm orange before surrendering to the dark. The air grew cool, carrying the scent of night-blooming flowers. The first brave stars pricked through the darkness, and the crickets began their ancient song, stitching the evening together with sound.
In that still moment, Boothill was not a man who would one day take a torch to his own humanity and forge the remnant into a weapon. He was simply himself. A man with earth beneath his fingernails, a pleasant ache in his bones, and a universe that was small, and warm, and devastatingly complete, held within the circle of his arms on a simple porch step. It was everything. It was more than enough. It was a life he had chosen, and a life that had chosen him back.
“Love you, my little bandit,” He whispered, the words a vow breathed into the softness of Maya’s hair as he pressed his lips to the crown of her sun-warmed head.
“Love you more, Papa,” came the sleepy, muffled reply, a truth she stated as simply as naming the color of the sky.
“Love you both,” (Y/N) whispered into the space between them, her fingers finding his and lacing them tightly together, over the steady rise and fall of their daughter’s back.
The music in the bar twisted, faltered, then resolved into a single, dissonant chord that hung in the air like a question without an answer.
And the memory did not fade. It was executed.
Not with the sudden violence of spotlights and stun-blasts, but with the slow, suffocating silence that follows a world’s end. The silence of a home that would, within a year, be reduced to atoms and ash and memory. The silence left in the wake of the IPC’s “orderly asset reassignment,” a silence that grew only deeper and more profound after the quiet, unmourned graves were filled. The porch, the warmth, the perfect, living weight in Boothill’s lap… gone.
Replaced by the unforgiving cold of the chair. The emptiness of the glass. The final, fading vibration of a guitar string.
Boothill sat utterly, terrifyingly still. Inside the cyborg’s armored chassis, a symphony of artificial life continued: coolant pumps whirred, servos engaged in tiny, meaningless adjustments, optics refocused on nothing. A masterpiece of machinery performing its functions with a sterile efficiency, maintaining the animate prison of a corpse.
Then, a shiver began. A sound was torn from him, not from his vocal synthesizer, but from some deeper, more ruined place, a sharp, choked gasp that strangled itself into a rasp, a machine’s pitiful attempt to mimic the shattering of a soul.
Boothill bent forward, folding in on himself as if the memory had become a physical blade, gutting him from the inside out. The cyborg’s forehead – the original, human forehead, with the lingering impression of a wife’s kiss – made contact with the polished wood of the bar. A low moan escaped Boothill, a sound of such ruin that it seemed to darken the very air around him, followed by another, and another, each one wetter, more broken than the last. Boothill’s shoulders began to shake. Not the controlled, rhythmic vibration of an engine, but the violent, helpless, shuddering tremor of something tearing itself apart at the seams.
Tears, hot and humiliating welled from Boothill’s human eyes, the only part of him that could still produce them. They swelled, overflowed, and spilled in a continuous, silent stream. The tears tracked through his face, carving canyons of grief through the dust, before dripping from the stark line of Boothill’s jaw onto the bar below. Each drop fell with a soft, definitive plink, a tiny, pathetic sound. Boothill wept silently, the cyborg’s frame wracked and trembled with the Herculean effort of containing a sorrow that had grown only more vast, more feral, more impossible to cage.
Boothill did not care who witnessed this destruction. The bartender had turned his back in respectful oblivion. The guitarist had stilled his hands, head bowed as if in prayer for the damned. Boothill was alone, utterly and catastrophically alone, in a room full of breathing things, drowning in the memory of a sun that had set for the last time and taken all the light in his universe with it.
The heavy convulsions slowly subsided, not into peace, but into exhaustion, the trembling downgrading to a constant vibration of suffering. Boothill did not lift his head. The cyborg remained there, forehead pressed to the wood, a weapon of mass destruction disarmed and discarded by the ghost of a man long murdered.
With a stiff, jerky motion, Boothill pushed a chaotic pile of credit chips across the bar, a small fortune, a meaningless transaction for a memory that was priceless. Boothill stood. The Ranger’s frame, usually a tower of looming, promised violence, seemed to diminish, as if the armor itself were trying to curl around the raw, weeping wound within.
