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Mondstadt is not immune to the changing seasons, but it rarely sees snow. Those who hail from colder climes find this fascinating, particularly with the looming presence of Dragonspine on the horizon.
"How is it that a whole mountain can be trapped in eternal winter, but the rest of this country sees not a single centimeter of snow?"
Diluc doesn't intend to eavesdrop, but the Fatui diplomats idling by the fountain aren't exactly keeping their voices hushed, choosing instead to speak in the loud, blunt tones of Snezhnayan they would hardly expect a regular citizen of Mondstadt to understand. Diluc does not consider himself to be fluent in the language himself, but over the years he's picked up enough of it to be able to identify key words and fill in the blanks.
"Is it not the influence of their archon?" asks the other diplomat, sounding reasonable. "Perhaps he does not favour the snow, and keeps it away."
"That does not explain the snow on the mountain," says their companion, crossing their arms and sounding unimpressed. "What a weak archon he truly must be, to keep the snow away but not finish the job."
Ah. That does explain why they're choosing to speak in Snezhnayan. Expressing one's open and blatant disrespect for Barbatos in Mondstadtian would certainly earn the diplomats some nasty looks, if not an outright lecture from one of the nuns.
"Well, that's just rude," huffs a youthful voice several inches below Diluc's left shoulder, and he looks down to see a familiar green beret, and then an even more familiar pair of bright green eyes as the individual turns to regard him. "Ah! Good evening, Master Diluc. Fancy meeting you here! I was just on my way to your tavern, in fact."
Diluc had considered relieving Charles of his shift tonight, and the promised attendance of the troublesome bard only solidifies his decision. He does not pay Charles nearly enough to deal with an overly talkative archon whose alcohol tolerance does not appear to have an upper limit, and may very well stretch beyond the skies into Celestia.
The Fatui diplomats have gone silent, no doubt due to Venti's loud declaration of their presence.
"Is that so?" asks Diluc in feigned surprise, well-practiced customer service smile in place. "I was on my way there, myself. Please, allow me to accompany you."
"How kind of you, Master Diluc! Then let us be on our way!"
The platitudes end as soon as they exit the town square and end up strolling through a shadowed alleyway Diluc favours as a shortcut.
"You understand Snezhnayan, don't you?" Venti asks, once they are quite sure no one else is around.
"Enough," says Diluc, glancing aside. "You seem troubled by what those two were saying."
"Troubled," repeats Venti with a thoughtful hum. "No, not quite troubled. Believe me, I've heard much worse." He shoots Diluc a grin. "If I may ask, have you ever wished for a snowy winter in Mondstadt, Master Diluc?"
*
A snowball melting in his hands, and a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked Kaeya laughing breathlessly in front of him through chattering teeth. They'd made it all the way to the outer perimeter of Dragonspine, and didn't dare take another step further.
"It's cold, huh?" Kaeya is saying, in the understatement of the century.
"W-Was it really this cold, where you grew up?" asks Diluc in wide-eyed wonder, still holding tight to his melting bundle of ice even as he shivers from head to toe.
"Yeah! But the best part was going back inside and warming up by the fire!"
"Like wh-when you're hungry and dinner is f-finally ready?"
"Yeah, just like that!"
*
"In my youth, a few times," says Diluc, after a pause. "But Mondstadt is not adequately prepared for heavy snowfall, especially on our roads. Commercial transport would certainly suffer."
"Hmm," hums Venti.
"And that includes our wine," Diluc adds, and Venti's thoughtful expression drops into a frown.
"That would be very unfortunate, wouldn't it?" Venti sighs. "Well, some things can't be helped."
"What do you mean by that?" asks Diluc, suspicious, but Angel's Share comes into view, Venti exclaims with delight, and he never gets an answer.
*
"Do you miss it?" Diluc asks much later. They're talking through his bedroom door, because Diluc is grounded but Kaeya is not. (According to Father, Diluc should have known better, whereas Kaeya couldn't have known better. It's silly either way, because they'd both come back perfectly fine.)
"Miss what?" Kaeya asks, voice muffled through the door.
"Your home!" says Diluc, like it's obvious. "You were so happy today when we got to play in the snow, weren't you? So don't you miss what it was like back home?"
Kaeya's quiet for long enough to make Diluc wonder if he's still there, but then—
"You're stupid," says Kaeya, and Diluc bristles immediately.
"Excuse me?"
"Because my home isn't where I was before, and it isn't where the snow is, either." Kaeya's speaking quietly enough that Diluc has to press his ear against the wood to hear him properly. "It's here, with you and Master Crepus. So... how can I miss my home, if I'm already here?"
