Act I: The Torn Receipt in Nod-krai
The northern air in Nod-krai always carried the scent of wet moss and a biting cold, but that afternoon, the aroma blended with the stench of blood and gunpowder. The Knight of Favonius expeditionary force, led directly by Grand Master Varka, who stood commanding with his distinctive blonde hair and sharp blue eyes, was currently held up in a rocky valley, forced to fend off waves of attacks from a pack of Wild Hunt that had suddenly emerged from behind the fog.
Amidst the loud clashing of swords, the howling wind, and the shouted combat orders, a massive anomaly was walking with utter composure among the sharp crags.
Her codename was Vilya. To an untrained eye, she was merely a tall female mercenary—reaching one hundred and ninety centimeters—hired to ensure that a wagon full of Mondstadt’s finest quality wine reached the front lines of the expedition. However, to anyone who happened to look over amidst the chaos, Vilya was the very personification of pure illogic.
Grasping a lightweight wooden clipboard holding a single sheet of receipt paper, she stepped gracefully, leaping over mud puddles with the precision of a court princess. Her focus was entirely locked onto the gigantic figure of Varka, who was swinging his greatsword, cleaving open the chest of a monster.
“Grand Master Varka,” Vilya’s voice drifted over, low and smooth, yet somehow capable of piercing through the roar of battle. “I require your signature. The wine has been delivered safely. Please acknowledge its receipt.”
Varka, who had just spun his body to parry the pounce of another monster, almost choked on the cold air upon hearing such an incredibly polite, raspy voice right behind his back. When he glanced over, he found a woman with the distinctive ears of the northern Fae race offering him a quill pen with an extraordinarily stiff gesture of servitude.
“Sir. The receipt. If you would be so kind,” Vilya repeated, without blinking in the slightest.
Of course, the Wild Hunt did not care about logistics bureaucracy. Two monsters leaped from a blind spot, aiming for the long neck of the wagon escort. However, before the tips of their claws could even touch a single strand of Vilya’s plum-colored hair with its distinct peach highlights, a pair of massive, pale-blue rose vines coated in thick ice shot up autonomously from the ground beneath her feet.
Crack!
The frozen rose vines moved ruthlessly without mercy—ensnaring the monsters’ bodies, their icy thorns crushing the creatures’ ribs within seconds, and piercing their hearts until they crumbled into ash. Vilya did not even look at the destruction her magic had just wrought.
Seeing the absurd sight of a mercenary effortlessly obliterating high-level enemies while casually holding a clipboard, Varka’s blue eyes suddenly gleamed with a mischievous, opportunistic spark. He looked at the remaining waves of the Wild Hunt still swarming the valley, then looked back at Vilya. With a hearty, booming laughter, the Grand Master deliberately took a step back, intentionally withholding his hand from the pen.
“Ah, hold on a moment, Lady Fae!” Varka chuckled, intentionally dodging another monster’s swipe so that it tumbled straight toward Vilya’s path. “A battlefield is a highly dangerous administrative office. I cannot possibly sign a legal document with all these pests ruining my concentration, can I? It would be a terrible shame if a stray claw tore your precious paper.”
Vilya’s orange eyes narrowed slightly as her pragmatic, coin-driven mind instantly processed the hidden threat. To her, repelling those monsters was a purely pragmatic matter: if Varka were injured, killed, or if the document was compromised, no one would be able to sign that important receipt, and she would not receive her pay.
Realizing the Grand Master was blatantly exploiting her presence to clear the remaining battlefield, Vilya let out a cold, sharp breath. She didn’t complain; she simply prioritized her paycheck.
Without moving a single step from her spot, her freezing magic erupted in full force. Dozens of massive, icy rose vines burst from the rocky ground, weaving a devastating web of thorns throughout the valley. In less than a few minutes, the remaining pack of the Wild Hunt was ruthlessly impaled, frozen, and shattered into ash, leaving the entire area completely cleared and silent.
Only after the last monster crumbled did Varka finally lower his greatsword, thoroughly amused by his improvised, highly efficient ‘subcontractor.’
“Splendid! Absolutely marvelous!” Varka laughed boisterously, finally taking the quill offered by Vilya with a hand that was still vibrating from the adrenaline. With a swift, grand motion, the large, sweeping signature of the legendary knight was carved onto the pristine white paper. “A clean valley, a safe delivery, and a signed receipt. Now, everything is perfectly in order.”
Vilya let out a sigh of relief, a very faint, subtle smile appearing on her lips. She could finally exchange this precious sheet for bountiful pouches of Mora. However, that small happiness lasted for less than a single second.
Whoosh—Thwack!
A silver throwing knife shot from the side with terrifying horizontal speed. The sharp weapon ripped right through the center of Varka’s signature, carrying the precious receipt away and pinning it firmly into the grassy ground a few meters ahead of them. The paper was torn into two pieces, ruining the validity of Vilya’s valuable document.
