AUDIENCE FOR: Kaeya

[guestservices]

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[callalilies]

Constellations are common where I'm from. You're born beneath a specific one in my world—for example... mine is Pavo Ocellus. The peacock. My brother is Noctua... the owl.

[ he will.

finish the bottle right there. it takes a moment. but it's done (has he just done this before? chugged bottles? it's like there's a science or strategy to it.)

he puts it down. ]

Tell me the story of this one... Aquila.

[guestservices]

[ they don't react too much to the chugging, though they take the bottle from kaeya when it's finished and set it aside. they have a nice voice for storytelling - very smooth. ]

There are many, apparently. The original name is for an eagle that carried the thunderbolts of a great and powerful god. That story sits across many cultures; in another, it's just known as the "heavenly eagle constellation". It guards its god protectively from arrows of Eros that had struck him into love unwittingly, and it has even retrieved a young, beautiful man to bring to the heavens on the request of its god.

[ another tap of claw against glass. ] Aquila is made of many clusters of stars and nebula; the brightest is one called Altair, and that star is associated with a love story.

[ they laugh, then. ] Sort of a lover and a fighter, yeah?

[callalilies]

[ kaeya frowns as the bottle is taken from him, but... allows this, folding his arms instead. he listens intently, and as he does, there's something in his eye (hole?) that softens. blooms of tired callalilies. then he blinks, and it's blue again, as starry as before. a lover and a fighter. ]

Sounds just like Venessa then...

[ the lion's fang. the dawnlight. ]

Minus the... bringing beautiful young men to the heavens, but. The rest... yes.

[guestservices]

[ it's empty, stupid, no more booze for you

they laugh, though, glancing down at him. ] Well, who knows if that part suits me or not. Venessa?

[callalilies]

Oh? Are you going to spirit me away? Or maybe someone else?

[ he smiles. fine. whatever!!! ]

She helped free Mondstadt from the aristocracy... not long after the Dawnlight's passing. She became the first Grand Master of the Ordo of Favonius, the group I'm part of... the Eagle of the West, the Lion's Fang. Story goes, she said...

"We must fight and claim our own freedom. We can not beg for it. We must not kneel for it. Freedom given freely is only a guise for another shackle."

[ he looks into his lap quietly. ]

When she passed, her spirit rose to Celestia in the form of an eagle. To protect those who wield Aquila Favonius in her name.

[guestservices]

You are very pretty.

[ absently. but, they listen to that for a moment. the dawnlight. eagle of the west.

... ]

I see. Sounds like an inspiring leader.

[callalilies]

She was... sometimes I think Jean tries to be too much like her. Her shoes are too enormous, she lifted the shackles from an entire city of freedom. Jean is different. She can lead in her own way... I think she's learning this.

That is a legacy, we are meant to carry it, not to simply wear the same tired clothes over and over again. You must beget progress, not more of the same. I think... sometimes Jean doesn't realize that. That she can breathe too, that she's allowed that.

[ this is why he does double the work and no one knows except maybe god. he lifts a hand to pluck a stray feather near his eye, flicks it off into ash and then nothing.

in a flash, he smiles, like nothing has happened, turns. ]

You really think I'm pretty.

[guestservices]

I wonder if sometimes, a moment to breathe gets in the way of the progress and goal you'd like to achieve.

[ they say this idly, listening to kaeya as he muses on this jean person. for a moment, they are looking away, gaze focused across the room - maybe lost in their own thoughts.

...kaeya brings them back when he turns towards them, though, and they laugh. it's a similar reaction. like nothing even happened. ] Quit fishing for compliments.

[callalilies]

It doesn't. Like a pause in music. It only serves to better complete the work.

[ but at the last remark: ]

No. Whosoever gave me my good looks deserves to have them flaunted and praised.

[guestservices]

[ they make a noise to the first part, mildly.

and then laugh. ] How bratty. [ teasing, though. they boop him on the nose with a claw. ] Or how spoiled? Maybe both.

[callalilies]

Perhaps. [ at the boop, his nose just wrinkles a bit. ] Crepus did spoil me like one of his own. I wanted for nothing...

But who spoils you, Aquila?

[guestservices]

[ like immediately in complete deadpan: ]

Oh, the Nightman. You know.








[ this is a joke ]

[callalilies]

[ he immediately (playfully) smacks his arm because he knows this is totally a joke. ]

You allowed to talk about your boss like that?

[guestservices]

Our passionate romance is supposed to be hush hush.

[ they are


so full of bullshit, snickering as they are rightfully smacked. ]

[callalilies]

[ STOP!!!! SMACK SMACK, but weaker, babier smacks until he just kind of sinks into the seat like he's trying to melt into it. maybe relief? maybe tired? who knows ur on his eyepatch side. ]

A torrid love affair! Incredible. I know a bard who would love to write a story about you, I'm sure.

[guestservices]

[ they hum. ]

I'm fond of a bard or two. A legendary song about me would be pretty great.

[ teasing, there. they bat at kaeya's hand with the baby smacks gently but mostly just let it happen, preening a bit. as he sinks into the chair, he can feel a strange, sort of soft, if cold presence, as one wing curls around him. ]

[callalilies]

[ oh... a wingie. he pauses a moment and then leans slightly into it again, folding his arms around himself as well, tapping his food on the ground. ]

Don't know about legendary, but...

[ and he will start to carefully carve out a beat on his knee. he's from the country of freedom and revelry after all. ] Let's see...

I once was a bird, so keen were they
With wings so strong, and demeanor quite gay
Aloft the winds of dawn they flew
Despite this miserable cage.

[guestservices]

[ they seem very amused at this. as kaeya finishes his verse, they cut in, primly ]

My demeanor is fond of men and women, thanks.

[ they knew exactly what he actually meant and yet ]

[callalilies]

You know precisely what I meant, [ nudging his leg underneath the table, but behaving otherwise to stay ensnuggled in a wing. ] I just didn't have anything to rhyme with "they" that would make proper sense.

[guestservices]

[ stop gendering my npc

kaeya may stay ensnuggled. ] Maybe you’re not suited to be a bard, actually.

[callalilies]

[ stop mean me it was an accident rattles aquila ]

Mmm-mmm. But, a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.

This is what I'm meant to do.

Few people see what I am really.

[guestservices]

Well, that makes two of us. [ they reply, dryly.

and then glance down at him. ]

And what are you, Kaeya?

[callalilies]

A monster, maybe...

[guestservices]

[ they reach out



and catch his nose between their shadowy knuckles again. ]

Stop that.

[callalilies]

[ after a quiet moment, tugging his nose away this time, but staying close to their wings, he speaks. ]

I think I'm scared. Of what happens next... I'm not even going to say it... give the asshole ideas.

So I have to laugh. [ tilting his head ] You know?