nico

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ABOUT ME:

hii guys, my name's nico! i'm seventeen and a big fan of twst and genshin since 2021 <3 i speak both portuguese and english, feel free to send anything in any language. i also use she/they/he.

i'm a social work applicant, so unfortunately i don't write as frequently or continuously </3 my plan's to be able to write much more again after the exam at the end of the year

i'm also a selective sebek yumeshipper — and most of my fanfics are about him — and a big fan of Azul and Fellow Honest :)

subtly, you felt Sebek's hand lightly brush against yours at a moment when he carelessly lowered his arms while gesturing. you stared at his hand for a few seconds, distracted before deciding to gently take it in your hand.

at first when you did this, Sebek would get excited almost instantly, seeming absolutely horrified by the sudden contact and quick to say how inappropriate and scandalous it was to do it out of the blue. now, after you ignored his lectures so many times and continued with the same attitude, he simply accepted it as something immutable inherent to you and tried to hide his embarrassment at all costs, even if the slightest effort was enough to let it show.

after a few seconds staring at your hands, you realized to yourself how his hand lacked warmth to the touch; Sebek's hand, as you had noticed several times before, was quite calloused and rough in the area below the base of the fingers and on the fingertips, a result of the arduous daily training, both in combat mastery and at the equestrian club. it was also cold, even more so because it wasn't covered by the characteristic black leather glove of the uniforms, but not uncomfortably so; it was like an inviting chill at the beginning of a warm summer night. you wondered if it bothered him because of the stiffness resulting from reduced blood flow, and then you voiced your thoughts while distracted by the sensation: "...your hands are cold."

Sebek interrupted himself mid-monologue almost immediately, gaping and frozen, his sharp canines now clearly visible and his eyes slightly wide, looking at you as if his mind was oscillating between various possibilities of what to say or do.

for a moment, his hand squeezed yours lightly before finally exclaiming: "WHAT— human, is that a trouble!?"

you smiled back, your eyes half-closed now looking deep into his without wavering for a moment. you squeezed his hand tighter, now covering it with both hands. "no, not at all. my hands are warm, so let me warm yours."

you watched as his face flushed, now unable to hide his embarrassment without turning away with a visible frown and muttering something. however, the tone of the tips of his ears betrayed that it was nothing more than pure embarrassment—again.

You felt your eyelashes grow heavy as your eyes began to open, trying to regain awareness of your surroundings. For a moment, everything seemed like a mere dark blur due to your hazy, unfocused vision; your eyes needed to blink a few times slowly before adjusting their focus. Your breathing was still labored and heavy, gradually stabilizing when you finally opened your eyes fully.

You looked around a few times at the dark scene, trying to orient yourself in the gloom. Speaking of which, why was it so dark here? You had to half-close your eyes to adjust your vision in the immense, sprawling darkness. Below you, you felt compact, soft earth, almost sandy when you ran your palm across the ground and saw your hand darkened; a type of earth composed of a lot of organic matter and usually found in cemeteries. You frowned, sitting up with difficulty and wiping your hand on your dress.

Before you could do anything else, the sound of hurried footsteps came to you in a fraction of a second, walking quickly toward you.

"Oh, my dear, are you alright?" A voice echoed beside you, their tone heavy with concern and apprehension, the steps slowing as they drew closer to your figure on the earthen ground. Before you could turn to look at him, however, the person was already crouched in front of you, examining you with a gaze filled with the same concern that his voice carried.

Stunned by the proximity, you crawled back to your spot on the ground, creating some sense of distance between you again. Without noticing, your nails dug into the ground, soiling them as you sought some kind of comfort in keeping your footing. Without a hint of hesitation, you raised your voice loudly and clearly: "Who are you?! Where am I?!"

His expression fell to one of confusion, his glasses briefly sliding down the bridge of his nose before he adjusted them; you could see his eyes briefly beneath the lenses, the irises a charming orange-red, reminiscent of the blended hues of a vivid sunset, and, in place of conventional eye sockets, black spirals acted as his pupils. You found yourself lost in their color for a moment, feeling embarrassed at losing focus, and returning your attention to your situation.