The world seemed to slow down for the undercover mafia boss. The faint smile on her face vanished, replaced by a hollow stare directed at the paper now soiled by the dirt. Inside her chest, the residues of opposing ancient powers began to churn, ready to explode and summon a storm of frozen roses to level the place.
However, the harsh upbringing of her mentor, Fedya, immediately echoed in her mind. Self-calming technique.
Vilya closed her pair of orange eyes. She took a deep breath, and began to whisper softly, counting down in her heart while reciting the grand names of her family’s past leaders.
“One… Ekaterina. Two… Nataliya. Three… Irina…”
She kept counting until the tenth count, uttering the name of Aleksandra, her mother, until her heartbeat stabilized back to its normal limit. Only when she felt her mask of composure was perfectly fitted back in place did she open her eyes and turn around slowly to see who the bastard was that dared disturb her peace.
There, leaning against a crag with a Favonius Lance resting on his shoulder, stood a twenty-four-year-old young man. His mint-green hair was messy from the northern wind, and his pair of dim, weary red eyes gleamed with a dangerous passion. The youth was Lohen.
Lohen had been watching Vilya’s every move from the very beginning. He saw how the woman wiped out the Wild Hunt as if the monsters were mere dust obstructing her path—easy, efficient, and without needing to move her two hands, which were busy holding the clipboard. As someone obsessed with absolute strength and always searching for the limits of his combat instincts, that sight was like honey to a bee. Lohen’s blood boiled; he wanted to feel for himself just how tough this tall woman in front of him truly was.
“You…” Vilya’s voice sounded incredibly low, almost resembling the whisper of an icy wind that curdles blood. Yet her facial expression remained calm, as cold as the perpetual ice of Snezhnaya.
Lohen only smirked slightly, challenging her sharply with his weary gaze. “Your hands are empty, but those roses move like an executioner. Fight me.”
Instead of retaliating with a magical rampage because her receipt had been ruined, Vilya simply tilted her head slightly. Her pragmatic, noble-mafia brain immediately went to work calculating the financial loss from the torn receipt.
“How much… can you afford to pay?” Vilya asked flatly.
Lohen was momentarily stunned to hear such a transactional response, but his smirk grew even wider. “Name your price, Mercenary.”
Thus, under the direct witness of Grand Master Varka—who could only shake his head while chuckling in amusement—the first transaction between the Rose and the Hare was officially agreed upon. Vilya set a very strict hourly rate—no discounts, no tolerance for overtime—following the rigid official standards of professional wages. As long as the fifty thousand Mora for each hour were available, she did not mind being a living punching bag or a high wall for this ambitious Mondstadt youth.
Clang!
Clang!
Clang!
The next second, the silent valley bore witness to a dangerous dance between the two. Lohen attacked with pure aggressiveness, the tip of his spear thrusting like lightning, exploiting every opening and small trap he usually used to ensnare his prey. On the other hand, Vilya met every attack with minimal movement. She swung her father’s trident with the grace of a dancer, parrying and countering Lohen’s strikes in a rhythm that, at first glance, seemed perfectly balanced.
For Lohen, this fight was paradise. He felt as though he were climbing a challenging; high cliff. Every time he felt he was close to breaking through Vilya’s defense, the woman always managed to counter it with a single tap of her foot that summoned small icy thorns.
However, time was everything to Vilya.
When the pocket watch in her mind indicated that the promised one-hour contract duration was about to expire in one minute, the atmosphere around Vilya suddenly changed drastically. The faint, polite warmth from earlier evaporated completely, leaving behind a pure, suffocatingly dense killing intent.
Before Lohen could realize the shift in rhythm, Vilya stepped forward with a speed that defied human logic. Her trident spun, creating a wave of frozen air pressure that instantly froze the tips of Lohen’s feet to the ground. With one precise strike from the butt of her weapon, Vilya slammed Lohen’s chest, shattering the youth’s entire defense, and sending him sprawling backward onto the muddy ground right as the very last second of their agreed hour ran out.
Lohen lay panting on the ground, his chest heaving violently, and an ache radiating throughout his entire body. However, what made his face flush red and his teeth grind in suppressed fury was not the physical pain, but rather his pride, which had just been trampled upon.
He knew exactly what had just happened. Vilya had not been fighting him on equal terms from the beginning. The woman had deliberately held back, limited, and measured her strength in such a way just so the duration of their fight would perfectly match the amount of Mora he paid. He had been played with like a toddler given playtime before bedtime.
“You…” Lohen struggled to his feet, leaning on his spear, his red eyes blazing with rage as he stared at Vilya’s tall back, which had already turned away from him. “You held back from the very start! You played me!”
Vilya paused her steps for a moment, then turned her head slightly back, looking at Lohen with her orange eyes, a gaze as if she were explaining a basic math theory to a primary school child.
