Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was a small hop in my step as I walk away from the most exciting night I've had in months. A break from being utterly swamped by work, a light in the dark, a small, local, festival. It was was exhilarating, it felt so alive, teaming with life, even as the sun sunk under the horizon, the energy was unmatched in its vibrancy with its roaring music  -the bass still reverberating through the ground below my feet-  and crowds of tightly-packed, weed-smoking teens. It was brilliant, even if my lungs are gonna hate me tomorrow for all the second hand smoke I inhaled.

I may have entered with friends, but I'm walking out alone, rightfully abandoned by my saner friends. The ones that had proper work tomorrow. Godspeed to those guys.

I check my phone, the glare of the street lights on the screen blocked by young leaves above me, it's almost four in the morning. I grimace, because wow, I really need to develop a healthier sleep schedule. The night gets quieter the further I walk; the trembling in the ground peters out a little more with every step along the patch-work pavement, and I'm starting to get that after-the-party feeling. It's hollow, devoid of exuberance, an empty hole shaped like joy that only gets noticed in the solitary moments after you leave somewhere. Utter nothing. Man, the cold air isn't helping.

It takes me a good ten minutes walking down the desolate main road to reach my beloved shortcut, a short journey through a woodland on a narrow soil path, cracked in the early summer heat, litter strewn along each side. Poorly lit and isolated; that’s what it's like, even when it's light outside, it looks creepier than usual. Much creepier. No bueno, I turn to take the long way home -no way in hell am i going down there- and my feet heartily disagree with that decision. So I weigh my options, I'm tired and my feet hurt; go down the creepy woodland path. Possibly get kidnapped or worse; go the long way. I mean… I live in the south of England, the crime rate isn't that high, I could get away with it. And I’m really, seriously, mega tired.

Ugh, yes way in hell it is I guess.

I take a step forward, then another, then some more. It's alright, I walk down the path, guided only by the warm street light behind me, and I feel this odd sense of unease. It's confusing and unsettling, like I shouldn't trust what I'm seeing in front of me. It's an odd sort of paranoia, so difficult to ignore yet so easy to shake off. And then the street lights turn off. Motherfucker. 

For a few moments it’s pitch black, I freeze up completely, and then my eyes begin to adjust. The small amount of light bouncing off the trees stirs and twists into freakish things, images of what kids think live in the dark. I can't move, I'm barely breathing, my heart rate is skyrocketing. Jesus, fuck, I really have some shit luck, huh. I listen carefully, and can't hear anything weird. I turn my eyes to the floor, something in me is screaming to not move. So I don't. Keeping dead quiet, I stay dead still for a good while, the sane part of me itching to just keep walking, to go home where it’s safe and full of light.

It takes a long while but the feeling passes, leaving only residual fear. The pressure around me, the feeling of something inhuman watching and the crippling feeling of claustrophobia dissipate. I swallow heavily, taking a deep, quiet breath. I let my shoulders relax a tad.

It's windy here, the coolness seeping through the weave of my clothes, making the fabric billow just a little bit, and brushing past my sides like it's trying to move around me. It's calming, sort of. Like a reassurance that the world around me is alive and well. It feels friendly, healthy even, and spurs a feeling of contentment in me. With a renewed sense of confidence, I walk on through the dark.

The confidence is short lived as despite the wind’s comfort, everything feels wrong, deeply disorientingly wrong. Like the world tilted, like nothing is where it's supposed to be and it rips open the metaphorical bag I've been keeping my anxiety in.

My shoes squeak over wet grass and the wind washes the scent of something refreshing over me, it mixes with a hint of salt and the sound of faint crashing, a sensory melody with a beauty like no other. And it does fuck all to calm my nerves, why the hell does it smell like sea? Where did the grass come from? Taking a wrong turn couldn’t hope to explain this bullshit, I live almost 29 kilometres from the sea for Christ's sake. Admittedly, I’m having a bit of a moment, I'm just a little bit scared shitless.

The fear recedes, leaving room for hopelessness to take over. I resign myself to being eaten by wild animals, dying to the elements, or worse, seeing a large group of near-rabid, drunken teenage boys. I sit down, cross legged on the grass, and take my phone out. It's half past four now, how long was I gormlessly standing around like a twat for? Why didn't it feel like that long? That's freaky.

Keeping the back of my phone pressed into the grass, I turn the torch on, lifting it slowly like I'm going to disturb something monstrous if I lift it any faster. I keep the phone low as I pass the torch over the ground. It's mostly grass and I lift my phone just a bit higher to see more, the grass gives way to rock about 6 metres from me before dropping off into the night and I take a moment to muster the courage to crawl over and take a peek. Jesus, I really hope nothing’s down there, I think I’ll genuinely scream to the high fucking heavens if there is. God himself would have front row seats to my screamfest, I swear it.

I shuffle over to the ledge on my knees and hover the torch over the edge; and I see almost nothing beneath it, barely able to make out patches of dim moonlight glinting atop of the water. Yeah, water, a presumably large body of it actually. Wild. That shouldn’t be possible. Maybe it was all that second hand smoke that’s getting to me. Stupid hippie festival. 

I crawl away from the cliff edge, as far as I can, no way am I falling off that, that’d just be embarrassing. My right hand hits nothing and I yelp and jolt backwards, Jesus Christ, I almost fell off. Not joyous. Why is it so dark anyways? Even with the street lights off, the moon should be enough to see what's in front of me, right? So why can’t I?

I turn my phone torch off, sitting still on the narrow cliff I've found myself on. Maybe it’ll just go away if I sit here and don't move. Sounds good to me. Very, very good. Yep. Defo. 

Wow, this whole “waiting around” thing is surprisingly stressful.

Actually, I'm panicking a bit. That's not good. 

This is a bit of a pickle. Well, it's already half past four, which means the sunrise isn't too far off. That's good. Yeah, just hold on until sunrise. Great objective. Hey, hang on a minute, I can call emergency services or something, jeez, thanks a lot, extremely panicked brain, you're so good at helping yourself. I dial up 999 on the emergency call thing, these work without service I should be fine. The phone rings for a few minutes and, weirdly, aborts the phone call by itself. Well shit, that means no signal. Or maybe not enough signal, yeah, maybe it's just not strong enough, a text message might work? I mean they don’t use as much signal. 

It doesn't go through.

The promise of sunrise is all I have now, aside from mild humour and intense dryness. And my humour isn't that great. I should've taken the long way, I am my own worst enemy. I'm thinking of the one experiment someone did, they gave participants the choice between sitting alone in a room for about an hour with no distractions or being mildly electrocuted, and I think I'm starting to understand why the overwhelming majority chose electrocution. I’m going bonkers out here on my own, who knew I would ever crave human contact so much?

The wind is getting stronger, wanting to move through me instead of past me. And it stays that way for a long while, and eventually it gradually becomes softer. Everything looks a little brighter and I can start to make out the shape of the downhill slope I'm sitting on. With hope, I look to the horizon and I don't find any hint of a warm glow. No sun for me. Frownie face.

I turn my head to the sky, ready to curse out whichever higher power put me on this godforsaken cliff. The sight that greets me rips the words from my mouth and shoves them back down my throat. Stars; so many stars. Like glitter spilt over fine velvet, bedazzled with divine curiosities. Never in my life have I seen so many stars, never seen them burn so brightly before. Curiously, on the right and peaking out of thick clouds, is something that can only be described as a gash through the sky, an open wound dripping straight starlight. 

That’s not the sky I know.

Chapter Text

Which means that I’m absolutely somewhere I absolutely should not be.

Fuck off, seriously?

Nevermind the pretty sky, whatever higher power that wants to play me should watch their damn arse because I’m gonna rip them a new one. What did I even do to them? Breathe? Wankers. All of them.

Apparently I was facing east, the sun beginning to peek over the horizon, replacing the cold grey of the early morning with blossoming oranges and pinks. My face warmed by the mild rays. This is so stupid, I’m stuck on a cliff in the middle of fuck off nowhere! With a sky that isn’t mine! What the fuck!

At this point the sun had risen enough for me to see where I was, thank god, chasing away that primal fear of what's in the dark. Fear gave way to relief, spurring new hope in me. Now that I could see properly I could find out where I was and go from there, hopefully finding some sort of settlement or shelter soon. God, what a comforting thought, I'm not totally helpless, I just need to move.

I bathed in the morning sun for a little bit longer, eyes closed with trust in its light, hoping it would fill me with whatever remaining courage I needed to find answers. Admittedly, the sun, smells, and sounds up on this cliff were beautiful in the daylight and in all honesty, I didn't feel like leaving.

But I didn't feel like starving up here, so I should go soon, shame, the air is nice and clean here.

I opened my eyes, and for the first time, I really looked in front of me. Rich blue sea spread out for miles, stretching over the horizon, curving to fit it. Beautiful blue, it moves but yet it does so gently gently, a bit like the wind that forms its slight crests. Completely uninterrupted by ships. But despite the sea's beauty, I felt very alone looking at it, my eyes wandering across the great expanse of water. They landed on a little island, it was a long way off that's for sure, somewhat obscured by the sun. two towering pillars jutted from two sides of the island, fighting through the light and sea mist to be seen. Definitely abandoned, definitely pretty.

And also very familiar, strikingly so, there's no way I haven't seen those before. I can feel it in my gut. But where from though? Damn my poor memory, silly thing, how very unhelpful. 

I turn to face west, spotting familiar  on the way round and dread pools in my gut. Unfamiliar pine trees wave at me in the distance atop strangely shaped cliffs, curling and poking out into the water.

My back meets the sun and I raise my eyes.

There it stands, painted in bright warm hues, one large city. One large city in the middle of a lake, three large windmills touching the sky surrounded by a few smaller ones, some decorate the city walls. All of their sailclothes off white in the rising sun, turning leisurely. Cosy red roofed houses dot the city in rows and clumps, a few with smoking chimneys, giving a sense of warmth and comfort. But what sticks out most is the towering statue in front of the cathedral.

It's difficult to see it from here, but if that cathedral -with its dramatic spires- means anything then I know exactly what it is.

That's Venti’s statue. The one from Genshin Impact. The video game. The one I've been obsessed with for 3 years now. I might be in Genshin.

An odd sense of excitement mixes with utterly devastating fright, I did not sign up for this. My jaw drops and I make a strangled noise, it sounds a bit like a fox screaming, I can't tear my eyes from mondstadt in all of its stone glory. Still gaping, I close my eyes tight and drive the heel of my hand into them with a small hope I'm hallucinating or dreaming or anything but actually being here. I see stars behind my eyelids before I take my hands away from my face. My eyes are blurry and my vision is dotted with spots. But as my sight clears up, Mondstadt remains right in front of me, its cold stone unmoving. It's much larger than I remember, hell the whole country seems bigger, more trees, a larger stretch of land, I couldn't even see the faint outline of the Wangshu inn like you normally could in-game.

I turn to my left and muffle a scream in my elbow because how in the ever loving fuck did I end up here!? There's no way in hell that's possible! It shouldn’t be! I may be a total loser gamer but I am not built for 15th century fantasy germany! Or fantasy anywhere actually! I'll be dead in minutes. I might genuinely die here. I might die. Oh my god. 

I sit with these thoughts for a few minutes more, utterly shell shocked. With one more muffled scream I decide it, I'm heading into the city. It's the best shot I have. If the traveller has already come through they might not be so suspicious of me, hell, they might actually believe I'm from a different world, and they might shelter me. If the traveller hasn’t then I’m a teensy bit fucked because walking in and declaring I’m from another world would definitely makes me look insane. But that's all I've got. Alright, I walk down there, tell someone important to the government I'm from another world and I can use my phone or whatever's in my bag as evidence. Sounds good enough for now.

With a plan in mind, I take a deep breath and start walking down the cliff and I feel so deeply uncertain. I have no idea of the actual customs here or how dangerous the enemies actually are and honestly I'm just praying that I could outrun them. I ended up on a Starsnatch cliff. It's pretty, the grass is a vibrant shade of green. Even when surrounded by this world’s beautiful nature, my head is stuffed full of worries, is my family okay? Are my friends okay? What about my commission work? What if I'm really hallucinating? I don't want to go back though I do wish I could at least tell my family that I'm not dead.

I kick a big rock really hard, and Jesus does it hurt, I pinch myself, I look at my hands, and I'm still here. Great, chances are, I'm not dreaming or hallucinating. Shit. Bollocks even.

Oh to hell with it, I mean hey, if I'm actually here I might as well enjoy it. And I'm in the perfect place to go look at some cecelia flowers. And I like flowers. I speed up a bit, veering to the right where I know a patch of them grows, and my god, they're stunning. There's definitely more of them here than there were in the game, which isn't surprising considering when I looked around the whole world looked way bigger. They're simple flowers, but it's definitely something in their favour, that paired with their pristine white colour gives them an air of purity and cleanliness. Damn, I'm waxing poetry about these things.

The trees have a similar aura, the purity of being untouched, it feels odd to be here but I guess it's because people here haven't gotten to the whole late stage capitalism thing yet. Hey, I could live in a hut in the woods if I wanted to. Oh my god. If this is real then I'm free. No more fossil fuels or climate change or global warming or brutal work hours in shitty office jobs. I'd be free. My god is that a wonderful feeling, I don't have to live under a monarchy, there's no incredible amount of surveillance, I could live my life in peace. Holy shit, if I'm dreaming don't wake me up, I’m in heaven!

I cant stop smiling, fuck am I terrified but damn am I excited. I could die to the elements or other video game bullshitery, but equally I could live in a freer world. It feels like a weight has slipped off my shoulders, no matter what I do, I'll probably be alright. Sweet, sweet contentment, I’m saved.

I walk forward on my way to Mond, the Thousand Winds Temple looks beautiful in its ruinous state and so much more beautiful in person, well if you ignore the ominous ruin guard noises. Which makes me think, there's probably a ton of hilichurls, slimes and whatever else this land spat out in between me and Mondstadt. How do I deal with that? Shit, yeah, I didn’t think about that more than “pray I can out run them”... Fuck.

I hear yelling and stop dead in my tracks, startled. There's a faint sound of bouncing, bouncing and yelling? Weird. Wait, bouncing and yelling? There's two or so electro slimes up ahead, I know that for sure, so does that mean someones getting attacked? Yeah, probably.

Should I… step in? It's not like I could kill any possible slimes, aside from running away, I’m useless.

The panicked shouts turned into panicked screams.

I take a sharp breath and start running. Towards the screaming. I'm an idiot, what the hell am I doing? I stop to take a peek from on top of a small ledge to see what the situation is, and my heart tightens with fright, eyes wide with shock, there’s a man. And he’s surrounded by about four electro slimes. Shit, that's probably not good. His eyes find mine and they look desperate, totally helpless and smothered with fear. 

I don't think before, or while, I run down from the ledge and towards the man, waving my arms like a lunatic.

“Hey! Run! Opening on your left!” I shout, heart pounding, running past the guy. The slime blocking his front is starting to bounce towards me with its stupid looking large eyes (?) trained on me. I don’t hear any footfall behind me, and I stop to find where he is. I see him frozen still.

“Come this way! Run!” I'm screaming now. The slime is getting closer and the crackling noises it’s making is fucking scary. It takes a moment but the guy snaps out of whatever fearful stupor he ended up in and bolts in my direction, and then I start running for dear life down the slope. Thank god I played genshin before this otherwise I’d be panicking so much harder right now if i was clueless. I run to the left of the path and towards a little area that sits higher than the path.

The man followed me over here, but the slimes are still advancing, so we run on. About 30 metres later the sound of bouncing and crackling had faded, signifying that the slimes had given up on their prey, and I came to an unsteady stop now that I’m safe from becoming those blobs’ next meal. I'm panting with my hands on my knees when the man catches up with me, seemingly unharmed, but reasonably a little shaken.

For a moment he tries to speak but my unathletic arse puts one finger up, shushing him for a minute. I look at him and become deeply shocked, an expression that seems to be mirrored on his face while he looks at me. He's Asian, definitely, with a wide, flat nose, rich black hair that's more wavy than straight tied up in a low man bun looking thing. His face is squarish with a high forehead and his skin is a lovely deep olive. But what shocks me are his clothes, ripped jeans, a white shirt with a yellow cardigan thrown over, and his umbrella, his umbrella that's definitely made of synthetic fabric. He came from the same world as me, or at least he’s not from here.

I gape a little, starting to speak before i caught my breath, “Fuck, are you alright? Where did you come from?” He’s breathing hard, eyes wide and his mouth opens and closes a few times before he speaks:

“Y-yeah I’m okay, I’m, uh, from Manila.” it came out a bit stuttery with an accent, he's obviously stressed but damn was it a nice feeling to suddenly have a stuck-in-another-world-buddy. 

“The Philippines?” I turn my eyes away from his umbrella to his face, giving him a questioning look, “How the fuck did you end up here?”

“I'm not sure,” he starts, “I was walking back from Advocafe after getting lunch and then I turned into this alley, yeah, and then everything went dark and there was this weird feeling?” he sounded a little uncertain, as if he was unsure of how much to tell me. He continued, “and then I ended up over there, I think.'' He pointed towards a group of trees close to the Thousand Winds temple, near the bottom of Starsnatch cliff to the left of the path.

He was that close and I didn't notice?

With my breath caught, I stand up, coming face to face with him. On top of being stuck-in-another-world-buddies, we appear to also be height-buddies at a whopping 160 something centimetres. That's normal for him, Filipinos usually being on the short side, it's an absolute travesty on my end considering I'm 26 and still being mistaken as a sixth former. 

He looks at me questioningly, “Where are you from? You sound English.” he asks.

“Yeah, I'm from England, from Forest Row.” I say, a little on the quiet side. He probably doesn’t know where that is, judging by the contemplative expression on his face. Did I make that awkward? I hope to god I didn’t.

“Then how did you get here?” I get broken out from my thoughts.

“Ah, similar situation to you, came back from a festival and got trapped in the dark, I ended up on the top of that cliff there” I tell him, pointing back up to the way I came.

“Do you know where we are?” he asks pointedly, and I hesitate to give him an answer, telling him we’re in a video game right off the bat would make me sound insane. My hesitance obviously showed on my face, his eyebrows knitted together and a frown pulled on his lips.

“I'm not sure, I might do? Like maybe? I just i-” I cut myself off, waving my hands around pointlessly, “it’s- there’s a city that way, we can get help there or something. I'll tell you more on the way?”

His frown didn't disappear and neither did the knot between his eyebrows.

“Sure.” he agreed. Short and sweet with no questions. Nice. This’ll make for an awkward walk.

Chapter Text

In true open world game player fashion, I led the guy -who’s name I still haven't asked for, whoops- in an almost straight line towards roughly where I thought the nearest teleport waypoint was. God bless my fixation on this stupid game, I'd be so lost without it.

The walk started off in awkward silence, only broken when this guy -I really need to ask him for his name- reminded me of my promise to elaborate on my rather avoidant answer.

“You said you’d tell me more?” He prompts me, glancing at me with one raised brow.