Diluc is old enough to carry a real steel sword, but he's not old enough to understand why Kaeya's words are making his eyes burn and his heart squeeze in his chest. He leans against the door, wishing more than ever that it wasn't there.
"Diluc?"
"I'm here," mumbles Diluc. "And you're the stupid one."
"Huh? Why am I stupid?"
"Because... you just are!"
That night, Diluc does something he rarely does, and gets on his knees beside his bed to pray.
"Dear Barbatos," he whispers softly, eyes closed. "If you're listening, can you make it snow? It doesn't have to be all winter. It doesn't even have to be now. Just... one day, someday, would be enough."
*
Twelve years later, the long-forgotten prayer of a young boy is finally answered. Mondstadt wakes up to a blanket of glittering crystalline white on every roof, lamp post, street sign, and flower pot.
By mid-morning, Diluc still doesn't know if it was by luck or design that he had worked late enough at the tavern the previous night to warrant staying in town, particularly because of who had kept him working so late in the first place. (The bard. It had been the bard, of course.) It allows him to join the rest of the citizens of Mondstadt in clearing away as much of the snow from the streets as they can with heavy shovels typically reserved for gardening and mining. The activity creates an oddly heartwarming sense of community within the town as they all work together towards a common goal, similar to how they'd had to work together to repair the damages caused by Dvalin's rampage almost a year prior.
Even the Fatui seem to be in better spirits, which is not something Diluc would normally care to observe, but it's a bit difficult to miss when one of the diplomats is high-tailing it down the street in front of the tavern with a small army of snowball-wielding young children hot on their heels.
"Now, that's something I never expected to see in my lifetime," comments Kaeya, who is standing just outside the front entrance of Angel's Share when Diluc rounds the side of the building.
"We're closed," says Diluc, purely on instinct, but Kaeya graciously expends enough energy to open the tavern door for him, so Diluc pushes out a sigh and wordlessly accepts the help as he carries the heavy stack of chairs inside the building.
Once the chairs have been neatly placed against the wall with the rest of the patio furniture he'd brought in, he turns around to give Kaeya a proper once-over and is completely unsurprised to note that he hasn't even bothered to put on a coat. The collar of the dubious article Kaeya considers to be a shirt might even be pulled open wider than usual.
"All right, out with it," says Diluc, once he's thoroughly assessed Kaeya's body language and facial expression. "You want something."
Kaeya laughs, shifting his weight to one foot and resting a hand on his hip. "Isn't it a little early in the day to be throwing out accusations?"
"It's too early in the day to be dealing with you at all, in my opinion."
"Cold as always."
"I would offer you a coat, but it seems you have no need of one."
"Aha. I thought I caught your eyes wandering," says Kaeya, with a sly smile and a single arched brow.
It is truly too early in the day to be dealing with Kaeya Alberich.
"You have ten seconds to get to your point before I kick you out," says Diluc.
Kaeya puts his hands up, palms out in a gesture of surrender. "Fine, fine. You got me. I do want something."
Diluc crosses his arms. "Six seconds."
"What? I haven't even—"
"Four seconds."
"You are impossible sometimes, you know that?"
It takes Kaeya much longer than ten seconds to fully explain his idea, and it takes even longer to convince Diluc to agree, but by lunchtime, they have something resembling a plan.
"Admit it," Kaeya says, folding his arms across the counter and leaning in to catch Diluc's eyes. "You love shaking things up around here. You're having fun."
"I'm admitting nothing," says Diluc, turning quickly to hide the way his mouth is beginning to turn upwards at the corners. "If we're done, don't you have things to do?"
"That I do. Well, I'll be on my way, then, Master Diluc. See you tonight."
Diluc waits until the tavern door closes before he dares to turn back around, and that's when he sees it—a perfectly round, white snowball sitting innocuously on the counter.
If Diluc truly does smile in that moment, at least no one is around to see it.
*
"Lux Brumalis," says Kaeya slowly.
Diluc squints at him from across the table. "What?"
"Lux Brumalis," says Kaeya again, this time with more confidence. He swivels his book around and pushes it towards Diluc. "It was a festival they used to celebrate a long time ago! Lux Brumalis!"
Diluc peers down at the page. The book is so old that the text is barely legible, and he has no idea how Kaeya can even read any of it without getting a headache.
"Mondstadt has a lot of festivals like that," says Diluc, giving up and pushing the book back towards Kaeya.
"But this one was special!" insists Kaeya. "It took place in the winter only, and—"
"Shh!" hisses someone at the table next to them. "You're being too loud!"
"Sorry!" Kaeya dutifully lowers his voice. "It took place in the winter only, and the Cryo Archon would visit and bring the gift of snow for three whole days."
