Chapter Text
Chapter 7 ~ Courtship
The next little while passes in a haze of quiet domesticity neither of them comments on.
Varka strips the bed with military efficiency while Flins sits and supervises with all the solemn dignity of a noble too exhausted to stand. Clean bedding is found from a cedar chest near the wall; the sheets smell faintly of linen and dried herbs. After shaking them out, the Grand Master wrestles corners into place, and mutters something deeply suspicious about fitted sheets being an enemy combatant.
Flins offers no assistance whatsoever.
“I am recovering,” he informs his burly lover.
“You’re watching me work.”
“I am overseeing.”
“Right.”
Varka eventually pulls on a pair of loose, comfortable trousers, then helps herd Flins back into the newly made bed. The clean sheets are cool at first, then quickly warmed as they settle in together.
Flins ends up tucked against Varka’s side, half draped over the larger man with elegant entitlement.
Varka seems entirely content with this arrangement.
For a while, they simply lie there.
Morning light softens the loft. The lighthouse turns somewhere above with its steady mechanical pulse.
“So,” Varka eventually breaks the silence, his voice rumbling through his chest beneath Flins’s cheek, “What does dating a Fae actually involve? Am I supposed to bring offerings? Solve riddles? Avoid eating suspicious fruit? I was told once to always avoid pomegranates...”
Flins smiles into the fabric at his shoulder as he replies, “All sensible precautions.”
“I knew it.”
The content Lightkeeper shifts slightly, getting more comfortable before answering. “Courtship among my kind varies by region and court, and type of Fae. We are old, and therefore irritatingly fond of tradition.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“In many northern houses,” Flins continues, “a suitor brings tokens gathered by their own effort. Handmade things. Rare flowers. Honey. First harvest berries. Something that proves thought, rather than wealth.”
Varka hums. “I can do thoughtful.”
“We shall see.”
That earns a light squeeze at his waist.
“In some courts,” Flins adds, “hair braiding is intimate. If one allows another to tend their hair publicly, it is considered… quite meaningful.”
Varka goes still for half a second, “… Good to know.”
Flins pretends not to notice.
“There are also older customs from the Snowland forests,” he says, voice growing softer. “Sharing bread and salt beneath one roof. Crossing a threshold together before witnesses. Exchanging gloves in winter. Leaving ribbons on a birch branch if one’s affection is returned.”
Varka turns his head slightly to look at him.
“That sounds kind of nice.”
“It can be.”
Flins’s lashes lower slightly as memory drifts through him. Silver forests, lanternlight reflecting on ice, and dozens of ribbons tied to frost-covered branches beneath moons older than kingdoms. Older than most of the Archons ruling Teyvat.
“There are also less charming traditions,” he adds dryly. “Duels are frequently fought with words, rather than steel. If a Fae truly dislikes a suitor, they may answer every question literally, for a month. Or curse a fool to only ever taste food as sour.”
Varka groans. “That’s evil.”
“It is effective in dissuading an unwanted match.” Flins let himself chuckle softly. “Certain courts considered surviving a week trapped together during a blizzard an excellent compatibility test.”
Varka snorts. “That explains a lot about you people.”
“We are not easy.”
“No kidding.”
Flins feels Varka laugh beneath him, warm and easy. He combs his blonde strands from his face, then asks, more quietly this time, “So, what customs do you prefer?”
Varka’s voice rumbles softly beneath the Ratnik’s ear, warm with curiosity rather than obligation. One broad hand rests against Flins’s side beneath the blankets, thumb moving in slow, absent strokes that are beginning to feel dangerously easy to grow accustomed to.
Flins lies half atop his lover, boneless with exhaustion and lingering warmth, listening to the steady beat of the human heart beneath his cheek.
Steady.
Mortal.
The thought does not surface fully yet. For the first time in longer than Flins cares to admit, his future does not feel like something to dread. He is actually is looking forward to something – this strange, new connection forming with Varka. Yet, hesitation is imprinted in his very nature.
