Chapter Text
“You!”
Furina recoiled, pushing Lumine back and entering a defensive stance.
Similarly, the so-called ‘Conqueror of Demons’ entered an attack stance, pushing Ganyu and Shenhe behind Cloud Retainer.
The two both readied their weapons and prepared to fight, but a gust of wind knocked both of them back.
“What is the meaning of this?” Cloud Retainer demanded. “Explain yourselves at once! One will not have violence on the sacred lands of Mount. Aocang!”
Furina whipped her head around. “What– are you kidding me? You guys are in kahoots?? Are you trying to assassinate me for killing your Rex Lapis??”
The Conqueror of Demons turned around. “You killed Rex Lapis…?!”
“I– er… no…?”
“That wasn’t very confident,” he hissed. “Rex Lapis is dead?”
Cloud Retainer flapped her wings again and a gust of wind knocked them both back further.
“Does one’s word carry so little weight that neither of you two will listen in one's own home?” she stomped. “I’ll only ask once! Explain yourselves!”
“...”
“...”
“Sorry for trying to attack you. Mortals like you shouldn’t be around Jueyun Karst.”
“Did you just try to call me a mortal??” Furina snapped, her heart dropping to her stomach.
“You feel like one. An abundance of Hydro Energy, and a potent curse.”
Furina tried to keep herself calm. “Well that karmic debt of yours must have muddled your senses.”
She held out her gnosis and Xiao, as he had introduced himself, looked at it.
“...okay. And…?”
“I’m the Archon of Hydro.”
He arched his brow. “Archon?”
“I… I was cursed, but I’m an Archon.”
“Oh. Another Archon cursed you?”
He can tell?????????
“I, uh, cursed myself, five hundred years ago.”
And that was all she had to say.
Cloud Retainer and Xiao shared a glance and nodded.
“Shenhe’s been safely evacuated to Mount. Hulao for the time being,” Ganyu came back up the steps. “Thank you for the wind current, Master.”
“Of course. One’s disciples should not be wandering around Jueyun Karst for more time than is necessary.”
“Mountain Shaper had some Almond Tofu cooking, Xiao,” Ganyu set a plate down and took off the chamois leather covering it. “I hope it’s to your liking.”
Furina filed that information away in the corner of her mind.
He ate it slowly as the five of them sat on various elemental creations.
“Rex Lapis is… dead…?”
“We think so,” Furina concluded. “Not a violent death, though.”
He nodded. “I didn’t sense enough karmic residue for it to be.”
…
“So… what now?”
This fellow puts a damper on the mood.
“We’re done with this, so I guess we can go back to Liyue Harbor?” Paimon wondered. “Paimon thinks we’re done here.”
“I guess,” Furina sighed, secretly glad to not be the one suggesting it. “But we’ll have to pay the Qixing a little visit when we see the Jade Chamber.”
“Oh!” Ganyu nodded. “That’s a good idea. You should see Lady Keqing– she’ll be able to get you up there.”
“Thank you, Ganyu,” Furina smiled. “Thank you, Cloud Retainer. We’ll bring you some souvenirs when we visit next time.”
Cloud Retainer looked pleased. “If there are new ones, perhaps you could bring one a new mortal machine?”
“Fontaine has technology far above the rest of Teyvat,” Furina promised. “I’ll bring you something from there.”
Furina exhausted her water transport power around sundown, still quite far from Liyue Harbor.
“It’s so dry here…” Furina took a sip from the canteen. “Does no one have respect for the waters now?”
“This is probably just a dry patch,” Lumine reasoned. “The river went north, we went south– that’s probably why.”
“Ughhhh.”
“It’s fine. Let’s set up camp for the night.”
Furina looked uneasily at the mountains around them. “We saw an innumerable amount of hilichurls and other monsters around here. Are you sure it’s safe here…?”
Lumine sighed. “We can take turns keeping watch. I wonder if those mountain-crack reality-bending abodes could be made portable…”
After the tent was set up and Furina had set up a water barrier that would immobilize anyone that stepped on it in a bubble of water, Lumine started a fire and hunted some boars down.