“Duuuuhh, yeah,” I reply brainlessly, oh great I can’t even speak properly, “yeah I did, so true. So before I start, can I, like, get your name? At all? Like, this is a bit awkward I didn't ask earlier-”

“Dante Perez Baccay, answer the damn question.” Yeah he's a bit pissed.

I take a deep breath through my nose, “Okay, okay, uh, this is gonna sound insane but we’re possibly in a video game?” My pitch gets higher and higher towards the end, and eventually it comes out sounding more like a question. He doesn’t look impressed. Actually he looks very irritated, side eyeing me with a look of mild disdain. So no stuck-in-another-world-buddies?

“Quit chatting shit, tell me the truth!” He sounds pretty mad now, a pretty fair response to that dogshit answer and my overall unhelpfulness. 

“I am! Why would I lie about that? Let alone make something so stupid up! Did you see those slimes attacking you? They look like they were created to be merch!” I respond quickly, letting my stress get to me and making me shout.

“That's so stupid! How would that even happen!?”

“I don't know! I'm as clueless as you here!”

We’ve slowed down by this point, he looks exasperated and a bit defeated and my shoulders are up by my ears while my hands are held up and still. It hits me that we’ve been walking for quite a while now, not surprising considering that the world is larger, but it makes me worry about what enemies might be around, we should probably be quieter, for safety’s sake.

I worry my lip, biting it, feeling a bit embarrassed for shouting, “Sorry about shouting,” I say quickly, “but I saw the city from that cliff and I really do know it and the way there, and how to avoid most of those slime things. I get that this is really terrifying but could you please trust me enough to get us to that city?”

Oooooh that makes me sound like a bit of a bitch, slightly condescending too. Yeesh, I hope he doesn’t take offence to that.

“Fine. I'm sorry for yelling too, I'm stressed and so are you, probably. And I want your name.” The reply is curt, though I think that's more to do with his way of talking than any dislike of me, thank god. And he agreed to follow me. Sweet, I love co-operation.

“Kitty Weller,” I give my name with a slight smile, something that might hopefully bring up the mood, and out of the corner of my eye I spot something, a peek of grey in between the trees, “hey, this way i think I'll know where we are from there.”

I approach the possible waypoint quickly before stopping harshly, and Dante looks at me quizzically.

“There's hilichurls near there sometimes, I think” I say quietly, and yeah, as it turns out the grey thing is a waypoint. It's not activated but it's there.

“Hilichurls?”

“Human looking monster things, they're a bit, uh, more complicated than that? It doesn't really matter, I'll tell you later. All you need to know is that they are aggressive when you get close.”

“‘Kay.” 

Man, I'm gonna have to give him a genshin crash course when we get somewhere safe. Tiptoeing closer, slowly poking my head out of the treeline we ended up in, I check for hilichurls. Out of paranoia, I take a lot of time, I don't feel like dying today, doubly so considering I have the responsibility of getting Dante to Mondstadt without killing or seriously injuring him. Thats a big responsibility, shit-

“You good?” He asks me dryly.

I flinch, Dante, who's slightly behind me on my right, looks worried and I feel pretty confused.

“I'm fine? Why?” 

“You looked worried for a minute.”

“Oh, uh, nothing bad out there that I can see I was just lost in thought.” I say, a little bit spacy in my tone but Dante doesn’t seem to have much of a response. Is that an okay thing? I can't tell what he's thinking. 

“Are we gonna, y’know?” He's gesturing to go forwards.

“Yeah! Yeah. Sorry.”

We walk towards the waypoint and he turns to me.

“You know this place, right? And apparently it's a video game, so what's that?” He motions as the waypoint in all its grey, unmoving glory.

“A waypoint, its meant to be like a teleport-y thingy in game, I think its not been activated because its grey at the moment so it can’t be used.'' I sound very unsure of myself at the moment and I think it's starting to affect my perceived credibility because Dante doesn't look too convinced.

“Teleport thing? It looks evil.” he looks doubtful, fair enough honestly, with its grey and red colour scheme it does kind of look like it’s going to eat your soul or something.

“Okay, yeeaah it does, but look!” I reach out and slap one of the prongs on the top, leaving my hand there and leaning on it. “Totally fine!”

“Why is it glowing blue at the bottom?” 

“What.” 

For a moment there’s this incredible blue light smothering everything, and the way it hits Dante makes him look tired. Then my whole body moves and I back away from the waypoint.

“Is that supposed to happen?” Dante asks from beside me, sounding absolutely done with the world.

“Not a fucking clue, mate,” I start and then trail off to mutter to myself, "I thought only the traveller could do that?” 

“Traveller?” 

“The main character, you play as them in the beginning. Oh and sometimes in cutscene things. They're the person who makes all these things light up.”

“Huh.” yeah, huh, if the waypoint wasn’t active then doesn’t that mean that the traveller hasn’t gotten here yet? That’s a little worrying, considering there’s, at the very least, 6000 years between the archons being created and the traveller appearing. Well, the landscape looks unnaturally disturbed while also looking like it hasn’t been moved in aeons and it's not snowy, which means that Venti’s made his mark as anemo archon at least. No sign of any hilichurls yet, giving the possibility that there’s none at all, possibly putting us before the cataclysm and at least 500 years pre-traveller. Fuck if only I knew what made the damn waypoints.

Dante taps me on the shoulder, “You okay in there?” Gesturing to my head, "You looked like you were away with the fairies.”

“Sorry, sorry, I do that a lot. I was just thinking about where we are.”

“When?”

“Yeah, like where in the game timeline we are.”

“How big is it?”

“Possibly, up to six thousand years.” I say with a grimace and Dante looks at me incredulously with the facial expression of a deer about to get hit by a lorry.

“Six thousand!?”

“I don't like it either!”

“This is ridiculous,” he murmurs with furrowed brows. He brings his hand up to his forehead and crosses his chest with his other arm and begins pacing a little, “no, no way are we in a video game. That shouldn’t happen, I can't be here.”

He paces and murmurs for a while, I don't want to disturb him. Partly because I have no idea how to comfort him considering my own mixed feelings about being here, and partly because I think he might need this. He brings his other hand up to cover his face and crouches down in the grass near the drop that leads into a small pond, eventually sitting down and looking dejected while staring at the little island in the pond.

Bollocks to it, I sit down next to him in the vague hope that maybe, just maybe, a human presence near him might help a bit. We sit in silence, seconds could be minutes and minutes could be hours with how time seemed to stretch and bend as we sat there. At some point he curled up into a ball, pulling his lanky legs to his chest and putting his head between his knees. His bun’s falling out, making him look even more tired.

I used the moment to think, no time to spare and considering I probably couldn't comfort him I might as well be useful. 

There's a possible six thousand year window for our existence here, considering they probably didn't have the know-how to make way points back then I'd say it's less than the whole six thousand. The Thousand Wind temple looked ruined which kind of confirms that. Vanessa’s tree is here, I can see that in the distance, and consider how people from traveller era Mondstadt don’t like the aristocratic families from her time then that puts us closer to the traveller arriving than not, that combined with possible plot convenience gives us a good chance at surviving.

Overall I'd say we’re closer to the traveller arriving, meaning the world is more predictable which is good.

When I look back over to Dante, he was still curled in a ball. I should probably say something now for the sake of not letting him spiral. I open my mouth but I get distracted by the distant sound of wing beats, large and powerful, coming from somewhere far behind us. Well shit, considering the state of Dragonspine -chock full of snow and surrounded by mean looking blizzards- there’s only one thing able to make that noise. Both Dante and I look up to find it, Dvalin, and I spot a jagged blue dot high up in the sky, probably above the ocean at the moment. Dante looks terrified -he probably figured out what that is- and drops his head again, this time covering it with his hands.

“Hey, look at me,” I say, gentle but firm, trying not to tip the scale to the point of sounding like I'm babying him, “if we are in a video game, you’ve got me, a total loser who knows way too much about it who can keep you alive.”

I use a joking tone to try and lighten the mood, he looks up but it doesn’t seem to have much effect, his face is still contorted with fear, spying over my shoulder at Dvalin. God only knows how I’m not freaking the fuck out, I’m terrified, genuinely scared, about to piss myself, theres a massive fucking dragon over there. And I'm the only one between us who knows anything. I've got to be calm. For Dante.

“It’s okay, it’s going to be okay. It’s not coming for us, it won't come this way I promise.” it comes out quickly and just a bit panicked, and I move myself roughly in front of where I think Dvalin is with my back to it. I turn around, to find the dragon, leaving enough of a gap for Dante to see too.

The dragon is definitely closer now, but it means, gauging its direction became possible. Just as I suspected, Dvalin didn’t seem to be coming this way, even if he was flying lower now.

“See? He's not coming this way, we’re fine, we’re alright.” I turn to look at him, to meet his eyes. He looks scared shitless, for a very good reason, but he’s not looking over my shoulder anymore and is instead looking at me. Truly looking at me, taking my face in. Right, game face, it's showtime. I put my hands on his shoulders.

“I know that dragon and it confirms that we’re in a video game,” his face drops minutely, “which also means I’ve got the know-how to get us somewhere safe. That dragon won't focus on single targets out in the wild, it’s heading towards the city, so we’ll be fine. But for safety’s sake, we’ll try to stay in covered areas. See that path there? That takes us to the city. There's monsters along it so we might divert, but I'll keep you safe. I promise.”

He's still looking at me, nodding quickly. I continue:

“We’re going to get up, and walk down that path,” I say, pointing at it, “I won't leave you behind.”

I get up and hold a hand out to him, which he takes, spinning around to check behind us before looking at me again. I smile and nod, an attempt to seem outwardly confident.

Apparently it works, still holding hands we make our way to join the path. Dante keeps looking behind us, he's nervous, very nervous, but it's good that he's keeping a lookout. Considering the world is a bit different from what I know, vigilance is good, we can avoid fighting enemies that way. 

In all honesty I feel a bit bad for Dante, he's got no prior knowledge of this place and his only guide is some idiot, hippy-looking Englishwoman. If I was in his shoes I would've broke down crying the second we got away from those slimes. His grip is tight, he's shaking a little and his head is swinging around like a flettner vent on top of a van that's speeding down the motorway at 150 miles an hour. I don't even know what I look like at the moment, probably not much better, but I need to get a grip for Dante’s sake.

My predictions are right, there's an anemo slime hidden in the grass, moving around across the path in a square pattern. I lead us off the path and up towards the stump of a ruined pillar, hoping it's far enough away for the slime not to notice us. Dante is tense but with his experience with slimes it's a very fair response, so I say nothing.

As we get behind the stone stump I spot some hilichurls in the distance, nowhere near the path, thankfully. It's probably best if Dante knows what they look like. 

I turn to him and whisper, “Hey, look over there.” I point with my free hand.

“What?” he whispers in return.

“Do you see that beige fur over there?”

“Kind of.”

“Those are hilichurls. They've got big ears.”

“Oh, I see, I think.”

I smile, peeking out from behind the stump to check where the slime is, it's not close. Very good. Carefully, I bring us away from the slime and eventually back to the path.

We come to a fork and I look back to check on Dante, who’s still looking behind us. I peer over his shoulder to check if he’s seen anything. Nope, nothing. Very good. I pull him towards the left path and we keep walking. 

“The flowers look pretty.” I mumble, a small attempt to keep our morale up. He hums in acknowledgement. The path curves down a small slope, with Dante’s hand in mine I creep to the right of the path to get a view of the way down.

Good thing I did, there's that one small hilichurl encampment near the bottom, too close to the path to safely make it to the bottom. I check for a safe way down, the way to the right of us is a small cliff with hilichurls on it so it's too dangerous. So I go left, eventually I find a part of the ledge with a shallow enough slope to get down.

“We’re going to go down here, I'll go first in case you fall.” I tell him, you wouldn't get too hurt going down here but I think he needs some reassurance, and I let go of his hand. I sit down at the edge and, essentially, bum-shuffle my way down. My trusty mid-shin length brown skirt rode up near the bottom and the back of my knees sting a bit, oh well it can't be helped. My feet hit the floor and I turn to look back up to Dante. He sat at the top as well and I motion him to come down. He does, with a lot more grace than me actually, credit to his jeans, they barely move. He lands close to me and I reach for his hand again, I take it and he lets me.

It strikes me then that we’re in the Windrise area now, that means dendro slimes. Hidden, hard to spot. It was the lesser of two evils, so we have to put up with it. We move quickly, heading towards the statue of the seven, I'm practically dragging Dante behind me. 

I see two hydro slimes crawl (slither?) out from a bush and take a wide left to avoid them. Then we reach it, sweet salvation, the statue. There’s no enemies too close.

“We can take a small breather here,” I tell him and then point to a path, “that path will take us to the city.”

He nods, sitting down on one of the raised stones.

“What’s this statue then?” he asks, with very little emotion in his tone, probably worn out from travel and stress.

“It's a Statue of the Seven.”

“There's only one person on top though.”

“Yeah, one of the seven. That's the Anemo Archon, wind god, call him what you will. This is his country, Mondstadt.”

Dante looks at the statue for a moment more before turning his gaze back to me, looking curious.

“So. What other countries are there? If I'm stuck here I might as well know.” He sounds a lot calmer now, possibly a bit resigned.

“Oh, there’s seven countries on the continent of Teyvat, Mondstadt, Liyue, Inazuma, Sumeru, Fontaine, Natlan and Snezhnaya. That's the order you visit them in the game, each country has an element, I’ll list them in the same order as the corresponding country: anemo, geo, electro, dendro, hydro, pyro and cryo.” I'm getting a bit lost in my loser gamer shit now but, to be fair, he asked.

And Dante looks confused, uuuuuhhh-

“English is my second language.” he states plainly.

“Ooooooooooh,” stunning response Kitty, ten out of ten, ”right, sorry, you speak english really well so i didn’t question it. Sorry, hold on, I'll list them normally: wind, rock, electricity, plant, water, fire, ice. That better?”

“We should go over that later.” he tells me, nodding to himself.

“I'm down for that.” I smile back. We sit for a few more minutes.

“Do you want to get going?” he looks at me inquisitively with his head tilted a little. Despite knowing the absolute bare minimum about each other I feel like we’ve bonded a bit, well bonds forged in the fire of adversity last, or whatever my mum says. Oh, I miss her a bit now. Anywho, I nod and hold out my hand again, Dante snorts at it but takes it anyway.

Back on the path, hand in hand, I look out for that hilichurl camp which ends up being far enough away from the path for us to walk past it safely. The journey away from Windrise is peaceful, no enemies, and as we get to the top, apparently no stray Knights of Favonius either. Hurrah. 

I keep walking but I can't. Oh Dante stopped, no wonder. He's staring slack jawed at the domain entrance when I look back at him. He whips his head towards me.

“Is that evil? It looks evil.” he asks quickly. To be fair it’s red and glowing.

“Uh, I don't think so, just unopened.” Is all I can give him in response, that reminds me, where's Dvalin again? Dante might know, he was paying more attention to what was around us on our way down.

“Hey, did you see where the dragon went?” I ask, he points towards the domain entrance. What?

“About that way, like it was heading to something over there, not changing direction.” He tells me with little to no hesitation, wow this guy’s way more observant than me. Good on him, it's a skill he’ll need. I'll have to expand my immediate recognition beyond chests. Haha, boob joke, I'm so funny.

“Why are you laughing to yourself?” Dante asks in a tone laced with playful concern. Damn my easily readable facial expressions, and damn my inability to hold in laughter as well.

“I made a boob joke in my head, sozzles.” is my quick response, I can absolutely socially interact without looking like a buffoon, I promise.

He looks confused, mouthing words I can't hear and I stare into the middle distance where Dvalin might be.

“So, I think we’re at the beginning of the game,” I say, “the dragon’s probably over there in the woods having an emo moment, emo-ment if you will, we should wait by the bridge for a bit before heading into the city.”

Shortly after we begin walking, screaming dragon noises echo across the relatively small distance between us and the woods. I jump out of my fucking skin, and Dante’s grip tightens tenfold. The beating of wings is closer now, and I can really hear how strong they are from here. Dvalin rises over the tree line, blue body glowing in the late-afternoon light. Beautiful, and also mortifying, very, very mortifying. At this distance I could really see just how gargantuan this dragon really is. And so could Dante, he looked shell shocked, the poor man.

Swiftly, like an eel through water, Dvalin took off. Zipping towards old Mondstadt with the efficiency of a fighter jet.

Dante looked a bit faint, pale down to his neck and glassy-eyed. I tugged him along, towards Mondstadt but his eyes remained plastered to the direction Dvalin naffed off in. poor bastard, he’ll be horribly traumatised at the end of all this.

Definitely.

Chapter Text

Lord only knows what luck let me and Dante get to the city bridge in one piece, but we made it without any major injuries or casualties, something I count as an absolute win.

I found that the bridge followed the same pattern as the rest of the world, it was bigger, but it also had more details. For example, I could see scuff marks and dust as we approached, then I could see the patterns in the cobbles when we got closer, both the lamps and their respective banners held meaning and detail now. It was truly lovely to see in person, it looked used and inhabited in a way a video game couldn’t hope to capture, the stones themselves felt alive and rich with history. It hits me then, just how many times I've already crossed this bridge, which is an odd feeling that feels similar to deja vu, just watered down. I feel amazed, obviously, but what I’m seeing isn’t exactly new.

The city wall looks more interesting too, the gate a portcullis of rough, weathered iron, rusted with age, displaying it with pride. The banners that draped down the two tower bits at the front were saturated enough to be visible from the other end of the bridge entirely. Poking out from behind the top of the wall were red shingle roofs, church spires and windmill sails, all looking a bit windswept but, the most important piece of the skyline was the tremendous statue of Venti. From the centre at the end of the bridge, the statue aligned perfectly with the middle of the city entrance and framed neatly between three church spires, the only words I can truly describe it with are; man, that’s UNESCO world heritage site material.

“That’s way more impressive in person.” I mutter breathily, mostly to myself, partly to Dante, who still looked a little frightened. I still don’t know how he’s kept it together so well, he’s a man of steel at this point, considering how his heart hasn’t given out at any point in our little hiking trip.

He finally turned his head away from the direction of Stormterror’s Lair, giving a once-over to what was visible from this end of the bridge, eyes darting back and forth for several moments longer than me. He’s never seen this before, I wonder if he’s as taken with it as I was when I first saw it.

“In case whatever you think is going to happen doesn’t happen, what do we do?” he asks, throwing a cursory glance at the two guards stationed at the gate. His voice is understandably tired.

“Probably go talk to the guards over there, if Amber doesn’t show up we’d have to talk to them and if we went now we’d have to talk to them anyways.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah. You good with that?” I’m a little worried for him now, his reluctance isn’t the most unwarranted thing ever, though I’m not sure why he seems to flip-flop at the chance of finding help. From what I saw earlier, he definitely didn’t look like he wanted to stay here. Fear of legal troubles maybe? He doesn’t seem to be the type of person to get in trouble though?

“Yeah.” it’s a quiet ‘yeah’ but it’s there nonetheless, he has me now, I can’t order food for myself but I am more than willing to fight government officials or associates full stop. I’ll be damned if I let anyone get to him, especially after the journey to get here.