He, too, seemed to regain his attention to your question, frowning as if he didn't understand what the question was and resting a skeletal finger that gave you the creeps on his chin, pondering and seeming to make an effort to understand the question while pouting. "What do you mean, my dear? You proposed to me beautifully..! Perhaps fainting caused you to lose that memory?"

Your eyes widened in a way that you were certain they could pop out at any moment, the words were stuck in your throat and nothing but babbling formed in your mouth. You stood up hurriedly, your vision darkening briefly before normalizing from the sudden action your brain needed to register. You took a few steps back, stopping only when you felt part of your foot step on nothing, seeing with horror that you were on top of a hill that projected strangely like a spiral.

With panic gripping you, you projected your hands forward in a meager, almost clumsy, defenseless gesture, staring in astonishment at the man before you. No, there was no way, what was he even saying? You hadn't proposed to anyone; you were sure you'd remember if you dared to act like that when you'd been engaged for so long. Unless, near that old cemetery, there—

"You have no idea how lonely it was to be buried there, my dear." His voice echoed again, as powerful and clear as when he'd uttered your vows in the utterly silent forest, serving as the only source of sound both on that hill and, it seemed, throughout all the meters that made up that patch of land, but now it was laden with a profound melancholy. "You know, it was so lonely dying alone. I wished I could wait until the love of my life would appear and take me away from that tomb... And then, oh, you appeared and finally rescued me...! Isn't it lovely?"

You were speechless at his behavior; perhaps disbelief wasn't even a strong enough adjective to describe how absurd and senseless the whole situation was to you. What, a skeletal undead creature that had been buried for who knows how many years, somehow surviving, and awakened because you used its buried figure as an aid to your wedding speech? You were dreaming, a terrible dream at that, because there was no other explanation for it.

You hesitated for a moment as he seemed lost in his own monologue, repeatedly glancing away from him to the ground below the hill; you could try to run and overtake him, but who could guarantee that would be enough since he had so easily chased you through the forest earlier? Not to mention how he could vanish and simply reappear behind you on the bridge without even a sound...

You found yourself cornered and with few options in your favor, your mind in turmoil trying to optimize his distraction to make some kind of escape move. It was then that you looked at the hill below again. It didn't seem so high, and perhaps the incline could help in a steep descent.

It was your only option at the moment, so you mustered your courage, filled your lungs with air, and jumped off the hill, landing painfully on the ground, but thanks to the low height of this particular hill, there was no fracture to your foot.

Ignoring the pleas and shouts from the top of the hill, you gripped your dress tightly, leaving your shoes aside, forgotten on the dark earthen ground, to run as fast as possible.

You crossed immense hills, pastures, and a few oak trees as dark as coal, devoid of leaves. Your feet seemed to want to falter after a while, your lungs burning, begging for oxygen to enter properly and send air to your brain to try and get back to work, but you didn't let your body falter for a single moment during the entire journey; after all, every time you slowed down for even a second, you could hear his increasingly hurried footsteps behind you, his melodramatic voice pleading for you to stop.

He wasn't going to give up, and neither were you.

Then, a particularly small town appeared in your line of sight; several buildings and low houses clustered together, giving it the appearance of a village or even a small inland town. Although you couldn't remember any town like that near your own, you had no choice but to risk entering and venturing through the narrow alleys and streets. Losing him was your top priority now.

The slightly warped and poorly laid cobblestone streets chafed the soles of your feet, occasionally tearing your skin from the friction of the pebbles. As you ran down the main street, you saw not one or two, but several skeletons or semi-skeletal people in the streets, some shopping or cleaning their windows. You couldn't understand what was wrong with the local population, with this obsession of dressing and making themselves up like corpses, not even how well skeleton makeup was done.

Well, that was until you bumped into someone sweeping the sidewalk in front of their house. When you turned to apologize, you looked in horror at their head on the ground, and watched with even more horror as they calmly swept their own head and dust into a corner below the window with a shovel, as if they didn't care and it was a routine activity.

You went into denial, stumbling and colliding with many more things along the way; more people, dead plant pots, crates, and even the corners of some houses. Your mind was racing with despair, you felt tears welling up in your eyes, desperate to be released, and they rolled down your face. It wasn't real, you couldn't conceive of this idea or understand how it was possible.