Furina looked approvingly at the boar she had caught. “Good jowl and loin cuts. We can save the rest for tomorrow morning.”
Furina washed the blood off and stabbed a skewer through the cut. She used a bubble of pure Hydro energy to put the rest of the boar into suspended animation and shoved it into her Hydro pocket dimension.
“Allllllright then. While it’s cooking, wanna spar?”
Lumine smiled and adjusted her skirt. “Now we’re talking.”
Now that Lumine had been regaining more and more of her original strength, sparring with her was no longer just brute Hydro force.
Furina twisted to one side as Lumine stabbed her water blade towards Furina’s head.
Furina had derived a good way of injury-free sparring; by creating blades around the same weight as their real weapons out of water that would melt when landing a direct hit on someone, there was both an easy way and a risk-free way to spar.
The blade wet the ends of her hair, but as the hit wasn’t hard enough to break the enhanced surface tension, and the weapon held up.
Furina jumped as Lumine swept her leg at her, taking the opportunity to summon Hydro and try to encase her head.
Lumine forced condensed Anemo out of her mouth, and the Hydro bubble exploded.
But Furina’s original plan had worked– she had ample time to recharge stamina, using cooling Hydro to soothe the wound from the kick she had sustained earlier.
Lumine charged forwards, ducking as Furina twirled around and swung her blade, causing a wave to ripple out– she feinted upwards, and as Furina ducked, used the handle of the blade to hit her forehead and thrust the sword forwards, leaving a puddle of water on Furina’s chest.
Both of them panted for a moment, remnants of Hydro energy flickering around Furina.
“That was good,” Lumine commented. “You’re getting better much faster than I thought you would.”
“Hey!” Furina huffed, taking a sip out of the canteen Lumine handed her. “Rude, much?”
“Sorry,” Lumine laughed. “Not many people take up sword fighting as fast as you did.”
The alluring smell of roast pork wafted over, and the three of them enjoyed a cut each, along with some sliced Sunsettia for dessert.
“That was good fighting!” Paimon complimented. “You two get better every day, hehe! You better win some battles for Paimon!”
Furina chuckled. “We’ll try.”
The next morning, Furina siphoned all the moisture out of the remaining boar meat to make pork jerky. Lumine seasoned it a bit, put it in a wooden container, and put it in her inventory for later.
“Hold on!”
Furina sent the water bubble towards Liyue.
As they flew, Furina noted how big Liyue really was. Fontaine was not small by any stretch of the word, but Liyue was even bigger than Mondstadt.
However… she had heard tales of people getting lost in Sumeru’s endless deserts. Maybe her opinion would change.
Endless stretches of dry sand with hardly any water… sounded terrifying.
Though, Furina thought, bittersweet. There’s not much chance of a flood happening there, mm?
Furina landed them in front of the Baiju Guesthouse, where most of the paparazzi had cleared up.
“We were only gone for two days and they cleared up already?” Paimon wondered. “The media sure loses interest fast in Liyue…”
“All the better,” Furina shrugged, picking up a few newspapers from a stand and pushing a few Mora into the slot. “We won’t be bothered anymore.”
Lumine took the paper and scanned it.
“Uh… Furina?”
Furina peeked over after unlocking the door to their room.
HYDRO ARCHON FOCALORS PROVEN INNOCENT IN TRIAL FOR REX LAPIS’S MURDER
“You have got to be kidding me,” Lumine sighed. “And I thought we’d be off scot-free too…”
The next few days passed uneventfully. Furina sent Lumine out for groceries, since she was the less conspicuous one of the two.
“Lumine, is
A knock on the door.
Furina summoned her weapon, hiding it behind her back as she approached the peephole.
A muffled voice came out, stern and professional.
“Greetings, Madam Focalors. I am Keqing, Yuheng of the Qixing, here to seek an audience.”
…?
