Chapter Text
The first thing that Durin registers is the soft fibers of the velvet cushion smothering him. Granted, he technically doesn’t need to breathe— sure, his artificial body mimics that of a human’s, but his abyssal blood doesn’t need air the way a human’s blood does. As long as his heart continues to beat, so long as the world lives, so long as matter exists in the vacuum of space, he will live on.
(The abyss never dies. Children of ‘Humus’ never die. Durin of Dragonspine never truly died. They can only shatter to pieces, fragments of themselves scattered, and trade what they left behind to bring forth life anew)
Not being able to breathe is still uncomfortable, though, so Durin pulls himself away from the couch, rolling backwards to gracelessly fall on the floor.
The next thing he registers (or rather realizes) is that he is no longer in the cat’s bed he had fallen asleep in. This room, frankly, doesn’t look anything like the room he has in Albedo’s house, nor the Cat’s Tail, nor really any rooms that he’s seen before at all.
A one-legged round table sits in front of him holding only an abandoned tea set of a vaguely Mondstadtian style on its surface. Across the room, which is also round, a rectangular table bears stacks and stacks of books Durin has never seen before in addition to a flowerpot with a brilliant purple flower. A shelf rests along the wall, and the metal owls(??) perched on said shelves stare back at him with wide, unmoving eyes.
He plants his right hand on top of the table in front of him— how it doesn’t tilt when it only has one tiny leg to hold itself up is anyone’s guess, and Albedo’d probably love to figure it out were he here— and hoists himself up on shaky arms. His wings pull back instinctively to balance him, fanning out towards where the cushion was.
The feeling of his feet— his human feet— on the ground is something he never quite got used to, having spent most of his time as a small dragon flying, but it grounded (heh) him nonetheless.
The third thing he notices is the atmosphere. No, not the atmosphere like the barrier outside the false sky that keeps Teyvat’s air inside and everything else in the galaxy outside, nor the atmosphere like the ‘vibe’ of a room when there are other people around. When he senses the “atmosphere” he means it less in the strict definition of the word, and more in it falling under the vague umbrella of the term just enough to allow him to put word to a sensation that can’t quite be quantified.
The air hangs heavy with something adjacent to magic. It saturates the room, gently weighing on his (soft, human) skin.
Simulanka had also held magic in its ‘atmosphere’— the story's physical manifestation is constructed by magic, from its earth to its people to its air to its stars. Simulanka’s magic existed in its ‘atmosphere’ like a soft, fluffy blanket that draped over each and every character that was.
In that aspect, at least, this room is the same, but it differs otherwise— Simulanka’s magic was an intangible hug from the witches of the Hexenzirkel, a warm and fuzzy feeling, while this room almost lacks the emotion that Simulanka’s magic had held in spades. An undercurrent of… melancholy, nostalgia perhaps, lingers in it, but it’s so faint one may never notice it if they didn’t know what to look for.
(It feels like catching a star in the sky, a little burning ball of light at his claw tips, never his mother. It feels like dancing on a snowy-white hilltop to the tune of a lyre as his friend’s teeth sink into the flesh of his neck)
What is this place? Why is he here? Anxiety, ever familiar, grips his rib cage. Where is everyone? Did they all leave? Why? Why?
He walks towards the center of the room, right foot first— a wave of nausea bubbles in his throat— his left foot follows— the dim lighting casts shadows, swimming like water, and… and…
“Mikhail!” A voice rings through the room. “Mikhail, where are you?”
Durin whips around sharply, eyes wide, only to be met with… nothing?
“Mikhail, are you in there?”
The room is still as empty as ever. He strains his ears to hear any signs of life, be it breath, footsteps or the beating of a heart, but only hears the faint tick-tock, tick-tock of clocks.
Clocks… the walls are covered in clocks. Big, small, ticking, melting clocks…
A second goes by, and he can hear the dozens of clocks all click their arms one step further— another second, he can see them all advance, and with another he can feel the tiny tremors of the clocks’ gears travel from the contraptions’ metal confines to the wall to the floor he stands on. Oh, the door has never looked so enticing before…
He turns and walks towards it, the potted fern brushing against his left wing, (itchy…) and grabs the door handle. It makes no noise when he turns it, but as the door swings outward on its hinges, that same voice from before whispers, “The workshop door isn’t locked…?”
Stepping out of that room, he finds a hallway. It’s covered in luxurious red carpet and is lined with all sorts of decor on the walls. And, most notably, bubbles. Opaque purple-blue-pink bubbles are suspended in the air, like they were frozen mid-ascent. Spectral whales, too, ripple softly, frozen midair.
He wonders if they’d pop were he to poke them, like soap bubbles or the rolling bubbles of boiling water. He wonders if they’d wither and crumble like flowers, like leaves, like any plant his abyssal hands touch. He wonders if they’d tear and bleed like humans. Bleed like dogs, cats, birds, the fish that can sense the wrongness in his being, those that shy away to save themselves from their deaths at the corrosive claws of the abyss.
