Chapter Text
The training grounds of the Knights of Favonius were loud, chaotic, and filled with the clash of steel and the shouts of men and women who had chosen a life of danger. Lohen loved it. He had been a knight for only a few weeks, having traded his adventurer's life for something more structured, more permanent, but the thrill of combat was the same. The weight of a polearm in his right hand, the hidden dagger in his left, the way his body moved without thought—this was where he belonged.
He was wiping down his polearm after a sparring session when a shadow fell over him.
"Is it okay if I sit next to you?"
Lohen looked up. A young man stood there, blonde hair slightly disheveled, blue eyes wide with something that looked like nervousness. He was holding a map case and wearing the uniform of a new recruit—fresh, unblemished, the fabric still stiff.
"Sure," Lohen said, gesturing to the bench beside him.
The young man sat, close enough that Lohen could smell something soft and clean—soap, maybe, or paper. He clutched the map case to his chest like a shield.
"I-I have seen your fight today," the young man said. "It was cool. Being able to use both your hands."
Lohen raised an eyebrow. Most people didn't notice the dagger.
"I didn't see the dagger in your left hand," the young man continued, his words tumbling out in a rush, "because I was focused on you using the polearm with your right hand. I'm sorry, I ramble. I just—I've never seen anyone fight like that. It was like you were doing two things at once, but your body knew exactly what to do, and you didn't even have to think about it, and I—" He stopped, his cheeks flushing a deep pink. "I'm Mika. Mika Schmidt. It's my first day."
Lohen stared at him. The young man—Mika—was still talking, still apologizing, still blushing like he had done something wrong. But Lohen wasn't listening to the words anymore. He was watching the way Mika's hands moved when he spoke, the way his eyes lit up when he talked about combat, the way he bit his lip when he realized he was rambling.
He was interesting.
Lohen had met a lot of people in his years as an adventurer. Fighters and mages, merchants and nobles, people who were brave and people who were cowards and people who were neither. But he had never met anyone like Mika. Anyone who talked about fighting like it was art, who noticed the small things—the hidden dagger, the shift in weight, the split-second decisions that made combat beautiful.
"It's your first day too?" Lohen asked, and was surprised to hear his own voice come out softer than usual. "Cool. I'm hoping to join the Fifth Company under Captain Anselm."
Mika's eyes went wide. "The Fifth Company? That's the ranged unit."
"That's the one."
"I'm hoping to join the Reconnaissance Company. As a surveyor. I draw maps. Well, I'm learning to draw maps. I'm not very good yet, but I'm getting better, and Captain Eula said she might consider me if I keep practicing, and—" He stopped, swallowed. "I'm doing it again. Rambling."
Lohen smiled. He didn't smile often—it wasn't in his nature—but something about Mika's earnestness, his nervous energy, his complete inability to stop talking once he started, made him want to.
"I don't mind," Lohen said.
Mika blinked. "You don't?"
"No." Lohen set down his polearm, turned to face him fully. "Tell me about your maps."
Mika's face lit up. He opened the map case, pulled out a rolled parchment, and spread it across the bench between them. It was a map of Mondstadt and the surrounding areas—detailed, precise, the lines clean and confident.
"I've been working on this for months," Mika said, his voice steadier now, his hands sure as he pointed out the contour lines, the elevation changes, the patrol routes he had marked in red. "It's not finished yet. The eastern border needs more work, and I'm not happy with the way I've rendered the Stormbearer Mountains, but—"
Lohen listened. He didn't understand half of what Mika was saying—contour lines and projections and something about isometric views—but he didn't care. He was watching Mika's face, the way his brow furrowed when he was concentrating, the way his lips moved when he explained something, the way his whole body seemed to relax when he was talking about something he loved.
"You're staring," Mika said, looking up.
"I'm listening," Lohen said.
"Same thing?"
"It's not." Lohen reached out, tapped the map. "You're good at this. The maps. You should keep practicing."
Mika's cheeks went pink again. "You think so?"