Boothill did not look at anyone, his gaze fixed on some point in the distance that held nothing at all. The cyborg turned and walked, each step a mechanical echo of the last step. The door swung shut behind, sealing the silence back inside.
Outside, in the damp, reeking darkness of the alley where the glorious facade of Penacony crumbled into reality, Boothill stopped. The night breeze, smelling of decay and synthetic dreams, whistled a tuneless elegy through the alley, fluttering the stained hem of the Ranger’s poncho. Boothill leaned against the cold wall, the metal of his body emitting a dull clank against the brick.
And there, in the absolute solitude of the dark, Boothill slid down the wall. The descent was not controlled; it was a collapse, surrender in slow-motion. The cyborg came to rest sitting in the grime and the puddles. Boothill drew his knees up and wrapped his arms, the powerful prosthetics, tight around them. Then, Boothill buried his face into the dark cavity between his knees, into the only privacy left in the world.
The sobs came then, unleashed and unashamed. Great, shuddering waves that racked Boothill’s entire metal frame, making the armored plates grind and the servos hitch in distress. Boothill cried for the little girl who had called him ‘Papa’ with a voice like sweet honey. Boothill cried for the woman whose laughter had been his favourite song and whose head had fit perfectly in the hollow of his shoulder, as if carved by destiny to rest there. Boothill cried, most of all, for the man he used to be, the man he had systematically, willingly erased with every enhancement, the man who was soft in the secret, right places, whose joy was loud and unguarded, who had once known, with every fiber of his being, what it meant to be complete.
He was Boothill, the Galaxy Ranger. A cyborg by choice, a weapon forged in the fires of his own rage, a monument to vengeance walking on limbs bought with pieces of his soul. But here, in the still darkness, he was just a shell of the man he used to be. A ghost haunting the metal shell, a whisper of a man hugging his knees in a filthy alley, utterly broken by the memory of a love so devastatingly, perfectly sweet that its eternal, screaming absence was the only fuel potent enough to keep his cold reactor core burning.
The vengeance that fuelled him was no longer a hot, cleansing fire. It was something colder, heavier, and far more terrible. It was a glacier, slow and merciless, forged from tears that would never dry. And Boothill would carry its infinite, frozen weight, completely and forever alone, until the cyborg’s very last spark guttered out, leaving nothing in the dark but the echo of sweet laughter and the memory of a porch that no longer existed.
Caleb was beyond ecstatic, to say the least. He was anxiously refreshing the cinema's website, waiting for the sale to go live. The moment the tickets were available, what was it, maybe 5 seconds max? Bamm, already bought them. It's the 20th anniversary of his favourite film of all time, of course he wouldn't miss the opening night.
It all started on a sunny April day when one of Caleb's middle school classmates was talking about this cool new film he watched with his brother. According to him, it was called Star Wars and it had cool spaceships and lightsabers? Caleb was immediately sold, just the mentioning of spaceships and lightsabers was more than enough for him to look up this film.
After watching the very first episode, the young boy was hooked beyond salvation. Everything about it was pure perfection to him: the spaceships, the droids, the Jedi. Ever since watching the films, all he could talk about how he would become a pilot and drive a fancy spaceship, just like in the films. Caleb would watch and read anything Star Wars related, he probably knows the lore like the back of his hands. You could ask him any obscure question about the series and he would tell you the answer in a heartbeat.
Even to this day his favourites haven't changed, but as he got older, he started to appreciate the prequels more. Sure, the prequels are a tad more on the emotional side that his childhood self could not quite understand, but the Caleb of today finds immense pleasure in the story of Anakin Skywalker. Years later, even though he got older and his collection grew with various figurines and spaceship models, including the infamous LEGO Millenium Falcon (which, according to him, is his most prized possession), he is still the same little boy who watched these films with big eyes. Now, he is going to watch The Revenge of the Sith on the big screen with you dressed as Padmé and him dressed as Anakin.
not only did i wipe almost everything from my phone but i also waited almost 2 hours for the update to finish, yet i still managed to blow all of my wishes and managed to lose my 50/50 (sylus i love you but please not right now)