Souls in Teyvat

"That's messed up" sighed Keith once Elea finished recounting her tale. "And nothing I will tell you will help."

Elea stood silent, drained after the experience.

It was the second time she arrived here today, and honestly, she didn't feel like returning.

"Why were you crying?" muttered Elea.

"A friend died" replied Keith with a sigh.

"That's even worse than mine" said Elea, looking at Keith and sensing his sadness.

"Who knows" muttered Keith, "In the end, everyone has their own problems, and they seem a lot bigger when they are yours."

For a minute, no one said anything, but then Elea spoke.

"Do you think my mother will kill that man?" asked Elea with a whisper.

"If she is your mother, you should trust her" was all Keith said.

"But even when she was hugging me, she was so angry..." muttered Elea.

"Still" replied Keith, closing his eyes in exhaustion.

Once again, they fell silent, but after 10 minutes, Keith stood up.

And much to Elea's surprise, he kicked the tree.

"Get me out of here" muttered Keith, frustration and impatience dominating his voice. "I have things to do outside."

Obviously, the tree didn't answer, and didn't even budge.

But before Keith could kick it again, with more strength this time, Elea spoke.

"Please, don't kick the tree" she pleaded.

Keith looked at her, and sighed, because she understood that he wouldn't be able to ignore Elea's petition.

"I'm just...." Keith tried to look for the words, but gave up.

He didn't think there were words accurate enough to express his feelings.

Sadness, impotence, anger...

In the end, Stelle died, leaving behind a big hole in his life.

And said hole was very painful to watch.

"Was that person a close friend?" asked Elea, knowing that as bad as she felt, Keith was probably having even worse.

"Very" replied Keith succinctly.

Elea fell silent once again, not wanting to imagine what it would be like losing Yae or Sara.

But she knew this was her chance to pay Keith back.

The mysterious and somewhat weird man had always helped her, so maybe she could try to help him this time.

And yet, she had no idea of how.

But then, an idea appeared.

"I can tell you a tale" she proposed, making Keith look at her weirdly. "My mom always tells me a tale when I'm sad, and I memorized the Radiant Knight."

"..." Keith looked at the girl, basically searching for the words to politely tell her that he couldn't care less about a fucki-... about a book.

But she also knew the girl loved that book, her dead father had written it, and she had memorized the whole book just to share it with him.

"Okay" he said, sighing inwardly.

"Hmm" Elea nodded energetically, ready to give her all to tell this book. "Hey, you! Stop right there!"

"Are you putting voices too?" inquired Keith, opening a single eye.

"My mother did it too" nodded Elea, already immersed in the tale.

"Seems like a good mother" muttered Keith, closing his eyes again.

Elea wanted to nod, but chose to keep telling the tale.

"A blonde woman with grey eyes, wearing white armour and a majestic sword, walked towards the person she could see spying on...."

The tale went on and on, with Elea giving her all to remember every single detail, and putting all her effort into making a different voice for every character.

But after half an hour of speaking, she fell silent.

Because there was no one listening to her.

Keith, drained by everything that happened, and also whatever it was he had done to make the Stellaron switch colours, had fallen asleep.

"Haa" Elea only sighed, but stood up with a little smile, not offended at all.

After all, she had done the same when her mother told a tale to her. She always woke up feeling refreshed, maybe Keith would be the same.

"Hmm?" but Elea quickly found something that caught her attention.

In a low branch, a light-purple orb was floating.

It was the size of a small apple, and looked like a swirling cloud of pink, always keeping the shape of an orb.

"What is this?" asked Elea, but when she tried to touch it, she found that her hand passed through it.

She then looked curiously at the other dried-up 'fruits', wondering if they would be the same as this one, but they were still closed.

"Is that a tree?" wondered Elea, who quickly approached.

Next to the gigantic tree, a small tree, a dozen centimetres tall, was growing.

It could be a tree, or just a weed.

But Elea didn't tear it off, because it was too beautiful for that.

It was golden, but translucent, making her wonder if it was golden to begin with, as if this small plant was made out of yellow glass.

It was just a lonely trunk without any branches, but considering she hadn't seen it earlier that day, she knew it was not a common plant.

But any thought of telling that to Keith went away, because she felt faint again, and once again, she decided to follow Keith's advice.

She would trust that her mother had made a good decision.

But even if her mother hadn't been able to conquer her anger, she would stay by her side.

She loved her mother after all.

--------------------------------------------------------------

"Elea"

Just after she woke up, a soft voice reached Elea.

The child looked up, only to see her Ei's face, looking at her with worry.

And Elea smiled, because her mother's eyes had no regret in them.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Keith opened his eyes, and silently stood up.

He looked at the room he was in, only to see it was one he had never seen before.

As much as he liked to stay in bed, he knew there were things he needed to do, so with a sigh, he stood up.

