Chapter Text
It Started with Laughter
Not the kind that bursts from the chest, not the kind Kaeya often coaxed from drunkards and passing merchants. No—this laughter was distant, looping, like a record skipping in the next room.
At first, it was easy to ignore. He’d had a long day, a few drinks, and the town always had some background noise.
But that sound—it followed him.
Even now, as he pushed open the doors to Angel’s Share, that odd, echoing laugh tickled the edges of his hearing. The familiar scent of firewood and old wine welcomed him, as always. The golden light bounced off bottles, casting comforting glows across the polished wood. His boots hit the floorboards with solid, reassuring weight.
But something was off.
"Evening," Kaeya said with his usual charm, directing it at Charles behind the bar.
Without turning, Charles raised a hand. "Welcome to Angel’s Share. We have the finest wine in all of Mondstadt."
Kaeya blinked. "I'm aware. I was here yesterday."
Silence.
He frowned. The tavern was full, and yet… hollow. A woman near the window sat frozen, hand halfway to her lips, sipping a drink that never seemed to empty. A man at the bar threw his head back in laughter—again. And again. And again.
Exactly the same each time.
"Charles?" Kaeya tried, more slowly.
The bartender turned. Same expression. Same smile. "Welcome to Angel’s Share. We have the finest wine in all of Mondstadt."
A chill crept up his spine.
"You already said that."
No answer. No recognition.
He stepped back. Watched. No one moved unless he looked directly at them. As soon as he glanced away, their movements reset, like puppets waiting for their next cue.
Kaeya didn’t order anything. He walked out of Angel’s Share without a word.
The laughter was still echoing somewhere in the distance.
He told himself it was stress. Lack of sleep. A bad hangover. But that explanation cracked quickly.
The next morning, he wandered through Mondstadt, and everything looked... exactly the same. Sunlight poured across the cobblestones in the same pattern. Birds chirped at the exact same moment as the day before. Even the vendor near the gates dropped the same apple from her cart—and caught it—at the same second as yesterday.
He turned a corner near the cathedral.
"Good morning, Acting Grand Master Jean!" a chorus of cheerful voices greeted.
Jean stood at the top of the cathedral steps, surrounded by flowers and citizens with near-identical expressions. She nodded gracefully, said something polite—and then walked up the steps and out of view.
Kaeya hurried after her.
By the time he reached the doors, she was gone.
Inside the cathedral—nothing. No footsteps. No lingering sense that someone had passed through. Just silence.
At first, he told himself it was coincidence. Maybe she was just busy.
But the feeling grew. Wrongness clawed at the edges of his thoughts.
He headed to the Knights’ Headquarters. Her office was dark. Empty. Even her desk lacked its usual tower of paperwork. The chairs hadn’t been used. The ink pot was full, untouched.
But her voice echoed continuously - somewhere distant yet so close at the same time.
In the courtyard, Amber stood at her usual post. She waved cheerfully.
He smiled back and kept watching her. For ten straight minutes, she inspected the same part of the wall, never once moving on.
When he finally turned away, a cold unease creeping into his stomach, he told himself again that it was stress.
When he turned back, she was gone.
He tested things.
Destroyed a crate in Springvale. Came back the next day—it was intact.
Picked an apple from the orchard. Returned later, and it had somehow regrown. Same size. Same color.
Enemies were next. He cleared out a hilichurl camp near Windrise. Came back the next morning—and they were all there again. Same weapons. Same placement. One even had the exact same cut in his mask from yesterday’s battle.
Kaeya stopped sleeping. He needed to talk to someone about this. Surely he couldn't be the only one who noticed how wrong everything was.
He went to Lisa.
“Lisa,” he said casually, leaning against the doorframe of the library. “You ever feel like... the days are repeating?”
She didn’t look up.
He waited.
“Lisa?”
Her eyes finally moved. Slowly. “Oh, Kaeya,” she said with a soft smile. “You do say the most curious things.”
She returned to her book.
Only then did he realize—her eyes weren’t moving. She wasn’t reading. Just staring at the same page, eyes unfocused.
He left.
He went to Diluc next.
Passing the winery at dusk, he saw him standing outside, staring at the sky like something was wrong with it.
Kaeya approached.
“Diluc.”
A slow turn. Recognition flickered in his brother’s eyes—real, he thought. For a second.
But it passed.
"Security around Mondstadt has been stable,” Diluc muttered, voice stiff. “No major incidents to report.”
Then he walked toward the manor.
Kaeya followed, and creaked opened the door into silence.
No footsteps. No conversation. No ambient hum of life.
Kaeya wandered from room to room.
Nothing.
It was like the building swallowed him whole. Or worse—Diluc had never entered it at all.
Jean was his last hope.
He waited until evening, the exact time she usually left the Cathedral.
He intercepted her halfway down the steps.
“Jean,” he said, stepping into her path. “I need to talk to you. Really talk.”
She blinked at him with that same serene expression. “Kaeya. If it’s a mission report, please submit it tomorrow. I’m due at the plaza for patrol updates.”
