Solace in a Hopleless Place
“Gorou.”
His name snaps him out of his shock-induced haze. “Yes?”
“The charges are treason, conspiracy to commit high treason, participation in a banned terrorist group, and four counts of manslaughter. How do you plead?”'
As was previously planned, he says “Guilty.”
The judge says “You are hereby exiled from Inazuma. Leave before sunset tomorrow and return on pain of death.” Then she bangs her gavel.
The rest of the trials pass in the same haze. Every important member of the Resistance is there, plus any common soldier that didn’t manage to escape. The leadership is given the same sentence of exile, while the soldiers are let off relatively easy, their only punishment being a few years of hard labor rebuilding the Tenshukaku.
He’s halfway to Dornman Port when he shakes off the last of the shock from the disastrously failed assassination attempt. It was an all-or-nothing bet, he knew, but he didn’t think he’d properly understood what failure truly meant until it happened.
He arrives in Dornman Port in the early afternoon two days after the trial and decides to make the trek to Mondstadt the same day. Unfortunately, it’s longer than he reckoned on, and it’s nearly midnight when he arrives.
Upon arrival in Mondstadt, he explains his situation to one of the Knights at the gate. Visitors are apparently not supposed to enter the city after dark. As he’s arguing with the guard, who seemingly wants to let him in but can’t, a wandering bard comes from the inside, winks at the guard, and pulls Gorou inside. And then drags him off to a tavern to tell his story properly.
Once he’s done the first telling of his story, the bartender asks “What exactly went wrong with your plan?”
“They had a spy,” Gorou almost growls. “They knew we were coming, they knew our every move. And it’s really damn hard to touch the Shogun if she knows you’re there.”
“There are few things that can derail a plan worse than a traitor within your ranks,” the bartender says, as if speaking from experience.
“Did you ever catch whoever did it?” asks one of the tavern’s other patrons - one who’s extremely drunk.
“Of course not! The entire Resistance disintegrated after we failed. We never got the chance.”
“What do you plan to do from here?” asks the bartender, heading off Gorou before he can get any more riled up.
“I have no idea,” answers Gorou. “I’m only here because the first boat I could get on was coming here.”
The bartender nods. “I suppose you need somewhere to stay for the night?”
“I could use one,” Gorou admits.
“I can help with that,” says the bartender. “The tavern’s full, but Barbatos knows I’ve got enough spare rooms for you. Which is probably why he brought you here.”
Someone calls across the room. “Diluc! Not just any stray you take in can replace me!”
The bartender - Diluc, apparently - glares across the room at the shouter, then says “Ignore him. He’s my… was my… it’s complicated.”
Gorou nods. “I won’t ask. But why is it you’re willing to take me in so quickly?”
Diluc sighs. “I’ve had my share of failed assassination attempts.” He doesn’t elaborate.
Later - Gorou thinks it’s about half past one in the morning - Diluc announces last call. A loud chorus of groans follows, and the tavern slowly empties, the last few people being chivvied out by Diluc after fifteen minutes or so.
Leaving the city is a lot easier than entering it. Diluc just nods at the guards and opens a postern gate. Apparently Diluc comes around this late at night regularly.
They walk mostly in silence for about fifteen minutes before Diluc points out the winery mansion.
“You weren’t joking about having a lot of spare rooms,” Gorou says, mildly surprised.
Diluc flushes slightly. “Lucky birth.”
Once he’s shown Gorou to one of the spare rooms, he says “Let one of the maids know if you need anything” and leaves Gorou to collapse on the bed for his first proper sleep since the trial.
Gorou wakes up around noon the next day. He rolls out of bed and does his best to tidy up the room. It’s not like he’d made much of a mess, or that Diluc needs it, given that he has maids, but it’s the principle. He makes his way downstairs and is greeted by one of Diluc’s maids, who seems quite happy for a chance to stop mopping.
“You’re Gorou?” she asks.
He nods.
“I’ve been wondering when you’d show up. Diluc’s out in town - I don’t know what he’s doing. There’s breakfast waiting for you in the dining room… although you should call it lunch.”
Gorou thanks the maid, then calls her back to ask where the dining room is.
In the dining room, he uncovers what amounts to a pile of steak, potato, and cheese, stacked up. There’s a note next to it, from Diluc, which he reads as he eats. He’d spent so long being insanely busy with the Resistance that he’s used to such multitasking.
It’s fairly concise, as Gorou would expect from Diluc. As Gorou was told by the maid, Diluc’s in the city and invites Gorou to join him. He doesn’t say what he’s doing, just that he can’t be missed. He says that Gorou is welcome to stay as long as he needs to, as he’s a person that won’t take advantage of another’s kindness. And he mentions that he’d made the meal and used his Vision to keep it warm. At first, Gorou does a double-take at his ready admission that he has a Vision before remembering that it’s only in Inazuma that they’re banned.