The Fae sighs softly instead, gaze drifting toward the lighthouse windows where pale morning light spills thin and gold across the floorboards.
“I prefer… consistency.” he says at last.
Varka hums. “That serious, huh?”
Flins smiles faintly as he explains, “You asked a creature several centuries old what he values in courtship. Did you expect my answer to involve dramatic poetry and climbing balconies?”
“… Little disappointed, honestly.”
“That can still be arranged, if you behave.”
Varka laughs quietly, and Flins feels the sound vibrate through his chest.
Then he continues, softer now, “Fae are creatures of habit more than humans realize. The old stories about offerings and rituals are not entirely incorrect.” His fingers toy absently with one of the ties on Varka’s pants under the blanket. “Returning to the same place. Remembering preferences. Bringing small things because they reminded one of the other person.”
“So, it is gift thing.”
“Not necessarily expensive gifts... Thoughtful ones.” Flins corrects. He pauses, mulling over the correct way to phrase it, adding, “In the north, winter courtships often involved acts of endurance. Keeping company through the dark season. Sharing companionship during a full moon. Showing up repeatedly despite storms.”
Varka’s arm tightens slightly around him. “That one sounds familiar.”
Flins ignores how pleasant that feels.
“There are older customs as well. One’s that I am quite fond of.” he continues. “Braiding charms into a lover’s hair for protection. Leaving lanterns lit in windows so they may find their way home through snow or fog.” Sky blue eyes widen, and a faint smile touches Flins’s mouth as he adds, “Some mountain clans exchanged hand-knit gloves because hands freeze first in Snezhnayan winters.”
“That’s… weirdly sweet.”
“Mm.”
The teasing stays light.
Varka, once invited onto the subject, proves impossible to stop.
He asks questions with earnest intensity. About customs, names, noble houses, whether all Fae dislike iron equally, whether wings are real or merely poetry. He asks whether fae truly dance around bonfires until dawn, whether all of them can glamour themselves, whether Flins’s ears always become more pointed when he’s emotional. Flins absolutely refuses to answer that one.
Flins answers as he pleases.
Some truths. Some evasions.
One or two outright lies, simply to watch Varka’s expression before relenting and correcting himself.
It is… delightful.
Through it all, there is a freedom in this.
Flins had forgotten how intoxicating acceptance could be. There is a strange ease in speaking plainly and not being met with suspicion. In mentioning lineage, old rites, moon cycles, instincts, vanity, sharp tempers, impossible etiquette – and seeing no disgust in return.
Only curiosity. Interest. Acceptance so unforced it almost startles him each time it appears.
Varka listens as if these details matter.
As if Flins matters.
Flins finds, to his private irritation, that he is becoming rather enamoured with the experience.
“So consistency,” Varka murmurs as he shifts beneath him after a while, lazily tracing patterns against his back. “Showing up. Staying around. Sounds manageable.” A pause. Then, with quiet sincerity, “I could do that for a long time.”
The words are simple.
Careless in the way humans often are, about time.
But they strike something inside Flins with startling force.
A long time...
For Varka, that means decades, perhaps.
For Flins... It means almost nothing at all.
The realization comes cold and sudden beneath the warmth of the blankets.
Human.
Mortal.
Fragile in the way all bright things are fragile.
The Fae goes motionless, but the flickering violet flames in his nearby lantern give him away.
“…Hey.” the Knight murmurs, noticing immediately, “What happened?”
Flins blinks once, forcing himself back into motion before the silence becomes too revealing.
“Nothing,” he says smoothly.
A lie.
A good one.
Centuries of practice polish the edges until it almost sounds convincing. The mask falls easily back into place, without conscious thought. The aristocrat lifts his head just enough to offer a faint smile, elegantly controlled, as he says, “You merely reminded me that humans think in very short spans of time.”
Varka studies him.
Blue eyes sharp despite the softness of the morning.