Completely distracted and stunned, you didn't see when you crashed into a tall, massive brick wall, leading you to a dead end. Just as you considered turning around to find another escape route, you heard your name being called by him. If you had to guess, you'd say he wasn't even six meters away from you.

Surrounded by very few options, you saw no choice but to climb the wall. Some bricks jutted out from a possible botched and rushed construction, so you took advantage of this to grab them and place your feet on the lower ones, your dress making the process difficult every time the fabric wrapped around your feet or got caught on something. The wall seemed covered in a thin layer of snow as well; your fingers froze more and more with each passing second, with each attempt to climb.

Looking up, you could already reach the iron railing just above you, and you stretched out your hand to grab the structure when, suddenly, a gloved hand held you firmly and gently, another extended to help you support yourself against the slab of the structure and ease the effort to climb.

Your eyes filled with despair when you saw his absurdly friendly and kind face smiling at you, and you had no choice but to accept his help to get back onto solid ground—it was that or let yourself fall and perhaps suffer a nasty fracture in the process. You took his hand, letting him help you up and over the railings, landing in what looked like a small grassy garden, devoid of any flowers or undergrowth, seemingly existing solely for decoration.

"Ah, isn't it a frighteningly lovely night?" the tall man asked to no one in particular, seeming more absorbed in his own thoughts than actually speaking with a specific purpose. You watched him walk around a bit before sitting on a bench nearby, the wood somewhat worn and splintered at the edges, but supported by four slightly rusty black iron legs. He motioned for you to come closer and sit beside him; with a sigh of defeat, you walked dejectedly over to him, sitting down with your hands in your lap.

A sepulchral silence hung between you after that moment, not seeming at all bothersome to him, who observed the sky with as much enchantment as a jeweler would look at a perfectly round and genuine pearl. Looking for yourself, you saw only a clear sky, without stars forming constellations or incandescent points that could catch your attention; the only thing filling the darkened immensity above was a bright, yellowish full moon, which seemed to be casting its light upon you.

Looking further to the side, you had a better view of the hills now that you were at a higher point in the city; all of them, despite sharing the same spiral shape, had a particular singularity in their curved tips; you couldn't spot or pinpoint any that were the same. Most, as you had seen running here, also had no trees, as if they were something that didn't belong to the local vegetation; the vast majority consisted only of grasses and, occasionally, a completely leafless tree.

The decrepit sight sent shivers down your spine and left a bitter taste in your throat, as if warning you that things shouldn't be this way. Everything was too much, too dead, too silent, too peaceful, too devoid; you felt uneasy being there. With a clearing of your throat, you tried to fill the silence again.

"Listen... I'm sorry for the mistake I made, but we're not married; I don't even know your name or where I am."

"Oh, how foolish of me to have forgotten something so important! I apologize for my actions, my dear." He apologized almost theatrically and melodramatically, delicately taking your hand in his, bringing it to his lips to place a chaste kiss on your knuckles, lingering a second longer than he should have. "My name's Skully J Graves, and currently you're in the underworld."

"Pardon me, what?" You gasped for a moment, your voice thick with confusion.

"When you swore your vows to me beyond the boundaries of the cemetery, oh, my dear, you rekindled my soul, once silenced so many years ago... Isn't that frighteningly wonderful?" He ostentatiously placed his hands on his chest, overlapping one another as he let out a sigh of relief and joy; he seemed so genuine about his own words that you couldn't help but form a small awkward smile at the absurdity of the scene. Perhaps you were starting to go crazy after all.

"I imagine, yes. My mother would have thought that was complete nonsense if I told her, however." You sighed heavily, your mind clinging to the reality of the world of the living above, the worry still manifesting at your core. You saw a strange glimpse under Skully's glasses as he gently tilted his head to the side, looking at you.

"Do you think she would like me?" he asked.

You pondered for a moment, hesitating at the last second as you reconsidered your answer. Perhaps, if you could circumvent the situation, there might be some way to compel him to take you back? "Both of my parents would certainly like you. Actually, I think you should meet them, oh, but unfortunately they're still alive." You feigned the saddest and most convincing voice possible, your eyes downcast and dejected as you looked directly into Skully's, who in turn did indeed seem compelled.

