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the night diluc escapes the fortress of meropide, there’s a pop-up tent standing next to a sign reading, wish to be bewitched?
by it, stands a boy that could be no older than him. he wears a top hat, customary of most magicians, and a set of garments that reminds diluc of old-timey circus performers. almost as a subtle homage to that, a single teardrop is painted on his cheek and the moment diluc’s gaze locks with his, a catlike grin spreads on the boy’s lips.
“i can make all your woes vanish into thin air,” the boy says, his smile wide and knowing. diluc’s gut churns at the sight of it. his eyes then flit to the end of the street, where the mecha-guards have begun to arrive by the dozens, and back to diluc. his grin sharpening to pure mischief, he adds, “i could make you disappear, too.”
without waiting for diluc’s response, he lifts the curtains leading into his tent. without any better choice, diluc grits his teeth and steps in.
before diluc lies a wooden table, its age hidden away by the brilliant red satin tablecloth draped over it, embellished with fading yellow lettering. there isn’t much room for walking, but it’s a cosy little thing, its most charming aspect being the countless trinkets dangling from the top.
the brightest of them all – a paper lantern in the shape of a cat – paints the inside in an otherworldly glow, and for a moment diluc wonders if he’s stepped into a dream he might’ve had in childhood.
he only realises he’s being watched when he tears his eyes from wandering further and finds the boy looking at him with a playful twinkle in his eye.
“impressed?”
diluc, ever the critic and just slightly abashed, replies, “you’ll have to try a little harder for that.”
“i haven’t even gotten started,” he laughs. “since you’re my very last spectator, tell me, what is it you’d like to see tonight?”
“hmm,” diluc pretends to think, taking an offered seat and resting his chin on his propped-up hands.
his eyes dart to a poster pinned by the entrance. it’s gratuitously charming, depicting a cartoon version of the magician – lyney – amidst a flurry of explosions and confetti, a childish grin on his face. it looks like it’s been hand drawn, though not with a lack of artistry, the focal point being a large text in rounded, bubbly lettering.
“surprise me,” diluc finally answers, lips twitching up a smirk, “oh, grand magician lyney.”
lyney lets out a quick cough, the tips of his ears burning red, eyes flitting to the poster. “the stage name’s still a work in progress. you should tell me your name at least, now that you have mine.”
“who’s asking?”
lyney spares him an amused glance. “me, lyney the mystifying, miraculous and otherwise otherworldly . i thought we’ve already established this.”
“you don’t look particularly alarmed for someone who might be housing a potentially wanted man,” diluc says blandly, watching lyney turning around to rummage through a large ornate chest.
there's a soft exclamation of found it! and then lyney’s pulling up a large heaping thing covered with a dark velvet cloth with enough discernible effort that it has diluc leaning forward to lend a hand. with a dismissive shake of his head, lyney places it on the table with a dull thud before looking back at diluc, his eyes sharpening.
“that depends. are you a wanted man?” he prompts cheekily, and the knowing quality in his voice should have diluc scoffing, coming to the obvious conclusion that he’s in the process of being hoodwinked by a street magician and if an officer doesn’t burst into the tent in the next moment, at the very least, diluc might end the night with his coin pouch swindled.
“it’s a long story,” diluc says, furrowing his brows. “but you really shouldn’t be so welcoming of strange men at odd hours, especially if they’re outrunning local authorities.”
to that, lyney snorts. “how charming. should i be kicking you out?”
“yes,” diluc answers seriously. “local crime rates are on the rise.”
“that’s too bad,” the boy says airily, “so far i’ve had a hundred percent customer satisfaction rate and i’m not letting you be the first to leave before i’ve even begun.”
then, for added effect, he pulls off the velvet cloth, revealing – “a crystal ball?”
“this is just for added ambiance,” he explains, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. to prove his point, lyney raps his knuckles against the glass surface, smile widening when it lights up to a blinding white that has diluc squinting. “i’m more of a cardsman myself. ever heard of tarot?”
diluc nods slowly. “aren’t you supposed to be a magician?”
from his sleeve, lyney pulls out a several multi-coloured handkerchiefs, before producing deck of cards with a little, aha! “i’m a lyney of all trades,” he proclaims proudly, laughing when diluc makes a face, “and that includes a little bit of fortune telling here and there. you up for it, stranger?”
looking up at him, diluc presses his lips together. “just call me diluc.”
lyney brightens, settling down on the chair across from him. he snaps his fingers once, and with that, the lights around them dim, save for the lone crystal ball, painting lyney’s face in warm gold, occasionally mimicking the flickering of a candle.
the room feels much smaller all of a sudden, the sort of snugness that reminds diluc of camping out with his brother and company-mates back when he was still a knight, of squeezing too many people into a too-small tent, keeping their voices low so they don’t get caught by the lieutenant for staying up past curfew.
too soon though, the beauty of nostalgia is quickly ruined by memories that are far less pleasant – the dingy lights of shoddy inns, stumbling to the reception, praying that his limp isn’t noticeable, nor the blood staining his robes as he books a night in a room he knows he won’t get a wink of sleep in, not without risking a knife at his throat, and death by the hands of his father’s killers.
the inns all had the same yellow lights – not yellow like the shining sun, or the flecks sprinkled across kaeya’s irises, but yellow like a sickness that bounced off the back of his eyelids even when diluc would squeeze his eyes shut, yellow like the teeth of the harbinger that had found him, starved and cold and afraid, and he had bared his ugly grin like a final image that would come to haunt diluc past his death.