“Of course I held back,” Vilya answered in an incredibly flat, innocent tone. “Naturally, so that the time would run out and the payment would match our initial agreement. If I had finished this too quickly in the first few minutes, then the wages I receive would be reduced because it wouldn’t count as a full hour. Furthermore, I highly dislike working overtime, so the finish must be precisely on time and cannot take too long.”
“Damn it! Fight me again now! I will pay for the compensation!” Lohen shouted, thrusting his spear forward with burning emotions.
Vilya let out a long sigh, releasing a sighing sound that sounded incredibly exhausted. “I decline. My working hours for today are finished. I must immediately return to the logistics post to deal with the receipt that was ruined because of your antics earlier, before it gets dark.”
Without paying any heed to Lohen’s frustrated roars, Vilya continued her graceful stride, piercing through the night fog of Nod-krai and vanishing from sight. She left Lohen standing all alone in the middle of the valley, clenching his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white, forced to vent his remaining, explosive energy by challenging Varka or destroying the crags around him. That afternoon, amidst the cold of the northern lands, Vilya the mercenary had planted an existence that could never be erased from Lohen’s mind—an elegant, ice-clad riddle that refused to be conquered by any rules other than her own.
Act II: The Icy Rock Bound and the Forbidden Word
The month of June brought slightly friendlier winds around the outer perimeter of Favonius Keep, but for Lohen, the surrounding atmosphere only grew increasingly heated. His first encounter with Vilya in Nod-krai was no longer just a passing anomaly. The event had transitioned into a new routine, peculiar yet binding.
One fine morning, Vilya happened to walk toward the perimeter of Favonius Keep, strictly carrying out a mundane logistics delivery. She was minding her own business, completely elegant and poised, until a sudden flash of mint-green hair blocked her path. Lohen stood there, his Favonius Lance already embedded in the ground, staring at her with those dim, weary red eyes that were now burning with an obsessive itch for a rematch.
“Fight me,” Lohen demanded without further ado, a challenging smirk carving his face.
Vilya stopped in her tracks. Looking at the youth who seemed utterly ready to pounce, she let out a long, slow sigh. She tilted her head, shaking it slightly in pure, unadulterated frustration. Her plum-colored hair shifted as she pinched the bridge of her nose, her inner noble-mafia brain deeply weeping at how exhausting Mondstadt’s youngsters could be.
‘Not this kid again,’ she thought. Yet, true to her rigid professionalism, her hand instinctively went to her pocket watch to prepare the hourly Mora calculation. If she had to play along with this hyperactive knight, he was going to pay every single second of it. She nodded in silent resignation and summoned her weapon, complying with his demand.
However, what the undercover mafia boss failed to notice in her annoyance was that this coincidence was entirely staged.
The innocent Vilya never suspected the pair of old eyes watching her from the shadows. At a corner of the fortress, Fedya could often be seen sitting on a tree branch while chewing on sweets, exchanging conspiratorial glances with Grand Master Varka, whose blonde hair caught the sunlight. The two veterans deliberately arranged Vilya’s mission routes so that she would always cross paths with Lohen. Varka wanted his young officer to be tested by an unyielding wall, while Fedya wanted Vilena to practice controlling her emotions in pressing situations.
꧁꧁༒••༒꧂꧂
“That boy of yours, Lohen,” Fedya had muttered with a mouthful of sweets, his ancient voice contrasting heavily with his small stature. “He has too much raw adrenaline and a dangerously fragile pride. He needs to learn what a real, unbreakable wall looks like before he gets himself killed in Nod-krai.”
Varka, instead of being offended by the intrusion, had simply let out a booming chuckle, leaning back in his chair with his blue eyes gleaming. “And I assume your Lady Fae needs something from him too, old friend?”
“Control,” Fedya had replied flatly, his expression turning sharp. “Vilena needs to practice controlling her emotions in pressing situations. If she keeps locking her Abyss residue behind a rigid mask of professional boundaries without ever testing its seals, it will eventually consume her. Let them clash.”
The two veterans deliberately arranged Vilya’s mission routes so that she would always cross paths with Lohen. Varka wanted his young officer to be tested by an unyielding wall, while Fedya wanted Vilena to learn emotional restraint through forced interaction.
The result of this silent conspiracy was a string of countless paid duels. The scheme was always the same, as rigid as Snezhnayan financial regulations: agree on 50 grands mora price per hour, balance the clashing of weapons for fifty-nine minutes, and then deliver a decisive, heavy blow from Vilya’s full strength in the final minute.
꧁꧁༒••༒꧂꧂
Yet, amidst these rigid transactions, the pebbles of fate occasionally slipped in moments that softened the sharp edges between them. One afternoon, for the sake of a pouch of Mora from a panicked, middle-aged merchant, Vilya found herself having to climb the roof of a fragile old warehouse just to rescue a trapped domestic cat.