Furina opened the door, unsummoning her weapon but staying tense.
“...yes?”
“May I come in? I’ve brought tea and cakes.”
Furina turned around to look at Lumine and Paimon.
“Well, she did bring cakes!” Paimon smiled. “Come on in!”
“I hope your stay has been well thus far,” Keqing nodded. “You did excellently in the trial– half of the Ministry of Civil Affairs is talking about you.”
“Thank you.” Furina took a sip from the tea. “This is delectable, by the way.”
Keqing smiled. “Thank you, Lady Furina. This is fine imported Gyokuro tea from Inazuma– I can have a batch sent to you if you’d like.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Furina assured, setting her teacup down and making a mental note. “I can have some imported to the Palais Mermonia. Or, better yet, I can get some tea when I visit Inazuma.”
“Have you gotten clearance?” Keqing questioned. “I hear it’s quite hard to get in, with the Sakoku Decree in effect.”
“I guess,” Furina shrugged lightly. “But it’s quite easy to get clearance when you have a valid reason.”
And a boatload of money.
Keqing laughed. “Our strategists predict that Inazuma will open up by the end of this year. After the Rite of Parting for Rex Lapis, we’ll probably start discussing that.”
“Sanctions for free trade?” Furina asked. “That worked well for the Natlan wars a couple centuries ago.”
“I guess we’ll discuss with Lady Ningguang during the next meeting,” Keqing nodded. “Speaking of which, she asked me to ask you for an audience at the Jade Chamber in a few days.”
…
“After attacking Lumine?” Furina gestured to the blonde in question.
She waved weakly and Paimon batted at her shoulder.
“Not likely.”
“I know you said that Lady Ningguang sent a hit squad after you,” Keqing frowned. “But I accessed the Millileth records just a day prior. Any and all official Millileth activity should be redirected there– none, even us the Qixing, dare to break this rule.”
“I see then. Very well… I’ll ask her myself. When did she say the meeting was to be?”
“Two days from now, noon on the dot.”
“The almighty Tianquan of the Qixing found time in her schedule that fast?”
“...she picked out the least important meeting, scheduled it further back, and set aside this time.”
“I see. How honored I am.”
Lumine squinted at the strip of paper as they stood beside the floating plaustrite platform.
“Do… you… sell the moon here?”
The man reading the newspaper beside the platform stood up, surprised.
“Yes.. How many would you like?”
“It would be, uh, unwise to speak of numbers here.”
“Excellently said. Are you three, by chance, the visitors Lady Ningguang has requested to meet today?”
“Yes,” Furina said, annoyed. “Can we go up?”
“A-ah! Of course. Right this way…”
He turned around and mumbled something about “Yuheng” before the platform started ascending.
Furina tried not to look down, because she was pretty sure she’d fall off if she did.
Paimon was still waiting for something to happen, so the platform hit her when she failed to ascend fast enough.
“Ow!”
Lumine picked up Paimon and laughed. “Float faster next time.”
The ascent of the platform visibly slowed after reaching the first layer of wispy cloud.
“Ohh… if we’re meeting the richest person in Teyvat, shouldn’t we have brought a gift…?”
That’s proper protocol for Archons, but she’s hardly a god.
“There’s nothing we could really give her anyways,” Furina pointed out. “We haven’t collected a lot of souvenirs.”
Lumine pulled out a turquoise crystal.
A turquoise–
“You took Dvalin’s crystallized poison??” Furina demanded.
“Hey!” Lumine protested. “I thought we’d established I was a hoarder!”
Paimon seemed over the moon. “That’s a rare and exotic gift! Ohhhh even an Archon would appreciate that!”
“I don’t think Venti would appreciate seeing his friend’s purified poison.” Furina crossed her arms. “That’s like gifting me a piece of Neuvillette’s charred hair.”
“Oh.” Paimon stopped wiggling in Lumine’s arms. “I guess.”
“But as much as I hate it,” Furina lamented. “You’re right. Hand it over, let’s package it up.”