“Do you wanna sit down?” I ask, more for myself really, with the adrenaline finally starting to dissipate my feets are starting to really fucking hurt. Platform Mary Janes are cute but fuck me, they are not walking shoes. Dante seems to clock that, good man, nodding a bit and half dragging me to the log on the right side of the bridge which I slump down on with zero decorum.

He hesitates for a moment before following me down, not that odd to be fair, but as a country bumpkin it was pretty noticeable. I wonder what that was about. He seems a bit more comfortable around a big city though.

The sun’s warm on my face, the view in front of me reminds me of all the time I spent around here over the last three years. This game was something I used to cope in 2020, it makes me love this place so much but at the same time seeing all this makes my chest ache, and I can’t tell whether the ache is from the relief of escaping my normal life, being reminded of worse times, or if it’s mourning what I left behind. It’s a really odd, painful mix of emotions that I have no idea how to soothe. Then Dante’s hand becomes apparent on my shoulder, it’s warm and firm and I bask in it for a moment, letting it wash away those useless thoughts. Yeah, useless thoughts, I’m allowed to let go of them.

I heave a deep sigh through my nose and reach one hand up to brush his, I turn to Dante unsure of what to do next but when I look at him all I see is his warm smile and understanding eyes. His expression lifts a huge weight off of my chest, and in all honesty, it makes me want to cry. I’ve known him less than a day and he owes me nothing, which makes his small act of comfort feel even more valued. I smile at him genuinely, it’s not a grin but it definitely gets what I’m feeling across as he blinks a little and gives me a nod.

I turn to look back in front of me but his hand doesn’t leave my shoulder, and for that I’m thankful. 

“How old are you?” he asks, shattering the silence with a slightly croaky voice.

“Twenty-six, Twenty-seven in November. You?” I ask in turn.

“Twenty-nine, Thirty in August.”

“The big three-oh, huh? D’ya feel much about it?”

“No, not really.”

“Strong man, my friends were Fifteen when they started complaining about back pains on hikes, you didn’t whinged even a bit.” he snorts at that, good, I’m not being a miserable git and I haven’t lost my humorous touch just yet. We lapse back into silence again, my mind starting to work again now we’ve sat down for a bit. Questions upon questions about Dante shuttle through my head.

“Where’d you learn English?” I ask him abruptly, to which he takes his hand off my shoulder, probably realising that I’m not on the cusp of throwing myself off the bridge anymore.

“Ah, the internet mostly, nothing special. Maybe a couple classes here and there in school, but not much else.” he sounds a bit embarrassed, looking down at the ground.

“The internet? That’s fucking impressive! You speak so well! Wait, what’s your first language?” Boom, I can interact socially, I’m a god amongst men.

“Tagalog, standardised, I grew up in the inner city. I was lucky,” he tells me with quiet pride in his voice, leaning his knees towards me and resting his forearms on them, “upper-middle class thing and all that. Do you speak any other languages?”

“Nah, I was utterly useless at Spanish in school so I dropped it the second they let me, I’ve always wanted to learn Welsh though, honour my mum’s side, y’know?” I tell him, a small smile in my voice as I remember being in Year 8 Spanish and wanting to choke myself with my hair, it was long enough back then. I don’t have that option anymore, I cut it into a short wolf-cut-shag thing a few months back during winter when I wasn’t coping. One of the many reasons I’m dubbed “emo” in most of my friends' contacts. And that reminds me-

“I like your hair.” comes out in unison, our voices mingling the syllables together, we stare at each other for a second before I start sniggering, Dante following shortly after, the ridiculousness of our situation definitely catching up with us as we devolved into a giggling fit on top of each other, pointing every which way, gesturing wildly until we’re clutching at each other’s knees, elbows and shoulders to keep ourselves upright. It wasn’t even that funny!

It takes a fat moment to calm down again, deep breathing barely helping. I extricate myself from Dante’s clutch.

I motion at him, shuffling around to look at him a bit better, “It’s really long-” I don’t get to finish my sentence before I tumble sideways off the log, which sets us right off again. I make a weird snort noise which only makes us laugh harder, I’m rolling around on the ground now and I think Dante’s clutching his stomach. 

I take a few gasps to prepare for my next statement and it’s not nearly enough, voice coming out high pitched and shaky with glee, “Penis j-” and that’s all it takes us to start cackling again. 

In an attempt to calm down we keep our eyes firmly away from each other, and I’m pursing my lips as tight as possible to trap my mirth inside. I feel the incredible urge to look over at Dante again but in a valiant effort to be a stronger person I don’t.

“I’m gonna go stand over there and watch out for the people I’m looking for.” I tell Dante squeakily, standing up too quickly and almost succumbing to my mild iron deficiency, which obviously amuses Dante as he audibly snorts at my stumbling.

I get a few paces away and his laughter fades and I gulp in one big, shaky breath as I walk to the cross road in front of the bridge, looking northwest to the Whispering Woods with a smile still plastered across my face. It hasn’t been too long since Dante and I reached the bridge, so the afternoon light is still strong. The path to the whispering woods looks wider and more trodden than the game suggests, possibly because of the speculated Mondstadt sea port, though it’s not odd when all the other roads and paths looked more worn too.

I suppose this is one of the few times I'll ever be thankful for my time-blindness.

I’m not sure how much time passed, though Dante did periodically come up to me to see if I was alright or just to talk and have a laugh with me. Other than that, it’s boring. Very boring, in fact, so boring that when a mop of dazzling blonde hair cropped up over the horizon, I was almost too spaced out to catch it.

I break away from the mild conversation with Dante, reinvigorated and determined even though a sickness bubbled up in my gut. I rock up on my tiptoes to try and inch in another glance at the possible Traveller. They get closer and I grow more anxious, to the point my heart is squeezing ever so tightly and-

It’s fucking Beatrice.

The fruit commission girl. I got so worked up over this lady for absolute zilch! Nada! Precisely fuck all! Jesus H. Christ, God, just give me a whole damn heart attack next time why don’t you!

She walks by, sparing little more than a curious glance, and once she’s long past us Dante lays his comforting palm on my shoulder once again.

I think I might end up relying on Dante’s enduring hand and attitude more and more at this rate. I may have only known him for a little less than a day, but if anything happens to him I might go on a murder spree.

During our sporadic conversations I’ve filled Dante in on a few small details; a few basic facts about the traveller, the flora, the fauna, some places and of course, the many many dangers lurking in Teyvat, from what resides in its darkest depths to its brightest planes.

We’ve also learned a bit about each other too. He grew up as a mummy’s boy in the inner city, graduated from a decent school, college and university, and for the last five-ish years, he’s been working as a geologist. Cool specialisation, if you ask me, my uncle did something similar. In return I told him about myself, regular stuff; graduated from some run-of-the-mill state secondary school, went back for A-Levels, went to a good Uni for art and I’ve been training under a private clinic for art therapy, who also happen to be sponsoring my MA.

We’re deep into another conversation, this one about the Guyun Stone Forest, when he taps my shoulder harshly, breaking me out of my stupor, one induced by confusing geology terms, aggressively pointing into the middle distance, roughly to my left.

And then I see her.

She looks brilliant, like a star glowing its strongest possible heat, and I feel like I ought to put on bloody sunglasses. I can barely describe seeing her, pretty blonde hair, pristine white dress decorated with a pleasant blue, face like a damn angel with gorgeous honey-brown eyes. That’s about all I can see from here and I’m already gaping at her! I seriously see why people believe her right off the bat when she says that she's from another world now! She’s beautiful to the point she looks other worldly! That’s bloody bonkers! Absolutely mental!

Dante’s looking at me funny now, a mix of realisation, amusement and concern blended together and smeared across his visage. She’s getting closer now, that odd dread makes its appearance in my stomach again, and I’d love to cling on to Dante for dear life right now, but I feel like I should at least attempt to look normal. And so I make a weak attempt to compose myself, and Dante snickers at it. 

“My guy! Shut it!” I whisper-yell at him, not at all helping with our overall giggliness.

He elbows me harshly and nods in her direction and I stand a little straighter.

She’s much closer, oh Amber and Paimon are with her too, this is gonna be so awkward lord have mercy on my soul, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy na-

“Good afternoon, respectable strangers!” Amber, more-or-less, shouts, she’s about ten metres away and approaching rapidly with one hand on her chest, “You don’t look like you’re from around here, huh? Explain yourselves!”

Wow, she’s very passionate, a little more than I expected. Wait shit what do we say? I didn’t think we’d make it this far.

“We’re lost travellers. We saw the city from a distance and came over. Did you see that massive dragon?” Dante, I love you, you silly rock scientist.

“Yeah! Speaking of it, you should get into the city as soon as possible, for your safety. That dragon’s been causing havoc recently! I can give you a map and directions to some good supply stores when we get into the city, for when it’s safe for you to leave of course. You must have been pretty lost if you forgot your kit!” Oh shit yeah we have literally no belongings, fuck that makes our current story a little bit implausible. Fuuuuuuccckkk. Wait no it doesn’t we’re gunning for honesty here, we just need to tell Jean about our situation or something. I hold my breather for a second, trust Dante, trust Dante, trust Dante, we’ll be fine.

“Ah, that sounds wonderful, thank you.” Dante replies gently, dodging suspicion for a while longer, god bless his soul, this wonderful man.

“I’ve never heard your accent before, and your clothes are very strange,” Amber starts, sounding mildly suspicious,”where are you from?”

“It’s nowhere near here at all. I doubt it’s on a map. It’s not worth talking about.” Dante replies smoothly. Woo! Give it up for half truths!

Paimon appears to be pointing at us and whispering to the Traveller, a sort of subtlety that’s rare coming from her. Amber turns her gaze to me, calm thy nerves girl, showtime it is.

“Good morning.” Is all I give her, alongside a meek smile. Showtime it isn’t.

 Apparently she doesn’t mind it too much, genuinely giggling at my screw up.

“We should get going, in case Stormterror makes a reappearance, this way!” Amber declares, chipper as ever. As we start moving forward, I dare to brave a glance at The Traveller. I think my brain goes numb when she gives me a small smile, which I return after I shake myself back into consciousness. The non-abyssal twin is the trustworthy one, to my knowledge at least, maybe not, but I can’t waste my life on possibilities. She’s from another world, I’m from another world. We’re cool, we could rock with each other. Yeah I’ll talk to her.

“Hi, I’m Kitty. What brings you here?” I ask her gently, an attempt to not seem like a total twat in the face of my initial introduction.

“That’s Lumine! She’s searching for her brother! They got separated during a super long journey, so Paimon is helping her find him! Paimon is Paimon!” Paimon proudly yaps, tiny hands on their hips, bobbing along in mid air and leaving a glittering trail of constellations behind her.

“Nice to meet you both.”

We’re about halfway across the bridge now, and Paimon starts up again.

“So, why are you here?” their high-pitch voice questions me from my right side. I hesitate a little, should I? Should I really? I don’t have to tell them the whole thing right now, hell it's probably best if I don’t. Dante glances at me, looking over his shoulder from in front of me, keeping conversation with Amber, it’s reassuring and it fills me with determination. I look back to Lumine and Paimon. I beckon them closer.

“Hey, come closer,” and they do, though an ounce of hesitation flickers across Lumine’s face, though she still ends up near centimetres from my face which is rather intimidating, “I’m from a different world. So’s he. I know some of the answers to the problem you’re trying to fix.”

Her eyes go so wide it’s almost funny, then she grabs me by the arm of my overshirt and yanks me closer harshly, showing more emotion in one second than I’d ever seen from her on a screen. If I thought she was intimidating a few seconds ago, this takes it to a whole new level. Her eyes hold so much raw pain, desperation, and suspicion. It makes me gulp. Cool it Kitty, if you fuck up now it’s over.

“I have no idea where I’m staying tonight, but I promise you this; the second the dust settles I’ll spill everything. Everything.” I look her dead in the eyes with as much sympathy and compassion as I could muster, reaching up to lightly place my palm on the wrist of the hand she’s grasping me with, not to pull her off, simply to touch.

Whatever magic I pulled there must have worked, she gave me a firm look, that’s for sure, but she let me go without any complaints or threats. Paimon looked worried from what I could see from over Lumine’s shoulder.

“What are you two doing back there?” Dante asks with heavy suspicion, his voice penetrating the thick atmosphere that had developed between me and Lumine. I felt a bit like a deer in headlights, the way he said it was reminiscent of a parent scolding a child. I feel deeply anxious and jerky all of a sudden.

“Your mother!” fuckin’ ey, stunning response Kitty, world class. He looks so disappointed I almost feel bad. Heaving a sigh he turns back around. I am so apologising later, and working on not yelling ‘your mum’ as a reflex.

Lumine, as well as Paimon, have this indescribable look on their faces, and I’m feeling very embarrassed. Never again. Lumine gets over it quicker than me though, seemingly eager to push for answers.

“How did you get here? Do you know where my brother is?” she asks in rapid succession, and I feel overwhelmed, I hadn’t predicted her actions quite so well, to be fair I didn’t think she’d express so much emotion in public.

“I wish I knew.” Is all I can give her, as well as a sympathetic look.

“You said you had answers.” She sounds a bit betrayed actually, ouch. Right in the feels.

“Not all of them, but I know a lot more than you do at the moment, I know I sound sketchy but I promise I’ll tell you everything when the day is out.”

“Why then? Why not now?” I think this is the most I’ve ever heard her speak, her voice is beautiful. If she wasn’t probably stressed to the nines right now I’d be tempted to keep dodging the question to hear her speak more.

“You’ve got a long day ahead of you. Today is important, you shouldn’t be weighed down by the extra knowledge. Please trust me when I say that you’ll be fine.”

She doesn’t seem too happy but she does seem to accept that I won’t tell her now. Good enough, I’ll repair the social damage later. Hopefully after I get some damn food in me. I’m starving.

Chapter Text

Lumine and I spend the rest of the short journey over the bridge in dead silence, I keep wanting to say something, anything, but I keep my mouth shut in worry. At least it gives me one advantage, I have time to go over what I can tell Lumine. This is the start of the game, so we have a blank canvas here, good but mildly inconvenient. 

She wants to know about her brother, which is going to be a very difficult conversation. I guess the most important thing I ought to tell her is that he’s not in immediate danger, and then maybe I’ll explain a bit about the divine power and history here? Considering that her story is heavily intertwined with them then that would be useful to her. But then again too much information could throw canon off course, and doing that too early would make the end section of the game more difficult to predict, a very important notion considering the stakes are almost definitely going to get exponentially higher then.

So I can tell her that Aether isn’t dead, right, then a bit about what I know of archons. Not much, maybe I should throw in some less important but still practical details about the world? I guess that would make up for my slight lack of helpfulness. Oh! I could give her information about enemy mobs! That would be helpful considering this game shoehorns combat in at every single given opportunity.

I’m broken out of my thoughts by my stomach rumbling. Dante had switched places with Lumine at some point and now he’s standing next to me giving me a questioning, mildly disappointed look. Oh yeah. 

“I swear on my life I did not mean to say that.” I tell him firmly. His stare doesn’t let out in the slightest, in fact, it seems to get harder. “It was a reflex, really! I’m not joking! And I am really sorry!”

“Oh really?”

“Yes! Six thousand times yes! Very, very, very sorry!”

“Oh yeah, totally.” He rolls his eyes and I sputter out a whine of dismay, I seriously did not intend to insult his mother! His shoulders shake a bit and he snickers, then turns to me and takes in my horrified face. He presses his lips together tightly and shuts his eyes even tighter, head ducked. He takes a deep breath through his nose before turning back up to me. And then he absolutely loses it. Cow! Playing with my feelings like that! 

“Come! On! What was that for? Psychological warfare is not cool! God, I can’t believe you!” I whine playfully and he smacks one of his large paws on my shoulder, still smiling. I don’t push it off, despite my teasing annoyance.

“Are you done?” Amber says, somewhat unimpressed, with her hands on her hips. Dante and I straighten ourselves out, both looking guilty like kids who got caught snickering to themselves while ruining someone else’s belongings.

“Yes, sorry.” I mutter, leaning towards Dante who hasn’t removed his hand from my shoulder.

“Well! Let me officially introduce the city of wind, dandelions and freedom!” Amber says passionately. “Travellers under the protection of the Knights of Favonius - Welcome to Mondstadt!” Oh good, canon dialogue still exists.

Dante looks perturbed, he closes in on my ear and whispers, “Why is there background music?” A familiar tune washes over my ears, it was right in the middle of its run time meaning it had been going on for a while. It made me smile actually, all of Mond’s background music felt nostalgic and jovial. Where’s it coming from actually? Not that I’m complaining.

“No clue, probably a live band or something because there’s a shit ton of bards hanging around here, same music as in game though.” I whisper to him with a smile. I could faintly hear Paimon make a comment to Lumine.

“But… the city folk don’t look too cheery.” Paimon says softly to Amber.

“Everyone’s been put out of place by Stormterror recently. But everything will turn out fine as long as Jean’s with us!” Amber replies, her reverence for the Grandmaster becoming deeply apparent in her tone of voice.

“Jean?” Paimon questions like the good player guide and voice they are.

“Acting Grandmaster of the Knights of Favonius - Jean, Defender of Mondstadt. With Jean on our side, surely even the vicious Stormterror will be no match for us!” Amber states, the hero worship she has for Jean emanating off her in waves. Wow, Amber is so much more passionate in person, Jean must be even better then. That’s a reassuring thought, the canon characters are strong already. If character traits are more pronounced in person, that means Lisa will definitely be of some help. Joy and glory to the world!

“Before I take you guys to the Knights of Favonius headquarters, I have a present for you, Lumine!” Amber says, grateful and excited, “It’s a reward for helping me clear out that hilichurl camp.” 

“H-Hey! Why doesn’t Paimon get a reward?” As it seems, I forgot why I skipped their dialogue so much. As it seems, I’ve just remembered.

“Ahh… because this reward is useless to you, Paimon.” Amber says awkwardly, lifting her hands and shrugging a little. Oh it’s about the wind glider! Oh man, I’ve got to get me one of those at some point! “But I’ll treat you to a traditional Mondstadt delicacy - Sticky Honey Roast.” Paimon gets very excited at the promise of food, turning to Lumine and whisper-yelling about it.

“Oh and don’t think I’ve forgotten about you two, Dante told me everything,” a sharp spike of panic strikes through my chest, “it’s incredible to meet three outlanders in one day, you know! I will inform Grandmaster Jean about your situation as soon as possible, I’m sure you’ll be provided with some place to stay - temporarily at least. Would you mind sticking with me for now?”

Dante makes a sound of agreement and I nod furiously, how much did he tell her? What implications of telling people they’re video game characters have? Would they even understand? Oh my god this is insane. Lumine looks at me curiously, but with suspicion. Good god, if there’s someone I don’t want to make my enemy, it’s her. 

“Right! Come with me, we’ll go to the city’s ahh… high ground.” Amber puts one hand on her hip cheerfully. In hindsight, this is weird, wouldn’t it make more sense for us to go straight to Jean? Eh well, that’s plot convenience for you. 