"I feel like shit" he muttered, but opened the door of the unfamiliar room, and stepped out.

He walked through the dirty and abandoned corridors, made of wooden walls and ground of pure earth, and finally found someone, and fortunately, it was the first person he wanted to see.

"How are you?" asked Keith, looking at Kafka's absent expression, who was sitting in front of a table with a purple cube in front of her.

"Tired" replied Kafka, who then looked at Keith with a wry look in her eyes. "But I guess not as much as you."

"I had some sleep, while you don't seem to have slept at all" replied Keith, making Kafka sigh. "Even your velvet coat is dirty, and we both know how impossible that is with you being as obsessed as you are."

Kafka glanced at her precious velvet coat, only to see that Keith was right. And yet, she couldn't bring herself to care.

Keith sat next to Kafka, and looked at the purple Stellaron.

"Stelle is there?" asked Keith, poking the Stellaron that seemed to be full of a purple liquid that swirled with his touch.

"It never did that when I touched it" said Kafka with a tired voice, without the strength to care about more secrets mechanism the universe seemed to like throwing at her face. "But yes, Stelle is there, somehow."

"So I might shaking her room?" asked Keith, poking the Stellaron again, and seeing the purple 'fluid' swirl again.

"Or making her puke" replied Kafka, only to see Keith repeatedly poking the Stellaron incredibly fast.

"That's for worrying us" muttered Keith, leaning back in his chair. "Is she going to be alright?"

"Elio said so" muttered Kafka, carefully moving the Stellaron out of the way, and leaning back in her chair with her feet on the table. "Elio said he already has a new body for her."

"How convenient" mumbled Keith, shaking his head.

"She was the plan B had you not appeared" revealed Kafka, making Keith's eyebrows rise. "But now, that plan is still going ahead."

"So? What is our role?" asked Keith, leaning back in his own seat.

"Act as her support in the shadows" replied Kafka with a blank voice. "And keep moving by ourselves."

"That sounds like we are going on our w-"

"Yes, Stelle won't be with us" interrupted Kafka, making Keith glance at her, but all he saw was a calm expression that didn't show any emotion. "But she will need to go to the Astral Express."

"That's good" nodded Keith with some relief. "If she needs to go on her way, the Astral Express is the best place she could be in."

"But" muttered Kafka, lightly biting her lip. "She still died, and that has its toll."

"Some side-effect?" asked a worried Keith, looking again at the Stellaron.

"Maybe more than one" admitted Kafka. "But the one we know for sure is that she will have lost her memories."

"That's all?" asked Keith, making Kafka glare at him. "It's a pretty cheap price to pay if you ask me."

"We are a collection of memories and thoughts, and she has lost all of them" said Kafka with a sharp voice.

"And yet, the one you are lamenting for is yourself" argued back Keith. "We lost our Stelle, but that doesn't mean she doesn't keep living. She will be another Stelle, but asking for more is pure greed on our part."

"Would you say the same if I was the one to lose my memories?" asked Kafka with a heated tone, something extremely rare in the usually composed woman. "Would you still say 'Well, she gets to live again, I will just be content with what I had?'"

"No, I wouldn't" replied Keith, leaning back in his chair again with a tired sigh.

"Why have you said that with her then?" asked Kafka with a cold voice.

"I didn't say that. I meant that as much as I lament her death, and there will always be a hole inside of us that she left, Stelle got more than what any of us will receive" clarified Keith. "She will make new friends, and Himeko is a good person, she will make sure Stelle has a happy time in the Astral Express. In no way am I saying I'm okay with her death and lost memories."

"....I know" muttered Kafka, absentmindedly looking at the Stellaron. "But why wouldn't I deserve the same treatment then?"

"I never said you don't, I only said I wouldn't be able to have that same thought" explained Keith. "Because you are special to me."

"Am I now..." muttered Kafka, closing her pink eyes and sighing softly.

"I don't think I would be able to see you living your life, laughing and smiling with other people, while forgetting me" confessed Keith looking at her. "At least I would be able to control myself from appearing in front of you and telling you about everything we shared."

"And what exactly did we share?" wondered Kafka aloud, trying to find an answer herself, while slowly rocking her chair using her feet on top of the table.

"Too many things" replied Keith, looking at the ceiling. "But the ones I have to take with me are our conversations."

"I would say the same" Kafka couldn't agree more with Keith's words.

"I enjoyed them a lot" confessed Keith with a reflexive expression, thinking back on his memories. "It was always challenging trying to understand your thoughts, twisted as they were, but that was what made it fun. I enjoyed the moment in which I finally understood them, and saw the reason behind them. It was like solving a puzzle, an extremely complex one, but that only made the final moment in which you solved all the more rewarding."

Once again, Kafka couldn't agree more.

