#raiden ei angst

[venteas]

if one of us dies, i hope i die first - genshin fic

ft. yae miko, raiden ei, lisa, zhongli, venti (x gn!reader)

warnings: angst, doesn't follow canon timeline, grammatical errors

cw: alcoholism

summary: you are a traveller from another world, traversing across teyvat in search of a place to call home since you were exiled from your homeland. just as you settle down with them, fate decides that your journey will end here.

YAE MIKO! she doesn't cry - she has learnt that crying gets her nowhere. she's the same as ever on the outside, teasing and joking, and to anyone who does not know her well, it is as if nothing ever happened. deep down, however, she feels more lonely than ever. it is the same feeling she had when her friend left her for centuries, yet this time she knows that even after centuries, after millennia, while she may still be alive, she will never see you again. it pains her to say it, but she truly cared for you. she knows of your exile from your homeland, and even if she couldn't identify it, she had fallen in love with you. she wanted a place for you to stay, a place where you could call home, with someone whom you could always rely on. perhaps yae miko may not be someone everyone adores, but she certainly adores you, and vice versa. while she has lost many over the hundreds of years she's lived, you will never be just another person she's lost. to her, you will always be a brave traveller whom she was in love with.

RAIDEN EI! one thing ei was afraid of was falling in love, because it never lasted. it was a contradiction of eternity. yet she still fell in love with you. she knew it was a bad idea, because you were reckless, carefree, everything she was not. it was only until one night when you were drunk, while she was eating her favourite dango, that you revealed your situation to her. searching for a place to call home was all you ever wanted, and in ei's eyes, while you were still the same reckless traveller she knew, you were also looking for your idea of eternity. your relationship with her began to blossom, and soon, the two of you had decided to settle down. when news of your death got to ei, it was as if the rest of the world did not matter. it was the same feeling she got when she lost her sister and everyone she ever knew. reality hit hard then - eternity was your enemy, because you were a flame so bright it chipped away at your life. eternity and you could never be together, and ei's only just learnt this. despite this, however, she doesn't resent you. she still loves you, still visits your grave ever so often, and still remembers your desire for your own eternity. for as long as she will live, ei will remember you, just as she remembers her sister.

LISA! lisa has known ever since she was cursed by the magic book that she would die young. she doesn't expect to outlive jean, kaeya, anyone in the knights of favonius, really, and she definitely does not expect to outlive you, a traveller exiled from their homeland. so it is quite a shock to her when she finds out from a solemn jean that you have died while trying to save a citizen of mondstadt. how is this possible, lisa wonders, because she knows you are a capable fighter. according to the official reports, you had already sustained previous wounds while exploring the old temples scattered around mondstadt, where several ruin guards reside. she is shaken, of course - how could one's life be so easily taken just like this? death was inevitable, that was one thing lisa knew very well. but for death to strike just as the two of you were figuring things out, trying to put a label to this strange relationship you two had, well... fate is cruel. perhaps, the two of you will be reunited soon enough. and maybe then, the both of you could lead the life you never got the chance to live.

ZHONGLI! it's yet another loss to zhongli, the oldest archon, the god of contracts. he's supposed to be experienced in this field, so why does he feel so down during your funeral procession? he watches from the side as hu tao, the director of the wangsheng funeral parlour, directs the procession. you in that coffin, eyes shut as if you were merely sleeping. he feels a certain emotion he hasn't felt in a long time, something akin to grief, but not quite. it's the kind of grief that eats him from the inside, knowing full well that he could have been there to protect you from the fatui. he would've switched places with you in a heartbeat if it meant that you could live, because he's just a retired god living amongst mortals. you, on the other hand, had just begun life. to a god, someone who has lived for thousands of years, a few decades was like a blink of an eye. and he only wished that he had been there so you could stay by his side, by liyue, for as long as you could. as he watches the burial take place, zhongli closes his eyes briefly. memories of the two of you flash across his mind, moments where you were happy, sad, angry. he cannot reverse time now, but the least he can do is preserve the memories the both of you shared together. the love he has for you will never die, even if he does. perhaps if fate allows, he can find you sooner than expected.

VENTI! resident alcoholic of mondstadt, venti. of course he's not fully sober when you lie in his arms, feeling the disease take over you. you don't know what it is, but barbara has been trying her best to relieve the pain for you. jean has searched far and wide to find a cure for your disease, but it seems it is something you contracted in your homeland before you were exiled. venti's braids tickle your face as he stares at you with hazy eyes. "venti?" you call, your eyelids feeling heavier than usual. he replies with a hum. "i love you." he can't reply, he's far too gone to do so. but he starts humming a tune you know - he's not wrong when he says he knows tunes from all over, past or future. it is a lullaby your parents used to sing to you before you went to bed - you now associate it with comfort, with home. he hums the full tune, even if he can't speak. and you smile, if a little bitter, because what a way to die this is. in your lover's arms, with a tune you know all too well. peacefully, you shut your eyes. venti doesn't realise you really are gone until much later, when you no longer respond to his singing, to his touches. whether he will use more alcohol as a method of coping, or whether he will finally realise what his alcohol addiction can do, that...well, that's really up to him. but one thing is for certain - the tune he sings for you, will always be sung when he's lonely, and on the rare occasion he's sober. because it reminds you of home and comfort, and knowing your reasons for coming to mondstadt, he wants you - or rather, your spirit - to accept his land as a home.