Amber and Lumine walk off with a fast pace and Dante and I are quick to follow. Dante looks utterly enraptured by the city, even though its streets are mostly empty. I point to the clock above Marjorie’s shop as well as the section of wall the game encourages the player to climb. My point about the wall is proven as both Amber and Lumine clamber up it, Dante observes them with an expression of distaste.

“Do you wanna go up the wall too?” I ask him with a playful smirk and a raised brow, he looks at me flatly which makes me giggle. “Stairs it is.” 

I lead Dante to the left and up a flight of stairs, the city is a lot bigger than in game but that proved little to no issue in terms of navigation. We walk behind the Goth Grand hotel and I feel the prickle of eyes watching me, I take a small glance up. There’s a fatui agent observing me through the window of their room, they look away when I make eye contact. Weird, I don’t trust them in the slightest, I seriously hope I don’t get tangled in any of their schemes. I doubt it would end well.

Dante and I approach the stairs that lead to the massive Venti statue, Dante’s panting a bit and he motions to stop for a second.

“Why are there so many stairs here? And why are you faring so well?” He levels an annoyed glare at me, it has no bite in it.

“Joke’s on you king, I lived on a hill for most of my life, when everything’s uphill or downhill you get used to stairs. You should’ve seen my secondary school,” Dante looks at me, “I had to walk up ten flights of stairs to get to my science class.”

“Okay, boomer, Manila is flat as hell. No hills. I’m not built for this.” 

“Ahhhh c’mon, only two flights of stairs left. You can do it, old man!” I tug at Dante and he makes a sound of protest as we ascend, church bells ring out ahead. I can still hear the music up here, fucking wild.

Amber’s walking this way actually, that’s weird, didn’t she ask us to go to high ground? I should’ve paid more attention to the beginning of this game. Hindsight is 20/20, sigh.

“Come on you two! We’re heading back down to meet back up with Lumine!” Amber declares cheerfully, Dante groans and slumps onto me dramatically, mumbling about how we just got here.

“Hey now, it’s downhill from here, no need to moan.” I tease, turning my head as far as I could towards Dante, who has practically melted into my back. His head thumps against it before he gets up and gives me a long suffering look. I very nearly laugh at it. “Alright drama queen, I get it, but we’ve gotta go.”

I follow Amber, dragging Dante behind me, down the many additional stairs this expanded world has provided. Amber provides little facts about the city on the way down, placating Dante’s suffering just a little bit.

It takes less time to reach the plaza near the city gates than it did to reach the statue. We intercept Lumine by the fountain, and the wind starts to pick up.

Thick clouds blot out the sun in a matter of seconds, leaving the world painted in a blue-grey hue, cold and harsh. The sound of thunderous wingbeats return and Dante grips my hand again. Even I get gripped by fear, the sound of Dvalin approaching is terrifying even though I know the truth. The dragon radiates an aura of indomitable power as he approaches Mondstadt, he moves smooth and sleek in a display of malice. Dvalin glides effortlessly through the turrets on the Knights of Favonius headquarters like he’s taunting them, knocking down several chimneys sending people and debris scattering.

Dvalin holds himself in the air for a moment before raising his gargantuan head and letting forth a bone-chilling roar, shrill and distorted in nature. Tens of small tornadoes touch down in the city. People are running for cover. Dante and I are frozen in fear.

Amber grabs my arm and pulls me, and by extension - Dante, away from the scene in a sprint. 

Lumine gets swallowed up by a tornado, from here I can see it whipping her around like a piece of tissue paper in a salad spinner. Amber tugs me along more urgently and I rip my eyes from Lumine’s hazy figure. I feel worried, I seriously hope she still gets plot armour even though Dante and I are in the mix now.

Amber drags us back up to the Venti statue hurriedly, a distant shrill screech echoes across the city and I look up. Lumine is making a smooth descent, heading to the statue as well. Amber jogs up the stairs and I, along with Dante, follow. 

Amber reaches Lumine before I do, frantically checking her for injuries asking if she was hurt. The only response was a shake of Lumine’s head. Lumine and I lock eyes for a second before my attention is drawn away by the noise of approaching clapping. Oh get in there, time to meet Mondstadt’s most mysterious resident; Kaeya Alberich.

He looks sleeker here, more suave. The small details on his outfit jingle with every resounding clap. He looks so familiar but he feels incredibly distant, as if his secrets are tangible and keeping him at arm's length from everyone else. He walks towards us with a confident gait, a small smirk painted on his lips.

“You’ve actually got the power to go up against the dragon…” He looks at Lumine with curiosity, “are you a new ally… or a new storm?”

Lumine frowns a little, but Amber speaks out before she can say anything.

“Stormterror… is attacking Mondstadt itself!” she says loudly, reflecting on the events of the last few minutes, “Kaeya, Lumine, you’ve come at the right time, we must…”

“Hold on, Amber. Are you perhaps forgetting to introduce us?” Kaeya asks her calmly, admittedly his calm demeanour is a tad unnerving, but in a situation like this I really appreciate level headed people.

“Oh… right. This is Kaeya, our cavalry captain.” yeah the one with no horses to captain over. “These four are travellers from afar; Paimon, Lumine, Dante and Kitty.”

Kaeya gives us, Paimon and Lumine included, a deeply suspicious glance.

“Long story short, I found Lumine and Paimon coming out of the Whispering Woods and then I met Dante and Kitty a little later by the bridge. Apparently, they didn’t come from the same world, and only Lumine came to this world intentionally. Lumine’s looking for her brother, she’s going to try and find the anemo archon. Dante and Kitty are… looking for a way home I guess?” Amber looks over to me and Dante for confirmation. Dante nods but I do not.

Kaeya looks contemplative for a moment. “I see. Welcome to Mondstadt - though you haven’t arrived at the best of times, I’m afraid.” his tone grows sorrowful, “I understand the anguish of being separated from family.”

It takes all my effort to not look like I know what he’s talking about, he’s smart, very smart. Even with the information we got from Sumeru pointing towards him not being evil, I don’t trust him very much. I don’t know how this story ends, I can’t take too many chances.

“I’m not really sure why you’re looking for the Anemo god… but everyone has their secrets, right?” man this guy is not as subtle as I remember, though to be fair I do know his secrets. Shit if I let him know that I know about his secrets, what kind of reaction will I get? Oh this is so complicated, or I’m over complicating it myself but whatever, either way my brain is not vibing with this.

“Haha, relax, I won’t press you for more.” Kaeya says casually with a smile, I put on my best unknowing face as his eyes land on me. Man oh man, I’m praying I don’t look weird. His gaze wanders away from me at a relaxed pace, that’s probably a good thing. His gaze returns to Lumine. “First and foremost, on behalf of the Knights of Favonius, I would like to extend our thanks to you for your help just now.”

Lumine looks pleased at this, a little smug even. “Well we couldn’t just leave the situation to fester.” She says dutifully. Wow, I love women.

“Your fight to defend the city against the dragon just now was witnessed by no small number of citizens. The Acting Grandmaster of the Knights of Favonius is also very interested in meeting you, and formally invites you to our headquarters.” He tells Lumine, then he turns his head towards me and Dante. “As you’re also outlanders I ask you to come with us as well, if you want to return home then telling us about your situation is of the essence.”

I nod at that, so does Dante, “Gottcha.”

The Knights of Favonius headquarters ended up looking untouched by the world’s expansion, the hallway was still wide and grand, the whole inside of the building looked luxurious and pristine to the point it was hard to accept that the rough outside of the building actually housed this beauty.

Kaeya opened Jean’s office door without knocking, giving her a casual wave and telling her that he’s brought Lumine and Paimon, mentioning two extra outlanders to Jean’s surprise.

Jean’s office looks nice, there are books literally everywhere but it kind of adds to the vibe. Dante had ended up taking ahold of my hand at some point from the statue to here.

Jean and Lisa look over at our little group of outlanders with hope softly glimmering in her eyes as she lets out a barely audible huff of relief.

Kaeya summarises what happened before we got here to them and Jean remains silent for a moment, a contemplative expression resting on her face.

“Mondstadt welcomes you, windborne travellers.” Jean tells us, her voice is filled with power and authority but it doesn’t lack any warmth, it’s easy to understand why the people of Mondstadt adore her so much now. “I am Jean, Acting Grandmaster of the Knights of Favonius. This is Lisa, our resident Librarian, she may be able to help you.” She looks at Dante, then me with sympathy in her eyes.

Lisa looks at Lumine and Paimon and calls them ‘sweeties’ and what not, at this point I’ve started spacing out, pretty frazzled by today, dead hungry and dead tired. I totally miss when she addresses our whole group as adorable like we’re all children instead of two loser mid-twenty year olds, a 500+ year old possible demi-god and a possible divine eldritch-god-like floating baby. God this is so fucking weird, I want to go to bed. Fuck it, even further, returning to being a microbe in the primordial soup would be divine at the moment.

“Sadly, the timing is regrettable… Stormterror has caused quite a ruckus in the region since its recent resurgence.'' Her calling stormterror ‘it’ makes me more irritated than it should. “Simply put Mondstadt’s elemental sphere and ley lines are now akin to a yarn ball in the paws of a kitten. I might not be able to help you two until Stormterror has been subdued.” Lisa tells me and Dante mournfully, but I’m barely paying attention. Dante looks like he is though, godspeed dude, you are much stronger than me.

“For a mage, it couldn’t get worse. My skin is one elemental particle away from a full-blown break out” Lisa continues, she doesn’t know she’s gonna beat the shit out of an abyss mage in the next few hours. Man that thing screamed funny. Or wait, was that Diluc? Both? I should really work on my long term memory.

“If it weren’t for this interference, the Knights of Favonius would…” Jean’s voice blurs from my mind as I stare out the window, Lumine’s reflection follows the same rules as it does in-game, the image of Aether is clear in the window. My head stops spinning with thoughts and I can’t properly hear anything except a gentle tinkling noise, like a distant wind chime. It’s nice. Then Kaeya snaps me out of it. I have inappropriate things I’d like to say to him.

“Are you… alright?” He asks me, sounding concerned, looking concerned actually, it’s hard to think because my eyes are starting to hurt as the exhaustion grips my mind even further.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Just tired is all, didn’t sleep at all last night.” It doesn’t sound convincing, even to myself and I cover my mouth as I yawn.

“At all?” Kaeya asks further.

“I was stuck on a cliff last night in a world that wasn’t my own, no sleep.” I shrug.

He hums, sounding not entirely satisfied with my response but balls to caring about what he thinks. Jean is discussing how to bring Stormterror down, oh it’s the part where you get the starter characters after doing domains. Wild.

“Alright. We need to take initiative and act before the situation escalates.” Lisa says, Jean nods, no way they’re not into each other.

“Lumine, I ask that you help with the four wind’s temples, with your skills and power it shouldn’t be too difficult. As for you two,” Jean looks at me and Dante, which brings me back from the recesses of my mind a little, “we will have accommodations arranged for you, you can stay as long as you need.”

Lisa chimes in. “You cuties can feel free to browse the library, I’m not sure if you’ll find what you’re looking for, but it’s somewhere to start.” Dante thanks her profusely, and something inside my tired mind screams that I should be of use.

“You’re on the right track with the four wind’s temples,” I tell Jean. “Stormterror… he’s not in total control of himself, his grief has been manipulated. He would be difficult to reason with, please be prepared.”

“And how would you know?” Kaeya’s voice cuts sharply through the room, he looks tenser now, more suspicious. Lumine looks a little shocked while Jean and Lisa look confused. Dante glances at me, concerned, I put a hand on his arm.

“Your world doesn’t exist in a bubble. In a way, it exists in my own world, as a story of sorts. I’m very familiar with it.” I tell them, like I didn’t just drop one hell of a bombshell.

“Then how do we defeat Stormterror?” Jeans asks, eyebrows knitted in concern.

“I already said, what you’re doing is the right thing, there’s no need to stray from canon here. Nothing can be gained from me telling you the future.” I respond, Jean appears to think hard for a while.

“Are you sure? What’s canon?”

“Yes, this is the beginning of the story, changing stuff now means that I can’t tell you what will happen in the future when the stakes are higher which would put her,” I nod at Lumine, “at a disadvantage. Not good. Canon is what people refer to the plot of the story as, usually to differentiate between fan theories and what is true in the story world.”

“Why should anyone trust you?” Kaeya asks pointedly. A very fair question considering what I said sounded damn well insane.

“Knowledge of the future brings knowledge of the past, would you like me to list off some things I shouldn’t know?” I ask back, he goes quiet. Then nods.

“That vase you gave Diluc that had his vision in it is still in the winery on a table in front of the wooden pillar by the stairs.” Kaeya’s eyes widen minutely and then narrow.

“She had a turtle as a childhood pet.” I say pointing at Jean. “You hid yourself in a cupboard somewhere in here to try and scare your grandpa and ended up hearing something you weren’t supposed to; Diluc quitting being a Knight of Favonius.”

I turn back to Kaeya, “You also had beef with a literal child, Collei, Miguel O’Hara style.” He looked reasonably confused at the last bit.

“Is that enough?” I ask them. They all look a bit disturbed, reasonable.

“Yes.” Jean says bluntly. Who knew being such a loser would have benefits?

I turn to Lumine now, I feel bad for not telling her everything earlier, but that was earlier and I can’t do anything but tell her now.

“There are some things that I can’t tell you because it would mess with canon, but you have my word I will try to guide you. Or at least tell you what to expect, I can’t fight.” I tell her but I can’t discern her reaction. 

“Do you have a spare journal kicking around anywhere? I feel like I should write some stuff down?” I ask, a little embarrassed at my own, barely thought through, outburst.

“Are we real?” Amber asks quietly. Oh shit. I gave her an existential crisis. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. What bullshit do I spout to help her? Uhhhhhhh. 

“Philosophically, you’re as only as real as you think you are. Practically, yeah, you’re real. Look.” I say as I walk up to her and repeatedly tap her shoulder. “See? You’re here.”

It seemed to calm her down well enough but still, I feel guilty for causing that.

“It’s late,” Jean said, “we will deal with the temples tomorrow, but we should rest until then. Kaeya, Lisa, Amber, you’re dismissed. You four, follow me.”

Everyone shuffles out of Jean’s office and she locks the door. Jean leads us down the steps outside and across the city to a small little inn. It's a bit odd looking but I don’t care so much right now. Jean disappears inside for a few minutes before ushering us in, handing over a key to Lumine and leaving. 

It’s hard to think, the tiredness eating away at my head, everything feels unreal. The tinkling noise returned, probably something I’m hallucinating. I don’t know.

Dante tells me to stay put, a direction not hard to follow, then slips out the room and down the hall. Lumine claims the bed closest to the window and I sit down on the bed closest to the door. Sorry Dante but if you snooze, you lose. I end up letting myself fall onto my back, I stare thoughtlessly at the ceiling until Dante comes back graciously handing me a bowl of something that smells good.

I take a bite and holy fuck is it good, it’s probably goulash, meaty and rich and everything a meal should be. I’m not christian but god bless Dante, this lovely man is so wonderful; he pays attention, he brought me food, he’s funny. I’m in heaven right now, it definitely shows on my face as Dante smiles at me while eating his own bowl next to me.

We eat in silence, too tired for anything else. We sleep in silence as well. Blissful sleep finds me the second my head hits the pillow. I was meant to talk to Lumine. Oh well, I can care about that in the morning.

Chapter Text

It was still dark when I woke up, the moonlight streaming in through the window made the room feel cold and the way it cast shadows in the room made it feel alien. I sat frozen on my bed for a time, barely breathing, trying to reconcile reality with the misbeliefs swimming around in my head. I’m here, this is real, I went to sleep in this room and I woke up in this room. I am okay. These and other vaguely reassuring mantras slowly replace my doubts and worry, they’re empty but they work well enough.

I lay back down on the mattress with a sigh, no wonder the room felt cold, I fell asleep on top of the blankets. I kick my skirt off and bid good riddance to my bra as I take it off under my tank top and chuck it to the end of the bed. I relax into the plush cushions and feel mildly empty inside. The ceiling looks as boring as it did several hours ago, but admittedly, after a few hours of rest they look clearer and more solid. All the objects around look so normal with barely a hint of the game’s anime-esque style, I stretch my hand towards the ceiling and look at it closely. It’s smooth, much smoother than it was before.

I really don’t want to get up but I need a piss and I need to know what I look like. 

I get up and slip out of bed, I stand around awkwardly for a moment or so before spotting a door with light peeking through the gap at the bottom. I shuffle over to it, trying to make as little noise as possible. It takes a while, but I get there, it’s an old handle; one of the ones where there is a little lever above the handle that the latch on the other side is attached to. I grasp the handle and press down on the lever and pull, the door opens with barely a squeak as I slip in and gently close it behind me. 

There’s no one in here, but the candles are still burning, probably because none of us could be bothered to blow them out last night. It’s a small bathroom, a small tub, one small sink, a cabinet with a mirror on the door and a toilet. None of it is particularly luxurious, in fact the whole room is rather quaint in the candle light.

I walk over to the mirror, a little put off by the change in lighting. The cabinet is mounted to the wall over the sink, the mirrored surface is slightly scratched and smudged with gunk but who really cares? I lean on the edge of the sink and stare at my face, as expected, it looks a bit different to what I’m used to but it’s nothing bad or unrecognisable. That’s a lie. I got animefied, something I expected considering how everyone else around here looked but no less jarring. I was quite happy with how my face looked before, you know?

My hair looks better here though, it’s a shaggy wolf cut I can’t be bothered to style - which doesn’t matter too much, curly hair gang unite. The shape and texture of it look more appealing here, what a win. Despite being very happy with my face before, I do quite like how it looks now. Who knew I’d look so good as a genshin character? My eyes look better, cuter with thicker eyelashes and even nicer colouring, and so does my skin; it’s smooth, a lively, very lightly tanned peach colour (hurrah english weather), and practically unblemished. Yeah, I wonder how long that’ll hold up.

I back up a bit and spin around to see if the rest of my body looks the same, and relatively speaking, it does. The slight chub on my tummy is still there and kicking, my thighs are still plush and my boobs are the same size. Fucking score, I can’t believe I get to keep my appearance considering the way Hoyoverse designs its characters. I suddenly feel an influx of adoration for every single perceivable ‘flaw’ on my body.

I take a piss, wash my hands, and shuffle back to bed. Out of decency, I don’t blow the candles out, someone else might need them.

I plop back down on my bed, shuffle around with the duvet and settle down. I don’t know if I feel happy or not. I roll over to face Dante, I stare at him. He’s dead still, barely breathing, and he looks to be the least stressed he’s been all day. I wonder what he’s dreaming of right now, home maybe? Stormterror? Slimes? Whatever it is, I’m glad he’s resting, he deserves it after the day he’s had.

Despite our heart to heart outside the city, I know almost nothing about him. I know nothing of the little moments of his life that shaped who he is, nearly nothing about other people in his life, only a bit about how he sees the world. It feels strange, for a man I know next to nothing about, I feel close to him. Trauma bonding? In my stupid fantasy game? More likely than you think.