“could you turn the lights back on?” diluc requests, hating himself for the anxiety that crawls up his spine.
“not a fan of the dark?” lyney asks, not unkindly. with a clap of his hands, the lights return, only slightly dimmed now.
“no, just not a fan of warm lights.”
“my sister’s just the same. says it reminds her of the hurricane lamps they’d hang outside when we were kids,” lyney shares, something distant in his eyes. “i suppose at night they do look a little like the eyes of a monster.”
for a moment, diluc doesn’t know how to respond to that, but by then lyney is shuffling the deck and saying, “i still tend to stick to them because most people associate warm lighting with pleasant memories, and as the saying goes: a happy client means my pockets are full.”
despite himself, diluc laughs, and lyney looks especially pleased with himself. “okay, businessman, impress me.”
diluc watches as lyney shuffles the deck, nodding when he’s instructed as follows: “tell me when you want me to stop. to know when’s the right time, just use your instinct.”
diluc doesn’t quite think his instincts are particularly honed for tarot-based intuition but decides to cooperate for lyney’s sake. there’s a moment of stillness before he motions for lyney to stop, who then splits the deck into three equal piles and looks to diluc.
lyney motions to the card atop each pile. “do these call out to you?”
diluc purses his lips together, considering. he points to a card in the middle pile that’s sticking out unevenly from the stack. “i want this one.”
satisfied, lyney picks out the three cards of diluc’s choosing and places them before him, now faced up. in order of left to right, they read the fifth of cups, death, and the chariot.
diluc wrinkles his nose in distaste. “really? death being the one that i picked out?”
“all three of them are of your picking if we’re being technical,” lyney smirks. “you haven’t even let me get into the reading yet. i’m doing a simple past-present-future deck with you, and it’s exactly as it sounds. your past is symbolised by the five of cups, the present being death, and the chariot being what the future might have in store for you.”
diluc lets out a soft hum, examining the cards closely.
“the suit of cups deals with matters of the heart,” lyney explains, “and the fifth in particular is associated with loss, grief and solitude.”
the five of cups depicts a lonesome figure with their back turned to the viewer, head tipped low. by their feet lie five chalices, some tipped over in a pool filled with what it once held. diluc thinks that if he looks close enough to get lost in the image, he could see himself amidst snezhnaya’s desolate wasteland, bodies by his blood-stained boots rather than golden cups.
he feels little bitterness in being told of his own failures. he knows how cruel the fates can be, knows the face of tragedy without a little caricature to spell it out for him. foolishly, diluc had hoped that this set of mystical cards might have presented to him a version of events that held some grander revelation about a part of his life diluc already knows to be ugly.
maybe, the possibility of a silver lining had diluc staring at the clouds even amidst a thunderstorm. maybe, diluc hasn’t grown up much at all.
“this one’s pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it?” diluc asks, dry.
“sure, but the main message here is that you’re focusing too much on the negatives. the man in his despair over his toppled cups fails to realise that if he just turns around, he’ll see the remaining two, still in place.”
“certain tragedies leave us blind,” diluc says, almost defensively.
“i don’t disagree,” lyney amends, raising his hands in mock surrender. “that’s why we leave this card in the past and move forward to the death card.”
“not much of an upgrade,” he mutters, to which lyney shushes him.
“death, while intimidating, is only as frightening as change could be. it denotes the end of a cycle, and of course, the beginning of something new.”
death is illustrated as a riding his mighty steed, donning a knight’s shining armour. at the horse’s feet lay the bodies of the perished, but death does not bow his head down to them in agony, like in the five of cups, rather death looks forward to an unseen horizon.
“the last card is the chariot, and it’s a personal favourite of mine,” says lyney.
the card itself is an enigma to diluc. it’s a scene not foreign to diluc – a solider on a chariot, pulled by two mares. he stands tall, but diluc doesn’t know what to make of the expression on his face, not quite smiling, yet not afraid. there’s an untouchable quality to it, like somehow, inexplicably, this man cannot be stopped.
“the chariot is a card that’s telling you to go for it. that whatever you want, have it. it’s yours.”
despite himself, diluc scoffs, cynicism coming back in full force. “that’s impossible. i can’t have what i want.”