Once he leaves the mansion, he returns to the city, mostly so he can find work. Diluc is entirely right that he doesn’t want to stay for free if he can avoid it.
“Katheryne? What are you doing here?” he exclaims, seeing her at her kiosk at the entrance to the city. She never leaves her desk in Inazuma.
“I have always been here,” she replies.
“What about the Katheryne in Inazuma?” he asks.
“Information on the workings of myself through Teyvat is limited to Adventurer’s Guild members,” she responds as if she’s giving a canned response. “And unfortunately for such a promising young adventurer such as yourself, we do not accept new adventurers during Mondstadt’s harvest season. Even those we previously tried to recruit.”
Gorou shakes his head in confusion. He’d been previously recruited by Katheryne in Inazuma, which means that they’re the same person or they somehow share memories…
He abandons that line of thought. He won’t be able to get any answers out of an uncooperative Katheryne. Instead, he asks “What stops you from hiring during the harvest?”
“Mostly tradition,” answers Katheryne. "The farmers of Mondstadt need as many workers as they can get during the planting and harvest seasons.”
Gorou’s eyes narrow. Adventuring is rather useless if you can’t feed the city, but he wouldn’t expect the Guild to bother with that. He doesn’t pursue it though - again, Katheryne won’t talk about anything that doesn’t suit her. “Can you point me to any of those farmers that are hiring?” he asks instead, not expecting an answer but thinking it’s a better chance and more useful than anything else he can ask.
Katheryne answers nonetheless. “Dawn Winery is currently in the midst of their semiannual hiring spree. In fact, Master Ragnvindr is currently in town for that purpose. He’s in the main square - just go up, you can hardly miss him.”
“Thanks,” Gorou says as he turns and walks up the main stairs of the city. As he climbs, he mutters to himself “So that’s what he meant by ‘can’t be missed.’” Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t that.
Ten minutes later, a slightly out of breath Gorou makes it to the main square of Mondstadt. The disadvantage of building your city into the side of a hill is that it makes it somewhat more difficult to get around. To his immediate left is a sign advertising for the Good Hunter. Underneath that sign is another sign advertising for work at Dawn Winery. There’s a small crowd - thirty people or so - mostly waiting around for their chance for Diluc to take their name. Gorou takes a seat and waits for Diluc to work through the rest of the crowd.
“Next,” calls a bored-looking Diluc as the current person leaves, looking somewhat annoyed. Someone else walks up to his table and starts talking - for some reason, no one else can hear them.
“How do you know who’s next?” Gorou asks the person sitting next to him.
“Whoever gets up first, mostly” is the answer. “They always hire everyone they can, it’s not like there’s much competition.” Gorou nods.
A moment later, he asks “Are you that Inazuman revolutionary that appeared at Angel’s Share yesterday?”
Gorou blinks in surprise. “That would be me. Why?”
“Is it true that you took the first shot at the Shogun?”
“I’m a… was a general, not an assassin.”
The man nods. After a moment, he asks “Did you take any shots at the Shogun?”
“It’s rather useless to try once she knows we’re there. She can grab arrows out of the air,” Gorou grumbles. “Didn’t stop me from trying, but most of my arrows went to her soldiers.”
Diluc calls “Next,” and Gorou answers the call.
“I thought I’d see you here,” Diluc says. “I suppose the Guild sent you here?”
Gorou nods. “What is your arrangement with the Guild?”
“The Knights mandated it after one year when the entire workforce quit to join the Guild,” Diluc responds. “When neither they nor the owners would back down on their wage demands, the city nearly starved. And despite Barbatos’s calls for a revolution - or so they say - the Knights stepped in and stopped the Guild from hiring anyone new during the harvest.” He shakes his head as though to get rid of an unpleasant memory. “But enough of ancient history. You’re here for work. I assume you’re more interested in actual harvesting rather than the administrative work?”
Gorou agrees. “Tracking supplies and the like was the worst part of the Resistance.”
Diluc holds back a sigh. “Very well.” He briefs Gorou on pay - which is surprisingly generous - duties, hours, and such - long hours this year because of an early winter and limited demand for ice wine - then ends with “You start tomorrow in the vineyard at half past eight.” Then he calls “Next.”
The next three weeks are extremely busy for Gorou. He’s busy the entire day in the vineyard, after which he has little energy for anything else. He’s told that it isn’t normally this busy except after the freeze, but this year’s freeze will be sooner than normal.