"And as interesting as those puzzles were" continued Keith, looking at his crossed hands, sinking into his thoughts. "They were all a part of you. Everything I enjoyed deciphering so much weren't crosswords in a piece of paper, they were the thoughts of a person next to me, and that only made me more interested in seeing what your head had to offer."

"I've heard too many words referring to what lies inside my head" whispered Kafka in a quiet tone. "But it was the first time 'interesting' was used."

"It is what it is" shrugged Keith, uncaring of her words. "You are a twisted person, like all of us are, but you are twisted in a beautiful way. You don't mind killing, but you have morals. You take lives, but value life. You wear a mask to hide your emotions, while you are the most emotional one. You are full of contradictions, and I always enjoyed finding the explanations behind them. In the end, I found a beautifully built castle of reason, that despite being extremely twisted and convoluted, was incredibly strong."

"A castle..." muttered Kafka once again, her thought hidden behind his unfocused eyes.

"Yes, a castle" continued Keith. "And with every conversation, you allowed me to see a new room. But then, you decided to drift apart, I think you were afraid of showing some rooms to me."

"That's true" admitted Kafka, who found that she didn't care about Keith finding out.

"But after a few years, you chose to resume our talks" continued Keith. "I never told you, but I felt pretty lonely those years."

"So did I" confessed Kafka, realizing just now how lonely she had felt those years.

"But you chose to talk again, and I enjoyed those talks even more" said Keith with a small smile. "There were still a few rooms that no matter how much I knocked wouldn't open, but I didn't mind. It was your castle after all, I was just a guest."

Kafka didn't reply, but understood that Keith was talking about some questions he posed during their talks, and questions she had deflected or directly avoided answering, mainly about her disregard for death.

"Still, I was very curious about those rooms" confessed Keith. "They were in the centre of the castle, and as beautiful as the rest had been, how could the rooms in the centre be ugly? It was impossible."

Kafka felt her lower lip tremble, but sighed to release her feelings and calm down.

"But at some point, our conversations changed" continued Keith. "I started to feel lost, and stopped understanding how I myself thought. To continue with my analogy, my own castle was being demolished in front of me by an extraneous force, and it was terrifying."

"Yes, you had a few months in which you were quite irritable" commented Kafka, remembering how Keith had been frowning more often than not as his nightmares got a lot worse.

"I was, I couldn't tolerate even myself" nodded Keith with a wry smile. "But you still talked to me, and this time, I was the one building my own castle with you. I usually spoke without any reason, and said things even I didn't understand, but you were there with me, picking up the stones, studying them, and helping me build my own castle."

"Hmm" Kafka hummed, realizing now what Keith thought of those conversations.

"Some of the stones you picked didn't fit my castle, and there were points we couldn't agree on" admitted Keith. "But the vast majority of stones I built my castle with have your touch, be it their shape or their colour, the same colour your own castle is built in. That means a lot to me, because it means that I am the person I am now because of your help, because you were there for me."

And, once again, Kafka couldn't help but agree with him.

Because using Keith's analogy, her own castle had been 'remodelled' with Keith's help. Some of her ideas and thoughts had been proven to be utterly foolish under Keith's arguments, and others had been transformed into something different.

In the end, she was who she was because she had lived with Keith by her side.

"So when you ask me if I would be able to happily look at you when you lose your memories, my answer is no" affirmed Keith with nothing but certainty in his voice. "You are the most important person in the world for me, the one who helped me when I was at my lowest, and the one I learned so much from. I built my castle thanks to you, my personality and ideas also have something of you in them, and I hope I will be able to keep doing the same in the future. How could I accept you losing your memories? How could I smile when you mean so much?"

Kafka fell silent, thinking...

That she couldn't agree more with Keith.

For a few minutes, nobody spoke, and they absent-mindedly looked at the purple Stellaron, where their friend Stelle resided in some way or another.

Until Kafka spoke again.

"That sounds like a confession" she calmly said, without taking her gaze away from the softly shining purple object Stelle was in.

"If it sounds like one, is because it's one" replied Keith with nothing but calmness in his voice. "I'm not stupid enough to imply something I don't mean."

Kafka fell silent once again, her thoughts secret within her mind, but Keith stood up.

"This is not the moment to hear your reply, be it positive or negative" said Keith, only a small sigh showing how hard it was for him to utter those words. "I will probably ask for it in the future, I don't like leaving things hanging in the air, but now dealing with Stelle's problem is our priority, not getting distracted with all this."

"I agree" nodded Kafka, also standing up and picking up the Stellaron. "Now that you are awake, we should start moving."

Keith only nodded, and left the room behind Kafka.

"Just so you know, we have a psychotic Aeon following you."

"....joy."

"No, unfortunately for you, it's not the Aeon of Elation."

"Is there anything worse than him?"

"The Aeon who will make you unable to die, and is known for turning every planet her forces conquer into a movie of apocalyptic monsters battling each other."

"...joy."