Savior (Childe x Medic Reader)

Chapter 1

The first thing you thought when you awoke was that this was not how you were going to die: at the bottom of a cliff on Dragonspine. You refuse to let this be the end of you especially when you were so close to finishing your thesis and graduating from the Akademiya.

Medicine has been your main focus. As a child, you wished to become a doctor. Doctors and healers were the most incredible people in Teyvat in your innocent child's eyes. Giving every effort you could to help save people's lives and heal their wounds was the most noble cause in your opinion. You had always respected the way that doctors and nurses would carefully tend to their patients. Your goal was to become the kind of doctor that anyone, regardless of wealth, status or any other factor, could come to know that they would be treated with the finest care to the best of your abilities. Monika, your closest friend at the Akademiya, liked to claim you were going to be the best doctor in Sumeru, maybe in all of Teyvat. Every time she proclaimed your greatness, you couldn't help but chuckle. You knew you had a long way to go and lacked vital experience. Learning in a classroom was all fine and good, but it could not replace real hands-on experience.

You'd been volunteering at a local clinic that your professor ran when Monika said she was going on an expedition to Dragonspine and needed a medic. How could you refuse?

Monika, like yourself, was from Mondstadt. Her main focus at the Akademiya was trying to discover a better way to store and transport perishable foods. More specifically, she was researching ways to keep food better for longer and transport them across large distances without spoiling. Monika had spent a lot of time studying the effects of mist flowers but had run into a dead end. The flowers would wilt after a certain amount of time, meaning that they could not provide a long term solution. Dragonspine had been her new field location of choice. Monika had hoped to study the effects of freezing perishables and perfect her latest idea: a new machine she called the Freeze-r. You remember laughing at the name when she first introduced the machine to you, but the idea was a good one.

Just a week ago you had gathered and packed all of your supplies: bandages, gauze, medicinal herbs and salves, slings; Anything that you thought you could need in case of an emergency. Being from Mondstadt meant you were well acquainted with the conditions of Dragonspine, and you also knew that if something went terribly wrong your only hope of rescue would be if an adventure team stumbled upon you. That was a big "if."

You were not going to let the lives of your team rest on the off chance that someone else would be on the mountain. By the end of your packing, your bag had been slightly heavier than intended but nothing that you couldn't carry. Another scholar from Fontaine working with Monika, Jean-Pierre, had offered to carry your bag when the expedition started. Right now, you were incredibly grateful you had not taken him up on that offer. Had Jean-Pierre been carrying your bag when the avalanche hit, then you would have been left with nothing.

Laying in the snow at the bottom of a cliff had not been part of your plan, but neither was the avalanche that separated you from your team. It was just so sudden. You felt the slight rumble of the ground under foot and looked up just in time to see a harsh blanket of white. Your team was several paces ahead and there was no way you could outrun the wave of snow and ice rushing towards you. You didn't even try to fight it, instead focusing all of your efforts on protecting your head and vital organs. When you reached the bottom you felt grateful to even be alive.

It was always cold on Dragonspine, you could see the condensation of your own breath as you glanced around trying to take in your new surroundings and grasp any semblance of bearings. Your ankle was definitely sprained if not entirely broken and you could feel a hot, dull pain as it throbbed in your boot. One of your wrists was most likely fractured, luckily on your non-dominant arm. Honestly, you were immensely lucky not to be more injured. Archons, you were lucky to be alive.

Looking around you seemed to be in a buried camp, or more accurately what was left of a camp. It seemed to be fatui based on the colors and design on what little was left unearthed of a tattered tent. As you started to slowly sit up, you gathered more of your bearings and observed more of the camp. It didn't look to be that old but the frost of Dragonspine has a way of preserving things so it was hard to really tell how old the camp was. You adjust your pack to look for a sling for your arm and your heart just about stopped when you saw it: A figure barely peeking out of the pristine white snow.

Oh Archons you were right.

This camp hadn't been abandoned.
There were people here.

In a panic you rushed to your feet and nearly collapsed back to the ground as a flash of hot pain enveloped your being. The weight of your pack combined with your sprained ankle sent a searing pain through your leg. It almost felt as if the local blacksmith had shoved an iron straight from the stove into your leg, but your resolve didn't waver. You needed to get to that person. You needed to see if they were still alive. Throwing off your pack, which unceremoniously crashed to the ground, you wrenched yourself from it and stumbled towards the figure. You collapse in front of the figure which you could now identify to be a man.

He was young. Archons, he couldn't have been much older than you. His messy ginger hair obscured almost half of his face but a single beaded red earring was visible on his left side. The red jewel and the gold holding it glimmered slightly in what little light broke through the canopy of clouds. The avalanche had buried his body from the chest down but you could tell he was wearing a thick white coat lined with black fur and a red scarf. The coat was a good quality thick wool and the fur that adorned it couldn't have been cheap. The scarf looked well worn almost as if he had gone with him everywhere, and you suspected that it might have had a sentimental value beyond the practicality. The high quality of the coat and the fur told you that he must have been well off, or at least of a high enough rank that the fatui spent some decent mora on his uniform. He must have been fatui but you couldn't see a mask. More importantly, you could see the slight rise and fall of his chest as short shallow breaths came from his mouth.

He was breathing. He was still alive.

You rushed to dig him out of the snow before he succumbed to frostbite. The tips of your fingers were beginning to tingle with the biting cold and loose feeling. Your injured wrist was in the most pain you had ever felt, but you kept digging. This man was still alive and you knew you were his only hope of surviving, so you kept digging even as your wrist and ankle burned with jolts of pain, and your body shook and shivered from the cold.

When you finally pulled him from the snow embankment, you noticed it. The intricate red mask just feet away from him.

It was slightly broken but it was a gorgeous pattern of tangled red branches lined with gold. It was also the most terrifying object in that moment and the pit of your stomach filled with dread as the realisation of who this man was washed over you. That mask could only mean one thing:

Harbinger.

The man that you had just pulled out of his encased coffin of snow was a Fatui Harbinger! Your thoughts swirled with the voices of your friends and family, with images of the run ins that they had had with the Fatui. You knew what they  would tell you if they were here. You could almost hear Monika's voice in your head,

"A Harbinger! Let the bastard die then!"

...... But you couldn't. You're a doctor and it's a doctor's job to help people, to save people! Regardless of who this man was, his life was now in your hands. If you didn't do something to at least try to save him, he would die before morning.....

If you didn't help him then did you really have the right to call yourself a doctor.....?

...... With a sharp intake of breath you hardened your revolve. You had made up your mind. It didn't matter who this man was.

You were going to save him!

A/N: I also posted this on Tumblr. If anyone likes this I'll update.