I go thoughtless for a good while, staring at nothing, existing aimlessly. What do I even want? I wasn’t exactly happy with life back home, in all of its collapsing, economically unstable glamour, hell, I really hated it most of the time; work, home, work is the only routine I’ve known for years and I was barely getting by even though I was working two jobs. But do I really want to stay? Here? In some ultra-foreign fantasy land where gods are real and morality is considerably more objective? 

It’s admittedly terrifying, but in my heart I feel like I’d prefer it here. I could live a slow, peaceful life devoid of the conflicts of my world. A hut in the woods. Somewhere I don't have to exist to other people’s standards. There’s a small amount of doubt in me, it surrounds the fact I appeared as the traveller began their journey, this world is a story, it’s crafted with a purpose in every word, there’s almost no way it’s an accident. But what does that mean? What do I have to do?

God, it’s so confusing, stay or go is the ultimate question that can be applied to all of this. My head feels crowded and uncomfortably full, drenched in a spiralling sensation.

What do I pick? Well I should clarify my options. We’ve got staying in Mondstadt; pros being that it’s safe, very pleasant, I could live out my escapist cottage fantasy here. Cons being, it’s very possible I’m not meant to stay here, Dante might never find a way home, and it sounds pretty stagnant. We’ve got leaving with the traveller; pros being that it would be cool and active, I can help guide the traveller on a smoother path, I could find Dante a way home, I could interact with other characters which would be nice. Cons being, it’s unsafe as hell, I’d have to learn how to fight, the natural world as a whole not being friendly, getting caught up in divine matters.

I ruminate on this for a while. Personally, I think they’re both great options, even if the second one will require much more effort. 

I could do the second one, it wouldn’t be easy, but it would be better in the sense that I’d be useful and I wouldn’t have to worry too much about money. And the more I think about it, the more open I become to travelling, I start to plan about it and think in detail while sparing no thought to my first option.

I ask myself a useful question, if I flipped a coin to decide, which side would I hope would win? I find the answer easily. Travel. So it’s decided, I’ll try to travel with Lumine. Staying is a half decent back-up plan but it’ll stay on the back burner for a while yet.

Step one in clearing my head out completed, now for the second, how do I get there? Well I can’t fight now, so my knowledge is my only advantage so I’ll get more of it. The library is open to me, so I should write down everything I already know while there and then I should research the nations that haven’t arrived to the game yet.

For a moment I wonder if I should plan the research topics now, and I do, vaguely. The general history, overview of culture, research on deities and gods as well as their history. Maps are valuable, if the inventory mechanic doesn’t exist I should photograph a few. After that I should research the history of just the archons as well as enemy mobs and factions. Sounds like a plan.

My head feels so much lighter after I planned my next steps out, and I’m grateful my mum taught me to do that. I miss her a bit but when I think about her, no coursing spike of grief pokes me, I feel like I can probably survive without seeing her again. I hope.

My eyes focus in again, something that makes me question when they unfocused in the first place, and I immediately lock eyes with Dante who’s staring back at me with incredible intensity. It makes me jump a bit. How lost in thought was I for me not to notice him turning to face me? We share a long silence.

Dante gives me a prompting look, and I shrug my shoulders as obviously as I can and give him a ‘what?’ look. He returns a more dramatic, and quite questioning, face; complete with raised eyebrows and a small shake of his head. I shake my head harder and faster in confusion.

“Why were you staring at me?” he whispers, too loud to be a proper whisper but too soft to be a normal voice. My brain blanks and I have to take a moment to reply.

“I was thinking of things? Like what to do tomorrow.” I whisper back. “When did you wake up?”

“Couple minutes ago, what’re you going to do tomorrow?”

“Go to the library, look at things.”

“What things?” he asks, tucking an arm under his head, looking like he wanted to talk more.

“Things. You’ll make me forget if you make me say them outloud.” Dante looks confused and a tad weirded out by that, nose scrunched and eyebrows pulled together. We descend into another silence, this time more awkward. Do or die, Kitty.

“Do you have a, uh, family or something? Not parents, a family you started.” I asked him very awkwardly, and very suddenly regretted it when Dante froze entirely. He looked deeply worried for a moment, as if he was unsure of how to respond.

“Yes.” he whispered quietly.

“Kids?”

“One, Maria.” he smiles, the name comes out in a way that sounds like the sheer affection in Dante’s voice is curling over it. The quiet whispering of this little girl's name feels overwhelmingly happy, filling the room with sweet love in an instant. The sight of Dante’s soft smile sparks a quiet joy in me.

“You got a wife?” and the soft atmosphere shatters instantaneously, breaking into a thousand tiny pieces and dissipating like water on hot metal. Dante’s face fell instantly, glancing at me nervously. I feel horrible.

“Sorry, you don’t have to answer that.” I tell him, no wife, got it. He looks relieved but very uncomfortable. “I don’t have a family of my own, not even a girlfriend. I’m totally bitchless, absolutely zero game.” I joke in an attempt to lighten the mood and it only barely works, Dante’s face changes the second I finish it. He looks hopeful and more than a little nervous.

“Girlfriend?” he asks, his tone is high pitched and there’s a glimmer in his eyes.

“Yeah dude,” I say, then point a thumb at myself, “mega lesbian right here, minge diver extraordinaire.”

“You’re gay?” he asks further, apparently shocked by my answer, inching further towards me.

“Technically, yeah. Gayest bitch in town. In theory, that is, I’ve only had one relationship with a girl and that was when I was like, what? Sixteen?” 

Dante whispers something, staring at the edge of his bed with a look of disbelief, and I don’t catch it. I start to worry.

“You good there, bud?” I ask him, trying to put on a confident voice. What if he hates me? Dante looks me dead in the eye this time, and I can almost see the thoughts whizzing past behind his eyes. He gulps and whispers a bit louder.

“Hm? I’m sorry I can’t hear you.” I tell him warily, unsure of what to make of his behaviour.

“Me too.” he whispers ever so quietly, hiding his face in his duvet the second the words leave his mouth. 

Huh? 

It takes a moment to realise what he meant. He’s got a kid and no wife, not because of some terrible happening or divorce, but because he’s gay. It hits me like a freight train, he’s gay. He’s like me, he’s like me! A bright smile plasters itself to my face as I make a little squeal noise. I found someone else like me! The brilliant moment of human connection fills a void in my heart.

“Oh!” I exclaim quietly. “Wait, wait, wait! Do you have a boyfriend?”

The duvet where his head is shakes in a way that resembles a nod and I nearly fall out of my bed doing a happy dance. Despite barely knowing him, I feel so happy he found someone for himself. I right myself, laying on my stomach with my feet kicking the air underneath my blanket. Gossip girl posture.

“What’s he like? What’s he like!” I ask him, whisper-shouting loudly and excitedly. 

The duvet ruffles and Dante emerges from them with mussed hair, and he gives me this indescribable look. Happiness, anxiousness and relief rolled into one on his face. He smiles a bit.

“Bayani, he is warm.” The way Dante says his name isn’t as curlingly affectionate as the way he said Maria’s, but it feels no less tender, the way he says ‘Bayani’ resembles the feeling of warming up next to a fire on a cold day. The name is spoken through a sweet smile. He continues unprompted, though he sounds nervous.

“Maria is his. We met in a playground after I went to pick up my cousin from his friend’s birthday party, Maria was young and wandered off from Baya and I found her. I stayed with her until he found her. Then we kept bumping into each other and then, well…” He trailed off towards the end, but the stars in his eyes when called his boyfriend by nickname was nigh on impossible to miss, and holy fuck was it cute. I know next to nothing about them but it already sounds sugar sweet.

I make a little scream-y noise and kick my feet about, “Shut up! That is so sweet!”

Dante smiles, properly this time; it reaches his eyes. 

“I’ve never gotten this reaction before.” He admits softly, “I don’t know what to do with it, the… acceptance? I didn’t think I’d find someone like…” He gestures at me. And I risk it.

“You’ve never been accepted before?”

“No, it’s not… accepted where I’m from, only tolerated. It’s better than nothing and it’s getting better, but it’s still… hard. I haven’t found another person who I can properly open up to before, not like this, even though I live in Manila where it’s a bit better.”

“I see you, I get it, we’re comrades; me and you.” I say lightly, leaning over the gap between our bed and giving him a light punch on the shoulder and he smiles.

“I told you my deepest secret, so how about you tell me about that girlfriend you had?” He asks me teasingly and I gape like a fish.

“Not on your life! Fuck it, not on my life! I’d rather forget about her, it was so embarrassing.” I say, abandoning the whispering out of haste.

“Ooooh, embarrassing how?” He teases further as I stick my head in my pillow and scream quietly. I come back up fighting a smile as I try not to laugh at my own horrific failed attempt at dating.

“I ghosted her for a week.”

“Dude!” He exclaims at me, eyes comically wide with his mouth open as he begins to huff a laugh.

“I was a shitty, stupid, depressed teenager! Not much of an excuse but still.” I tell him with a faux mournful tone.

“A week!” 

“I know!”

“I was expecting something more scandalous though, you seem comfortable enough to do something regretful with a girl.” Dante says putting his free hand up by his head in a ‘don’t shoot’ pose. I playfully frown.

“Wow, slut shaming much? Low blow dude. And also way off the mark, it was embarrassing because I was so awkward.” I tell him like we’re two totally normal people in a totally normal situation just gossiping like good pals. It feels that way, with the Bestie, Dante, chatting to me - life starts to feel like normal but better. It’s nice. The atmosphere is broken by a shrill little voice.

“Would you two shut up! We’re trying to sleep over here!” Paimon’s voice slashes the vibes the same way the Raiden Shogun one-tapped Kazuha’s friend, mercilessly. Dante and I wince and we mutter various apologies to Paimon and Lumine, who I caught giving me a small stare. 

We settle back into bed in sane positions, quietly. I turn my head to Dante and make a ring with my finger and thumb and vigorously push another finger in and out of it, he snorts and slaps a hand over his mouth.

“Stop.” He whispers weakly through barely concealed laughter.

“Stwaaap you guyzz.” I say quietly back in a whine, eliciting more snickering from Dante, and I don’t stop the motion.

“Don’t make me come over there!” Yells Paimon.

“Uh-huh.” Dante and I mutter with varying volumes as we lay facing away from each other, shoulders still shaking like two kids that’ve just been told off at a sleepover.

Despite the residual joy, sleep comes blissfully quickly.

Chapter Text

I woke the next morning feeling refreshed and without the lingering haze of sleep clouding my mind. I sat up and looked around, the room looked totally different in the early light; it looked less welcoming, like the bedroom in a holiday home. Dante was still still sleeping and so was Lumine, I looked at her for a while actually. 

She looked strange, not weird looking or anything, but strange as in I’d never seen her do anything but fight or stand up. She had her back to me, the duvet had fallen down to below her shoulders sometime in the night revealing them in a very domestic way, and the light streaming from the window made her glow. She looked so real here, so tangible, that it felt almost uncanny. But maybe that’s because I have no idea how to act around pretty women. 

My trance was broken by Dante shifting around and then groggily waking up, yawning wide and then rubbing a hand down his face. He sat up and looked a little dead on the inside, hand clasped over his knees and completely blank faced. I caught the yawn and he looked over.

“G’morning.” I greet him quietly, unwilling to disturb the morning air and he yawns again and mumbles something back. His hair is even messier than it was last night. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Yeah, s’alright.” He says in a sleep-addled voice. The tiny, antique looking clock on top of the table by the door says it’s about half five in the morning. It makes me surprised, my sleep schedule is naff so waking up so early and not feeling like death is very unusual.

“‘S only half five, we don’t have anywhere important to be, you can sleep longer if you want.” I tell him and he shakes his head a little, shuffling around and swinging his feet over the side of the bed, standing up and retrieving the clothing he shucked off the night before. I have nothing better to do and copy him, pulling on my skirt and bra, taking a quick whiff of my armpits. I mess around with the zip-hoodie I ended up sleeping in, the teeth of the zipper had left red marks on me and so had the sheets. A good sleep, then.

Dante shuffles over to the door and I follow him, sparing one last glance at Lumine and the unmade beds. Should I leave a note? I don’t think we’re going too far, she’ll survive on her own.

I follow Dante down stairs to a small dining area, filled with a mish-mash of circle and rectangle tables all without tablecloths or decoration, and to a small table by one of the windows. It’s got two seats and a good view of some of the Mond residents setting up shop for the day.

“Do you know this place?” Dante asks me, sounding both curious and like he wanted to fill the silence at the same time.

“No,” I shake my head, “this world is a lot more detailed than the one I know, everything’s bigger.” Dante gives one long nod and goes back to staring out of the window in silence and I stare at the serving window that leads to the kitchen. It feels awkward but companionable, like the morning after a sleepover. It remains that way for a while, a long while, before other guests start to trickle in too and fill the room with quiet chatter while the aroma of breakfast permeates the room.

Breakfast ends up being served buffet-style with the food in large containers and served with a pair of tongs, perfect. Dante and I stand wordlessly and retrieve the precious goods. I return to the table with a stack of pancakes and Dante returns with several hashbrowns. 

The pancakes are gorgeous, fluffy and light but filling and soft and they’re the perfect level of sweetness. They’re moist without being soggy and the syrup and berry on top do nothing but make the pancakes better, it’s heaven on a plate. Balls to all thoughts of going home if this is what the food’s like.

“I would do so many unholy things to eat these pancakes every day.” I think out loud, met with a pleased and agreeing hum from my companion who looks a little blissed out nibbling on his hash browns like a hamster. No other words were spoken until Lumine strided into the room, followed by Paimon, eyes scanning the room and landing on me. I wave her over and she drags a spare chair to our table. She sits down and looks at me with an aura of confidence that almost feels intimidating.

“Tell me what you know about my brother. Now.” Lumine demands, not harshly but firm enough that she sounds sure that she’ll get what she wants. The air around us becomes thick with suspense and determination mixed with repressed anxiety.

“He’s alive, and to my knowledge healthy and not in danger,” her posture relaxes the tiniest bit, “I don’t know where he is, or what exactly he’s doing. But I can tell you that you’ll see him soon-ish, you won’t talk but you’ll see him.” I tell her, trying to cover as many bases as possible. She looks contemplative.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” She asks, less stern.

“Uh, no? I can’t think of anything, at least. Sorry?” I sound unsure but I can’t tell whether it’s caused by being uncertain of what other information I could possibly give her, or because I’m so unused to hearing her voice that it throws me off. “There’s a breakfast buffet over there,” I say, pointing to where the service window is, “and you’re going to the thousand winds temples today, right?” She nods.

“Food!” Paimon exclaims, and by weird anime/game logic, starts to produce comical amounts of drool, ew? They tug at Lumine begging to go get some, arguing every point in their favour, until Lumine gives in, letting out a small huff and standing up to follow them to the food. She spares me a glance.

“Is everyone in this place so intense?” Dante, staring after the token protagonists, asks me with a tone of mild disbelief.

“It’s fantasy RPG game land, what were you expecting?”

“Normal people?”

“Good luck, my friend. Just wait until you meet Fischl.”

“Who?” Dante asks and I make eye contact, in a single moment my face expresses just how dramatic she is and Dante pales a bit.

“She’s got a talking translator bird, you’ll be fine.” This does not help him, his jaw drops a bit and then places his head in his hands and groans.

“That shouldn’t surprise me.” He says, muffled by his palm. I pat his shoulder from across the table with my mouth pinched in an understanding smile.

“You’ll get used to it one day.”

Lumine and Paimon find their way back to our table with plates piled high enough for me to call the physics of this world into question. Lumine sets the plates down and shifts a hefty amount of food over to Paimon, though still keeping a very good amount for herself. Eh, well, she’s got domains to do, the gal’s gotta eat. The silence at the table grows awkward until it’s broken by Paimon rattling on about a weird dream they had through mouthfuls of food. Dante and I watch as this tiny floating baby thing puts away enough food to feed the entirety of Central London, how is that even possible? I understand that smaller animals need more food, but this is just ridiculous!

Dante and I watch Paimon eat the mountain of food with ease, and I develop a new sense of respect for them.

Lumine finishes almost as quickly as Paimon, quickly putting her dishes in a box by the buffet table and walking to the door. She stops and turns around, looking dead at me.

“Are you coming?” She asks, an invite and an expectation. It takes me a second to realise what she’s asking me, but I grab my and Dante’s dishes and put them away before jogging across the room dodging other guests and dragging Dante behind me.

Once I get within about two metres of her, she turns and leaves. We catch up to her in the entrance-way as she’s heading for the door.

We step outside and a fresh breeze wanders across my skin, I zip my hoodie up to my chest and keep walking. Mondstadt feels so surreal in the morning, normal because it feels familiar yet alien for the same reason. The coldness of the wind strikes me as odd, but, I mean, this is wind country; and we’re on a lake, so why couldn’t it be cold? I guess if the wind is this cold year round it must be a blessing in the summer considering it probably gets ultra humid here. Humidity, one point added on to my ‘Reasons to leave list’ I hated the humidity back home, I refuse to tolerate it anymore.

The cobbles are very even, unlike the kind you’d find in the old parts of cities, and yet a very tired Dante almost rolls an ankle in the main plaza.

“You good there, mate?” I ask and he brushes it off hastily and walks a bit faster, funny man.

After facing Dante’s greatest nemesis, we reach the Knights of Favonius headquarters, what a mouthful. It stands tall and stable against the bright sky, a pillar of strength. It feels intimidating to walk through its doors unaccompanied by someone who works here, which makes me wonder, should I tell Lisa we’re using the library or something? Knowledge is strength so I’m pretty sure it would be impolite to waltz into a sanctuary of it and rifle through it as I please. Mhm, I’ll ask her.

Lumine takes the initiative and knocks on Jean’s door, thank god, and is met with a muffled ‘Come in!’. Dante holds back while I follow Lumine through the doorway, and suddenly it feels awkward and wrong to be without him. Jean greets Lumine with a smile and pleasantries before taking notice of me.

“Good morning, can I help you?” Jean asks formally, the dedication she has to her job is ever-present in her voice.

“Oh, yeah, me and Dante were gonna use the library and I thought I should let you know? And is there, like, a spare journal or paper anywhere?” I reply awkwardly, suddenly getting the feeling that informing her of this was just a little bit pointless. God I seriously hope I’m not wasting too much of her time.

“That’s fine, no need to tell me,” boom, there it is, “Lisa can help you with any materials you might need.” She tells me with a smile, she doesn’t dislike me though which is very, very good. I win!

“Cool, cool.” I give her a thumbs up and turn to Lumine. “Good luck, you’ll learn a lot about this world’s combat today.” Then I stand there, trying to think of a way to condense three years worth of video game combat knowledge into a few sentences.

“Elements react with each other no matter what each element is applied to, elemental reactions deal more damage than physical in most cases, there shouldn’t be anything horrendously difficult to deal with and remember that teamwork is your friend now. Just some tips.” I give her a small smile and with my arms by my head in a surrender pose I back out the door.

“Thank you.” Lumine tells me genuinely and I give her a wink and some finger guns. Dear god, why did I go for the finger guns? I think I feel her eyes on me as I close the door behind me.