"Ah yes, that's certainly a problem. Unless..." He brought a skeletal finger to his chin again, tapping the bone against his face as he frowned, possibly thinking of a solution to the recent problem. After a moment, it was as if a flash of insight had struck him at the speed with which he rose from the bench, a wide grin plastered on his face. Before you could question what had happened, he cheerfully declared, "The elder Gutknecht must know how to return to the world of the living."

The cold, damp air of the decrepit cemetery made each sob sharper and more painful; the putrid smell of decay mixed with the scent of wet earth, making it difficult to breathe without wrinkling your nose at the stench of the place abandoned by its inhabitants and god.

Unable to stand, your legs trembled until you gave way and sat on your legs, the pure white silk dress becoming even more stained, quickly turning taupe at the edges—damaged with stains that would likely not come out anytime soon, but perhaps it wasn't worth the effort to try; the dress was completely torn, seams open and holes that only patches would be enough to mend. Your dress was ruined the moment you ran and passed between the first trees with their twisted and sharp branches after fleeing the church across the bridge.

Oh, merciful God, if He could hear your prayers and laments in His most holy house, would He be kind enough to intervene and deliver you from the fateful destiny that awaited you a few days from now behind those enormous, angelically carved, solid wood doors? Would you be spared the freedom of your own choices?

You, however, knew that He wouldn't. Ever since your fiancé was meticulously chosen by your parents, you knew it would be you; there was no other sister or brother to bear the burden of marrying someone you didn't love. Oh, merciful God, why did you punish your poor soul with a divine agreement from which you could never escape? Why, not even during the vow rehearsal, did the Lord calm the heart of this poor young woman with her shackled destiny?

You didn't approve, but you couldn't let your selfishness get the better of you and leave your parents to live in misery: in the small shack you called home, because it would never be a truly cozy house. You couldn't bear the burden of being the cause of their last days being spent in such a dilapidated place, but it pained you to give up your own rights and autonomy.

And knowing that, sooner or later, you needed to return to church made your stomach churn.

You wiped your face with the back of your hand, noticing the foundation and mascara staining your skin, not even imagining how much makeup must be running down your cheeks. Opening your other hand, which you had clenched so tightly that you felt the hidden contents irritating the skin of your palm, you observed listlessly a beautiful gold ring resting in the center, without a single scratch on its surface—the ring you dropped during the rehearsal while trying to compose yourself, and yet you were so nervous that you trembled just holding it between your fingers in front of your fiancé.

You stood with difficulty on your numb legs, your dress billowing in the light cemetery breeze, lifting the mud-stained hem. From a distance, you could easily be mistaken for a corpse that had returned from the dead after years buried in the same way you had died, completely unaware of your surroundings.

Walking among the tombs, observing the precise carvings on each tomb and mausoleum, which were partially covered in moss, slime, and brittle edges deteriorated by time, you reached the edge of the worn metal fence with sharp spears protecting its top—which now seemed useless, since the fence bars were broken enough for a person of average height to pass through without much difficulty.

Passing through a hole that didn't seem so turbulent, you took a few steps away from the sepulcher, entering an area of the forest that seemed more dead and lifeless than the previous zone; here, most of the trees seemed to have already shed all their leaves, being bare and with their thin branches covered in a thin layer of snow; luckily for you, the blizzard seemed to have ceased as you entered the woods.

Between the decrepit silence of the dead and the sepulchral cold of the frigid night, the vows from the rehearsal reverberated in your mind, clinging to you like a ghost whispering laments in your ear, not allowing you for even a few miserable seconds to feel free from your destiny. You knew that your escape had already been a great enough dishonor to your parents; to freeze again while reciting the vows would be another internal escape from what was inevitable.

You spotted a cluster of strange branches ahead, approaching a little closer to inspect their shape. They didn't seem to have grown naturally, as their bases emerged strangely from the ground, as if twisted beneath the snowy soil, and remained the same as they projected outwards, curving curiously into spiral shapes; their ends weren't much different, except for some that stretched away from the base.

One of them, curiously, projected in a crooked hand shape, a single small branch growing straight forward. You looked away from the wood to your hand, contemplating the ring that still rested there. It seemed wide enough to fit the ring on the groom's finger. You paused, sighing heavily to yourself, closing your eyes for just a brief moment as you tried to recall your vows.

You would rehearse here, no matter what, and return to the church ready, chin held high, to face what awaited you.