“what would you want?” lyney asks, earnest.
what would diluc want – isn’t that just the million mora question?
for the past two years, diluc’s probably wondered about it every night he lied in restless slumber with his back against a surface that he so desperately wished was his childhood bed, and his answer would change like the moon and the tides.
the nights diluc couldn’t find a lodging, he wanted nothing more than a warm bed, all while ignoring the chattering in his teeth, the goosebumps on his skin. the days diluc killed more people than the number of stars in the sky, he wanted to see a familiar face, one that didn’t want him dead, one that might’ve pulled him into embrace and told him, you’re still good, an impossible, untrue thing.
and when the first and fourth harbingers found him, he remembers that more than anything, all he wanted was to tell his little brother that he was sorry and just to see his face one last time. he remembers the snow falling on his face, the tears clouding his vision and the blood in his mouth, and wanting for his father to wipe his face clean and pull him back up.
diluc lets out a laugh, planting his face in his hands. it comes off thick. “i want to go home. gods, i just want to go back home.”
“why can’t you?”
“because it won’t be the same. because my brother wouldn’t want to see me, and i don’t think i can ever go back to how it was.”
“you can never go back,” lyney begins, his voice lacking its usual lightness, “but if your brother has ever loved you, trust me when i say it’s not all lost. family is a strange thing, and hatred isn’t the absence of love, apathy is. do you think he really doesn’t care? do you think that’s even possible?”
diluc doesn’t answer, eyes trained on the tablecloth, trying to make meaning off fading diamonds and uneven lines, all just to avoid lyney’s gaze. lyney uses the lull in their conversation to arrange the cards back into the deck before pushing it towards diluc. he raises his brows in question, to which lyney offers a small smile.
“do you want to read my fortune?”
diluc blinks. “i wouldn’t know how.”
“you said it yourself – it's just storytelling. have a go at it, and since you’re unsure, just pick out a single card.”
tentatively, diluc takes the offered deck and mimics what he’d seen lyney do earlier. he shuffles the cards slowly, watching the other boy. he’s certain he’s paying closer attention to lyney than whatever aura the cards are supposedly emanating, but from the subtle shift in lyney’s shoulders and the twitch on his lips, diluc stops before he can even be told. he picks a card from the bottom of the deck and places it before lyney.
“the magician!” lyney croons, just as diluc gapes, “is this a part of your trick?”
“i told you i’d impress you!”
diluc rolls his eyes, before frowning. “the card is upside down, does that mean i shuffled it wrong?”
“don’t worry about it,” lyney dismisses, flashing him an eager grin, “go ahead and tell me what you make of it.”
the magician points a finger to the sky, the other to the ground, all while standing by a table with many objects strewn atop it. they range from the cup diluc had seen earlier, along with a sword, wand and a pentacle – things he’d seen in the other numbered cards, though never together.
“you get all the suits but in a single card,” diluc muses. “maybe you really are a lyney of all trades.”
lyney appears immensely self-satisfied which has diluc biting back a small smile of his own as he continues, “i’m no flatterer and i say this fully believing that you made for this card to appear: i think the magician card is trying to say that you have the potential and the means to achieve great things.”
“do you agree?” lyney asks, tilting his head.
“i think magicians as a whole really should focus on being humbler,” diluc deflects, laughing when lyney smile falls. “but otherwise, it’s absolutely right.”
lyney blinks at him, something strange in his mauve eyes before a smile stretches on his lips, softer than the ones diluc has been graced with all night. his chest clenches at the sight of it, and diluc pries his eyes from the boy’s gaze.
“when did you become such a smooth talker?” lyney teases. “i take that you’re a fan of lyney the mystifying?”
“yes,” diluc answers, mouth curling up to a smile, “and i’ll be sure to write in my dazzling review detailing how he’s as miraculous and otherworldly as claimed by the posters.”
with a snap of lyney's fingers, the lights return to their original intensity which is what diluc uses to explain the way lyney’s eyes seem to glimmer brighter than the lanterns hung above them. when the magician stands and takes a bow, top hat in hand, diluc has no choice but to give a standing ovation, as any one-man audience ought to.
“i’d love to have you in my audience again,” lyney says, before letting out a pearl of laughter, “though, preferably not when you’re on the run and i’m in a place i could do stunts in without collapsing the tent.”
“i’d like that, too. would it be too much to ask you to not let anyone know that i’ve been here tonight?” diluc asks, “i did maintain your perfect customer satisfaction ratio, after all, and for some reason i’m in high demand tonight.”
“i don’t kiss and tell,” lyney grins, and diluc thinks he must be bewitched.
“is that so,” he murmurs, and presses a chaste kiss to lyney’s cheek, right by the tear-shaped mark. “then i’ll hold you to it.”
...
lyney watches the other man go with rapt attention until his silhouette blends amidst the fontaine skyline. a smile begins to curl on his lips when he touches his cheek, right where he’d been kissed, and he turns his back to begin packing up for the night. if he’s a little quicker in his nightly routine, no one will know, save for little freminet who might ask why lyney’s back a little earlier that night.
then again, it’s not every day that you meet snezhnaya’s most wanted man in the flesh, and get to find out just how hot that flame can burn, how bright the light that emanates.
“diluc ragnvindr,” lyney murmurs, feeling that name on his tongue, wondering what Father might’ve felt when she had him under her heel, writhing and ferocious, what it might feel for lyney to take her place and figure out just what it might take to make a man like that crack.