Lohen, who happened to be passing by, came across an utterly absurd sight.
Up on the decaying, creaking tiles stood the one-hundred-and-ninety-centimeter mercenary woman. Instead of her usual cold, unyielding stance, she was carefully crouching on all fours to distribute her weight. Beneath her plum-colored hair, her Fae ears were twitching with extreme, frantic nervousness every time the wooden structure beneath her groaned. Yet, her voice remained incredibly poised, coaxing the tiny creature with the extraordinarily refined, melodic speech of a high-court duchess.
“Regal little creature,” Vilya whispered smoothly, extending a single long finger toward the shivering furball. “Your current elevated position compromises your structural safety. I implore you to cooperate and step into my custody. The merchant has paid upfront, and I assure you, my professional services include a comfortable descent.”
The kitten merely hissed, backing away toward the edge of a rotted beam.
Creak… Crack.
Vilya’s ears flinched, snapping back flat against her head. “Please. I do not wish to perform an emergency vertical evacuation. Cooperate, you tiny, ungrateful sovereign.”
“Well, well. If it isn’t Nod-Krai’s most expensive, over-qualified pet-sitter,” a mocking voice called out from below.
Vilya tilted her head down just enough to see a flash of mint-green hair. Lohen was leaning against a wooden post, his dim, weary red eyes suddenly sparkling with immense amusement. He crossed his arms, thoroughly enjoying her rare display of vulnerability.
“Lohen,” Vilya called back down, her tone instantly returning to its signature flat, expressionless drone. “Your presence is currently unrequested. If you have no official business, clear the perimeter. You are vibrating the ground, and this architectural disaster is highly sensitive to tremors.”
“Vibrating the ground? I’m standing perfectly still!” Lohen laughed, pushing himself off the post. He looked at the fragile roof, then at the kitten that was now dangerously close to falling through a hole in the tiles. “You look like a giant plum-colored stork trying not to break a twig, Miss Fae. Need a hand? My assistance comes with a very reasonable price.”
“I do not require your aid. I have a strictly calculated operational plan,” Vilya replied, though another loud crack from the roof tiles immediately betrayed her. She froze in place, her face as pale as her Snezhnayan ice.
“Right. Your plan involves falling through the ceiling along with the cat,” Lohen smirked.
With a fluid, practiced motion, Lohen gripped his spear, planted his foot, and leaped into the air. His mint-green hair caught the afternoon breeze as he vaulted effortlessly onto the main, sturdy support beam of the warehouse. Before the fragile roof could completely give way under the shifting weight, Lohen reached out with lightning-fast instincts, snatching the terrified kitten by the scruff of its neck just as the tile beneath it crumbled into dust.
He dropped down safely onto a lower, sturdier platform, holding the meowing kitten out like a trophy. “Secured. See? A knight’s duty, executed with flawless precision.”
Vilya carefully, with the agonizing precision of a tightrope walker, navigated her way down the remaining stable beams until her boots touched the solid ground. She immediately snatched the kitten from his grasp, inspecting it for any damage before smoothing out her own wrinkled attire to restore her immaculate demeanor.
“The asset is unharmed. The contract is fulfilled,” Vilya noted flatly. “Your interference was unsolicited, but structurally beneficial. I express my formal gratitude.”
“Hold on, not so fast,” Lohen stepped into her space, blocking her path with a sharp, challenging grin. He tapped his Favonius Lance against his boot. “Since I did half the heavy lifting and saved you from a highly undignified crash, I believe I am entitled to a proper reward.”
Vilya’s orange eyes narrowed instantly, her defensive financial walls locking into place. “If you are implying a split of the Mora pouch, I must decline. You did not sign a co-contractor agreement with the merchant. Legally, the funds belong entirely to me.”
“I don’t care about your stupid Mora,” Lohen scoffed, his red eyes burning with that familiar, dangerous passion. He leaned in closer, his voice dropping into a eager whisper. “Give me one session. One sparring match, right here, right now. No Mora, no hourly limits, no holding back. Just a free, proper duel as my payment.”
Vilya looked at him for a single, agonizingly silent second, her face completely expressionless.
“No,” she said simply, turning on her heel and walking away with the grace of a princess holding a cat.
“Hey! Why not?!” Lohen yelled, exasperated, chasing after her long strides. “I just saved your giant Fae ears from a dynamic entry through a warehouse roof!”
“My professional fees are non-negotiable, and I do not entertain charity work,” Vilya’s voice floated back, utterly ruthless and calm. “Furthermore, my contract for pet rescue has concluded, and my official shift for today is officially over. Goodbye, Lohen. Do not follow me, or I will charge you an active stalking fee per meter.”