Little time for anything else also includes finding another place to live. As convenient as it is to not have to walk into the city every night, now that he has work, he’d like to avoid living on charity.
Gorou and Diluc eat together almost every night, mostly in silence as both of them are too tired for small talk. Most nights, Diluc cooks, which Gorou is almost more grateful for than the room. About twice a week, he’ll get too wrapped up in papers to remember, and twice he falls asleep in those papers, in which case Gorou sighs and throws together dinner for the two of them. And on the one occasion where Diluc goes missing for two days straight - he’s told that it happens occasionally, it’s nothing to worry about - he’ll cook for himself. He’s not a bad cook, he just doesn’t enjoy it much, nor does he have the energy to.
(When asked why he doesn’t let the maids cook, Diluc laughs. He doesn’t trust them to not burn down the house, he says, and it’s far too hard to find a half-decent chef for hire.)
Three days in a row go by when the morning starts with a frost. There’s no effect on the harvest, other than a lot more workers bringing gloves.
The next morning, Gorou wakes up to a howling blizzard. He gets out of bed, noting that the house is somehow warmer than normal, and walks to the kitchen, where he finds Diluc with a cup of coffee.
Diluc greets him, then points out the window. “That is Barbatos thinking he’s being funny.”
Gorou blinks. “Barbatos does things like that?”
Diluc scoffs. “Only to me. I’m convinced that if you could get out of here, you’d see the storm is entirely contained in the vineyard. Shows what I get for asking for a cold snap.”
“Why would you want a cold snap?” Gorou asks.
“An experiment with ice wine,” Diluc answers. “I’m told that if you freeze the grapes before harvesting, it concentrates the juice, which makes for far sweeter wine.”
“And you couldn’t get a Cryo user to freeze them for you?” Gorou asks. “I’d think that would be easier than getting a god to change your weather.”
Diluc sighs. “You underestimate how pliable Barbatos can be. And even if he wasn’t, I have a talent for driving off Cryo Vision holders. Diona hates the entire wine industry. I’d have no chance at convincing Rosaria to take on any additional work, and she’s not leaving the Church anytime soon. Eula hates me for some reason, which she’s passed on to Mika, and Kaeya is… well, he’s Kaeya.”
Gorou nods. He briefly considers asking about Kaeya - he’s heard stories - but decides against it. “It would probably make a better wine from a natural freeze anyways,” he says instead.
“Perhaps,” replies Diluc. “Whatever the case, it’s not going to happen, as convenient as it may be. Are you cold?”
Gorou blinks at the sudden change of topic. “No - I don’t understand it, but I’m actually warmer than before,” he answers.
Diluc nods. “That would be my Vision. I wasn’t sure if it was affecting the entire house - normally, I only bother to keep myself warm. Surprisingly, it’s not that much more effort.”
“Increasing area-of-effect somehow doesn’t increase the power needed,” Gorou replies. “Unless you’re doing something with a lot of precision.”
“I wonder why,” asks Diluc, not expecting an answer. Gorou doesn’t give one - he doesn’t know either.
After a moment’s silence, Diluc says “Well, this day’s going to be completely useless for the both of us. We won’t be able to get out through that storm, either to town or to harvest and I can’t work in the cold - Vision heating is too distracting.”
“I’ll appreciate the day off,” Gorou replies. “Your harvests are rather exhausting.”
“I have been working you rather hard,” Diluc admits. “But winter would be here early regardless of what Barbatos did, and I’m not banking everything on an experiment. Thanks to your work, we only have a day’s worth of harvest or so left.”
“I’m not complaining,” Gorou answers quickly, “but I do need a break.”
The rest of the day is spent mostly quietly. Neither of the maids show up through the storm, which leaves Diluc and Gorou alone together the entire day. They talk more than they have ever since the first night when Gorou showed up in Mondstadt, mostly for lack of anything else to do. Diluc is very interested in the details of the Resistance to the point where Gorou almost suspects him of trying to create his own revolt.
When asked why he’s so interested, Diluc answers “I also had my time as a rebel. My motivations were far more selfish than yours - entirely revenge, to be honest.” And then they’re on to talking about Diluc’s misadventures in Snezhnaya.
“…I managed to actually land a hit on Dottore,” Diluc finishes. “To this day, that’s the closest I’ve come to revenge.”
Gorou nods along. From his one-time dealings with the Fatui, they’re not worth it to work with. Still, he has to ask: “What caused you to go on such a quest for revenge in the first place?”
Diluc grimaces. He doesn’t want the details publicized, but he can tell Gorou is trustworthy. He tells Gorou as much, then begins with the disappearing children. The only part of the story he leaves out is his messy breakup and disownment of Kaeya.
