memento mori.
summary: a re:zero au for genshin impact.
notes: story spoilers, very complicated relationships and some unhealthy mindsets, reader death, lots of violence, just lots of death and mentions of death in general, angst, shoutout to the wonderful @wangshengs for brainrotting with me over this idea muah muah!! <3
Background: You’re suddenly isekai-ed to Teyvat one day in the place of the traveler. Every time you die, the timeline restarts to a set moment before you died. You’re stuck in an eternal timeloop, and when you clear certain plot points, your “respawn” point moves further up the timeline. You’re a threat to the natural “law” of Teyvat, so monsters are naturally more aggressive to you. Both the Abyss Order and Dainsleif view you as a strange anomaly that needs to be “fixed”. After all, Teyvat won’t allow you to stay dead, and time itself shifts to keep you alive. All the gods and adeptus are well aware of what’s happening; they’re the only ones who know when the timeline restarts.
Dropped in the middle of nowhere, with no clue as to what happened or what to do, your first death is quick and painful when you’re shot full of arrows by a hilichurl archer after you stumble too close to their camp. It is witnessed by one person: Venti, who arrives far too late. You’re bleeding out by the time he finds you, and he knows he cannot save you.
He holds your body in his arms, brushing back your hair. “I’m sorry I was too late,” he says, nothing but a stranger in your first death. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.” His eyes are a thousand miles away; is he really talking to you? You’re too far gone to care.
“This is the only thing I can do for you,” Venti says. He opens his mouth, and sings. His song wraps you in its embrace, easing your pain and calming your fear. Your eyes close… only to reopen with a start, your hands trembling as you search your body for arrow wounds that should be there; you can feel the pain, haunting every step, but there is no blood, no bruises, nothing to show that you had just died. In fact, you woke up where you had first been dropped in Teyvat.
This time, you avoid the hilichurl camp where you had just died, and when you stumble across Venti, his eyes widen. “You should be dead,” he says.
Something is horribly wrong, and the both of you know it. Still, he does his best to reassure you.
“Maybe the archons love you,” he suggests cheerily, “to give you another chance at life.”
If this is love, then the blessing of the gods is a cruel thing.