Flins can feel the scrutiny. The awareness that something has shifted beneath the surface. But the valiant Grand Master does not press. And that... That kindness nearly undoes the lonely Lightkeeper more than questions would have.
Instead, Varka only brushes a strand of dark hair behind Flins’s ear and says lightly, “Alright. Different question, then.”
Flins huffs quietly, grateful beyond words he will never say aloud. “What question?”
Varka grins faintly.
“If I wandered into a Fae court tomorrow, how long would it take before I accidentally offended someone important?”
Flins huffs a soft laugh despite himself. “Oh, instantly.”
“Wow, ouch.”
“You are much too loud to survive politically.”
“Good thing I’m pretty.”
Flins looks at him for a long moment. Then, very softly, “…That does help, yes.”
Varka beams at that like he’s won a prize, figurative tail wagging.
And Flins, still carrying the ache of that quiet realization in his chest, finds himself adoring Varka a little for trying so hard to pull him back toward the light.
Adoration... perhaps not quite a strong enough word.
Strange, since the Fae’s strength is words...
The hours pass like spilled honey.
Sun climbing higher, warming the loft and turning the lighthouse windows bright. They drift between conversation and silence, between teasing remarks and soft touches, neither quite willing to acknowledge how long they linger.
Eventually, reality intrudes.
Duty always does.
Varka must return to the Favonius Keep before half his knights assume he’s been devoured by sea spirits, and the other half sneak off to the Flagship. Flins, for his part, is expected to meet a company of Lightkeepers near Nothing Passage before evening tide.
There is mutual disappointment.
Neither handles it with dignity.
Dressing becomes a prolonged and suspiciously inefficient affair.
Varka pulls on his white trousers first, then his undershirt, broad shoulders flexing as he drags the fabric down over defined muscled. His uniform black shirt follows after, still unfastened for far too long because Flins keeps smoothing imaginary wrinkles from the front of it.
“You’re distracting me.” Varka says.
“I’m improving the presentation.”
“You’re just touching my chest.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Varka laughs and catches his wrist, kissing the inside of it before letting go.
Flins, in retaliation, takes twice as long with his own clothing.
He chooses a high-collared lilac shirt of fine weave, loose at the sleeves and laced at the throat, then fitted charcoal trousers tucked into his knee-high, polished boots. Over it goes a long midnight-blue black coat embroidered subtly at the cuffs and lapel in silver threadwork that catches the light when he moves.
The Lightkeeper uniform, with elegant personalization.
He is entirely too attractive for Varka’s concentration.
“Absolutely unfair...” Varka mutters.
Flins glances over his shoulder while fastening one cuff. “I beg your pardon?”
“You know what you’re doing.”
“I assure you, I was born this way.”
By the time Flins reaches for his belt and leather skirting, Varka is behind him again. His hands settle at the Fae’s waist with no practical purpose whatsoever.
“You are delaying us.” Flins observes.
“So are you.”
“I am dressing.”
“You’ve been buckling the same cuff for a whole thirty seconds.”
Flins looks down.
He has.
“…That is purely circumstantial.”
Varka presses a grin against the side of his neck.
Flins pretends this does not send a pleasant shiver through him.
He fails.
When Varka finally shrugs into the blue-and-white overcoat of the Knights of Favonius, the effect is regrettably handsome. The insignia sits proudly over scarred muscle, the tailored lines doing nothing to hide the valiance of the Grand Master.
Flins adjusts the collar without being asked, smoothing the white fur away from sunkissed skin. Varka shivers, and watches him with openly soft eyes.
“This feels domestic.” Varka says.
“It is efficient.”
“You love it.”
“I tolerate aspects of it.”
“Sure.”
Varka steals one last kiss – quick, and smiling against his mouth.
Flins catches the front of his lover’s coat before he can retreat, and returns the kiss. Slower this time, tongue sweeping deep enough to catch the taste of wolfhook and salt. The knight groans in Flins’s mouth, and the Fae’s teeth catch Varka’s lip.