"Snow?" repeats Diluc, interest piqued.
"There would be so much snow that no one could go to work," continues Kaeya in his stage whisper. "So everyone just stayed inside with their families and ate tons of food. And when the Cryo Archon came knocking, you were supposed to give her gifts to thank her for the snow, but she was so kind and generous that she gave all the gifts back to the people..."
*
"... so to save her the trouble, it became tradition to give each other gifts instead," Kaeya is saying to the enraptured gaggle of young knights who have gathered around him.
"But I don't have a gift for you, Captain Kaeya!" cries one of the knights in distress, to a chorus of similar exclamations.
"Work hard and protect Mondstadt," says Kaeya very seriously, holding his glass up. "That is the best gift any of you could possibly give, and the only one I would ask for."
"Captain Kaeya!" sobs one of the other knights. "You're amazing!"
"A toast to Captain Kaeya! Happy Lux Brumalis!"
"Happy Lux Brumalis!"
The tavern is packed tighter than it has possibly ever been. The existence of the patio typically mitigates even the busiest nights, but with what feels like the entire population of Mondstadt in attendance and forced inside due to the snow, it's loud and crowded and hot.
"You're getting a raise," Diluc informs Charles, who barely has time to thank him before Diluc slips out the back door for a breather.
The back of Angel's Share doesn't offer much in terms of sightseeing, but a step around the corner allows him to get a better look at the street, which is even more festively decorated now than it was a few short hours ago. Even now, late into the evening, he can see a father-daughter pair working together to wind colourful ribbons around one of the street lamps. Beside them, a trio of young children are working on some sort of lumpy snow sculpture that Diluc suspects is intended to be Barbatos.
The sound of a door creaking open gets his attention, and Diluc glances over his shoulder to see Kaeya's head poking through.
"So this is where you went," Kaeya says, stepping out and closing the door behind him. He walks over to Diluc and follows his gaze to the street, snorting out a helpless laugh when he sees the lumpy snow sculpture. "Oh, that's cute."
Diluc can't argue with that. They watch in mutually amused silence for a little while, before Diluc finally speaks up.
"You've outdone yourself this time. I have to admit that I'm impressed."
"Well, it wasn't just me," says Kaeya lightly. "You know just as well as I do how much the citizens of Mondstadt love a good party. Once word got out to the right people, the rest sorted itself out."
"Perhaps," agrees Diluc. "But an event on this scale, on such short notice? It takes a good leader to pull that off."
"Wait," says Kaeya, and Diluc looks over to catch Kaeya's visible eye widened in surprise. "Are you praising me? You are. You're actually praising me."
"And if you continue to be insufferable about it, I will never praise you again."
Kaeya's only response to that is to laugh, and it's infectious enough that Diluc cannot help but breathe out a low chuckle in return, and he doesn't know when they decided to stand close enough to bump shoulders, but that happens too.
"I'm going back inside," says Diluc, partly because he should get back to work, and partly because it gives him an excuse to turn around and hide the inexplicable warmth flooding his face.
"Good idea," says Kaeya, following closely behind him, until he suddenly stops, stare suddenly fixated on something above Diluc's head.
Diluc looks up.
Dark green leaves and white berries—unmistakably mistletoe, which is a rare plant to find in Mondstadt at all, never mind hanging innocently over the back door of Angel's Share.
"Mistletoe," says Kaeya, as though reading his thoughts, and when Diluc lowers his eyes, he finds Kaeya looking back at him intently. "Do you remember?"
*
"One of her favourite plants was mistletoe, so everyone would hang mistletoe over their doorways to get her to visit them, and—" Kaeya suddenly stops short.
"And what?" Diluc presses, thoroughly invested. "What happened?"
Kaeya glances around furtively, then leans in and whispers, "Because she was the Goddess of Love, if two people were caught underneath the mistletoe at the same time, they had to kiss each other!"
Diluc gasps quietly. "They had to kiss?"
"They had to kiss! And right after they kissed..."
*
... they would fall in love.
"I remember," murmurs Diluc, holding Kaeya's gaze.
Neither of them move.
"Well, it's just an old tradition," Kaeya begins, but before he can finish, Diluc grabs him by the collar with both hands and kisses him.
Kaeya's lips are warmer than Diluc could have imagined them to be, and he vividly remembers a young boy telling him all about how the best part about being cold was being able to warm up afterwards.
And then Kaeya kisses him back, and Diluc stops thinking.
*
"What do you think happens if you kiss under the mistletoe when you're already in love?"
"Huh? I don't know. Maybe you fall out of love!"
"Well, that's stupid."
"You're stupid!"
"No, I'm not!"
"Shh! This is a library!"