“You are so fucking awkward.” Dante says, landing his right hand on my shoulder in an act of reassurance. I try hard to think of a witty come-back and fail miserably, making an exaggerated mourning face instead. “Where’s the library?”

I point at the door across the hall and he nods. We walk over and he swings the door open for us, and I’m blown away. The library looks so much bigger and I think my soul ascends to heaven. We enter the haven of knowledge and are greeted by the archangel of it herself.

“Oh my! I wasn’t expecting to see you cuties here so early, do you want any help with searching for books?” Lisa beams pleasantly, looking very comfortable behind her desk. Very beautiful too, if she wasn’t probably dating Jean, I’d smash. Well not really, pretty women scare me.

“I’m looking for anything you have on archons and divine things, those are top priority but other than that I’m looking for the history and culture of Fontain, Natlan and Snezhnaya.” I say quickly, semi-reluctant to ask for help and beginning to get nervous. Social interaction with people who work in literally any position of authority is not my strong point.

Lisa tells me how the books are arranged, blissfully similar to the Dewey Decimal system, and then recommends a few books to start off with. The interaction is pleasant with little to no expectations or stakes and makes me feel much more comfortable around her, but I feel like I still see Lisa as a character and nothing more. I don’t like that, it’s a problem I’ll have to work on I suppose but I have no idea how, it also makes me wonder about how I sound when talking to the people who once existed as characters to me.

“I was wondering if you had any, like, writing equipment,” wow, way too formal, “like a journal and a pen, sort of.” I ask her, feeling just a bit silly.

“Don’t worry, I’ll sort that out for you.” Lisa says, still smiling and turns to rummage through her desk draws. Chill, Kitty, she gets paid for this, you’re not a nuisance. “Here.” 

The journal she hands me is plain and unassuming and the pen she gave me came with an ink pot. Joy to the world, they use dipping pens. Well at least they’re not quills. I shudder a bit on the inside thinking about the tragedy I would cause if I used a quill.

“Is the journal not to your liking?” Lisa asks, sounding rather confused and I panic. God nerfed me with an expressive face because I’d simply be too strong without it.

“No! No! Sorry if it came off that way, I’m just thankful I don’t have to use a quill, it would be a disaster if I did, hehe.” Lisa giggles at my panickiness, simply calling me a cutie (which doesn’t help with said panickiness) and telling me to come to her if I need help finding anything.

Dante and I make our way down the stairs and I nab a spot at one of the long tables. I place the journal and pen down and slide the ink pot into a divet in the desk. I debate whether to find the books first or grab extra material. Extra material it is, I can jog my memory if I really need to with it. I lean over to Dante and whisper the sections I’d like him to grab a few books from and we part way on our hunt for information. I stop at the section pertaining to Fontaine and skim the spines. A massive problem stares me straight in the face. A different written language. Oh dear god.

I quietly bang my head against the shelf and wish I was never born. Right, this is a problem and there’s a way to fix it somehow, I just need to find the way and complete it. Well, I had a phase where I was trying to figure out abyss runes in the chasm and when I googled the language I kept finding ciphers for the Mondstadt language instead. Using my phone it is. Wait there’s no signal or internet, double fuck. Fuck it, I’ll figure it out myself.

I grab a couple books that look general but significant in hopes they won’t be hell to try and translate. I can always ask Lisa to tell me what it says, a perfect back-up plan.

I walk back to the table and Dante doesn’t look happy.

“None of them are in English.” Dante mutters looking a bit guilty.

“Yeah, I know. But don’t worry, the symbols are pretty much a cipher for the English alphabet.” I tell him, trying to sound more confident so he feels less anxious.

I sit in silence, trying to recall some of the matching symbols for each letter. The language in the books isn’t Mond, but what is most likely a universal written language, and thankfully it’s the one I’m most familiar with. It takes a good while to complete my first attempt but it happens. No clue if it's right but I have Lisa who can check for me. What a win. I quickly interpret the book title and shove my anxiety down before abandoning Dante at the table to talk to Lisa.

“Hey, uhh, I just realised that the written language here is different to the one I use,” Lisa’s face drops slightly, “but it’s fine, don’t worry, because it’s a cipher of the alphabet I use. So I made a little cheat sheet and translated it but I wanted to know if I was getting things right?” I look to Lisa for confirmation that she understands, she looks thoughtful and nods.

“Does this book say ‘The History of Focalors’?” I ask her and she checks the title and hums in approval.

“Oh good, I’ll be back in a second.” I shuffle back to the table to scribble out a sentence that uses all twenty-six letters. ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.’ Perfection. I translate it into the universal Teyvat language and cart it over to Lisa alongside the cheat sheet.

“This is meant to say ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ did I get it right?” I ask, and she frowns, taking the journal from me. She leans over and points out where a few of the letters have been mistranslated but other than that it was all fine. Apparently the word order, very conveniently, didn’t differ from english, fucking score.

Lisa makes a few corrections to my sheet and asks if she could copy it. I agree because fuck it, why not?

I return to the table with the journal in hand and am immediately slapped by guilt as I see Dante with his head on his arms on the table. God that poor fucker is probably bored out of his mind considering he knows next to nothing about this world and can’t read the books in front of him. Well, I can fill him in.

“‘Sup dude.” I greet him casually, brushing a hand over his shoulder as I walk by. I slump down into the chair and he raises his head. He looks ten times more tired than he did when we got here but I guess boredom can do that to people. “The cipher works, you can use it if you want.”

I rip the first page of the journal out and pass it to him. “I’m gonna write down everything I know about canon, I’ll explain everything to you after, uh, do what you want until then or something.”

He nods, picks up the paper and disappears to the history section. Good man. I get to writing 

‘ - traveller in mond, thousand winds temple, meet on starsnatch cliff, dragon evil being controlled by abyss, blah blah blah, fight at stormterrors lair

  - traveller in liyue, zhongli funeral, almost gets arrested, meets childe, speak to adepti, go back to liyue, boring funeral planning, help governemnt who wanted to arrest traveller 5 mins ago, fight childe, fight osial, zhongli gives gnosis away. Gnosticism thing.

  - interlude, fight sibling in cave with nasty statue, dainslef, see field tiller around this time

  - chasm, probably, horrible horrid thing, may happen before or after inazuma

  - traveller in inazuma, competition for inactive vision, meet kazuha the beloved, get the goss, go by boat, ritou, get stopped, help from chisato, find ayaka, 3 wishes, prison break w/ yoimiya, thoma gets caught, run away from ei with him, go to watatsumi, teppei, delusion factory, find scaramouche, saved by yae miko, train to defeat shogun, fight la signora, fight shogun, see yae miko, scaramouche has gnosis now

  - interlude, enkanomiya

  - traveller in sumeru, haypasia, traveller trips ball, world forget me, saved by tighnari, withering zone thing bc irminsul corrupted (link to eleazar), marana’s avatar later (?), head to city NO AKASHA TERMINALS BAD BAD BAD, go to port ormos for dori + divine knowledge capsule, alhaitham, see effects of capsule alhaitham takes it, festival plot w/ nilou, subzeruz festival loop, ASK NILOU TO DANCE TO BREAK, convince secretary, DOESNT WORK + DOTTORE BAD BAD BAD, go to pardis dyhai, hypasia sees scaramouche bc divine gaze or smth, nahida gets there as kathryne and gets stabbed, IS FINE SHE IS IN TRAVELLER, 

  - traveller in desert in sumeru (this is so long hoyo why), nutty scholars go missing, find them, go to abandoned hospital, go to mausoleum of king deshret, get stuck in (boo), corruption in irminsul is from him, rukkhadevata used powers to help then turned into a child (?), traveller realises nahida is rukkhadevata, goes for justice + mess w/ fatui, traveller plans w/ the lads, NO HEARING THEIR PLAN U R MEANT TO BE UNAWARE,  dont write down FORGET, alhaitham not evil, stick w/ traveller in confinement, jailbreak, fight scaramouche, forget rukkhadevata, THE TRAVELLER REMEMBERS, dottore gets 2 gnosis, DESTROYING GNOSIS = AWAKEN HEAVENLY PRINCIPLES KHANRHE’IA?, sky is fake confirmed, info in descenders 4 including the sinner.

  - scaramouche interlude (emo ass) becomes an ally’

It’s a hefty yet sparse page that includes everything I believe to be important, a summary of the plot with a few notations about how to react, and I feel some worry because I feel like I’ll forget something important. Like I’ll slip up horrendously and die. But maybe that’s the anxiety talking. I slip the page over to Dante who has been doodling on a piece of paper since I was halfway through my summary.

“This is a plot summary, apologies for trash grammar and bullet points.” I tell him robotically, the lack of noise and sudden lack of a focus leaving me tired and empty in my head. Dante takes one look at the paper and looks utterly horrified, disgusted, even.

“Oh come one, it’s not that bad is it?” I ask.

“Uh, yes .” He replies, eyes never wondering from the journal in front of him. We sit in silence as Dante tries to make sense of my writing, at the very least, it’s more secure this way. Can’t bite me in the arse if no one can understand it, right?

I use Dante’s focus on my writing to try and remember all the theories about the game. There’s; Gnosticism, upside down Teyvat, archons and the Ars Goetia, Teyvat is the moon, the unknown god is Kiana Kaslana, Paimon is related to the unknown god, tree theory - all Hoyo games are genuinely connected and so on, so forth. It makes me worried, I only know a bit about Fontaine from my extensive lore video watching, the one time I obsessively documented all the NPCs relationships and other in-game activities and it might not be enough to keep Lumine safe. 

What if all the theories are wrong? What if I fuck up? What if I mess with canon to the point it collapses and I somehow reach the ‘wrong’ ending? What then? Is that an okay risk to take? Am I potentially playing god with people’s lives? What if I incur some sort of divine punishment? What about the Hexenzirkel, Nicole? Am I messing with things I shouldn’t? Am I meant to be here at all?

I think, loud and hard, like I’m hoping a god, hell, even a witch will come and give me a direction in any form. I feel baseless and dreadfully unprepared. I’ll take being yelled at by someone who knows what they’re doing over this spiral. I wish Nicole would speak to me, guide me towards where I’m meant to be, but no voice comes. I’m left at the desk having a crisis.

Dante doesn’t seem any better off, he’s got his head on his arms again, and his shoulders are shaking ever so slightly. The temperature in the room has dropped quite, it’s cold enough to make me zip up the hoodie all the way again even though I like the cold. I stare at him in concern, I haven't seen him cry this entire time and I have no idea what to do. 

“Dante,” I start unsure of what to say next, “are you…?” My voice trails off, well he’s not okay so don’t bother asking.

“I miss them.” He tells me through tears, muffled by his arms. There’s only two people I can think of that he could miss this much.

“Oh sweetheart,” I say softly, standing from my chair and rounding the desk to sit by him, “I’m sorry you’ve been taken from them, you always looked so strong about this I’m sorry I didn’t notice your pain.” He sobs a little harder and doesn’t look at me, I place my hand on his shoulder and grasp it with reassuring firmness.

“I promise you, I will find a way to get you back with them. I swear on my soul I will search every inch of this world for you.” I tell him, and I feel worried about the promise I made as I don’t even know I can carry it out. No, fuck uncertainty, if I want it to happen I have to believe it’s possible. I banish the doubt from my mind and commit myself to the cause. No matter what, I will. The air feels thick, Dante turns to me and I open my arms.

His lips wobble and he hugs me hard, I hug him back just as ferociously. I will not fail this man.

A candle on one of the stands sputters harshly with a loud pop, Dante jumps at the noise and so do I. Without letting go, he turns to look at the candle.

“Pfft, it looks like it exploded.” He says with a weak grin and I smile at him.

“It couldn’t handle us, our presence is so powerful that it died.” I make a weak joke, it lightens the mood. But still, Dante and I hold each other, clinging to the only remnants of normal life. He hasn’t stopped crying but the tears that reach the skin of my collar bone are freezing cold, he reaches up to rub his eyes.

“Ow!” He yelps, practically ripping his hand from his face.

“You alright down there?” I inquire quickly. 

“Is there something on my face?” He asks as he turns his head to me, my eyebrows knot. There’s two streams of solid ice running down from his waterline, sticking to his skin like glue. He moves out of our hug so I can get a better look. I reach up to touch his face.

“Ice?” I tell him, not really believing what I’m seeing. My finger reaches his cheek. A small, sharp ‘zap’ sound strikes my ears and pain in my finger makes me reel backwards.

“Jesus!” I cry as Dante yelps and covers where I touched him.

“The fuck was that?”

“I dunno, static shock maybe?”

“Why would I get shocked though, we barely moved.”

“Are you cuties okay?” Lisa’s voice echos down from the top floor, “I heard a bang.”

She’s standing by the railing in front of her desk looking down at us with a concerned expression. I wrench Dante from his chair and up the stairs to Lisa. I all but shove him towards her.

“Is there ice on his face!?” I ask her hurriedly, checking that there was actually something there and that I’m not hallucinating. She takes in Dante’s visage and her eyes widen slightly.

“Why, yes. Hold on,” she tells me, speed-walking to her desk then returning with some sort of equipment. She holds it to Dante’s face. “It seems that the ice on his face has traces of elemental powers, when did it appear?”

“About a minute ago, Dante was crying!” I cry, desperate to give her all the information she needs.

“About what?” I shut my mouth and look at Dante, unwilling to spill his personal feelings with permission. 

“I miss my family.” He tells her bluntly, sounding a bit dead in tone.

“Oh.” Is Lisa’s only, very fair, reaction. Honestly, same; to quote Dean Pelton, that’s deeper than I want to go. The tension and worry in the room dissolves into stifling awkwardness, Dante starts crying harder and the warm, new tears slowly melt the old frozen ones away. Lisa shuffles back to her desk after a few moments of silence and I slowly guide Dante back to the desk.

I sit him down and he still looks dejected, reasonable considering I dragged him to a library with books he can’t read which definitely gave him time to think about the whole situation. Whoops, now I feel bad.

I walk behind his chair to go and drag another over so I can sit beside him, I barely pass his right shoulder before I step on something small, kind of round, and very slippery. I eat floor tiles when my ankles gives out and I flop to the ground like a fish on a wet jetty, and the object makes a ‘tink’ sound when it hits the skirting of the library’s built-in shelves. Dante bursts out into snorts through his tears, pain is still evident on his face but with added amusement that expression has dulled slightly.

I roll around on the floor, partially because ow, my fucking ankle died and partially because bingo, it’s funny and makes Dante laugh.

“Ough, my balls.” I groan, sitting up to check that my ankle is still attached to me. “If using comedy as a crutch is bad then why does god do this to me?” I weakly shake my fist at the sky.

I look over to where the thing bounced off the wall, it’s small and it takes me a hot second to spot it. It’s glowing a soft purple. No, nah, what. I crawl closer, not even hearing Dante’s worried questioning, I pick it up and it’s exactly what I thought it was.

Here, in my hands, was a small electro vision. The purple body was framed by a gold tinted metal that wrapped around the body in petal-like sheets, resembling a rose. It was bright and alive, but something about it felt… off, dull, mysterious. I turn it over in my hands, the body is like a squashed sphere and has the same shape, front and back, but the metal differs; a small portion near the metal loop is flat and devoid of any decorative petals, but there’s a small engraving. A half-full chalice where the outline forms a four pointed star above it.

That’s suspicious, that’s weird, we’re pre-Inazuma, no electro visions are being given out. So where did it come from? I inspect the chalice symbol, it feels familiar but nothing springs to mind. I sigh and get up with the vision (?) in my hand, ticked off that I didn’t know where it could have come from.

“Uh, are you okay?” Dante asks, waving his hands about to get my attention. I show him the vision (no clue if it counts as one). He gives me a mildly frustrated, confused look. “Am I supposed to know what that is?”

“No, but it shouldn’t be possible for me to have it.” I say, still looking at the vision, not Dante.

“So are you going to explain?”

“Um, not here, later.” My voice is filled with uncertainty. Dante makes an ‘uh-huh’ noise and slides my notebook over to me. Right yeah, that, I still need to do more research but I don’t feel like staying in the library. I’ll check some books out and continue back at the hotel. Good plan. “Wanna go back to the hotel?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Dante says, we both sound dull, mildly exhausted by the emotional whiplash of the past half-an-hour. I rise from my seat and collect a few books from the desk that I wish to take with me. I meet Dante by the stairs.

“Hello, I’d like to check these out please.” I greet Lisa and she smiles, taking a glance at Dante. I place a sizable stack of books on her desk and her smile becomes vexed. Oh yeah, I forgot she’s meant to be lazy. I look anywhere but at her as she checks out the books, and boy does it take a very awkward minute.

“All done, enjoy.” She smiles with a content lilt to her voice. Dante is already at the door as I pick up the books and smile my goodbyes at Lisa. He opens the doors for me, and when we’re out of the Favonius Headquarters he kindly and wordlessly snatches half the stack of books. I thank him quietly.

It’s only late afternoon, warm light shines on this pleasant city. There’s a distant sound of cooing wood pigeons that makes this place feel a little more like home

Chapter Text

Walking through the hotel lobby felt visceral and real in the same way the world looks clearer after leaving the cinema after a life-altering film. The light streaming through the windows was golden and cast a kind light upon the building’s inhabitants, creating a sense of calm that remained unbroken in the wake of our silence. 

Dante and I hadn’t talked much, if at all, on the walk back. Dante’s grief felt tangible like a wall between us, a wall I couldn’t climb over, a wall that could only be taken down on his own volition and gentle patience. I feel horrible for not noticing his suffering, for letting my joy, stemming from my departure from the mundane, cloud my reason and logic. Not only does that make me a bad friend, but a danger to myself and others. If I don’t notice the things that matter most I’ll surely die or fail in some horrific, disappointing way. It's good that I failed safely in a non-life-threatening situation but I can’t help but feel disappointed in myself. I can do better.

The hallway that leads to our rooms becomes hyper-real, solid in a meaningful way that makes me tense and feel a little sick. I have always tried to figure out what it means, to suddenly be over-aware of reality, but the answer has always been just out of reach in the shape of an unexplainable blob of information that has no connection to words. It frustrates me and sickens me to no end that I don’t understand chunks of myself, that I can’t understand the world and anybody in it the same way I can understand the parts of myself that I can wrap my head around. 

The door to the hotel room opens with a squeak, nothing has moved inside, nothing has changed. It saddens me? How weird, what did I want to happen?  Whatever it was it doesn’t matter in the face of the glowing pale blue object on Dante’s pillow.

Oh fucking come on, seriously? Why god, why me? Now I really have to explain something so miserable to the most miserable person in the room. Ridiculous. 

Dante spots it too, he turns to me with this dead, expectant look in his face, my cue to spill my guts as to what it is.

“Vision.” I say, more to the air than to Dante.

“And?” He asks bluntly.

“It means you should see a therapist or something.” I continue, trying to build the will to explain this whole world’s power system to him.

“Very helpful.” He heaves a sigh and goes to pick it up, a pretty thing, gentle with five elongated petal shapes forming a satisfying design around the outside. The metal is pale compared to mine, it’s a calm almost-white while mine resembles a warm, copper colour. Wack. “Now what is it?”