When they part, both look faintly dazed.
Annoying.
At the foot of the loft stairs, duty waits like an unwelcome guest.
Varka’s hand finds his once more, squeezing briefly.
“So,” he says, trying for casual and missing by a mile. “Still on for that date?”
Flins lifts his chin with noble composure as he replies, “That depends entirely on the quality of your planning.”
Varka grins, “That’s a yes, right?”
“It is a challenge.”
“Good.” Varka lifts the Fae’s hand to place a kiss on the back of it. “I like those.”
By the time they finally descend from the loft into the main room of the lighthouse, the day has long since advanced.
Neither of them comments on it.
Though Varka does pause as he’s putting on his boots to glance toward the window. He lets out a low whistle, and chuckles, “…We may have slightly overslept.”
“We did no such thing,” Flins replies smoothly, adjusting his cowl’s high collar to hide his grin as he adds, “We simply used the day in a more imaginative manner.”
Varka laughs. Once his boots are on, he turns, and asks more gently, “You are feeling better, right? I mean, really. The moon stuff done messing with you?”
Flins glances at him. There is something disarmingly sincere in the concern, like Varka has been asking himself the question for hours.
He softens despite himself.
“I am well,” he promises, securing his lantern to his waist, adding, “The cycle has passed. What remains is little more than fatigue… and perhaps an inflated opinion of your usefulness.”
Varka grins immediately. “So, you’re saying I helped?”
“I am saying,” Flins replies with great dignity, “that you were adequate.”
“Kyryll.”
“Very adequate.”
“That’s a little better.” Varka nods, and looks absurdly pleased.
Flins allows it.
Then, gaze lingering somewhere near Varka’s collar rather than his eyes, with studied casualness, he asks, “…Would it inconvenience you terribly, if I were to stop by to see you again, soon?”
Varka halts as he’s strapping armour into place. “What?”
“Have I become unclear?” Flins lifts a brow.
“No, I just –!” The Knight’s whole face brightens with shameless eagerness. “Yeah. Yes. Stop by the Keep whenever you want!” He fumbles with with his single bracer, and it slips from his grip. After a load clanging, Varka clears his throat, and adds, “Anytime, actually.”
Flins’s mouth curves.
How wonderfully easy this man is to fluster.
“Noted.”
The Fae enjoys the enthusiasm perhaps more than he should. But the smile fades to something more thoughtful a moment later.
“That said…” Flins exhales softly, retrieving the escaped bracer and stepping in close. “I may be occupied for a short while.” He starts to buckle the bracer onto his Knight’s right forearm.
Varka allows the handling, but his attention sharpens. “Occupied how?”
“The Lightkeepers are preparing a hunt.” Flins explains as he helps his lover fasten his remaining armour, “A near-term operation. Tracks were found beyond Nothing Passage, old wards disturbed, something moving where it ought not to.” His tone grows drier, adding, “Which means committees, arguments, maps, and everyone pretending they knew first.”
“Sounds familiar.” Varka snorts.
Flins nods once. “I’m meeting Young Master Illuga and the others shortly to finalize routes.”
The name hangs there with quiet weight. An older thread pulled forward again from earlier days and unfinished matters. The Fae does not relish his young colleague discovering the older man’s loyalties have shifted. Flins ignores the sinking feeling, and moves on to another piece of armour just to have something else to focus on.
Varka studies him for a long moment after the mention of the hunt.
The bright eagerness from earlier dims so visibly it is almost theatrical. If he had dog ears, Flins is certain they would be drooping. His shoulders sink a fraction, and his mouth pulls into something dissatisfied. Even the sunlight seems less flattering on him.
The Grand Master studies him, blue eyes narrowing, “Dangerous?”
Flins considers as he finishes buckling the white and brass pauldron to Varka’s shoulder. “Potentially annoying,” the Fae says first. Then, more honestly, adds, “Possibly dangerous, I suppose.”
Varka folds his arms over his broad chest. “I don’t love that answer.”