"I know so." Lohen rolled up the map, handed it back to him. "I'll see you around, Surveyor Schmidt."
"Mika," Mika said quickly. "Just Mika. Surveyor Schmidt is my father."
Lohen's lips twitched. "Mika, then."
"Mika," Mika repeated, like he was testing the sound of his own name in Lohen's voice. "And you're—"
"Lohen. Just Lohen."
"Lohen." Mika smiled—small, shy, beautiful. "I'll see you around, Lohen."
He walked away, map case clutched to his chest, his steps lighter than they had been before.
Lohen watched him go.
And something in his chest—something he had never felt before, something warm and dangerous and entirely unexpected—began to bloom.
Over the next few weeks, Lohen learned things about Mika.
He learned that Mika ate lunch alone in the cartography wing, hunched over his maps, too focused to notice the time. That he blushed when anyone complimented his work, deflecting praise with a stammer and a wave of his hand. That he was terrified of public speaking, of large crowds, of the weight of other people's expectations.
He also learned that Mika was brave. Not in the way of soldiers—not the loud, charging, sword-waving kind of brave—but in the way of someone who faced their fears every single day and refused to back down. He saw it in the way Mika presented his maps to Captain Eula, voice shaking but hands steady. In the way he volunteered for dangerous patrols, mapping territories that other surveyors avoided. In the way he smiled at the new recruits, the lost knights, the people who needed help finding their way.
Lohen found himself seeking Mika out. In the mess hall, in the training yards, in the quiet corners of the library where Mika spread his maps across the tables and worked by lamplight until his eyes grew heavy.
"Lohen," Mika said one evening, looking up from his work. "You're here again."
"I'm always here."
"You're not. You're usually in the training yards."
"I finished early." Lohen sat across from him, close enough to see the map—a new one, the eastern border, the Stormbearer Mountains rendered in painstaking detail. "How's it going?"
Mika sighed. "I can't get the elevation right. The mountains are steeper than they look, and my measurements keep coming out wrong, and—" He stopped, rubbed his eyes. "Sorry. I'm not good company tonight."
"You're fine."
"I'm rambling again."
"I like your rambling."
Mika's cheeks went pink. He looked down at his map, his hands fidgeting with the edge of the parchment. "You're strange, Lohen."
"So I've been told."
"Most people don't like my rambling. They think I'm annoying."
"I don't think you're annoying."
Mika looked up, his blue eyes wide. "You don't?"
"No." Lohen leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "I think you're interesting. The way you see things. The way you notice details that other people miss. The way you talk about maps like they're alive."
Mika's blush deepened. "I—that's—no one's ever said that before."
"Then no one's been paying attention."
They sat there in the quiet, the lamplight flickering, the world outside fading to darkness. Mika's hands were still on the map, but he wasn't looking at it anymore. He was looking at Lohen.
"Can I ask you something?" Mika said.
"Anything."
"What were you like? Before. As an adventurer."
Lohen considered the question. "Lonely," he said, and was surprised by his own honesty. "I traveled alone. Fought alone. Won alone. I thought that was what I wanted."
"And now?"
"Now I'm not so sure."
Mika's breath caught. His hand, still resting on the map, trembled just slightly.
Lohen wanted to reach out. Wanted to cover Mika's hand with his own, feel the warmth of him, see if his skin was as soft as it looked. But he didn't. He couldn't. Because this—this was just the beginning. This was just two knights, two strangers, two people who had found each other in the chaos of the training grounds.
But Lohen, who had spent his life chasing the thrill of battle, had found something else to chase.
And he was determined to catch it.
🐇🐣
The index was Mika's most prized possession. It was a large, leather-bound book—worn at the edges, stained with ink, filled with years of mapping notes, terrain observations, and the careful coordinates of every place he had ever surveyed. It wasn't a diary. He had told Lohen this at least a dozen times. It was a reference volume. A tool. A meticulously organized catalogue of everything he had learned about the geography of Teyvat.
Lohen didn't care.
"It's not interesting," Mika said, for what felt like the hundredth time, as Lohen plucked the index from his desk and flipped it open to a random page.