“I don’t care about patrols. Something is wrong. Something is deeply wrong with this city—”
“I appreciate your concern,” she said, cutting him off with a calm smile. “But we must all stay focused on our responsibilities. Mondstadt needs us.”
“Jean, listen to me—”
But she was already walking away.
He shouted after her. “Haha! The prank is over, it was hilarious! Now can you tell me what the hell is happening.”
She didn’t turn around.
Kaeya began walking further. Past the city gates, beyond Springvale, beyond even the frosted cliffs of Dragonspine. He climbed until his breath caught in the cold air and the snow bit through his gloves.
Yet no matter where he went, the rules were the same.
Merchants repeated their lines, word for word, no matter how he answered.
Enemies respawned in the exact same formations.
Items reappeared exactly where he'd found them.
And no one—no one—spoke of it.
Every conversation was a loop. A closed circle with no exits.
The first true break came when a city guard called him the wrong name.
"Traveler!" the man barked as Kaeya approached the gates.
Kaeya froze. "What did you just say?"
The guard blinked. "Ah—Captain Kaeya. Apologies. I meant no offense."
But his posture was wrong. Too stiff. The kind of stiffness that wasn’t nervousness—it was inactivity. He wasn’t thinking. He was waiting. Resetting.
Kaeya took a step back, unsettled.
He started keeping notes after that. Charts, patterns, tiny deviations. Most entries were dry, clinical. But one stood out, circled in red:
“Fischl appears in Mondstadt every Thursday at exactly 12:15 PM. She leaves at 12:23. Not a second more.”
Why only then?
That Thursday, Kaeya waited.
At 12:15, Fischl strolled into the plaza, Oz fluttering beside her. She wore a faint smile and carried a book she never opened. When he approached, she responded in cryptic metaphors about fate and “threads of destiny entangled in the theater of time.” Then she turned and walked away—her steps eerily even, her path perfectly straight.
At 12:23, she was gone.
Kaeya checked every alley. Nothing.
He laughed, but it wasn’t a joyful sound. He was starting to suspect he was the only one alive in a world of puppets.
A week later, he found Diluc in the outskirts of Dragonspine.
It was snowing, but the snowfall didn’t stick to Diluc’s shoulders. He stood near a torch, unmoving.
Kaeya approached cautiously. “Didn’t think I’d find you here.”
No response. Not at first.
Then Diluc’s head turned, slowly. “…Kaeya.”
His voice was low, uncertain. Not cold. Not mechanical. Diluc’s mouth twitched like he wanted to say something more. His eyes widened.
Then he froze. And before Kaeya could reach him, his body shimmered and dissolved. Like vapor dissipating into the snow.
“Wait—no!” Kaeya shouted. He ran forward, but there was nothing to catch. The torch beside him crackled quietly. Undisturbed.
Kaeya found him again the next day near the Dawn Winery. He tried asking about what happened yesterday, but Diluc huffed in annoyance and told him to stop speaking nonsense.
He didn't try harder to make Diluc understand, just left with no words. His heart cracking ever so slightly when his brot... Diluc didn't call him back.
From that point on, the world began unraveling faster.
A child in Springvale ran into a tree—again and again and again—until Kaeya physically lifted her back. She blinked, disoriented, then walked away as if nothing had happened.
Birds hovered a few inches above the ground before snapping back to their perches. A flower vendor stuttered through her sales pitch eleven times in a row, blinking in perfect rhythm with each repetition.
Worst of all was Angel’s Share.
Kaeya returned there often, hoping—stupidly—that something would change.
It never did.
Charles was always behind the bar, always polishing the same glass, always ready with the same smile.
The laughter in the background looped again and again like a faulty record, glitching in its own rhythm.
He sat at the bar and turned to the man beside him - the same one who laughed silently at the window.
“Hey,” Kaeya said softly. “Why do you laugh the same way every time I’m here?”
The man didn’t turn.
Kaeya leaned closer, voice quiet. “I know you’re not real.”
Still, the man didn’t move.
But Kaeya didn’t feel brave anymore. He didn’t feel clever or composed.
He just felt… watched.
The laughter continued.
From nowhere.
From everywhere.
The floor groaned under Kaeya’s boots as he stepped into the entrance hall of Dawn Winery. The late afternoon sun still lingered behind him, warm on his shoulders, but the air inside was colder than it should’ve been. Not from draft or shadow—something else. The cold here felt quiet. Empty.
He didn’t really know why he came. He told himself it was to see Adelinde. Maybe she could be the tether. The reminder that something—someone—was still real.
“Master Kaeya,” came her voice, from around the corner.
There she was. Neat as ever. Wheat blonde hair tied back. Posture perfect. The same uniform, the same faint scent of lemon polish and clean linen. The same calm smile.
“Adelinde,” he said, offering a crooked smile of his own. “Good to see you. Still keeping this place in line, I see.”
She gave a small nod, hands folded precisely in front of her. “Would you like tea, Master Kaeya? Or perhaps some of Master Diluc’s vintage?”
“No, thank you.” He waved her off. “I’m not here for that. Just thought I’d… talk.”
