Eye Of The Storm || Diluc X Reader

Chapter 20: Blizzard Of The Heart

It had been a few days since you left the winery in secret, camping out from the wandering eyes of any sort of on-lookers. You had wandered around the forest line nearing Liyue, taking those who attacked first and left them for dead. But after a near encounter with a knight looking for you, you finally decided it was time to wander in the harsh winter of Dragonspine. Archons, were you not ready to face that kind of cold yet.

For the first day you felt like the sharp icy winds were creating daggers into your sides, your breath materializing at the sudden temperature drop. You for cold that was for one, but you had to keep on your toes for not only the Fatui that lurked the area, but also the eyes of Albedo and Rosaria. Although you've never met Albedo yet, you knew that he mostly resided in the mountains either painting or alchemy. Rosaria on the other hand was a curve ball, she's been well adjusted to the strange climate of Dragonspine and lurks in the night, leaving you no choice but to pick up your old sleeping habits once more. It was straining on your body, everything wanted to give out within a few hours, but as you thought about the conditions of others in your birth home it gave you more drive to stay. Each passing day you once more got accustomed to your old ways, waking to any sort of sound and re-learning how to push through mortal injuries, things that used to be second nature to you not too long ago.

Along with getting back into old habits once more, you could feel your body quickly adapting to the environment around you. Though you could have mistaken it for hypothermia, you decided not to think too much of it. You fell into the rhythm of fighting light on your toes, moving like dark storm clouds running in. The cold air in your lungs was etched into your mind, burning at the chances you couldn't gather enough oxygen to keep up with your heart rate. You pushed yourself to remind you of the person you still have to be until everything ends once more, hunting and gathering food in the same ways you did in Inazuma. Albeit the food here was different than Inazuma, you mostly ate sea food there, but eating ancient boar meat would have to do for now.

You never dared to waste a moment so up high, sprinting up the summit multiple times to better train your endurance, taking on Fatui skirmishers twice your strength and leaving no body behind, even going a day or two without food. You would never call this "intense training" just measures you took to get back to your old self. You pushed yourself hard to survive in the most barren places, it was the reason why you were able to make it out of Inazuma alive. Everything tested you to get stronger and to get smarter, to which you always happily took.

For now though, you were giving yourself a moments rest outside at the edge of a cliff. From here you could see the camp below where researchers were staying at, though you doubted that any of them would be able to see you from such a height. You continued to search the area, eyes wandering over the monotone landscape, looking for something interesting. Nothing much changed in Dragonspine as no one dared to come in due to the dangers of the area, but there were a few brave souls who would venture into the mountains. Seeing few figure than the few you got accustomed to was rare, but seeing a whole group of people was out of place.

And that's exactly what you saw.

You scrambled up from your place and quickly decided to climb higher out from sight of those who wandered in. Normally you would keep your cool and walk into the cold cavern, but a particular blob of red made you realized who those people were. They were looking for you ever since you decided to break out, and they most likely made sweeps of the other areas before coming here. You brushed off the snow that gathered on your clothes and took to the broken path within the cavern. You weren't sure how fast they would be able to climb up the summit, but you didn't give them the benefit of the doubt. Soft tracks of your footprint was imprinted on the snow as you started to take off. They were on the path that would take them to the only statue here, and making quick work of it too. Your body was already numbing to the cold and even costed you a few seconds, while their bodies were mostly still warm.