[ganyuslily]

ALL THE THINGS I COULD’VE BECOME (TELL MY MOM I’M SORRY).

he loves her in a way only a child can love their mother and yet, at the same time, he hates her in the exact same manner.

ei&scaramouche + scara&puppet!reader. familial.

angst. i guess…. also im clinging onto the headcanon that scara had long hair before he cut it off in a fit of rage

this is very chaotic. and messy. and in general kinda weird. anyways i think scara with yet another puppet!sibling that is also imperfect yet tries to stay at raidens side with everything they have is a sad concept

scaramouche is nothing else but destruction.

he wants to rip apart raiden ei’s chest, dig his bloodied hands into it and see for himself if she’s empty on the inside the same way he is. if the space between the ribs where the heart should be is an empty void.

comfort. it would bring him comfort.

because no matter how much scaramouche says he despises his god, his creator, his mother — it is simply not true. he wants to see, he needs to know, that fundamentally, they’re both the same. that they’re both empty on the inside, with no heart in the place where it should be. that if you would hit their chests, all you could hear would be an empty sound.

“you see, i love my mother as much as i hate her.”

(he thinks he might love her as much as he loves himself — which is almost nothing. how can he love someone if he cannot even love himself? oh, but at the same time he does love her, more than life. more than death. more than anything in the world. he loves her in a way only a child can love their mother and yet, at the same time, he hates her in the exact same manner.)

“i cannot forgive her, and yet i crave for her to tell me she’s proud of me. silly, isn’t it?”

he wants her to braid his hair and sing him to sleep just one more time. one more time, and then they can go back pretending they never even met. that she is not his mother and he is not her son. just one more time.

his mother has braided his hair one time in his whole life; when he was created. he kept the braid until it fell apart. after it did, he cut it off — no one but his mother should be able to braid it ever again.

you once made a grave mistake of comparing him to her — visually, they are oh so similar. you never heard him scream at you the way he did that night. he was screaming at you and yet you knew he was just screaming at her. you know he’s jealous — in comparison to him, you are not similar to your creator in the slightest.

i am not like my mother, he’d scream. i might’ve been created in the image of her, my flesh her flesh and her bone my bone, but i am not like my mother. i am not her. i’ve never been and never will be.

“don’t tell her any of that, though. she doesn’t deserve to know. if you do, i will find you,” he says after a long silence. you just nod with an emotionless face.

(sometimes, he wonders if you feel anything at all. perhaps, raiden ei forgot to make you able to experience that. or perhaps, it was just another flaw that made you imperfect in her eyes. she’s cruel, your creator and his mother.)

you know he wants you to tell her that and he knows. he also knows that raiden ei will know all of this before the next sunrise — for you are her creation too and you have always stayed at her side, even after being discarded.

he feels sorry. for who? he doesn’t know. perhaps, for no one. perhaps, for the both of you.

(perhaps, deep in his heart, a part of him feels sorry for his mother too.)

hi. missed me yet? please remember to reblog and leave feedback! it helps me a lot and also makes it easier for me to improve my writing :] i hope you have a wonderful day/night!

[starglitterz]

♡ WRETCHED MIRRORS.

mothers and sons exist as wretched mirrors of one another – i am all you could have been and you are all i might be. (from here.)

✧ feat : scaramouche, ei. (platonic)

✧ warning(s) : angst, spoilers for scaras backstory, i haven't played the 3.0/3.1/3.2 archon quests i make my own canon, not proofread

✧ a/n : i hate them. very different content to what i usually post but i am so obsessed with their dynamic that i had 2 write this. i also rlly like this piece & i hope u do too <3

please reblog w tags + leave comments ! it rlly makes my day :)

scaramouche is furious. he can feel it, the rage coursing through his veins of electricity and the way lightning crackles at his fingertips. this very realisation only serves to anger him further, forcing him to confront the knowledge he does his best to ignore; he is but a poor caricature of his creator at best.

scaramouche is scared. he can feel it, the fear quivering in his chest, and if he had a heart, he's certain it would be fluttering against his ribs like a bird in a cage. fear makes him weak. he spits the words out with hatred edging his tone and the phrase leaves a metallic taste in his mouth. he is terrified that he will become her and yet also that he will differ from her. he can admit that to no one because they will see it as a defect and he was created to be perfection itself, divinity distilled into a flawless marionette.