Durin brings his arm up, standing on his tiptoes to try and reach the height of the lowest whale, but he’s a little too short. He shakes his head— it’s not that much higher— and he jumps in a second attempt, but again his fingers only meet air.
Fine! That’s fine. He steps back, until his tail can touch the opposite wall, and unfurls his wings. Up, and then a push down; that’s all it takes for him to finally reach the bubble. His hand hits the surface of one of the smaller round bubbles, and suddenly he’s hit with a wave of emotion.
Excitement.
“Are we playing hide and seek?”
He walks down the familiar hallway, and pulls open the door on the left.
Exhaustion.
He’s been searching for ages! Where is ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇?
“Are you done hiding?” He wanders through another hallway, and another door.
“Ready or not, here I come!!”
Frustration. He’s in yet another room, and there’s still no sign of who he’s looking for! Where are they?
Fear. Did they leave? Please don't leave. Don’t leave him here, not again!
He runs up the wall, gravity be damned. “▇▇▇▇▇▇l…?” (You can’t leave me here!)
Distantly, Durin holds onto the bubble— the dream bubble— tighter.
Relief… triumph! “I found you! I found you!” There they are! They didn’t leave, they were just hiding! ▇▇▇▇▇il wouldn’t ever leave him, there’s no need to worry.
Curiosity, anticipation. ▇▇▇▇ail looks like they have something on their mind.
“Do you have something to tell me?”
They smile at him, and then reach out towards him with an object in their hands. Once it enters his line of sight, he gasps.
“Woahhh, it’s beautiful!”
They smile gently at his remark, place the object in his hands.
They place it in his hands?
There’s nothing in his hands but the bubble.
The thing in his hands, it’s beautiful.
It’s beautiful!
It’s beautiful?
His hands are empty.
And then suddenly, his hands are no longer holding anything, and he’s fallen to the floor. The bubble he had been hanging onto is now reduced to an iridescent puddle in front of him, wherin his distorted reflection watches him, eyes aglow.
Why did the bubble pop, he wonders? It held him just fine for a little while…
The now-puddle offers no answers. Actually, it’s rather odd, he thinks. The liquid hasn’t started soaking into the carpet, and his gloves are as dry as they’d be after drying in the sun all afternoon. How even is that possible? Such a rich, plush carpet ought to absorb liquid like a sponge…
Come to think of it, maybe it’s hydrophobic like rose petals. Or, frankly, magic of some sort keeping the carpet clean seams totally plausible (and like something Aunt Alice might actually do).
Regardless, it’d be rude to leave a puddle on the ground of such a fancy place, so he goes to scoop up the puddle with his hands. And then—
“▇▇▇hail, you look like you’ve seen something…”
Their face is pinched and their eyes are distant.
“Is it something very important?”
They continue to walk forward without so much as a word or shake of the head. Is something wrong?
“Talk to me, ▇▇khail…”
He follows them up another wall, but they don’t even spare him a second glance.
“▇ikhail…” Why won’t they acknowledge him? Did he do something wrong?
They both continue forward, walking straight along the carpeted path that gets harder and harder to see.
“It’s so dark in here…”
They walk up another wall.
“Mikhail?”
Still refusing to face him, they mumble something inaudible, but he doesn’t need to hear it to know what they said— he’s done this song and dance before.
“You’re going?”
Doesn’t make it any easier, though.
“Don’t go! Please?”
Please don’t leave him alone again…
They continue walking, face still turned away from him.
That’s how it is? Fine! He’ll compromise.
“Take me with you, at least!”
They don’t even pause walking for a second. Not even a compromise?! What did he do wrong? Please, please, you can’t leave him like this…
His breath hitches and his vision blurs at the corners. Is he crying?
[The people of Simulanka, they all disappeared at the touch of his claws. He hurt them, he hurt all of them, scared them, they were scared and they were hurt and it was his fault! They left, they left because of him, because he touched them, because he’s cursed… people always leave him, they always leave, it’s his fault for that, he makes them leave…]
“I…” his voice wobbles like Simulanka’s ground underneath his feet. “I will definitely keep it safe.”
This, at least, he can do.
“I promise you, Mikhail…”
He can’t hurt anyone again.
“So, you need to keep yourself safe, too…”
[It’s for the best. It’s for the best. They’ll be better off without him, he has no right to be sad…]
Before he can start crying, he bites his lip and runs off to the door on the right.
Behind the door is a cozy room, with a gently simmering fireplace and plush couches lining the room. A carefully folded bird sits on top of a box, waiting.
“This is an origami bird I made for you,” he gently takes it in his hands, as if it might crumble.
“Take it with you, Mikhail!”
“It will protect you from harm.”
They look back at him, ice blue curls falling over their face, which he can’t see.
No, he can see their face— he can see that they have two eyes, a nose, a mouth, all the normal human features of a face— but when he shifts his focus from one particular point to another, any information about what he had been looking at immediately slips his mind. Just like in a memory, or a dream…
They’re saying something, their mouth is moving, but he can’t remember the color of their eyes. Were they purple, or were they brown?
They continue speaking, louder now—
“—ello? Hello? Hey, are you alright? Can you hear me?”