“You needn’t. It remains true regardless.” Flins steps a little closer, close enough to adjust the front of Varka’s coat for no other reason except wanting to touch him again.
The Knight runs a hand through his hair, all but growling, as he says, “I just – I don’t like the idea of you walking into something dangerous while I’m nowhere near it.”
There is no bravado in the statement.
Just plain, unhappy honesty.
Flins feels a strange, inconvenient warmth at that. He steps closer before he can overthink it.
Varka looks up, startled just in time for Flins to rise onto his toes and press a brief, chaste kiss to his mouth. Nothing heated, nor demanding this time, just a soft touch of lips and reassurance.
When Flins pulls back, Varka is blinking at him like the sun has risen twice.
“There… Try not to look so tragic.” Flins says smoothly, though his own pulse has betrayed him. “It should not keep me long,” Flins adds, “A few days, perhaps more, if incompetence prevails.”
The transformation is immediate.
Varka’s figurative dog ears spring upright, tail wagging. His entire expression brightens with indecent speed as he catches the Lightkeeper’s hand before it can retreat. “Then, you’ll come by after?”
The question is so simple.
Flins looks at their joined hands, then up at the earnest, sky blue eyes waiting on him. “…You assume I intended otherwise, dear Knight.”
“Good.” Varka smiles slowly.
He leans in close, tugging Flins against him, easily pressing a kiss into nightshade violet hair.
The moment is perfectly serene, until Varka flinches, pulling back. His gaze is wide, and his grin is impossibly bigger. He points a finger at Flins, as if struck by strategy, saying, “Hold on!”
Flins narrows his eyes. “That expression never precedes wisdom.”
“The Knights of Favonius,” Varka declares, with all the confidence of a man inventing policy in real time, “are always ready to aid the Lightkeepers against the Wild Hunt.”
Flins blinks once. “Are they… Are you planning to following my company into certain death and beyond, grand Knight of Boreas?”
“Absolutely.”
Flins’s response is dry, “I suspect your paperwork would disagree.”
“I outrank my paperwork.”
Before the Ratnik can answer, Varka steps closer, enthusiasm gathering momentum. “So perhaps,” he continues, trying and failing to sound casual, “the Grand Master could accompany you on future missions? For cooperation. Shared security. And... Diplomatic reasons.”
“For diplomatic reasons.” Flins repeats flatly.
“Exactly.”
There is a beat.
Then Varka drops the pretense entirely and he blurts, “I want to come with you.”
The honesty of it lands harder than the theatrics. Flins looks away, toward the lighthouse exit and the inevitable, separating path leading inland. He’s considering his own yearning to remain close to his lover. The Lightkeeper has worked alone for a very long time.
Alone is efficient.
Alone is clean.
Alone asks nothing, and risks little.
Partnership is slower. Messier. Vulnerable.
And Varka, for all his strengths, is gloriously incapable of subtlety.
“… I am accustomed to solitary work.” Flins says at last, tone deliberately unreadable.
Varka’s hopeful expression falters.
Flins lets it linger one heartbeat too long. He huffs, and quieter, adds, “However…” Those blue eyes sharpen immediately, as Flins explains, “If it were only you joining me, I imagine I would tolerate it.”
Silence.
Then –!
“Tolerate it?” Varka repeats.
Flins finally glances back, cool as winter glass. “Do not be greedy. You are receiving a great honour.”
Varka’s laughs is full and delighted, and he catches Flins by the waist and pulls him in close enough that propriety files a formal complaint somewhere in the distance.
“I’ll take it.” he says warmly.
Flins allows himself to be held for precisely three seconds before murmuring, “You are wrinkling my coat.”
“Worth it.”
Infuriating man.
Flins is beginning to suspect he means to keep this insufferable Knight.
Varka is the first to pull himself back into duty.