The next morning dawns cold and clear… in the sky, at least. The ground, less so. There’s about a foot of snow on the ground, ending right at the boundary of the vineyard and confirming Diluc’s theory of the localized storm.
The crowd gets to work. They know where the remaining unpicked grapevines are and, almost more importantly, where the already-picked vines are to dump the snow.
About half an hour in, Gorou asks Diluc - who, for the meantime, is working with the other pickers - if he can use his Vision to melt the snow.
“I doubt that I can control it enough to not thaw the grapes,” Diluc answers. “And thawed grapes are completely useless.”
“I might be able to shield them,” Gorou answers. “At least enough to clear the paths.”
Diluc raises an eyebrow. “Care to demonstrate?”
Gorou digs through the snow to the ground, then pulls off a glove and touches the ground. A thin wall of earth erupts through the snow, then curves over the tops of the grapevines.
“Impressive control,” says Diluc. Then he sends a wave of flame down the path, causing a massive cloud of steam and almost entirely clearing the path of snow.
The wall shatters as Gorou releases control over it. Underneath it, the snow covering the grapes remains mostly intact. The top had slightly melted and then refrozen into a somewhat solid chunk of ice, which Diluc picks up and throws onto a pile of waste snow. The grapes underneath are still frozen solid.
Diluc nods in approval and the two move through the vineyard repeating the process. It takes about an hour - there isn’t much vineyard left unharvested, but making such barriers is fairly exhausting for Gorou.
Once they’re done clearing the paths, Diluc leaves to begin the wine processing. This will continue through the night, with only Diluc and a few backup workers, pressing all the grapes before the weather has a chance to warm up.
Diluc comes in at half past four in the morning. He’s not as tired as you’d expect - he does have experience working through the night. But he still collapses on his bed the first chance he gets.
The next night, the entire collection of harvesters is invited to Angel’s Share for a night of free drinks. There’s enough of them to fill the bar, and regardless, it’s closed to everyone else - except that one bard that brought Gorou here when he first arrived.
Diluc, who for tonight is on the other side of the bar, sees the bard and shakes his head at him. Venti, of course, doesn’t leave and instead takes a seat next to Diluc.
“Was the cold snap to your liking?” he asks.
Diluc sighs. “Well, I can’t say it didn’t work.”
“Whatever did the two of you do cooped up together?”
Diluc blushes furiously. “We talked.” Then he looks around for Gorou, who is, thankfully, on the other side of the room and apparently not listening.
Venti laughs. “Oh, I didn’t mean to imply anything… inappropriate. It seems your mind went there all on its own.”
“You knew exactly what you were doing,” Diluc says, face still red.
“Perhaps,” answers Venti. “Although if I did, I’d imagine that it would work better.” Then he walks away, to where Gorou is in a rather heated argument with a few others on how, exactly, a Pyro arrow flies without lighting the entire arrow on fire.
“It doesn’t have time to burn,” Venti interrupts. “Any fool with more arrows than sense can try it, you don’t even need a Vision.”
“Thank you!” someone exclaims to Gorou. “If I wasn’t drunk, I’d show you - you don’t need a Pyro vision, I’ve done it before!”
Gorou throws up his hands. “Fine!”
Venti laughs, then drags off Gorou. “Tell me, what went on during that snowstorm?”
“Very little,” Gorou answers. “I needed a rest, Diluc kept me far too busy. And it’s not like there’s much to do trapped inside by a storm.”
“Oh, I’m sure you could’ve come up with something,” Venti answers. Then he walks away, leaving a very confused Gorou.
Later in the night, Charles announces “Last call,” to an even louder chorus of groans - no one likes the end of free drinks. The trickle out starts with Diluc, as he’d been almost the only one paying attention to the time. Gorou follows soon after - he’d stopped drinking about an hour ago to avoid a hangover.
They walk in silence, as Gorou would expect from Diluc, but this time it feels somewhat more awkward. Eventually, Gorou asks “What exactly did that bard say to you?”
Diluc blushes again, mutters something about “meddling gods,” and doesn’t answer the question.
“I see,” Gorou replies.
“What exactly do you think you see?” Diluc says. “You like someone, but you don’t want to admit it to yourself,” Gorou answers.
“I have no feelings for you, despite what that damned bard might say,” Diluc grumbles.
Gorou stops walking. “It’s me you like?”
Diluc freezes. “That is not what I meant to say.”
Gorou takes a breath and says “But what you wanted to say, I think.”
Diluc tries to deny it as he starts walking again. Gorou says “I like you too,” and Diluc stops again. Then he turns to kiss Gorou.
Gorou hesitates half a second before kissing back.
When they break the kiss, Diluc is smiling for the first time Gorou’s seen.