This strange closeness even touched upon the domestic realm. One day, at a quiet makeshift campsite shared by a few patrolling Knights of Favonius near the snowy borders, Vilena volunteered to cook Lohikeitto—a traditional northern salmon soup. The dish looked absolutely magnificent; it had a beautifully smooth, creamy texture and was incredibly rich with seasoned broth. However, it possessed one fatal peculiarity: Vilena had dumped a monstrous amount of salt into the pot.
A young Favonius knight nearby, who had happily taken a courtesy bowl, took a single sip. Instantly, his eyes rolled back, and he violently choked, coughing into his fist.
“Wh-What in Barbatos’ name…” the knight wheezed, his face turning pale as he desperately reached for a waterskin. “Is this soup or a literal bucket of concentrated Snezhnayan seawater?! This is pure poison!”
Vilena, who was calmly cleaning the prongs of her trident by the fire, didn’t even blink at the complaint. Her plum-colored hair with peach highlights caught the warm glow of the flames as she stated flatly, “In my homeland, salt is a crucial preservative and a retainer of body temperature against the biting frost. If you are looking for a mild, delicate salmon soup according to a standard Mondstadt recipe book, you have come to the wrong address.”
Lohen sat across from her on a log, holding his own steaming wooden bowl. Hearing the commotion, he looked down at the creamy broth, then up at Vilena. Furrowing his brow, his dim, weary red eyes narrowed slightly as he took a massive first spoonful.
“This is too much salt, Miss Mercenary,” Lohen commented immediately.
The choked-up knight nearby nodded frantically, thinking, Yes, Lohen! Tell her! Put that crazy mercenary in her place!
But instead of gagging, Lohen paused. His tongue, which was fiercely desensitized and usually craved the most punishing, tear-inducing flavors just to feel alive, suddenly registered the sheer, aggressive intensity of the brine. It wasn’t just salty—it was a violent, robust kick to his senses. It was loud. It was heavy. It was absolute.
A slow, thoroughly satisfied smirk began to carve itself onto Lohen’s face.
“Actually…” Lohen muttered, his weary red eyes suddenly flashing with a manic spark of delight as he took another massive gulp straight from the bowl. “Never mind. This is amazing. It actually has a heavy, powerful kick to it. It has a personality.”
The other knight stared at him in utter horror, stepping back. “Are you insane, Lohen?! Your tastebuds are literally dead!”
Lohen completely ignored him, devouring the soup with an aggressive gusto under the completely bewildered stare of Vilena. Her orange eyes widened a fraction of a millimeter—the Fae equivalent of utter shock. For the first time, her rigid composure faltered slightly. This Snezhnayan woman had finally met her match: a Mondstadt youth who loved extreme, violent flavors.
Later on, Lohen realized the true consequence of that afternoon. That excessive, punishing saltiness had locked into his sensory memory so powerfully. Years later, even when visiting Taste of the North, no matter how culinarily correct the standard northern salmon soup served by the chefs Frith hired, his palate would fiercely reject it. He would frown at the broth, complaining that the soup was too bland and lacked a “strong, heavy kick,” simply because it completely lacked the distinct, soul-crushing saltiness made by Vilena’s cold hands.
However, that faint warmth was unable to suppress the storm brewing ever more fiercely in Lohen’s head. Over time, their routine started to shift in a way that drove his pride wild.
꧁꧁༒••༒꧂꧂
Lately, Vilena had slightly broken her own rigid regulations. Whether it was because she was genuinely beginning to enjoy the thrill of their sparring or because she respected his relentless persistence, she no longer reserved her strength for just the final single minute. In their recent duels, during the last five minutes of the hour, Vilena would suddenly bare her fangs. Her movements would sharpen, her icy thorns would grow more aggressive, and she would unleash a breathtaking, terrifying display of her true prowess.
For those five minutes, Lohen felt an exhilarating rush, catching a glimpse of the absolute peak of her strength. But the moment the pocket watch in her mind marked the exact sixty-minute threshold, the warmth evaporated, and she would instantly shut her power down, returning to her flat, expressionless self to collect her Mora.
To Lohen, this didn’t feel like progress. It felt worse. It felt like his entire battle instinct, his burning passion, and his worth as a warrior were being strictly micro-managed like a common clerk’s ledger. He wasn’t a rival to her; he was a scheduled appointment.
Vilya’s pragmatic and boundary-filled nature felt like poison to his pride. In Lohen’s mind, Vilya was a towering mountain peak shrouded in eternal fog. Every time they dueled, Vilya deliberately parted the fog for just a fleeting glimpse, revealing the beauty of that absolute peak, before knocking Lohen back to the foot of the mountain because she deemed him unworthy of being there.
“I am not a child you can feed with the crumbs of your strength!” Lohen snarled one afternoon in an isolated valley.
That day, he refused to proffer the pouch of Mora. He drove his spear into the ground, staring at Vilya with a gaze of pure defiance from his weary red eyes.
“I challenge you to a real fight. No contracts, no counting hours, no limits.”
