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cyno is so close to losing his fucking mind .
it’s been five months. nearly half a year, and they have no leads on tighnari’s whereabouts, not a single one. he could be anywhere in teyvat, and no one has any idea on where he might be.
it feels as if he’s either interrogated or killed every eremite in the desert - for tighnari to be missing for so long is beyond an eremite gang’s capabilities, but that doesn’t stop cyno from trying. it’s tighnari they’re talking about, cyno knows he’s brave and strong like everyone else assures him, but it is known that the forest holds many predators, and tighnari is but a piece of meat among them.
he spends his days scouring the desert and forest alike, taking merchants and random passersby into his custody to interrogate him. the other matra and the civilians murmur about the increasing violence of the general cyno. he is restless, an image of the roiling sands of his homeland.
“um-master cyno,” collei speaks up from behind him, fingers hovering over his arm - as if she was about to touch him, but hesitated. “are there any leads on master tighnari yet?”
“not at the moment,” cyno says stiffly. “but there will be. i will make sure of it.”
“do you…do you think we’ll ever find him,” collei asks tentatively, fidgeting with her sleeve. she phrases it like a statement, tone lilting downwards at the end. “ can we find him?”
“of course,” cyno snaps, and he doesn’t mean to startle her, but the days weigh heavily upon his shoulders and his eyes burn with the loss of his lover and the weeks of sleepless nights. “do you not trust in my abilities? i will find him, do you understand? if he is not in the deserts or within the forests, i will send the matra to other lands, if i must. he will return home.” he does not miss the way collei flinches with his words - yet he is far too tired to apologize.
“cyno, stop it,” a hand on his forearm sends him whirling around and lashing out with his polearm, only to find dehya scowling at him. “you can’t take it out on collei. go get some sleep. you can’t find tighnari while you’re like this. archons, cyno, do you even see yourself right now?”
the thing is cyno knows, he knows what he’s doing is wrong - interrogating anyone and everyone, pushing the idea of rest to the back of his mind, ignoring all communications in order to find tighnari. if it had been someone else in his position, he would have lectured them, told them all the things dehya had told him. and he knows tighnari’s capable of looking after himself, that doing what he’s doing now won’t get him any closer, but there is a desperate need in his hindbrain that tells him, forces him to search.
“leave it, cyno,” dehya reaches out to squeeze cyno’s hand. he feels so small before her. “get some rest. please . tighnari wouldn’t want you to lose yourself like this.”
she’s right, and cyno hates to admit it. he can hardly consider himself easily swayed, but when she brings tighnari into her argument, he can’t help but feel like he has to.
slightly swaying on his feet, he nods, and walks off without a word.
dehya and collei watch him go with worry in their eyes.
childe can do nothing, even as he knows tighnari’s whereabouts and exactly what dottore plans to do to him - what he is already doing to him. there are so many things ajax knows he could be doing, so many things he wants to do, but is it worth it to face the wrath of the doctor? he considers himself to be a brave man. he’s been brave - he climbed his way out of the abyss and summoned a god from the depths of liyue. he’s done things no mere man could even dream of doing - and yet he knows better than anyone else, save for scaramouche, that the doctor’s fury is not a thing to be trifled with.
and yet he continues to visit tighnari, sometimes to feed him, sometimes to make small conversations and see whether or not he can regain his former intelligence. it doesn’t seem too likely, not anymore, but childe is nothing if not determined.
it seems as if tighnari remembers vague snippets of information about his life before he was taken by dottore, but the mere effort of trying to remember gives him migraines. childe takes a guess at a potential lobotomy - he wouldn’t put it past the doctor to do such a thing.
he tries to get tighnari to venture out to scaramouche’s chambers - which are closer than childe’s own - but he insists upon remaining in his own dark little cell. childe lets him be, if only for his safety. “dottore isn’t allowed to know i’ve been seeing you,” he always reminds tighnari, at the end of his visits. “it’s our little secret.”
he has to hold in his nausea when he first notices tighnari’s missing canines, and feels even worse when he realizes it’s no one’s fault but his own. (even if the damselette had lied, what can he do about it?)
it takes a while before he musters up the courage to set off for sumeru under the guise of a break to see his family. he has no family in sumeru - the rest of the harbingers believe he is in morepesok. he cannot stay for long.
when he arrives, he immediately demands to see the general cyno - musters up every commanding ounce of fatui arrogance in his body and tries not to think about how the little girl with the green hair looks so, so familiar.
the general agrees to meet him in his office - he’s younger than childe expected him to be, and despite towering over him by several inches, childe feels small in his presence. “are the doors locked?” he asks, ignoring the chair cyno pulls out for him. there is no time to sit down.