“It lets you control the elements,” his brows raise sceptically, “it’s a part of the power, magic, system here. You express a certain trait to an extreme extent then a god’s like ‘Hey! You depressed fuck! Go paint with all the colours of the wind!’ or whatever and it’s tied to a gnosis which is like an ultimate vision but better and there’s this whole thing about gnosticism but I don’t even know how to explain that right now. Uh, TLDR; glowy thing make icicles.”

“This trait being..?” Dante shrugs toward the hand holding his vision.

“Being emo.”

“And yours?”

“Pfft, like being determined or ambitious or something, no one really cares too much about vision assignment.” I reply, wandering over to my unmade bed and sitting down facing Dante. I make grabby hands at the vision. “Gibit, gibit.”

Dante makes an unimpressed face at my childish behaviour but complys, passing the vision to me from across the distance between our beds. I turn the vision over in my hands, inspecting the back the same way I inspected mine. The same chalice symbol is etched into a flat area. It stares at me, almost with glee, as I try and try to remember what it means. I hand it back to Dante and lay down.

“You good?” He asks, sitting down on his bed as well and leaning back on his hands.

“Shush, thinking.” There’s nothing going through my head but I am not about to admit that right now.

Video games would be a blessing right now, Honkai: Star Rail was about to get an update which- OH MY GOD. Oh my god. Good heavens. This is elating! Pun intended! Elation, that's the symbol on the back of the vision! An Aeon! Oh! I don’t like what that’s implying. I really dislike that. I groan and Dante looks at me questioningly.

“Maybe all of Hoyoverse’s games are connected and it’s being reflected in this world. Like, there’s a symbol etched into the metal on your vision somewhere and it’s the symbol for Elation, which means that the aeon of Elation is somehow involved which makes things complicated because aeons are a part of Gnosticism which implies that this world exists in a gnostic system which has hefty implications.” I ramble and Dante just looks confused.

“Gnosticism?” I can’t fault him for not knowing, it’s not like it’s a well known religion, hell it’s almost dead.

“Yeah, the concept is that there’s a supreme god, okay the comparison here would be like pouring wine into a pyramid of glasses but the wine is god, and the supreme god emmenates, or god’s aspects trickle down, which creates lower beings, aeons. Aeons usually show up in pairs, the last pair made were Christ and Sophia and aeons can also emanate. So Sophia emanated but without involving her partner, so she ended up creating the demiurge which is responsible for the physical world and is also evil. So the demiurge created humans and the world which traps divine knowledge in the physical realm which is bad because eventually the divine knowledge is meant to return to the supreme god, I think? And the demiurge made Archons to rule over the physical world to stop humans from becoming enlightened, or achieving gnosis. And this is relevant because the gods of this world are called archons.” Dante looks exasperated but nods.

“The implications?”

“One archon is collecting all the gnosis, for what reason I’m not sure, but considering the sky is fake and teyvat might be upside down maybe they’re trying to rebel against something, the demiurge maybe? That or that god is going to destroy the world or something.” I sigh and run a hand through my hair, overwhelmed by the fact I have no idea how the story ends which means I don’t know what to change to make it better. 

Dante looks at me vacantly, huffs and lays down. Very relatable Dante, you’re so real for that.

God, but imagine finally getting everything you’ve ever worked hard for and then getting ripped away but supernatural forces beyond your comprehension in such a stupid, gimmicky way, like seriously what kind of “I reincarnated as a runt of the litter dragon hybrid, but actually I’m an OP supergod?!?!” ass bullshit is this? Not to mention he’s got a family that’s probably eating themselves with worry right now. 

Honestly my family probably is too. I don’t really know how to feel about that, I don’t really know if I miss them at all. Wait.

No, I do, if the ache in my chest means anything. I don’t want to go back, even if it means I see them again. Is that selfish? I have the opportunity to live freely here, I could just walk into the forest and build a little hut and no one would complain but at the same time, I’ve hurt my family by disappearing. So it is selfish, but is it… wrong to be selfish? I mean this is one hell of an opportunity and it’d be silly to turn it down, especially when I don’t even know how to go back. Doing something is always better than doing nothing, right? 

God the implications of everything are so complicated, this is ass. Come on, god, if you’re gonna put me through shenanigans and hijinks at least make sure there’s not too many loose threads. Okay, bad wording, say that again and my parents might die.

I’m not sure if I should stay or go, mostly for Dante’s sake. He’s going through it right now and I don’t know which he’d appreciate more. 

I look over to him, curled up on his bed, shaking ever so slightly. I’ve only known him a few days so it’s probably best to give him some space to properly feel his feelings without imposing. Yeah, I’ll bite, I’ll leave for a while and come back up with dinner when it’s time. Oh and water, hydrate before you die-drate and all that.

The hallway is still and silent when I leave, I linger by the door because where in god’s name do I go from here? Sitting in the dining room would come off as a bit impatient -and also really sad- and I’ve already been to the library so it’d be awkward to go back. A breeze circulates down the hall, bringing the clean, cool scent of the outside with it. Great point, universe, I could always go touch some grass.

The walk to the lobby is as quiet as the hallway, I didn’t bump into a single person on the way and any sound of the staff or residence was seemingly muted by the walls. It felt strange, like the world was the game again where everyone was static or moved in set patterns that made you feel like the only living person in the world. I hadn’t gotten that feeling even once since I got here and its return made me supremely uncomfortable. I hesitated for a moment at the door, one hand stretched out as I came back to my senses.

It’s nighttime. It’s nighttime outside, maybe I should go back upstairs. My hand dropped, this is a fantasy world where most things are okay and bad things don’t happen so often, hell the cat-tavern owner wanders about at night so why can’t I? 

With a breath, I opened the door and stepped outside. It felt stunning, it was fairly cold, enough for me to tug my hoodie to cover more of my neck but the air was fresh in such an alien way. I don’t think I could ever get used to that. And the stars, oh the stars. They were so much more captivating now that I wasn’t pumped full of adrenaline, twinkling gently in the warm hue of the late sunset. The entire street was cosy, lit by sweet lamplight that danced up the buildings’ walls. 

It was quiet outside too, but not stiflingly so, the sounds of drunk merriment drifted over from Angel’s Share in a way that was so familiar to the sound of the pub over the road from my own house. The sound alone sparked a type of peace in me, the kind you get when you fall asleep while there’s a party going on downstairs. With a contented mind and relaxed shoulders I wandered along the more well-lit roads.

I could probably be spending my time revising the plot but I’m not going anywhere and neither is anyone else at the moment. Breathe, Kitty, you are allowed to just exist.

I have a vision, how funny is that? And an electro one no less, those aren’t being handed out at the moment so where did it come from? I glanced down at the little gem in my pocket, I’d have to get it stuck on to my outfit or something because that’s definitely small enough for me to lose. Actually, I could lose a whole Boeing A380 but whatever, that’s not here nor there. 

The symbol of Elation is engraved into it so that’s probably how it came into my possession, in terms of power it would make sense, a pure emanation of the supreme god is going to be more powerful than a lesser emanation from an imperfect being so the Elation could easily trump Ei in that regard. Probably. But that also implies that a being higher than possibly even the unknown god is keeping tabs on what’s going on over here and they might be the one responsible for my existence here as far as the information I already have says. What a mess, really. Maybe I could ask Nahida about the nature of my existence here, anything she would say is definitely valuable considering she can tap into the Irminsul-

I get broken out of my thoughts when I walk full force into someone’s shoulder. I make a gagged choking noise as my vocal cords make critical contact with it because man, that shit’s uncomfortable. 

“Hey! Watch where you’re going, buster!” A tiny, high pitched and unforgettable voice shouts. Ah, they’ve gotten back. Oh and I’ve just walked dead straight into Lumine, blood rushes to my cheek because god that’s embarrassing.

Her head tilts to the right and her eyebrow raises.

“Sorry! I wasn’t paying attention, I didn’t mean to walk into you!” I scramble for words, pretty women make the space behind my eyes defunct and let me tell you, Lumine is gorgeous in the low, warm glow of the streetlamps.

“What are you even doing out here, anyway?” Paimon crosses their arms and kicks their tichy feet animatedly. Well I can’t just go around waffling about all of Dante’s current emotional situation now can I?

“¿Cuántos años tiene?” Stunning, truly magnificent. There has never before been such a brilliant answer to such a simple question. Oh my god, that’s literally the easiest question to bullshit an excuse for, this is pathetic.

“What?” 

“Taking a walk.” Paimon stares, Lumines stares, I stare back.

“Is that what that means?” Absolutely not, my love, not even in the slightest sense.

“Kind of. Anyways, how are you two doing? Had fun with those domains, yeah?” I speak mostly to Paimon, I can’t really tell if Lumine’s up for talking but leaves it to Paimon, or just doesn’t speak much. Either way it’s a shame, she does have a very pretty voice.

“Ugh! It was crazy!! Who built those death traps in the first place?” Yeah you say it gworl! “That advice you gave us helped a bit, thanks! Lumine said she’d come across elemental systems before but not like this!”

“No biggie.” 

“What were you up to today?” Paimon asks cheerily, kicking their feet and leaving trails of constellations in their wake. I shrug, I’m not really sure how much to tell them, the visions would definitely be up there with things to mention but that’s connected to some pretty personal stuff, I have the feeling Dante would appreciate keeping his business on the down-low.

“Not much, just getting my bearings really…” I mutter, chancing a glance at Lumine I see her relaxed expression. I smile at her and she smiles back, such a sweet expression, as an artist I have to admit that I’m utterly transfixed. The moment is quickly broken by Paimon rambling about dinner, how they hope it’s something meaty and rich. Our paths shift, directed towards the inn yet again.

I’m not too sure how long I’ve been out, I probably should’ve checked where the moon was as I left but oh well. Paimon and Lumine will probably eat together and that means I can check on Dante undisturbed, it would be quieter like that.

The ground floor of the inn is busier than it was when I’d first left and the smell of savoury cooking permeated the lobby, the bustling of kitchen staff and guests blurred as they echoed off the walls. I lag behind the soon-to-be iconic duo and snatch up the tastiest meal on the counter as well as something to drink, I leave for the door without a word.

I come to a stop at my room door, knocking a familiar tune my parents taught me.

“I’ve got dinner, you good?” A groan slips through the crack beneath the door, the sounds of pattering footsteps approach and the door is swung open- wow he looks rough. “Not good?”

Dante gives me a look and all I can do is offer him the plate with a sympathetic smile. He takes it gently, though not without giving me yet another look. Man, I've really gotta learn what each one means. He leaves the door open and I take it as a welcome. 

Dante perches himself on the window sill, balancing his plate on his knees and I take a seat on the bed in front of him. He doesn’t say anything for a long while, staring glumly at his plate without moving and I’m reluctant to start speaking first. Luckily, he spares me.

“How are you so… unmoved about this?” He barely lifts his head to speak to me, but the irritated skin around his eyes says enough. I hum, our situations are different, so are our perspectives. Dante has come off as a pretty emotional person so far, kind of, it’s more like he has a vast depth of feeling that just looks different to mine. As another conscious person he has a whole other way of seeing things and I’m not quite sure how to respond, but that doesn’t mean I can wait forever.

“You feel like that because you have things you miss, I don’t have those in the same way.” I respond bluntly, praying I haven’t just shoved my foot in my mouth, I like having Dante around too much to mess it up via poor word choices. He looks up at me a little more with that, a quirked brow and parted lips question my soul.

“That means?” He asks, taking a forkful of his dinner as he waits for an answer. He chews slowly, and I chew over my thoughts.

“You’ve got your family and that, you care about them so much you got blessed for it. I have family, I just don’t feel a pull to go back to them? Not that I don’t care for or miss them, I just don’t feel so strongly attached.” I say, scooting up to sit with my back against the headboard.

“You don’t feel so attached?”

“No, I love them dearly, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t… I don’t mind being away from them, even if it’s forever. I guess it’s just down to personality…” I mumble.

“I love my family dearly too…” Dante murmurs around his food, I smile, he looks like a hamster.

“I can tell.” He smiles softly at that and I feel slightly better about myself.

“Don’t you have anything else to go back to though? A job? Friends? Hobbies?” He probes, I almost giggle.

“You think too highly of me, I'm a struggling commission artist with no goals other than ‘make rent’. I don’t have much to miss in that regard. As for the rest, my life was pretty dull in those areas. What about you?” Considering Dante’s been forthcoming with answers so far I decide it’s time to push, better out than in, you know?

“I had a couple friends, tight-knit, we had to be. As for jobs I was doing pretty well for myself, I told you before, geologist. I haven’t had to struggle for rent since I was at university myself, I’m lucky with that but I get you.” We lapse into silence, it’s comfortable and calm and for once I don’t have a million thoughts steam rolling through my head.

Dante finishes his food and begins to nurse his drink. Pulling his feet up onto the window sill in front of him, he turns to me. “You said this was a video game- I believe you! You know way too much for me to not, but how’d you pick up this game? You sounded pretty invested.”

I cringe. “Oh god. Don’t even get me started, the fandom is borderline cancerous and I’m ashamed to say I like this stupid game sometimes.”

“And that answers my question, how?” He snarks lightheartedly. With a stretch, I kick him in the shin, pulling back quickly as he tries to kick me back.

“God, impatient much? That’s the prequel, dude, gotta set up a good story. So picture this, it’s the year of our lord 2020, the pandemic is raging and I’ve totally lost my will to live. I pick up this fun looking open world game a friend of mine liked so I could talk to them about it. Three years later, I’m invested in the damn thing beyond what I’d ever imagined.” Dante hummed.

“Did it mean much to you?”

“Yeah, it was my escape for the longest time. It felt a bit like home…” Dante looks at me contemplatively, I feel fragile under his gaze. In the short time I’ve known him, he’s seemed much more… put together than me. I know it’s silly to assume he’s never had a crutch like mine to lean on, he’s human of course he’s depended on something before but at the same time I can feel the distance I’ve yet to grow across, the character building I haven’t done just yet. “I know, it’s a bit silly.”

“Hey, I didn’t say anything. I relied on my family the same way, I can’t judge, your method was just different.” He smiles kindly, and I start to realise that I’d like to be a little more like Dante from time to time, he’s so sane.

“God, you’re so nice. I do have to say I was pretty unwell about leaning on it though, not very healthy to be wrapped up in your head all the time.” I snort, I really was a little too into the game, but Dante just looks at me with a playfully combative smirk.

“Eh, well, you seem well now. It is what it is.” He shrugs.

“It is what it is.” I repeat, rolling my tilted head side to side on the top of the head board. “You seemed pretty down earlier, you feeling any better?”

Dante makes an uncertain hum, making a so-so gesture with his down-turned palm. “A bit. It’s hard to feel any better in this situation, it’s gonna hurt for a long time yet.”

“Tell me if you’re feeling down, yeah? I can’t say I’ll be the most amazing help but I can provide mediocre distractions.” Dante’s now empty glass clinks against the window sill, he sniggers.

“Mediocre? That’s the best you can do?” He asks teasingly. I pick up one of the decorative pillows to my left and lob it at him with an undignified noise.

“Do I look like a stand-up comic to you? I’m tryin’ here.” I roll my eyes and he throws the pillow right back at me, making precise contact with the bony part of my nose.

“No, not a stand-up, just a party clown.” I whine indignantly with a hand pressed over my nose, it didn’t hurt but it felt weird. With my free hand, I flip him a two-fingered salute.

“Oh, up yours! Wanker!”

“Will you two quit yelling so loud!” A grating, pixie voice calls from the door frame. I know what you are. I turn my salute towards its source without hesitance. “What does that even mean?”

Instead of a response I just wave the gesture at them more vigorously. Paimon sighs and crosses their arms, floating over to the bed they share with Lumine and collapsing onto it. “You guys better not stay up talking again! I’ve got a food coma to sleep off, preferably uninterrupted!”

“You got it, boss.” 

“Aye, aye, mon capitaine.” I mock salute and flop back down onto the bed. Next to me Dante shuffles around, leaning over me.

“You gonna move?”

“Nah.”

“It’s my bed.”

“And?”

“Get out?”

“No?”

He huffs, placing his hands on his hips and looking very thoughtful. Dante then falls face first across me, his dead weight forcing a wheeze from my lungs. For a guy the same height as me he sure is heavy…

“Still not moving?” He asks sweetly, turning at an awkward angle and batting his lashes at me. Winded as I am, I refuse to back down.

“Nuh-uh.” He turns himself around, elbowing me in every soft spot I have on his way. I gasp and swat at him but he dodges expertly. He lays down next to me, well more like half on top of me but that doesn’t really matter. The weight of his limbs over me feels comforting, a pleasant reminder that I’m not alone. 

Someone else blows the candles out, letting the room fall into darkness, blanketed in silence. Dante’s breathing softens out quickly, probably tired from all the feelings and whatnot, but I remain awake.

I have a vision and a plan to follow Lumine. I have to learn to fight if I want to do that, that’s terrifying, starting a new skill, learning from the beginning. That sucks but I’ll have to suck it up if I want to go anywhere. I can probably ask someone from the Knights or Adventurer’s guild for that which is even worse but I can’t ask Lumine at the moment.

What would be fastest to learn though? What’s lower risk? I’ve only got so much time. Swords are difficult because of how varied the movements are and how immediate the consequences of a failed move are, but they’re versatile. Claymores are off the table totally, no way can I swing one of those around with my spindly arse arms.

I don’t even know how catalysts work, they’re a total mystery to me. Polearms are okay, probably. Oh god, am I going to have to stereotypical female-lead this and choose a bow? It’s familiar to me, not difficult to comprehend and the consequences of a bad move are way less immediate. It’ll take a hot second to get any kind of accuracy but it seems like the best way to go at the moment…

Oh whatever, bow it is for now and maybe I’ll ask Lisa about catalysts tomorrow…

—

I linger on the city steps, regretting my choices. Where do I ask first? Lisa or the guild or the Knights, damn choices. 

Well, I’m going to the library anyways so I might as well get everything I can from Lisa. It’s still early and I don’t expect her to show up for a while yet despite the library being open. Man, how does she keep her job? I need her advice or something, lazy girl jobs for the win! Though I suppose being… close with the Dandelion Knight probably helps. Ugh, just when you think you can, life loves to remind you of just how much connections mean, and that sucks considering I suck at networking.

Slipping into the quiet library I flip through the catalogue on Lisa’s desk, pulling the cipher out of my pocket and scanning the large ‘C’ section. If I’m going to ask someone for help I could at least be helpful myself and not make them start from absolute zilch. The catalogue points me to a small nook at the back of the library, hidden from the light let in by the large windows that illuminated the dust motes that bobbed in the air. Thank god I don’t have allergies.

The book was pretty interesting, I had always been curious as to how catalysts worked in game, especially considering their namesake. As it turns out a lot of my speculation turned out to be at least semi-correct. They worked similarly to grimoires, being a book or something that can record feelings, that was built up with personal spells and notes which helped channel the traits involved with a person’s respective vision, therefore making it a catalyst to calling on the element as it effectively lowered the threshold of emotion needed to summon elemental magic. Sick as fuck, but apparently they were pretty unwieldy. 