Vilya looked at the youth before her with a pair of dimming orange eyes, the framing strands of her plum-colored hair with peach highlights casting a shadow over her face.
“I refuse,” Vilya said, her voice dropping into a dangerously cold octave. “You do not know what you are asking for, Lohen. Stand down.”
“Why? Afraid your pretty roses will wither?” Lohen stepped forward, closing the distance, letting his wounded ego take over his sanity. His face hardened as the provocative words slipped from his lips, “Or is it that, beneath your large stature and magnificent magic… you are just a coward hiding behind a mask of rules?”
That word—coward—was like a heavy hammer smashing against the glass wall Vilya—Vilena had built over decades.
Inside her chest, something shattered with a sound that deafened her inner mind. Her greatest fear, her insecurity over her inability to control her own power, was suddenly pulled violently to the surface by the person whose dance she respected most. The air in the isolated valley instantly dropped below freezing, the ground beneath her boots cracking open as a dark, corrupted violet hue began to bleed into her pale-blue ice.
The contract was dead. The mercenary was gone.
And for the first time, Lohen got exactly what he asked for—the unbridled, terrifying wrath of the Khozyayka.
The air around the valley chilled in the blink of an eye, reaching a freezing point. Vilena’s pair of orange eyes flared, no longer with a cold calm, but with a terrifying flash of ice, devoid of humanity. The Abyss residue inside her body boiled, disrupting the entire harmony of her magic.
Rumble—!
Lohen, instead of backing away, felt a primal thrill explode in his chest. His weary red eyes flared with a manic, ecstatic light. This was it. This was the unyielding peak he had been dying to face.
As the ground shook violently and the first wave of giant frozen rose vines shot out from the rocky surface like the tentacles of an ancient monster, Lohen moved with the speed of a striking viper. He spun his Favonius Lance, generating a fierce gale that deflated the initial frost.
Clang! Clang!
With sheer grit and precision, he deflected two incoming thorns that were as sharp as daggers, his boots digging into the cracking earth. He pushed forward, vaulting off a rising chunk of ice, his mint-green hair whipping wildly as he thrust his lance straight toward her. It was a flawless counter-attack, a testament to every single hour he had paid to study her rhythm. For a fraction of a second, his spear-tip actually pierced through her outermost barrier of ice, coming inches away from her face.
He genuinely thought he could hold the line.
But Vilya—Vilena didn’t even flinch. She simply raised her eyes, and the dark violet residue in her amber-orange gaze flared.
The brief illusion of a fair duel shattered instantly. The vines didn’t just attack; they multiplied exponentially, driven by a pure, unbridled wrath that defied the laws of elements. The sheer kinetic force of her shifting aura struck like an invisible battering ram, completely neutralizing Lohen’s momentum mid-air.
Lohen did not even have time to recover his stance when the first true impact from a giant vine struck his chest, throwing his body backward. Before he could fall to the ground, the landscape turned into a claustrophobic prison of thorns. Another massive vine ensnared his ankle and arm, slamming him against the frozen valley wall before gripping him with a force capable of crushing a knight’s armor in a single squeeze.
The icy thorns tore ruthlessly through his uniform and skin. Fresh blood seeped out, staining the pale, corrupted ice beneath him a deep crimson.
He was completely helpless. In the face of the raw, unbridled fury of an unleashed Khozyayka, all the tricks, traps, and physical resilience Lohen had taken pride in collapsed into dust within seconds. His vision began to blur from the blood flowing from his temple down to his red eyes. He panted heavily, his lungs feeling constricted from the extreme, unnatural cold freezing his chest.
Death was no longer a metaphorical peak to climb; it was only a single breath away.
Yet, amidst the excruciating pain and fading consciousness, Lohen looked up. He stared straight at Vilena, who stood in the middle of the ice storm, surrounded by murderous vines, her vibrant orange eyes looking down at him without a shred of mercy.
Instead of fear or a cry for mercy, a faint, wild smile carved itself onto the corner of Lohen’s bloody lips. With the remaining strength in his throat, he weakly whispered a word that came genuinely from the wildest depths of his heart:
“Beautiful…”
The word hissed through the icy wind. And instantly, as if struck by lightning, the movement of the frozen rose vines around Vilena jerked to a rigid halt. That single whisper collapsed the raging wave in her mind, sending a massive tremor that cut off her energy supply for a fraction of a second.
Thud!
Before the rampage could resume, a small but tremendously destructive kick struck Vilena’s side. It was Fedya, who had leaped from the cliff above with an incredibly serious face, forcing the woman’s tall body to shift and disrupting her magical circulation.
Simultaneously, Varka’s gigantic shadow darted through the ice storm, his blue eyes locked onto the target. With one swing of his greatsword coated in pure Anemo energy, Varka sliced through the frozen rose vines gripping Lohen’s body, catching the youth’s limp form before it hit the rocks.
