Occasionally I’d play music in the background while playing the game. Now on this fine day, I’ve played ‘The Plagues’ from the prince of Egypt. I have a certain two brothers on my team. One of them being my main, Kaeya. “This seems too familiar,” I said aloud. In SAGAU, what would their reactions be?
plagued
a/n: voidless, words cannot describe the jealousy i feel knowing you are a diluc haver. also, i had kinda a hard time with this one, so let me know if this isn’t what you wanted!
word count: ~2k (the song itself is abt. 300)
-> warnings: major spoilers for kaeya and diluc lore, biblical references (quotes from the song are used, which itself is an interpretation of the bible), the brothers think you’re the ‘lord’ being referenced, heavy angst, this got so sad so quickly—
-> lowercase intended!
< masterlist >
taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky
i don’t think it would register the first 10 seconds or so. they might be interested from the haunted whispers, or wonder how your device managed to capture a choir. they would pause on ‘this saith the lord’ but would get over it quickly. naturally, they would assume it was referring to you, and everything after carries a bit more weight. what if it was a command of yours?
‘Since you refuse to free my people
All through the land of Egypt’
they’d be curious about where ‘egypt’ was, and whether or not you lived there. why were the people captured? were they prisoners of war? they knew how deadly a fight between gods could be- was your world in the midst of war?
‘I send a pestilence and plague
Into your house, into your bed
Into your streams, into your streets
Into your drink, into your bread’
all of a sudden very worried. they’re gonna assume the worst case scenario and worry that you’re suffering through a plague. diluc’s making plans to offer more food the next time he has dinner at the manor, and kaeya’s concerned you might get sick from the poisoned food. they don’t have the most advanced medicine, and certainly not medicine fit for a god.
‘Upon your cattle, on your sheep
Upon your oxen in your field
Into your dreams, into your sleep
Until you break, until you yield’
this will give them pause, if only until they think it over. cattle? ‘oxen’? how could your world be so advanced as to have a device to peer into theirs and yet rely on these animals? they quickly get ahold of it though, don’t worry: naturally, your device was a holy item, only to be used by you, a god. it made sense that the people you ruled over would rely on cows and sheep to live. but then.. was this song one of warning? warning whoever the other party was of your divine retribution?
it makes more sense to diluc than it does kaeya.
’I send the swarm, I send the horde
Thus saith the Lord’
this only cements in their minds that it’s a song of warning. your people there must call you their lord—it made sense, perhaps they should adopt it?—and you were threatening to send a swarm of… something. they hoped they would never have to know. the haunting beauty of the chant is not something they’re keen on ever experiencing.
‘Once I called you brother
Once I thought the chance to make you laugh
Was all I ever wanted’
this hurts.
badly.
horribly, an ache immediately burning their chests. the tired, saddened voice of the brother will echo inside of kaeya’s head, likely long past whenever the song ends, and diluc’s tripping—literally, if you’re mid-battle his model will freeze in place for a few moments—over the realization that this is a hymn meant for brothers.
they refuse to meet each others eyes, each focused on the task you’ve given them. the other members of your party look away, giving them space even if they’re not the type to usually do so. i ask that you leave the brothers off-field, as they’ll surely be delayed in following your commands and will likely get hurt because of it.
’I send the thunder from the sky
I send the fire raining down’
the eerie enactment of your voice suddenly carries so much more weight. in your world, at some point, two brothers had fought over ‘egypt’, and you had sent down plagues in punishment. surely you knew this, right? was this a warning to them? were you angry with them?
’And even now I wish that god had chose another
Serving as your foe on his behalf
Is the last thing that I wanted’
you can’t see it due to the camera being permanently set behind the character—provided he’s on the field—and diluc certainly can’t, since they’re facing away from each other, but kaeya’s eyes are quickly turning glassy. it hurts, the weight of his promise to khaenri’ah, to his father—to both of his fathers—manifesting as a hollow ache in his chest. it’s getting harder to breathe through the block in his throat, and he wonders if you’re intentionally playing this because of him. it wouldn’t be so surprising; he knows he’s not the best or the most devoted, he knows that you likely look down on his lying and secrecy, he knows, he does, but please don’t remind him of it. it already haunts him when he tries to sleep.
‘I send a hail of burning ice
On every field, on every town’
diluc has a better handle on his expressions—read: he’s better at suppressing them—but anybody who looked could see he was distressed. his jaw is tense, every muscle in his body taught. he didn’t move an inch when he was off-field, and he relied heavily on the binds of your device to move him on-field. he feels like a live wire, buzzing with energy and yet no way to vent it. he can’t cope with these feelings the same way he normally would, he can’t throw himself into paperwork or into battle. he can’t stomp through mondstat’s plains, he can’t call flame to his fingertips and burn out the pain. your presence, the heavy air of divinity around him, barely does anything to soothe the ache. if anything, it only burns brighter.