Oh well, we ball, I’d be curious enough to try it one day so why not make it today? The library door swung open and the tip-tapping sound of heels on polished porcelain tiles, my cue to ask for some help. God this was going to be awkward, but when is interaction not awkward for me?

“Morning, Lisa.” I call up to her, she yawns and waves before returning a bleary greeting of her own. I walk back up the stairs to meet her, and maybe it’s a little mean to heckle someone for help so soon after they wake up but I’m on a time-crunch and she’s too nice to outright refuse me. “Can I ask about catalysts?”

She looks at me with a quirked brow and a small smile. Wow, she’s gorgeous in this lighting. What a shame I can’t whip out a sketchbook right here right now. “Of course you can, cutie, you came to the right person for that kind of question. What did you want to know?”

“How do you use them? I’ve done a bit of reading and I sort of get it but I just don't understand how you can just ‘call forth’ elements.” I click my knuckles out of habit, twisting each knuckle then pressing down until a small ‘pop’ sounds from them. If Lisa notices it, she’s nice enough to not comment on it. She hums.

“I’ve used a catalyst for years, I suppose it’s second nature to me now. It started as a personal journal for notes and ramblings and eventually it just fell into being a catalyst.” Lisa says, her voice serene and sleepy in such an addicting way. She summons her catalyst, a thick tome decorated with purple leather and spiralling roses, it’s beautiful and reflects her so obviously.

“So you just… do it? You just know?” I ask, it’s not a foreign concept to me, just letting things happen; I do the same with my art but I can’t wrap my head around summoning something out of nothing like that. Lisa nods warmly. “And if I wanted to learn to use one, where would I start?”

“Get a notebook and start filling it, cutie.” She giggles, de-summoning her catalyst and turning to the small pile of orders to her right, frowning slightly at the paper. 

“Thank you.” I tell her, putting the book I took out into the returns tray. Lisa smiles again and reaches for her pen leisurely, wishing me well on my way out the door. I stop sharply. “I want to learn to use a bow, do you know where I can start?”

“There’s a small training area around the back, you’ll definitely find someone willing to help you there. Good luck, cutie.”

“Bye, miss. Thank you again.” I leave with a thumbs up and a silent prayer that I won’t be laughed out of the training grounds. I probably won’t, right? Everyone has to start somewhere and people in this world are way nicer than people back home for the most part. With a deep breath I round the corner.

The girl who showed up in commissions is in the back corner, sharpening a sword, but besides her the place is empty. Strange to look at but considering a lot of the knights are out on an expedition, I think, it’s not that weird. The girl takes notice of me and waves me over.

“Hey.”

“Good morning! What brings you here?” She asks cheerily, how nice.

“I want to learn how to use a bow.” 

“Cool! I can’t really help with that,” she motions to the sword in her hand, “not my discipline. I know that Miss Amber could help you though!”

“Where can I find her?”

“She’d be at Good Hunter around now, good luck!”

“Thanks, you too.”

Wow, a conversation with a stranger that I’m walking away from without cringing at myself, what a rare and momentous occasion. I wonder if Dante’s awake yet, he wasn’t when I’d left, detangling myself from his limbs still half asleep after I refused to get off his bed last night. Who knew he drooled a little? I can’t judge, I do the same. Subconsciously, a hand wipes around my mouth.

The weather today is perfect and the mysterious band is out and providing music as per usual, the sounds of chatter grow louder as I reach the plaza and spot a crop of dark brown hair in front of Good Hunter. Yippee, the girl was right!

“Hi, you alright?” I ask politely, coming to a stop on Amber’s right, she beams at me. Everyone here is so smiley.

“Yeah! You?” She responds in kind, I give an affirmative hum and take the initiative to sit across from her. She has no objections, leaning forward slightly. “What are you doing here?”

“I want to learn to use a bow, so I thought ‘why not ask the professional?’ So here I am.” Amber’s face lights up.

“Really? It’s been so boring lately, I’ve been wanting to do something constructive! When can you start?” She speaks at a million miles an hour, showing her undeniable enthusiasm for her craft. It’s heartwarming to see in person, passion gives so much colour to people and it’s a privilege to watch someone brighten up about it. I smile brightly for the first time today, Amber’s positivity is contagious.

“I’m free now if you are?” I offer cautiously, despite my desire to learn as fast as possible, I would still rather fling myself at full force directly into the sun before imposing on someone. Luckily, it seems I haven’t, as one of Amber’s hands lightly bangs the table in bunny-like thumps.

“I am! Hold on! I’ll get you a bow, wait for me on the bridge, okay?” I nod and with that she abandons her empty plate and rushes off. I stand and make my way towards the city gate, did she pay for that? I hope she did… Oh well, not really my business.

Almost no time passes before Amber’s back again, lugging with her a quiver of arrows and a plain but sturdy looking bow, I wave and she waves back with threefold excitement. She leads me along the bridge and towards Springvale, regaling me with tales of her adventures as an outrider as well as various tips for archery. 

Around the back of the little hunting village are flat, circular ruins where several targets are tied to crumbling stone pillars. As it turns out, this is where a lot of the village kids come to practise themselves and Amber brought me here on the correct assumption that I’d prefer to learn somewhere quiet. A very thoughtful gesture, and also helpful, less people around means a lesser likelihood of accidentally impaling someone with a stray shot.

“So you hold it like this, make sure your hips are like this,” Amber demonstrates, “you try now.”

I may be a novice when it comes to weaponry, but I did grow up in a wealthy part of England and that meant I’ve held a bow before. The first time was on a long school trip, and the second was because a mother of a friend of mine took up archery as a hobby and offered me a free session. As it turns out, those past experiences came in handy meaning that only a few adjustments were made to my posture, what a win!

Another win was that Amber was full of praise, like seriously, I got a ‘well done!’ for almost anything. 

“And then you’re gonna bring the string back so it’s just past your nose, yeah like that! Remember to keep your elbow up!” She cheered me on animatedly. “Now let go!”

The string thwacked against the arm brace, I could barely keep my eyes on the arrow, it went so fast! God, the force the tension creates is insane, how in god’s name did people ever figure out how to weaponize a spring? The arrow missed completely, landing firmly in the dirt behind the target several feet to the right, a result I’d been expecting. Still, Amber cheered from behind me.

“Nice posture! We’ll keep practising for now, okay? When you’ve got a solid form everything else comes way easier. You’re serious about learning this right?” Amber asked curiously, tilting her head to one side and I watched at the firm but floppy material of her head band followed the motion. One of them bent over like a bunny ear, awesome.

“Yeah, sounds good. I’m serious about learning, too. I want to… explore this world and if I want to do that independently I have to know how to protect myself.” I explain seriously, she rights her head and places her hands on her hips. She moves really bouncy, I’ve noticed, she’s so silly, she’s great!

“Why a bow though? Don’t get me wrong you’ve got the kind of energy for one, in my opinion anyways! But most people go for swords and stuff…”

“Well, if I fuck up there’s more time for me to run away instead of immediately getting stabbed, plus I’ve held a bow before so it seemed like the most viable option. Also they’re a pretty cool invention, manipulation of physics and all that.” I smile dopily, I feel much more calm today and I’m grateful for it because it works well with Amber’s bubbliness.

“Physics?” She tilts her head again, a hooked finger resting on her bottom lip. She’s literally so cute, how do I become her?

“Yeah, objects in motion stay in motion, tension, that kind of stuff.” Amber looks pretty surprised by my words, odd considering people definitely know about that kind of stuff in this world, what with the Akademiya.

“Oh, what kind of education did you get? I didn’t really get much aside from the basics so I don’t really get that stuff, you seemed pretty smart when I met you so I guess it’s not surprising if you understand it…” Amber giggles and god, I sound like a broken record, she’s so nice. Why am I always surprised by people being nice? Oh, England, what have you done to me?

“I don’t think I had education levels the same way you do here. I think comparatively speaking I went through education up to the level of the Akademiya? It’s definitely not a one to one comparison, I just went through the most senior you could really get, no biggie really. Ha, it wasn’t even a science-y degree.”

“That’s still cool though!”

“Hey, don’t forget you’ve got a lot of knowledge about your own job, yeah? No one knows Mondstadt like you do and let me tell you, that’s some of the most valuable knowledge you can have. Your bow skills too, you put a ton of hard work into that.” I beam at her, pleasantries flowed off my tongue easily around people like her, it was delightful. Amber looked quite shocked though, her eyebrows were raised and her lips were parted, but before I could ask if she was alright she burst into giggles.

“Wow! You’re definitely not from around here! Most of the scholars here are stingy as heck!” 

“Ah, are they really that bad?” I inquire. Amber nods vigorously, waving her hands about dramatically as she recounts her encounters with scholars on escort missions. Who knew people could be so demanding? Well I did, turns out intellectuals’ arrogance is a multiversal thing.

Soon enough when the sun is high in the sky, she nudges her shoulder and gives me advice for aiming. It wasn’t hard to digest at all, she’s an excellent teacher. Amber shows me how to relax the hand on my bow for better accuracy and asks me to practise for a while longer.

I do, it’s repetitive but with the warm sun on my back and the cool wind through my hair I can’t be annoyed at it despite my failures. Over the course of the day I’d managed to get one bullseye, something I was incredibly happy about, and had managed to hit the target the majority of the time. It was a massive improvement from just this morning and it has me wondering if Amber's a witch because that’s magical.

I gradually got further from the target too, taking several steps back once I’d hit the target a couple of times at one distance. Amber sat well off to the side, fiddling with string, mostly letting me get on with practise though giving me pointers every once in a while. I was nowhere near perfect by any means but any improvement is still improvement.

By the time the sun began to dip, my shoulders were killing me, archery is no joke. They’re gonna hurt worse tomorrow but well, that’s on me and I should get used to it as soon as possible. 

I lie down next to Amber after I collect the arrows back in, the cold grass soothes the ache and I wonder if I should’ve left a note for Dante considering he probably woke up alone. Whoops, rude but I can’t take it back so I ought to apologise for that.

“Are you feeling okay?” Amber asks me, leaning over me. The Baron bunny in her lap leans with her, it’s silly face nearly meeting mine, it’s cute enough for me to almost forget it’s a bomb. I shuffle away slightly, forcing myself upright with a groan.

“Ugh, yeah, my shoulders are killing me though.” I reply, rolling them carefully. I raise my right hand and it jitters violently and uncontrollably, I raise my left and get the same outcome. Ah, what a day to be hypermobile. I let my arms drop to my sides again and catch Amber staring at me. “Yeah they do that sometimes, don’t worry.”

“Do you think it’s because you were putting so much strain on your arms?” She asks politely. I nod and she turns to fetch the braided loop of cordage lying in the grass beside her, I look at her questioningly because I have no idea what that is - but it does look cool. Amber turns back to me and holds it out towards me in the glow of the setting sun. “Here, it’s a bow sling; I used to worry about dropping the bow when I first started and I had a similar problem to you, with holding on too tight. Hopefully it’ll make you more secure.”

I turn it over in my hands, the braid is tightly woven and solid in my grip and it’s so obvious that Amber made it, the rope is beautifully red and white and the braiding pattern itself is so lively. Amber smiles at me. “Use it for as long as you need!”

“Thank you so much! What is it?” I feel elated, a handmade gift is the best kind of gift to me, especially when it’s practical. I can feel my heart squeeze with happiness as I grip it in my palm. Amber takes it from me and gleefully attaches the undecorated loop to my bow and then passes it back to me, she gently guides my hand through the red-white loop to hold the grip of the riser.

“It’s a bow sling! It means you won’t have to worry about dropping your bow so you can relax your hand a little, you know? Trust me when I say it means way less wrist cramps!” She says cheerily, ushering me upwards to test it out. My whole back aches in protest but how could I ever say no to a face like that?

I nock an arrow against the string, pulling it back into the practised position. I relax my grip on the bow and line up the sight slightly above the bullseye. With faith I let it fly, and with a thud it lands only a few centimetres above the bullseye as the most accurate, not-chance shot I’ve taken today. I turn to look at Amber and she’s smiling just as brightly as I am.

“Nice one! With practice you’ll definitely be one heck of a shot!” She wraps an arm around my shoulders jovially and I giggle.

“Thanks for your help today, I feel a lot better. You’re a great teacher, y’know?” I say warmly and watch as Amber’s face flushes, she looks away and kicks one foot against the grass. Seriously, she’s the only good archery instructor I’ve had.

“Aw shucks, it’s no big deal! I’ll help you again tomorrow if you’d like?” 

“Yes please! But only if you’re not busy, I don’t mind waiting, I know you’ve probably got a lot on your plate with Stormterror and all that…” I take the bow sling off and let the bow hand from my loose grip. “Quickly though, how do you make these appear and disappear like that? Like the gold dust stuff.”

“Uh, you kind of just… uh… do it?” Experimentally Amber summons and de-summons her bow, trying to figure out the mechanism. After a few tries she just looks up at me and shrugs, I take the bow sling off the bow and try it myself. If I de-summon it and can’t get it back I’ll be damned if it takes the sling with it. I flick the bow away, willing it to disappear, but after a few unsuccessful attempts I give up with a shrug.

“Eh, I’ll get it one day, just you wait!” Amber giggles and turns to pick up Baron bunny. She stretches after she throws it into the aether.

“C’mon! It’s getting dark, let’s head back.” I follow her back the way we came, though this time dodging kids running back home for tea and returning hunters hauling fresh kills through the village. 

Amber and I make small talk on the way back, well not small, just inconsequential. She has a very kind view of the world, wanting to help people as much as possible and be the best version of herself that she can. Her unyielding positivity is admirable, and honestly I’d like to adopt that trait too; as pretty as this world is, it’s a very sad, harsh one and if I give into it I’ll likely end up dead.

Finding joy like she does is a valuable skill, no matter how small that joy is, it will keep you going when you’re at your lowest. I suppose it’d feel silly at first, the joy found in sun-dappled evenings looks pretty silly through the lens of nihility, but the glum mindset of a nihilist must look just as silly to an optimist. I suppose if I want to live joyfully I ought to find that joy myself.

So as it turns out, Amber has taught me a little more than just how to use a bow today. Here in the setting sun, her passion is alight in its blaze. The frizz of her hair catches the light perfectly, giving her a warm glow, and I’m reminded of how lucky I am to meet someone so lovely.

Damn, this joy stuff really hits. 10/10.

Amber drops me off at the inn, having been so sucked into our conversation she followed me on instinct. I giggle and wave goodbye, bidding her a good night and a safe journey home, she replies in kind and we laugh at the fact I’m already home.

I lug my heavy body up the stairs to the room, I can’t be asked with dinner, so I’ll just be hungry tomorrow. The bow weighs me down, the recurve bow is heavy by itself and it's currently wedged between the back quiver Amber lent me and my back. I’m hunched over like a cooked shrimp by the time I graze the room door, grasping weakly at the handle. Man this shit kills your back, god…

With a surge of effort I get the door open and groan a greeting at Dante, who’s sat on his bed with a thick book resting against his knees, pen in hand. He’s wearing glasses?

“The fuck d’you get those from?” I slur, pointing at my eyes. He does this amazingly good reenactment of my university librarian as he looks at me over the glasses he’s dragged to the tip of his nose.

“Why are you… why do you…” He waves his hand in my general direction, I take my opportunity to dump everything on my bed and collapse over the end of Dante’s, groaning.

“Learning to use a bow.” I answer, but my voice is muffled by the bed sheets. He hums and lays his legs flat, resting them over my back. I can’t help but be thankful for the pressure, it eases the growing ache in my back that I’m not so sure I can sleep off. God I should probably do some stretches or something. Too bad I can’t be asked.

And yeah, it is too bad I couldn’t be asked. The next morning I sit at the dining room table groaning with every forkful of food, the pain and stiffness in my back and shoulders is fucking insane. I give up and let my stomach rumble, letting the fork fall back onto the plate.

“Damn, can’t even eat?” Dante mutters, head resting in his palm as he picks at a plate of pancakes. I groan an unintelligible response, still drowsy. “Want me to feed you?”

I groan indignantly this time, because no way! I can do it myself, just give me five minutes, damn. “Here comes the aeroplane! Nyoooom!”

The blunt edge of the spoon clacks against my teeth through my unopened, and now frowning lips. I look at Dante unimpressed, hopefully showcasing my eyebags to their full extent, he’s not put-off in the slightest. A playful smile plays on his lips and he pulls the spoon back to make another attempt. “Here comes the choo choo train! Chugga chugga choo choo!”

His baby voice does nothing to me and the spoonful on my breakfast meets the same fate, I consider fake crying just to see what would happen. I sigh. “Do I look five to you?”

And before I can close my mouth, he shoves in the spoonful of sausage he never took away from my lips. I hack, caught totally off guard by it and dramatically bang my fist against the table, flipping him the bird as my forehead meets the table and I keep coughing.

“Yeah, you do.” He smiles smugly. “Anyways I dropped by the library yesterday, alone mind you - tell me where you’re going next time, and I asked after you. Lisa told me you’d taken an interest in weapons, so I guess that explains last night.”

With my breath back and tears in my eyes I look at Dante again. “Yeah, sorry about that dude, I totally forgot. I’ll leave a note or something next time, promise.”

I cough again and he passes me a glass of water. “Lisa told me about catalysts, actually I might take it up myself.”

I look at him questioningly and motion for him to go on as I will myself to start eating again. I honestly wonder why he’d be so interested, but he did go to uni for rocks of all things so maybe he’s the curious type. “I’ve never seen anything like it before, I thought that I might as well make the most of a bad situation and learn, you know?”

Hell yeah! Bang on the money! I nod enthusiastically, still chewing. I swallow quickly. “I’ve told you about my plans to go with the Traveller right?”

“If you did, I don't remember.”

“Yeah, well I’m thinking the best way to find you a way home would be to go with them and figure out the truth of the world, yeah? I picked up using a bow because I’m gonna have to fight if I want to follow them. It’s up to you if you join or not but if you do, learning how to survive would be for the best, you get me?” Silence washes over us, Dante looks contemplative and I take another bite of breakfast.

“The catalyst stuff sounds good to me, I’ll pick up some skills for that and join you.” He says resolutely, his eyes are sturdy and sure. Despite the warmth of his eyes, the gorgeous deep brown hue, his resolve is as solid as a glacier. I grin and hold a hand up to high-five him, he meets me with vigour.

“I’m going out to meet Amber for training again, I’ll be back before dark. You gonna be okay?” He nods.

“Lisa’s not here today, do you know anyone who could help me?” 

“You know the fuck-off big church at the top of the city?” He nods again. “Yeah, go there and ask for Barbara, the deaconess, she also uses a catalyst and is the most unlikely to charge you for it. Good luck, brave soldier.”

Standing from his chair, he gives me a salute. “You got it, boss. Good luck to you too, you’ll need it if your arms aren’t getting any better.”

He smiles and I groan. “Ugh, don’t remind me.”

Dante leaves me with a pat on the shoulder, ouch. I should get ready.