From behind, Evgeny—the advisor to the Tsvetayev family—appeared swiftly, immediately gripping Vilena’s shoulders, chanting an ancient calming spell and channeling his own energy to force the orange rose mark on the Khozyayka’s body to dim and return to dormancy.
The ice fog gradually thinned, leaving a heavy, suffocating silence in the now completely devastated valley. The suffocating roar of the Abyss residue died down instantly.
But for Vilena, the silence that followed was far more violent.
Vilena stood unsteadily, staring at her violently trembling hands. The dark violet hue was slowly receding from her palms, leaving behind a deathly pale skin that felt entirely numb. When her gaze dropped and saw Lohen’s body slumped weakly in Varka’s arms—covered in blood, with breaths that were barely audible, his mint-green hair matted against his bloody forehead—her full consciousness returned with the impact of an overwhelmingly massive guilt.
For several agonizing seconds, she went completely silent.
The world around her seemed to lose all sound. Her orange eyes went wide, hollow, and utterly blank, staring at the crimson blood staining the ice she had created. She didn’t scream. She didn’t sob. She simply froze like a statue, her chest refusing to take in air as her brain fiercely rejected the reality before her. She had become the very monster her family line had warned her about. She had almost slaughtered her only dance partner.
Then, the defense mechanism of a hundred years crumbled completely.
A choked, ragged gasp finally escaped her throat—not a loud scream, but a broken, suffocating sound of someone drowning in their own guilt. Her mask of composure was shattered entirely, leaving behind a woman whose soul was profoundly shaken. Tears began to flood her eyes, freezing into small, shattering crystals before they could even slide down her cheeks, matching the ruins of her peach-highlighted hair and the pale-blue roses that were now slowly melting into tears of ice around her boots.
“I…” her voice was barely a whisper, cracking so violently it hurt. She took a step back, her knees buckling as she looked at Varka, then at Fedya’s unusually grim face. “I… did this.” Without waiting for a reprimand from the Grand Master, and unable to bear the sight of Lohen’s bleeding frame for another second, Vilena turned around and fled into the fog, leaving behind nothing but the scent of frozen, dying roses and the echoing sound of her own shattered breathing.
Act III: The Silent Monologue Behind the Departing
The ruined valley left behind a deeply painful silence as the clicking of Evgeny’s boots stepped slowly beside Vilena. Upon the ground blackened by the strike of the eternal ice, the Khozyayka knelt. Her tall stature, which was usually erect like a sturdy pillar of a kingdom, now appeared so fragile, trembling violently as she held back the storm of emotions raging inside her chest. The tears that fell from her pair of orange eyes froze instantly before they could even touch her chin, dropping and bouncing onto the ground as small, shattering crystals of ice.
She hated herself. That hatred was so thick it clogged her throat. Vilena cursed the fact that after hundreds of years of living under the disciplined upbringing of the nobility, her defenses had crumbled because of a single word from a twenty-four-year-old Mondstadt youth.
Coward. That word had provoked her emotions to run wild, unleashing a wrath that nearly claimed the life of the person who had been her dangerous dance partner all this time. Yet the most painful part of everything was the bitter truth behind that word: she truly was a coward. She was scared to death of the dark part sleeping inside her soul, and it was that very fear that always made her hide behind a rigid wall of Mora calculations.
“Evgeny…” Vilena’s voice drifted out trembling, cracking amidst the increasingly biting silence of the Nod-krai night. She did not look up, her fingers clawing into the frozen open ground. “I… I almost killed him.”
Evgeny did not reply immediately. The old advisor of the Fae race merely stood in silence, letting his white robe flutter gently, blown by the northern wind. He knew that what the eleventh-generation leader needed right now was not the lectures of family law, but rather a space to pour out the truth that had been locked away tightly all this time.
“Deep down in the absolute depths of my heart,” Vilena whispered again, her voice almost drowned out by the roar of the night wind, “perhaps… I truly wanted to be seen, Evgeny. I am tired of constantly being told to lock away, chain up, and hide this monster inside of me from the world. I have always longed for someone who would throw that door wide open. Someone who would look at my pure wrath without a shred of trepidation, without fear… and still call it beautiful. Just like he did.”
The night air seemed to stop blowing just to listen to the heartbreakingly honest confession from the mafia woman. The word beautiful spoken by Lohen on the brink of his death earlier was not merely the wild utterance of a bloodthirsty knight; to Vilena, it was an emotional anchor, an absolute validation of her purest and most terrifying existence that she had ever shown to the world.
However, reality quickly pulled Vilena back to earth. She was a Tsvetayev. And a tragic destiny must not be allowed to repeat itself. With the assumption firmly rooted in her mind that Lohen would surely hate her and look at her full of resentment after this horrifying incident, Vilena made a firm decision. For the safety of the youth, this dangerous dance had to end here.