“they can be,” cyno says gravely, and fiddles with the lock quietly. “what are you here for, tartaglia?”
“what is your relation to tighnari?” childe nearly flinches when cyno turns around lightning-fast. he does not falter in his gaze, even when the blunt tip of the general’s polearm digs into his throat. “you don’t want to kill me. i have information, and you would know that better than anyone, general.”
cyno does not remove his polearm, but jerks his chin in a nod. “go on.”
“i know where tighnari is being kept,” childe tries to steady his voice. it is imperative that he does not appear weak in front of this man. “i can tell you everything, on your word that i’ll live.”
“tell me,” cyno breathes, and his eyes are the eyes of a man who is nothing short of desparate. “tell me every detail, and i swear on greater lord rukkhadevata, you will live.”
and so it begins.
alhaitham worries. he refuses to admit it. he takes it upon himself to check in on the general mahamatra now and then, although kaveh is the one who brings food and a distraction, albeit for a while. alhaitham himself is unsure of what to do in such a situation. he too has searched the deserts - ventured into caverns and eremite camps, only to find nothing. he’s sure that the eremites have nothing to do with it at this point, but he continues to search.
unlike cyno, he knows his limits, and prefers to do his investigations in a different sort of way - from gandharva ville to the lower parts of setekh, he asks questions that seem innocent enough, but certainly have a deeper meaning. and yet every time he’s sure he has a lead, it turns out to be false.
kaveh seems more busy these days - alhaitham is sure his roommate is doing his own sort of search. they were friends, after all. alhaitham thinks fondly upon the days they used to drink together and play cards at the tavern.
he’s not quite sure what to feel anymore. it’s been nearly half a year since tighnari’s disappearance, and for all he knows, his friend could be one of the mad scholars, lost inside his own mind, wandering eternally towards irminsul. is there any hope left at all, or is alhaitham going to be left with a near-insane general to watch the crumbling of the forest watchers?
it may seem silly, but alhaitham truly believes tighnari is vital to gandharva ville and all that know him. he is nilou’s friend, cyno’s lover, kaveh’s drinking buddy. he matters to so many of the people that alhaitham himself loves - and he has always taken it upon himself to silently protect those close to his heart. silently, yes, but dearly. his love is quiet and severe, a guardian rather than a lover.
if he cannot protect tighnari or save him from whatever fate he approaches now, what can he do? if kaveh, archons forbid, were to end up in such a situation - he is helpless now and he will be helpless then.
he is weak in the face of what feels like a god, unable to deduce or strategize his way out of such a situation. his logistics and intelligence will not save him now - cyno’s physical prowess gets him nowhere, and kaveh cannot find tighnari purely out of love. his skills, here, are useless.
kaveh finds him lying prone on the couch, eyes blank, quiet tears slipping down his cheeks.
scaramouche is in a dilemma.
he knows exactly where childe is - they discussed it, beforehand. he knows where childe is and why he’s there. he knows all details of the trip - yet he has no idea if childe is okay or not. and embarrassignly enough, that nags at his mind. he’s above the ability to love and beneath it at the same time. archons are far too powerful for such a trivial thing as love, yet a broken puppet, a throwaway vessel - ? is he now not beneath love, instead?
he digresses. these thoughts consume him like rifthound whelps upon hapless prey.
childe is away, and so it is time to visit tighnari.
tighnari. he’s strange, in scaramouche’s eyes - the space in his chest meant for a gnosis and left for a heart aches, upon seeing him. porcelain skin seems to contract in something akin to pain. the doctor is a cruel, cruel man, and scaramouche is no stranger to this. he and childe know better than anyone that dottore will go to any lengths to attain simple results and vast knowledge. seeing tighnari reminds him of the stories about the mad scholars in sumeru.
there’s a familiarity in tighnari’s eyes now, since scaramouche comes to visit far more often. he always visits during the times he knows dottore is in his lab, doing strange things with strange people or being fucked by pantalone. it’s nice to see tighnari smile.