"It's not like it's your diary," Lohen said, settling onto the bench across from him. "So I don't get why you keep hoarding it. Let me see."
Mika pouted. He knew he was pouting—could feel the childish press of his lower lip—but he couldn't help it. Lohen had been doing this for weeks now, ever since he had discovered the index tucked under Mika's arm during a lunch break. He treated it like a novel, reading passages aloud in a dramatic voice, commenting on the precision of Mika's handwriting, asking questions about contour lines and elevation changes that Mika had never expected anyone to ask.
"This entry is from three years ago," Lohen said, scanning the page. "You mapped the Whispering Woods in the rain."
"It was a necessary survey."
"You wrote 'mud everywhere. Lost my left boot. Never again.'"
Mika's face went red. "That's a personal note. You're not supposed to read the personal notes."
"Then don't write personal notes in a book you let me borrow."
"I don't let you borrow it. You take it."
"Same thing."
"It's not."
Lohen looked up, and there was that smile—the one that was half teasing, half something else, something softer that Mika didn't know how to name. "Take a break. Let's go fight some monsters."
Mika blinked. "We don't even have visions."
"So? We have weapons. You have your polearm. I have mine and a dagger. We'll be fine."
"We could die."
"We could also have fun."
Mika opened his mouth to argue, but Lohen was already standing, already tucking the index under his arm, already heading for the door. He paused at the threshold, looking back.
"Come on, Surveyor Schmidt. I need to work on my polearm skills. And you need to stop hiding in this dusty room."
"It's not dusty. I clean it every week."
"Every day, you mean. I've seen you with the feather duster."
Mika's face burned. He pushed back from his desk, grabbed his polearm from where it leaned against the wall, and followed Lohen out the door.
The training grounds were nearly empty, the afternoon sun casting long shadows across the dirt. Lohen had already set up a few practice dummies—straw targets with crude faces drawn on burlap sacks—and was stretching his arms, his polearm resting on the ground beside him.
"Which one do you want?" Lohen asked, nodding at the dummies.
"The left one. Its face is less judgmental."
Lohen laughed. "They all look judgmental. That's the point."
Mika positioned himself in front of his chosen dummy, polearm in hand. He was not a natural fighter—his skills were adequate, nothing more—but Lohen had been teaching him, pushing him, refusing to let him settle for mediocrity.
"Feet wider," Lohen said, circling behind him. "You're unbalanced."
Mika adjusted his stance.
"Better. Now grip higher. You're holding it like a broom."
"I am not."
"You are. Here." Lohen stepped close, close enough that Mika could feel the warmth of him, and placed his hands over Mika's on the polearm. "Like this. Thumb here. Fingers here. Feel the difference?"
Mika felt many differences. The heat of Lohen's palms, the steady pressure of his fingers, the way his breath stirred the hair at the back of Mika's neck. He swallowed.
"Yes," he managed.
"Good. Now hit the dummy."
Mika hit the dummy. The strike was awkward, off-balance, and the polearm wobbled in his grip. But he hit it.
Lohen stepped back, arms crossed, watching. "Again."
Mika hit it again. Better this time. Cleaner.
"Again."
Again. And again. And again. Until his arms burned and his breath came in short gasps and the dummy's judgmental face had been reduced to a ragged mess of burlap and straw.
"Better," Lohen said. "You're getting faster."
"I'm getting tired."
"That's the same thing."
"It's not."
Lohen grinned—a real grin, sharp and bright and nothing like the teasing smiles he wore in the library. "One more. Then we can get food."
Mika lifted his polearm, focused on the dummy, and struck.
The head flew off.
Lohen burst out laughing. "Nice shot."
"That was an accident."
"Doesn't matter. Still counts."
Mika lowered his polearm, his heart pounding, his cheeks flushed. He felt good. Tired and sore and good in a way that surprised him.
"You're not as bad as you think you are," Lohen said, walking over to retrieve the dummy's head. "You just need to stop overthinking. Your body knows what to do. You just have to let it."
