Lantern Rite Festivity's -Xiao x Male!Reader-

The river

As you were walking in the forests of Liyue enjoying the beauty you suddenly fell into a lake, it was your fault for not paying attention but there was only one problem. You couldn't swim- Your arms slashed around in the water as your legs thrashed as you tried to swim, you were panicking as you felt your body sinking, you were desperately trying to swim. Your vision started to dot with black as you tried to scream under the water but your lungs started to fill with water.

"Fool!"

Suddenly you were pulled out of the water and back onto the dock. You coughed up water as your vision was blurry. You stopped coughing long enough to talk.

"W-who are you?"

You started to cough again before promptly throwing up water. You felt better after you had thrown up, you wiped your eyes and looked up to the man who was standing over you. He looked at you with disgust before he spoke.

"Were you tying to kill yourself? Are you stupid?"

His voice was full of malice as your clothing dripped with water. Your black skin tight shirt felt as if it were getting tighter around you as it was wet and soggy. You shook your head as you spoke.

"No- No no I wasn't trying to kill myself I was distracted and then I fell into the water, I can't swim so there is no logical reason for me to go into the water."

You looked at the male before you had repeated your question from earlier. Your face was full of curiosity as you spoke.

"Who are you?"

He looked at me with his arms crossed and a serious look on his face before he spoke.

"Ateptus Xiao, what is your name?"

You smiled lightly before standing up and scratching the back of your wet head with your hand. Before you spoke softly.

"My name is /Name\, thank you for saving me Ateptus Xiao I definitely would of definitely died without you coming to my rescue."

Suddenly in the blink of an eye and a flash of a cyan color Xiao vanished. There was a small smokey cloud of cyan and black dust left behind as he disappeared into thin air. You had a confused look on your face as you looked around the forest for him. You shook your head and started back onto the path to Liyue, you were excited to get there because the Chinese New Year was right around the corner and you were excited for the Lantern Rite festival. That was the main reason why you had traveled from Mondstat to Liyue. As you continued down the path you could hear people talking, you were unfamiliar with the enemy's of Liyue and walked right up to five treasure hoarders. They looked at you before they drew their weapons, you drew your sharp blade from the sheath that hung around your waist. Your Pyro vision that hung near your sheath was glowing slightly as you infused your blade with Pyro.

"Hey I'm not scared to fight back so you better back up!"

One of the men shot their arrows at you. You dodged it but it sliced your side cutting open your shirt as blood dribbled down your side. You gasped lightly as you charged them with your blade. You slashed at them your Pyro vision was glowing much brighter as you fought, one you had defeated the treasure hoarders you sighed looking at the bleeding slashes on you. There was three on one arm and two on the other, there was two on your torso and two on one leg and one on the other. The only enemy's you had to fight before were slimes and hilicurles along with the larger versions of them. You rarely had encounters with abyss mages so you didn't worry about that but you had never fought something that really thought as effectively as the treasurer hoarders did.

You sighed as you sat down you grabbed some ointment from your wet bag. You opened the container as smiled as it hadn't been ruined. You dug through your bag and found the bandages but you had a disappointed look on your face as the bandages were dripping with water. You shook your head putting the bandages back into your soaked bag when you heard something in the trees. Your head snapped in the direction of the noise as you saw a flash of cyan and black hair, you relaxed a little as Xiao jumped out of the tree and held out bandages. You smiled taking them and wrapping yourself up.

"Thank you Xiao I needed some bandages because I got rather beat up by the treasure hoarders. I come from Mondstat so I've never had to fight people before other than training and they never actually hurt me but the treasure hoarders were on a different level than my trainer."

You stood up and brushed yourself off, your clothes were finally starting to dry off. You smiled as Xiao spoke, his voice was cold and so was the expression on his face as he spoke.

"Be more carful when traveling, it's not smart to go somewhere if you don't know the enemy's."

You smiled before scratching the back of your head as you looked rather embarrassed to be in the situation you were in.

"I'm sorry Xiao... I really should be more careful when traveling. I really do apologize. I have to keep going and try to get to Liyue before sun set."

Xiao shook his head before he spoke again.

"You won't make it tonight, I should watch over you while you sleep, it's already getting dark and your not very good at fighting treasure hoarders so I should protect you."

Xiao started walking to what looked like a small camp and you followed taking in the details of the area.

"Stay here for the night. It will be safer that on your own."

You nodded as the sun set you were happy that you had run into the short male. He seemed incredibly reliable and strong. You felt a warm fuzzy feeling in your heart that you had never felt before. You smiled softly as you fell asleep on a neatly woven blanket that the Ateptus had provided you.