“thank you,” tighnari says at the end of every visit, pretty colour-split eyes wide and pale lips curved in a soft, childlike smile. “please be safe, lord scaramouche!”
scaramouche finds it quite funny, how tighnari insists on the title. he is no lord, he is no god. the failed run of dottore’s ‘everlasting lord of arcane wisdom’ model proves it. he is simply a puppet, a broken one at most, yet it seems he isworthy of being loved and capable of doing something such as loving. it’s quite strange, when he thinks on it. ei and miko had never told him he could do such a thing.
sometimes, he tries to hold deep philosophical conversations with tighnari, even when it’s become clear the latter can hardly comprehend his words. it’s interesting, however, to see the ways he’s changed. he knows a bit about tighnari, not much beyond the fact that he was once a scholar of astounding academic prowess in the area of botany. a forest watcher, the caretaker of a girl with eleazar. although dottore’s actions may not be redeemable or right at all in scaramouche’s eyes, what he’s done is beyond simple brainwashing. tighnari has been completely rewritten.
it’s strange, how much of himself he sees in tighnari. he’s not sure whether that’s good or bad for him or tighnari.
he continues to visit the small cell at the end of the corridor, descending the three steps into near pitch-black darkness without the slightest bit of fear. perhaps it’s a perk of being a puppet. he hardly feels anything he doesn’t want to anymore. sometimes it’s quite nice.
every time, tighnari has a new modification - chunks cut out from his body, stitches, new additions.
one day scaramouche visits to see the fox’s thigh is completely skinned like a rabbit, his small body swollen with another batch of dottore’s faux-children.
he thinks if he were a little more human, he might have vomited.
sometimes he’s grateful that he isn’t.
collei fears for tighnari.
she of all people understands the fear of being taken alive. that’s exactly what she’s sure happened to tighnari - taken by a force greater than anything they could imagine, for who else can escape the general mahamatra’s wrath?
she begs and pleads with cyno to let her come on at least one investigation, one search, but he denies her every time. she supposes part of it is because of their slightly awkward and uneasy relationship, or perhaps her age. he considers her too young to be placed in the way of danger.
“but i’ve been through worse,” she always argues. “i’ve lived through the fatui !”
“yes, and that is no reason for you to experience that again,” cyno snaps, and he glares down at her. the same words, every time. “it is my duty to keep you safe until tighnari returns home. do not ask again.”
his figure seems to wobble and blur before her eyes, and she watches him go, eyex fixed on his retreating back as he disappears into the sun. it’s not like she doesn’t believe in cyno’s abilities. everyone does, even alhaitham, who she’s never met but heard more about him than she needs to. but cyno’s desperation alone won’t bring tighnari home, and she knows that. cyno himself knows that. they all are aware that tighnari may never return.
return, as if he has a choice - as if he knows where he’s gone, as if he’s gone voluntarily and chosen to leave his friends and family in sumeru. really, he could be anywhere - not just in sumeru, but anywhere in teyvat. as far as she’s heard from dehya and cyno, he doesn’t seem to be anywhere in sumeru at all. they could be wrong, collei thinks vehemently. you don’t know if they’re right or not.
despite this growing desperation and driving need to go out and search, to do something useful for once - she can never be useful enough, can she - she stays in gandharva ville, taking extra care on her patrols.
“always keep your eyes open,” dehya tells her. “of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be sleeping, but if they’ve taken tighnari, whoever took him could be after you too. don’t let cyno lose you again. tighnari could come back any time, and you need to make sure you’re here for him when that time comes.”
collei is truly grateful for dehya. she is an unstoppable force, rouch in her loving and coarse in her words. sometimes she wraps a muscular arm around collei’s shoulders and squeezes her tight. collei has never had a mother, but she is sure that this is what one must feel like. she doesn’t see the flame-mane often - she’s constantly wandering the desert with the eremites, doing her own thing or making sure things are in order. but when she stops by gandharva ville, she always brings something for collei - sometimes a special dish from the desert, or an interesting rock from the winding paths of sumeru city.