for a puppet, scaramouche feels way too fucking much.

and he hates it. he hates her. this is all her fault. it makes him feel even worse that he is resorting to pinning the blame on her like some foolish child. but it's true, isn't it? he wouldn't even be here, shaped from fragments of her grief and desire and the very thread which ties inazuma together, if it wasn't for her. he wouldn't have to suffer betrayal after betrayal if it wasn't for her.

and yet he loves it, oh, scaramouche loves her. how long can he keep lying to himself like this? how many times can he tell himself that he despises her, he loathes her, he abhors her for creating him and then tossing him aside like some child growing bored of a worthless plaything. some nights he wakes up from a memory, or perhaps a fantasy, of her combing through his long hair while humming a soft tune – there are always tears staining his cheeks and a dull ache in the left side of his chest on nights like those. because the truth is, he misses her so much it disgusts him.

scaramouche's deepest secret is that he just wants her to see him. he yearns for her to view him as more than what he was meant to be, as a fully fleshed person with his own agency even if said flesh was stolen from her to be cloaked with a new skin and gifted with a new name. he has tried so very hard to get her attention, he has tried taking over her own nation, for archon's sake, and yet she still would not spare him even a glance. he doesn't know what else he can do. but he also doesn't know what he would do if she ever did give him that which he clandestinely craves.

scaramouche convinces himself that he would yell, he would scream, that he would take all these ugly messy awful emotions swirling around in his hollow chest and just throw them at her. perhaps the sharpness of his words would cut through her cold exterior like a verbal imitation of musou no hitotachi. but he knows he might not be able to say anything. he knows he might just crumble under her indigo gaze, and he hates it. he hates the fact that his creator can still bring him to his knees like the puppet and puppeteer they should have been.

what scaramouche hates the most, though, is the fact that he cannot bring himself to say even one of her many names. raiden shogun, ei, baal. too many times he has had dreams, or perhaps nightmares, of him whispering her name and her coming to comfort him, to hold his hand and walk beside him like the mother and son they should have been. but he buries those ideals deep within him, locks them up in the darkest recesses of his heart and mind, refuses to acknowledge them, all because scaramouche is the sixth harbinger of the fatui and he fears nothing. he tells himself that so many times he thinks he almost starts to believe it.

but sometimes, on nights where storm clouds roll over the horizon and the echo of thunder booms in his ears, scaramouche can't lie to himself any longer. perhaps all him and his mother were ever destined to be were wretched mirrors of what they could've, would've, should've been to each other.

ugh they make me so ill // general masterlist.

© starglitterz 2022. do not repost or modify in any way – reblog if you enjoyed.

[ganyuslily]

AFTER THE STORM.

scaramouche has learned his lesson a long time ago — a god does not forgive that easily. especially, when that god is also your mother.

ei&scaramouche (platonic/familial)

angst (i am feeling silly)

yesterday i offered you a cute fic. today? an angsty scarei fic. tomorrow? who knows

raiden ei’s words shoot to kill when arguing. her verbal fights are the exact same as her physical ones; quick, sharp, straight to the point. able to spot her opponent’s weakness in mere seconds. hurtful. precise. aiming to kill.

more often than not, the one standing on the opposite side was her son. she had no mercy for him — son or not, whoever stood against her had to bear the wrath of her lightning.

(she was always a strict mother, after all.)

their fights are always so cruel. bringing up the past, bringing up the insecurities. recalling regrets and past mistakes, shooting insults at one another as if it were a contest. a competition. something that had to be won at any cost.

what seemed to somehow be even worse though that the fight itself was the aftermath. the silence that would follow. the eyes of his mother boring into his.

raiden ei does not apologize. she is a god, after all — a god is never wrong. on the other hand, he had almost become one. something that could’ve been but never was. something that sometimes haunts him in his dreams. something that he still sees when he looks into his mother’s face. and so he puts his hands together, his eyes looking at her in a silent prayer and

he

begs.

“i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.”

the words seem to spill out of him like from a broken glass. he can’t stop them, can’t stop the desperate sound of his voice, can’t stop the feeling of needing for her to at least look at him.

“i didn’t mean to— i didn’t mean to say that, you know it, you know i didn’t mean to!”

she extends her hand and caresses his face. he leans into her touch and for a second, all that she has done wrong seems like an illusion, a cruel trick of his mind. but in the end, she takes her hand back and her eyes become distant again.

she is a mother and

he is a son.

sadly,

she is a god before she is a mother.

sadly,

he is her son before he is anything else.

scaramouche has learned his lesson a long time ago — a god does not forgive that easily. especially, when that god is also your mother.

and still, like a fool, he awaits for her to tell him that he deserves to be forgiven.