Mika leaned on his polearm, catching his breath. "You make it sound easy."
"It's not easy. It's practice. Same as your maps."
Mika thought about that. About the hours he spent hunched over his desk, drawing and redrawing the same contour lines until they were perfect. About the way his hand knew the movements now, the way he didn't have to think about the shape of a mountain or the curve of a river.
"Same as my maps," Mika agreed.
Lohen looked at him—really looked—and something in his expression shifted. Softened.
"Come on," Lohen said. "I'm buying you dinner."
"You don't have to—"
"I want to. You worked hard." Lohen slung an arm around his shoulders, casual and easy, like they had known each other for years instead of months. "And you need to eat. You're too skinny."
"I'm not skinny. I'm lean."
"You're a twig."
"I am not a twig."
"Twig."
Mika shoved him, but he was laughing, and Lohen was laughing, and the afternoon sun was warm on their faces, and for a moment—just a moment—Mika forgot that Lohen was strange and unpredictable and liked to steal his index and read it like a diary.
He was just Lohen. The same Lohen who dragged him to fight monsters and stole food from his plate at dinner and loved eating whatever Mika cooked, no matter how simple or burnt or poorly seasoned.
The same Lohen who made him feel brave.
Two years. That was how long Mika had until the Nod-Krai expedition departed. Two years to prepare, to train, to say goodbye to everything he had ever known.
He had signed up on a whim—a moment of reckless courage that had surprised even him. The expedition needed surveyors, cartographers, people who could map the frozen wastes and chart a path through the unknown. Mika had the skills. He had the maps. He had the quiet, desperate need to prove that he was more than the shy, stammering cartographer who hid in his office and let other people fight his battles.
He hadn't told Lohen yet.
He wasn't sure why. They weren't—they weren't anything, not really. Friends, maybe. Close friends, even. The kind of friends who spent their afternoons fighting dummies and their evenings sharing plates of food and their quiet moments sitting in comfortable silence, reading or drawing or just existing in the same space.
But Mika's heart had started doing something complicated whenever he looked at Lohen. Something that felt like wanting, like hoping, like the quiet, terrified recognition of something he had never allowed himself to feel.
He couldn't tell Lohen about Nod-Krai. Not yet. Not until he was sure.
"Hey."
Lohen's voice broke through his thoughts. They were at Good Hunter, sitting across from each other, plates of food between them. Lohen had already stolen a piece of Mika's chicken, and Mika had retaliated by stealing a piece of his bread.
"Yeah?" Mika said.
"You're quiet. Quieter than usual."
"I'm thinking."
"About?"
Mika hesitated. The words were right there, on the tip of his tongue. I'm leaving. In two years. I'm going to Nod-Krai, and I don't know when I'll be back, and I'm scared, and I don't know how to tell you.
But Lohen was looking at him with those red-green eyes, patient and steady, and Mika couldn't do it.
"About maps," Mika said. "Always maps."
Lohen's lips twitched. "You're lying."
"I'm not."
"You are. But I won't push." Lohen reached across the table, stole another piece of chicken, and popped it into his mouth. "You'll tell me when you're ready."
Mika's throat tightened. "What makes you so sure?"
Lohen smiled—soft, certain, infuriating. "Because you always do. Eventually. After you've thought about it for three weeks and written seventeen drafts of the conversation in your index."
Mika's face went red. "I don't! T-that's not—"
"You do. I've seen the notes. Page two-forty-seven."
"I'm going to burn that book."
"No, you're not. You love that book."
Mika opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
Lohen laughed, bright and warm, and reached across the table to ruffle Mika's hair. "Eat your dinner, Surveyor Schmidt. You have training tomorrow."
Mika ate his dinner. He let Lohen steal his food and tease him about his map notes and walk him back to his quarters when the sun had set and the streets were quiet.
And when Lohen said goodnight—casual, easy, like it meant nothing—Mika felt his heart crack open just a little bit more.
Two years.
He had two years to figure out what he was going to do about Lohen.
And two years to figure out how to say goodbye.