‘This was my home
All this pain and devastation
How it tortures me inside
All the innocent who suffer
From your stubbornness and pride’
oh.
it’s like the words were handcrafted, bent into a hook and cast on a line that swiftly caught kaeya’s soul. he tries to remind himself that it’s not about him, it’s not about diluc and it’s not about khaenri’ah and it’s not about crepus, it’s about some nation in your world called ‘egypt’-
he can’t. the words resonate with his very essence, the core of his being shaking alongside the swelling music and tragic melodies. he feels like a glass in the hand of an opera singer, quivering in place and unable to move an inch, just waiting for the right frequency to make him shatter.
as he chokes on his own air, he wonders why you played this song specifically. did you know how much it would rip him apart? did you realize how much it hurt, to see himself reflected in its lyrics? did you know that it would send him back to his youth, did you want him to relive that pain?
over the turmoil, he can hear your voice. “this seems too familiar..”
so you were aware.
he supposed he deserved it.
’I send the locusts on a wind
Such as the world has never seen
On every leaf, on every stalk
Until there's nothing left of green’
diluc also caught your little comment, and he might have laughed would it not have come out watery. of course you knew. of course you chose this song specifically. of course you put him on the team with your beloved, of course you made him work with his brother, the one you’ve poured the most of your time and effort into. of course. of course. this was all just a jab at him, wasn’t it? perhaps he was being a touch self-centered in that assessment, but really, it wasn’t that far-fetched. he knew his brother was your favorite. he knew that, despite his own feelings about him, your opinion stood higher than any other. no matter how hard he tried, he would always fall to second place.
it made sense that you wanted to remind him.
’I send my scourge, I send my sword
Thus saith the Lord
You who I called brother
Why must you call down another blow?’
cryo vision or not, kaeya’s skin is burning. his heart is thundering at twice the pace it should, his skin flushed with both blood and embarrassment. he couldn’t help but feel like you were directing this at him specifically, like you had picked this song specifically to get under his skin. he didn’t doubt that diluc was affected as well—time apart didn’t change either of their habits—but didn’t dare to look over. surely, if he saw how disheveled mondstat’s cavalry captain had become after a simple few verses, his words would once more line with fire and flame. he knew his brother resented his position as the one in your favor, but now, with this further context…
it feels like you only picked him to fix him.
‘I send my scourge, I send my sword
Let my people go
Thus saith the Lord
Thus saith the Lord’
dilucs mind is racing, trying to pick out the meaning behind the song. it’s a tale of two brothers, that’s obvious enough, and it’s clear you mean for a parallel to be found between those sung about and him and kaeya. maybe- maybe if he can find it, if he can find the message you want them to learn, he can act on it and maybe he could fix whatever you hated so much about their relationship. he wanted to, desperately, because surely there was a reason you chose to play this with them on your team. there had to be meaning in this, there had to be a reason you insisted on placing him besides his brother even when you made it clear which you favored, there had to be a way to fix whatever he did to anger you. he refused to believe otherwise.
‘You who I called brother
How could you have come to hate me so?
Is this what you wanted?’
no, no, it wasn’t, kaeya never meant for this wedge between them to drive so deep, the chasm that separated the two brothers was never meant to be deeper than his pinky was long. he wanted to reconcile, he wanted to reconnect, this was never what he wanted, he never meant to dissolve his relationship with his brother like this. there were days he spent at the bar, bottle in hand and filled with regret over his decisions, wishing for anything to fix it. he would never want this. but of course, as always, your omnipotent presence dared to accuse what mortal men could never speak.
‘I send the swarm, I send the horde
Then let my heart be hardened
And never mind how high the cost may grow
This will still be so’
diluc’s eyes close, his thoughts a swirling mix of the words he’s hearing and memories of stormy nights. memories of blood on his hands and the glinting light of a fatui insignia burn behind his eyes, the implications of your playing this song knowing that it resonated with the two of them lost in the chaos. his mind echoes words back at him, an apparition only there to eat at him. ‘never mind how high the cost may grow,’ it spits, taunting, and he doesn’t have the energy to retaliate. why would he? hes in no place to protest, not when it’s right.
I hated him most
for not having the courage
to ruin us grandly.
To break all the dishes
and burn down the house.
Instead he sunk quiet
into new arms, called
her my name, each
devotion repurposed.
Denied me my spilled blood,
my great war.
except his confession.
— Clementine von Radics, “Bitter.” In a Dream You Saw a Way to Survive
