"𝙈𝙤𝙞𝙧𝙖" ● 𝙋𝙨𝙮𝙘𝙝𝙤!𝙑𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞 𝙓 𝙇𝙪𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙚 ● 𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙣 𝘼𝙐

•𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 1•

The Traveler was lost in her thoughts as she twirled a small pink ring around her finger while waiting for her best friend, Venti, to come out of hibernation from his room.

This traveler's name was Lumine. Her hair was short in the back but her front hair hung off her shoulders. Her golden eyes looked on in emptiness and unknown emotions.

The ring she was toying with was a memoir of her other best friend. Her name was Paimon. Unfortunately, Paimin suffered an unfortunate fate and her halo was the only thing that remained of her.

As to why Lumine was waiting for Venti, well, they're roommates.

Venti never had a house of his own and just slept out in the wild. Lumine, however, offered to let him stay in one of the houses in Mondstadt and she will move in too. He couldn't have been happier.

Meanwhile, Venti wasn't sleeping as Lumine thought. He was writing a letter to Celestia, specifically Chantara.

In the letter, Venti describes his time on Teyvat and how he will soon return to Celestia to visit. He also added this:

P.S: Stop eating all of the yogurt. That ancient grandpa dragon dude wants some too. And me. And the other archons.

After signing his name, he wrapped the letter into a scroll and sent it on its way to the heavens. Excitedly, he jumped up and dashed out of his room. Unfortunately he left his gnosis in a small box he kept on his dresser...

When Lumine laid eyes on him, she sighed and got up slowly. "Well someone was sleeping hard. Look, you have marks all over your cheek from you rolling around." She leaned in and started pinching and squishing his face to smooth it out.

"H-Hey! Ah, Lumine. This isn't quite necessary." Venti tried prying her hands off but her grip was pretty strong. In response, he grumbled quietly to himself.

"And...done!" Lumine piped up as Venti looked away and pouted. "Ugh, come on! Don't be a sourpuss. We're about to do commissions, ok? You do 2, I do 2."

Venti nodded and opened the door to the outside world.

The light temporarily blinded them. Quickly, their eyes adjusted. Venti went off to the cathedral while Lumine went to a different area of Mondstadt to clear a hilichurl camp.

Venti looked around the cathedral to see a blonde man standing about, muttering incomprehensible things.

Ugh...this guy again.

Venti quietly snuck up on him and tapped his shoulder, to which the man jumped and hollered. He whirled around to face Venti and scowled.

"Hey don't scare me like that! Great, now I lost my idea for Miss Barbara."

Venti cringed slightly but remained calm. "What do you need? Sister Victoria needs you to leave immediately." Venti reminded him.

"What? I haven't even done anything!" The man protested. He tapped his chin and pointed behind Venti.

"There are some leaf piles over there. If you can sweep them up, that'll be great. Maybe Miss Barbara will notice the good deed. I will also leave immediately if the job is done."

Venti suppressed the urge to vomit from Albert's comment about Barbara and power walked towards the leaf pile.

Seriously, what is his problem, Venti thought.

____________

After taking care of the leaves and trying not to punch Albert, Venti left to go near the wolf of the north to clear out rifthounds.

Venti craned his neck around trees in search of the suspicious wolves. He finally spotted a few; adult wolves and even wolf pups were floating around menacingly.

He loaded an arrow into his bow and aimed for one of the babies. Before he could shoot, they spotted him quickly and started sprinting towards him.

Their claws were sharp and ready to pierce through skin. Venti almost got clocked by a paw, but quickly dodged.

He shot arrows and sent them flying! Heh, he took out quite a bit of them. But strangely enough, he felt much weaker than usual. He brushed off the thought and used a wind sonnet to lift one of the wolves into the air.

Venti snickered at the sight. "Pfff- hhhehehe! Looks like that wolf is airborne!!"

While he laughed, one of the pups snuck up behind him and leaped into the air, ready to strike. Venti only turned around for a second before it was too late.

*SLASH*

The wolf scratched his right eye and Venti flew back onto the ground. Blue blood poured off his eye; it shouldn't hurt this bad. It wasn't like the wolf ripped his eye out of the socket.

With one of his eyes unusable, Venti fired a mini black hole from his bow and fled.

The walk home was tiresome and it almost seemed as if he would never get home. Venti was so weak, he could flop down anywhere and sleep. Eventually he returned home, covering his eye the whole way back.

He recalled the rifthound he saw earlier. It looked like any other rifthound: purple, rough skin, no legs, claws, teeth, ears and a nose. The only thing that wasn't normal was its eyes. Instead of regular pupils, the pupils of the rifthound were question marks.

Venti trudged to the bathroom, taking heavy steps along the way. He looked in the large mirror and slowly took his hand off of his eye. The blood was gone!

He wasn't too open about the idea on opening his eye, but after some convincing he hesitantly opened it.

It looked...normal. Venti sighed of relief and smiled a big, goofy smile before his content changed into horror. Did his eye...flash black?

He dug though the drawers for an eyepatch to put on and stumbled upon one a few seconds later. He attached it over his right eye and sighed of relief. The moment didn't last long before the house door flew open.

"Venti? I'm home!"