“That would be lovely,” she said, with a slight tilt of her head.
Kaeya moved to the old couch. It was stiffer than he remembered. Or maybe he was just imagining things again. “You ever think the days are getting… strange?”
Adelinde raised her brow, looking amused.
“I mean,” he went on, trying not to sound too desperate, “it’s peaceful, sure. But doesn’t it feel too quiet sometimes? Too… still?”
She paused in thought for a while, then answered “Peace and quiet are virtues, Master Kaeya. Predictability is the foundation of order.”
That sounded normal. Reasonable.
Kaeya studied her. Her voice wasn’t flat—not like the others. There was tone, cadence. She sounded real. Familiar. Like herself.
They kept talking. About nothing and everything. The vineyard’s harvest. The weather. The time Diluc tried to chase a boar out of the cellar and broke two barrels in the process. Kaeya's heart felt lighter than it had in weeks. The warmth of her presence almost made him forget the hollow feeling in his chest.
When he finally stood to leave, something in him felt steadier. Almost… okay.
“Thanks, Adelinde,” he said, sincerely. “You helped more than you know.”
“You are always welcome here, Master Kaeya,” she replied with her usual grace.
He was halfway out the door when the thought struck him. Just one more question.
“Oh—before I go,” he said, turning. “Have you seen Elzer around? I haven’t bumped into him in a while.”
Adelinde turned toward him with the same pleasant expression.
“Would you like me to prepare some tea? Or perhaps some of Master Diluc’s famous vintage?”
Kaeya stopped.
He blinked.
“…What?”
Her voice hadn’t changed. Same pitch. Same rhythm. Identical. Word for word.
She blinked once. Slowly.
Then, without missing a beat, turned back to the glass she’d been polishing and resumed cleaning it.
Kaeya stared for a few seconds longer. Long enough for dread to set in. Then he backed out of the door, closed it behind him...
And ran.
Weeks Later
Time lost its edges. Kaeya drifted through days that no longer began or ended—just blended. Mondstadt still wore its postcard charm: soft winds, golden skies, the sound of distant lyres. But it was too perfect. Too consistent. Like a dream someone had hit pause on.
The people didn’t help.
They moved through the motions like actors caught in the final scene of a play that never ended. Smiling. Nodding. Chanting the same praises to Barbatos, tossing out the same small talk about mild breezes and clear skies. Kaeya tested them—altered his routes, changed the time of day he passed by. But the script never changed. The names, the faces, the phrases. Identical.
He’d always been good at reading people. That was the job. The game. The edge. But now it was like flipping through a book where every chapter ended the same way.
Lisa still greeted him with that familiar flirt in her voice, but there was something off. A beat too slow. A missing spark behind the eyes. As if her charm had been reduced to a well-worn line in a playbill.
Jean? He couldn’t find her unless it was time to find her. Her office would be locked, the windows dark. He’d hear papers shuffling behind the door, the scrape of a chair, a voice—hers, distant, reciting reports to no one. But no amount of knocking made her appear.
And Diluc...
The two of them were used to silence. To tension thick as wine. But now their exchanges had the flavor of something artificial. Dialogue written by someone who knew about their history, but not what it felt like. Diluc served drinks night after night in the Tavern. He’d say the right things. Ask the right questions. But none of it meant anything.
Even Klee—sweet, explosive, irrepressible Klee—seemed like a memory on a track loop. She still ran. Still giggled. But when she looked up at him, her eyes didn't shine. They didn’t move with her words.
Kaeya stopped sleeping. Not out of rebellion, but because rest offered nothing. The dreams were echoes of the same day, again and again.
He wandered instead. Through alleys. Across rooftops. Past city gates and windmills and marketplaces that spun in perfect, pointless rhythm. Each day, he begged the world to slip up. To stutter. To crack.
And finally, it did.
It began with whispers in the city square.
“They say he’s coming soon...”
“The Hero from Another World…”
“The Traveler…”
Kaeya paused mid-stride. People were talking. Not about weather. Not about wine. About him .
The conversations varied. Not wildly, but enough.
Posters began to appear overnight, banners of gold and blue, fluttering in the wind.
At first, they were vague. “Prepare for the Traveler’s Arrival!” Then: “Aether returns to Mondstadt!” Some even had his silhouette, that ever-familiar dual-bladed stance.
It was the first true change Kaeya had seen in weeks .
The entire city was gearing up like it was Windblume Festival—but more uniform. Too perfect. Every person mentioned the same phrases, like their excitement was being orchestrated.
Kaeya’s stomach turned. He tried asking questions—What time is the Traveler arriving? Where from? How do they know? But none of the citizens answered directly.
“He’ll be here soon!”
“So exciting!”
“Don’t forget to clean your front porch!”
Every response felt eerily... prepared.
Kaeya found himself wandering to the cathedral steps that night, staring up at the sky.
The stars twinkled in their static dance. He wondered how long it would take for them to loop too.
Behind him, the chatter of Mondstadt continued, perfectly pitched, endlessly looping.
But the Traveler… he was a new variable. Maybe, just maybe, the world would crack open soon.