"With this hand, I will lift your sorrows." Your voice faltered, trapped in your throat by a tightly knotted, fictitious knot that hurt your vocal cords as if it had a life of its own. You cleared your throat, pushing away the urge to cry again, and recited the text even louder.

"Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine."

"With this candle, I will light your way in darkness."

"With this ring, I ask you to be mine until death do us part." With a final lament, you slid the silver object, plated in gold, onto the twisted branch, leaving it there for a few long seconds, gazing at it with sorrow in your heart.

The forest fell into a deathly silence, even quieter than when you had arrived. Nothing could be heard anymore, not even the chirping of birds in their nests in the tree stumps, nor the sound of the breeze carrying away the few remaining flakes and bits of leaves that hadn't been covered. The silence was unsettling and felt wrong, as if it should never be this quiet.

Feeling a bad feeling creeping in, you reached for the ring, ready to take it off and put it away again.

But then, the branch moved.

Stunned, you took a step back.

Before you could fully grasp what was happening, a skeletal arm emerged from beneath the ground, lunging towards you as it tried to reach you. Another arm braced itself on the ground, helping the body to emerge, revealing its form.

Illuminated by the thin rays of light piercing through the clouds stood a very tall, thin young man with short white hair and bangs over his eyes, the tips of which were black. His skin appeared abnormally pale, a grayish-white, almost Dharma-colored hue. His mouth also seemed to have a more lifeless gray color in a pattern reminiscent of skeleton makeup, and he wore orange glasses that covered his eyes.

His attire consisted of a slightly yellowish dress shirt, as if it had once been pure white, but now with long, frayed, torn cuffs. He wore a bow tie and a strangely well-preserved gray vest with black stripes, as well as a long, torn black jacket with white stripes and lapels resembling bat wings. One of the sleeves was irregularly ruffled, revealing a skeletal hand; the same hand that wore the ring. He also wore a single black skeleton-themed glove—on his non-skeletal hand—and black and white shoes.

This, however, is the quickest description your brain could grasp during the few seconds you stared at each other in the silence of the place. Too stunned to find yourself, your feet seemed to freeze beneath you on the ground, refusing to move and forcing you to look at the dying appearance of the man before you. And then, like a tree falling and breaking the abrupt silence of a sleeping forest, he spoke in the sweetest tone you had ever heard before: "I accept."

A single sign of movement from him—ghostly and dragging, almost as if he were floating a few inches above the ground instead of walking—was enough for you to immediately run back towards the city.

A sliver of moonlight shone incandescently above the sky between the clouds, providing little light for the way back and consequently causing you to bump into various things along the way, as well as narrow branches that cut your skin on the surface and abandoned tombstones meters beyond the cemetery, too low and buried for you to avoid without colliding with them; with each detour, with each obstacle, you turned back, disoriented, and seemed to see his figure getting closer; impossibly closer, as if no obstacle would ever be enough to slow his pace.

Crossing the last pine trees in the row that made up the forest, you shot towards the worn and ancient cobblestone bridge that crossed a narrow, winding stream; on the other side of the bridge, the church was visible exactly as you had left it in your escape. You stopped for a second to lean on the edge, looking at your reflection in the water, breathless and extremely tired from running. Your ears caught no more sound besides your racing heart and the cawing of crows flying overhead, not even when you looked back at the forest from where you came and saw no sign of the man.

A wave of relief washed over you, as if the adrenaline rush had finally subsided and everything was left behind in that damned patch of land near the cemetery that you silently swore never to set foot on again. Looking one last time at your reflection, you pushed yourself off the bridge, taking a deep breath and turning to return to the church when suddenly you bumped into something solid, albeit with a sufficiently soft texture.

Looking up, nothing in the world could describe the horror that filled your eyes. Standing before you with an impassive expression, there he was again: the man who had pursued you this far. With nowhere to run, practically surrounded by the figure and the railing, you took a few steps back until your back hit the hard stone of the bridge, bracing yourself with both hands and trying your best to arch your back away from him.

His hands quickly rested on your shoulders without applying pressure, a distorted and overly docile smile materializing as he approached your face, tilting his head as he finally spoke again:

"You may kiss the groom."

And before you could understand anything, your vision went completely dark, your senses ceased; you fainted.