༒•꧁༒•ꪀׁׅ•༒꧂•༒
The night grew deeper when Vilena slipped into the medical tent where Lohen was being treated. Her tall footsteps did not make the slightest sound, as light as flower petals falling upon the snow. Inside the tent, which was dimly lit by an oil lantern, the scent of Mondstadt’s herbal medicines blended with the metallic aroma of blood from wounds that had been neatly bandaged.
Vilena stood at the side of the makeshift bed, staring at Lohen’s body lying rigidly with a chest that rose and fell steadily. Believing the youth was fast asleep under the influence of the sedatives, Vilena slowly bent her body down. Their distance was so close that strands of her plum-colored hair with its peach highlights touched the edge of Lohen’s blanket.
“Lohen …,” Vilena whispered, her voice as smooth as silk, harboring all the feelings she would never be able to utter if the youth’s pair of dim, weary red eyes were open, looking at her. “Lohen, I’m sorry. If all this time you thought that I was only after pieces of Mora from our every interaction… you are completely mistaken.”
Vilena’s hand lifted, hovering hesitantly over Lohen’s forehead, longing for the physical warmth that she had rarely received in her lifetime due to her dangerous power. Yet, she restrained herself from touching him.
“I genuinely liked every single second of the dangerous dance between us. I liked the brief opportunity you gave me to unleash my true self without needing to wear this rigid mask,” she continued, there was a long pause laden with agony in her every breath. “However, if my freedom will only bring calamity and wounds that nearly claim your life—the only person who saw my wrath and called it beautiful—then we had better end all of this right here.”
Vilena straightened her body once more. Without leaving anything behind except for the faint, cold scent of northern roses, she turned and walked out of the medical tent, leaving Nod-krai that very night under the silent gaze of Evgeny and Fedya. She left carrying all her regrets, severing the thread of fate that had briefly been woven between them.
However, she never knew that on that makeshift bed, Lohen’s pair of weary red eyes slowly opened not long after the tent curtain closed. The youth was not completely asleep; the sedatives he was used to testing on himself had given his body a high tolerance. He had heard every word, every silent whisper left behind by the Khozyayka.
༒•꧁༒•ꪀׁׅ•༒꧂•༒
The next morning, the light of the dawn sun pierced through the gaps of the tent, yet it was unable to dispel the coldness in Lohen’s mind. The youth sat leaning back on his bed, staring straight at his Favonius Lance resting in the corner of the room. His thoughts were still consumed by flashes of those cold orange eyes, the frozen rose vines, and the parting whisper he had heard last night.
Shhh.
The tent curtain was pulled aside, and the gigantic frame of Grand Master Varka stepped inside, his blonde hair catching the dim light as his blue eyes scanned the room. There was no playful smile or booming laughter that he usually displayed on the battlefield. The face of Mondstadt’s legendary knight appeared extraordinarily serious, carrying the authority of a leader delivering a harsh reprimand.
“You’re still alive, I see,” Varka said flatly, pulling up a wooden chair and sitting beside Lohen’s bed.
Lohen merely snorted softly, turning his face away, his messy mint-green hair shifting against the pillow. “That sensation of nearing death… made me feel truly alive, Varka. If I had to die after receiving a power that pure, I would be grateful.”
“Selfish,” Varka cut in sharply, his tone low yet heavy with a pressure that silenced Lohen instantly. Varka stared at his young officer with a judging gaze. “You only ever think about yourself, Lohen. You test your limits, search for the thrill of battle, and challenge danger just to satisfy your childhood trauma. But has that clever brain of yours ever thought for a moment about what the impact would be on the Miss Mercenary if you had truly died by her hands?”
Lohen was stunned, his red eyes widening slightly upon hearing the question.
“Do you think she would be able to forgive herself for the rest of her life?” Varka pressed on, giving Lohen no room to argue. “She is a woman with an extraordinarily massive sense of responsibility. You triggered her, provoked her with the word ‘coward’ until her power ran wild. If my sword and Fedya’s kick had been even one second late yesterday, you would already be a frozen corpse. And that Lady Fae… she would be forced to live out the rest of her long life of hundreds of years with the memory that she had slaughtered someone close to her, all because of your selfishness.”
The room suddenly felt so suffocatingly small for Lohen. Varka’s words struck right at the center of his ego, tearing apart his pragmatic thinking that all this time had disregarded the feelings of others for the sake of victory and strength. He remembered Vilena’s trembling voice last night, a voice laden with wounds and a refusal to cause harm ever again.
Varka stood up, patting the shoulder of Lohen, who was now struck completely dumb with a hollow stare from his dim eyes directed at his bandage-wrapped fingers. Before stepping out of the tent, the Grand Master left one final sentence that became the deepest space of reflection for the Mondstadt arrow:
“Try to stop seeing her as a mountain that must be climbed and a peak that you must reach, Lohen. If all that ambition, ego, and your desire to prove yourself are stripped away… who is she truly in your eyes?”