sometimes, to collei, it feels wrong, having so many people care for her and worry about how she’s doing when tighnari is the one missing. she understands it, but she wants to prove that she’s not as fragile that they think she is, that she’s capable of assisting in the search for tighnair.
but when cyno comes by to quickly and near-silently check in on her, she does not speak up.
it may be better, for now, to allow the others to take charge of the search. so she sits back and waits-
until one day cyno comes like a storm into gandharva ville, the ghost of purple ribbons flickering across his arms, and tells collei he has a lead.
pantalone honestly finds it commendable, the doctor’s experiment with tighnari. it’s almost like a work of art, how he’s changed the scholar into something hardly recognizable as human. then again, he’s not sure if tighnari was ever human to begin with - something about valuka shuna. pantalone wonders how much their fur would sell for. tighnari’s tail looked quite lovely, before dottore sawed it off and clumsily stitched it back on. it hasn’t healed quite right.
despite this, panatalone has no interest in tighnari, or any of dottore’s experiments at all. it’s quite funny - he pulled the information out of the doctor one day, with a couple of well-placed kisses and saccharine words.
“i did it for you,” dottore had gasped out, hooded eyes gazing up at pantalone with desperation. “he was…supposed to be a gift, of sorts - something nice - to please you, make you notice me, i can do better, pantalone-”
naturally, pantalone had slapped him. dottore is an intelligent man - a self-proclaimed genius, if you will - but pantalone does feel he needs to smack some sense into him, at times. he’s made it clear he has no interest in dottore romantically, and still hardly any sexually - it’s entertaining, to toy with him at times. like always, the only thing on the regrator’s mind is probability, statistics, percentage, what he has to gain and what he can afford to lose. and with the doctor, all bets are off, but all benefits are his and his alone.
he props his feet up on his desk, flicking unhappily at a speck of mud on his boot. it’s been quite stormy recently, and he’s been trapped inside. piles of bills and letters wobble precariously on the oak desk, but he ignores them. he can afford to wait just a while, the public’s always favoured him- unlike the doctor, who is both feared and hated.
the thought of the doctor being his superior is a funny one, although it’s true. pantalone ranks ninth and dottore takes second - powerful not in his strength, but in his creation. his ability to form life from little more than a hunk of flesh. he’s seen the doctor make raw meat come to life. yet although he could use this power to take control of pantalone, to hurt him or toy with his mind or do what the regrator himself has done, dottore continues to act the loyal dog, remaining at pantalone’s heels faithfully from dusk till dawn. it’s this experiment - tighnari - that tips pantalone over the edge. he ends up storming down the hall to the doctor’s lab.
he fucks dottore extra hard that day - grips his hair in a white-knuckled fist and presses him into the examination table. it’s always on the table, never anywhere else. a reminder, and a warning. “tell me,” pantalone hisses, voice rough and deep. “tell me how you did it.”
dottore scrambles for words, breath stuttered and faint. he looks as if he’s about to pass out from the sheer pleasure. “a-a lobotomy,” he gasps, air punching out of his lungs with pantalone’s every thrust. “or something- something like that, it was similar to what i did with- with the akasha…akasha terminals, in sumeru- please, pantalone - rewrote his memories, replaced them with things i- i told him to do, pantalone, let me- ”
“let me tell you this, doctor,” the regrator brings his face down to dottore’s ear and lowers his voice in a rumbling hiss. “i have no interest in starting or having a relationship beyond this with you. your fucked-up fox will not change this. he will not make me like you any more, nor will he improve our current relationship. stop this madness and cease your fruitless enamoration with my visage.”
his words are far too formal for an event such as this. they’re in the middle of fucking, for archon’s sake - really, hardly in the middle, pantalone’s already pulling up his pants and stalking off, leaving dottore shivering and panting on the table as if he has a fever.
pantalone sighs, returning to his chambers - slim fingers massaging his temples. he can feel a faint sort of headache coming on. it might be the morally right decision to simply take tighnari and throw him back into sumeru, but the regrator is nothing if not cunning.
the little fox will serve as an excellent bargaining chip with the doctor, and a lovely pawn in his game.