Not emotionally, perhaps, but visually. He fastens the last buttons of his coat, squares the broad lines of blue and white across his shoulders, then reaches for the Anemo Vision resting atop the wooden table. The Archons-granted gem catches the sunbeam in a green-gold flash as he secures it neatly to the left side of his coat.
In a flourish, Varka opens the front door wide, and steps out into the light.
There...
Grand Master restored.
Or, as restored as one can be, after vanishing for the better part of two days. Not to mention returning to camp smelling faintly of soap, sea air, and Flins’s bath oils.
Flins watches from the doorway of the dim lighthouse with folded arms, every inch the picture of composed elegance.
Internally, he is less composed.
Varka glances down at himself, brushes imaginary dust from one sleeve, then lifts his chin. “Well? How do I look?”
Flins lets his gaze travel deliberately slow, from boots to hairline, before replying, “Suspiciously satisfied.”
“I was shooting for, authoritative.”
“You missed.”
Varka laughs.
Archons, that laugh. Full bodied and deep, making the man’s chest bounce right at eye level. It makes Flins wonder if the full moon’s pull has truly dissipated. Or, perhaps he should re-install the cold-forged iron cage before leaving for this mission. His thoughts are likely to drift far from boring meetings and coordinating maps.
Then the moment arrives – the one both of them have politely ignored for several minutes now.
Departure.
Varka steps backward once, then turns toward the metal ramp that will take him to the cemetery path.
He makes it all of two strides.
Stops.
Turns back.
Returns with alarming determination.
Before Flins can raise a brow in question, Varka leans in and plants a kiss on his cheek. Warm, enthusiastic, and just imprecise enough to qualify as charmingly sloppy.
“There,” Varka says, looking pleased with himself. “One for the road.”
Flins blinks. His cheek feels suddenly far warmer than the weather justifies.
“…You are ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” Varka agrees cheerfully, adding, “See you soon, little light. Stay safe.”
And with that outrageously sappy farewell, he turns and strides off again.
Flins smiles before he can stop himself.
Softly.
Hopelessly.
As he watches, Varka does not even make it to the bottom on the ramp. He wheels around with the decisiveness of a man correcting a tactical error and marches back up the ramp. “Forgot somethin’.”
“You have forgotten many things in your life, I imagine –!”
The rest is lost as Varka catches him lightly by the jaw and kisses him properly this time. It’s still quick, warm, smiling against his mouth before pulling away.
Flins stares at him, gold eye blinking owlishly.
Varka looks extremely pleased. “Now I’m going.”
“You said that already.”
“This time I mean it.”
He turns.
Leaves.
Makes it perhaps five steps this time.
Flins pinches the bridge of his nose.
Sure enough, pounding footsteps return over the metal.
“Varka –!”
“One more.”
The third kiss lands half on his mouth, half on the corner of it, full of laughter and no discipline whatsoever.
That does it.
Before instinct, moon, loneliness, or poor judgment can conspire against him, Flins places a hand flat to Varka’s chest, steps back into the lighthouse, and shuts the door firmly between them.
There is a beat of stunned silence.
Then, muffled through the wood, “Farewell, Kyryll! Don’t die on your hunt!”
Flins closes his eyes.
His soul leaves his body briefly, then returns.
“…Hopeless man.” he murmurs to the empty room.
Outside, he hears retreating, metallic footsteps, then a final shouted, “I’ll plan the date!”
Flins leans back against the closed door, one hand over his face.
He is smiling so helplessly it borders on humiliating.
Slowly, the smile softens.
The room around him is warm with fading afternoon light. The lighthouse turns with its steady, ancient rhythm. Somewhere beyond the cemetery walls, the sea keeps breathing against the shore. The company he’s meeting is likely already on the move towards the mission.
Flins lowers his hand.
For years, the future has been something sharp-edged and unwelcome. Something to outwit, endure, or escape on his own. He has avoided it, slept through it, and even cloaked himself in illusion just to prolong his own existence.
Now...
For the first time in longer than he can remember, Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins wonders what the future might choose to bring him.
And finds that he actually wants to know.