ravensilversea

Fandom: Honkai: Star Rail
Written for

polyamships Three Weeks for Dreamwidth

This ship was supposed to be one (1) fic. It was meant to poke fun at myself for the way my Feixiao and Kafka pulls went during the 2.5 patch. I lost both my 50/50s, Feixiao and Himeko came home at exactly 78 pity each, and Kafka showed up literally one patch after Himeko, using one of the three pulls I got from losing the 50/50 and getting a Himeko eidolon. And then I thought about it…

Firstly, their ultimate lines go together so well: Feixiao's "Victory is inevitable!" and Himeko's "Humanity never conceals its desire to control the heavens… And I'm no exception." vs Kafka's "Good times never last" FIGHT!

Like its about fighting fate until it unfolds in your favor vs already preparing yourself for when things inevitably slip through your fingers and also its about the desperation to turn the tide vs the matter-of-factness that the tide will turn one day (or else)

And then I wrote a different fic for them and in responding to the comment I got on it, I said:

They're all such badasses, and each of them are incredibly devoted to their respective path/duty, and they will absolutely choose those duties above each other because that is What Must Be Done but it will also be their absolute last choice every time. And God help you if you cross any of them

This ship is very much a Badass/Badass/Badass ship to me, but it's also about the tension between duty and personal desire. I genuinely can't imagine any of these characters leaving their positions in canon just to be with the others. So, it's about the brief chances to slip away and spend a night together, stolen moments where they all pretend they don't have any other cares in the world, and the goodbyes where they hope the next time they meet won't be on opposite sides because they all belong to different factions with their own goals that only sometimes overlap.

I also know deep in my heart that Kafka is a nickname person, and ngl, I had to figure out a good nickname for Feixiao because Himeko easily shortens to "Hime", which conveniently is a Japanese honorific for a princess or other noble woman and Wiki also says it initially referred to any beautiful woman. All in all, it's an incredibly perfect nickname with layers.

Feixiao doesn't shorten nearly as neatly though 😭. I ended up settling on "Birdie" for her because she's the Merlin's Claw of the Xianzhou Yaoqing, so it refers to her accomplishments there in an affectionate, maybe somewhat teasing, tone. It also kind of fits with her name, which the characters roughly translate to Flying Sky as far as I know ← does not read Chinese, has the power of internet language dictionaries on my side

Himeko also canonically makes incredibly bitter coffee. Literally the only people who can canonically drink it other than her are Dan Heng, Pela, and Boothill. However, I have decided that Feixiao loves Himeko's coffee because the image of Feixiao coming home from an early morning run to be offered coffee by Himeko while Kafka frantically shakes her head at her in the background, and then loving it, much to Kafka's horrified dismay (Oh no, there are two of them) amuses me.

There aren't any particular tropes that are classics for this ship yet because it is just me. This is one of my pool noodles. It could be your pool noodle too if you want 👀 Some tropes I think they are particularly shaped, however:

Case Fic, Mystery Squad, Let them run around being badasses together

Pirate AU – Feixiao has a sword, a gun, and a battleaxe she's halfway there on weapons alone

Rivals/Enemies to Lovers – Different factions have different goals, but Kafka in particular belongs to a faction wanted by like half the galaxy. She is a criminal, and Feixiao is the general/leader of her ship. Kafka's faction is also the faction most at odds with Himeko's faction on the surface

Coffeeshop AU – As mentioned, Himeko makes her own coffee for better or for worse, let the shenanigans begin

Forced Proximity – This is a science fiction canon with travel between planets, the world is your oyster on getting them all stuck in a room together

Angst – Injuries, Kafka's potential issues with believing this good thing will last, duty above love, character death, long-distance pining, the increasing fear and dread over one or more of them being uncontactable for reasons unknown, the list goes on

Werewolf AU – Feixiao has a canonical moon rage thing going on

Domesticity, Curtainfic – To be fair, I think every ship is a perfect shape for domesticity. I just love writing characters being domestically fluffy together okay. Love is stored in waking up next to each other and building IKEA furniture at 3AM

As you can see, I am incredibly normal about my pool noodle, and in case anyone is wondering: No I haven't finished that initial fic yet. Instead it's been joined by 7 other WIPs and an additional plotbunny I haven't even started working on