Chapter Text
Childe flinched as something smacked his cheek sharply. He was lying on something cold and wet. Childe sat up sharply as memories hit him. He was in Mondstadt eating dinner at Dawn Winery with others.
“Kids!” He glanced around his surroundings.
Snow and trees. He was in the middle of snowy woods.
“Mister Childe! Help! Please! He won’t wake up! Morax won’t wake up!” A voice called out full of tears.
Childe moved in the snow over to where the prone form of Morax lay in the cold. Xiao was over him shaking his shoulders.
Tears were rolling down Xiao’s face. “Wake up. You can’t be dead. Not again.”
*****
Beidou jolted up. She scrambled around for the twins. The last thing she remembered was eating dinner with everyone and then there was the same light and the twins were ripped from her arms.
“Kids! Kids, where are you?” It was dark and Beidou felt around the sandy dirt.
“Here.” A girl’s voice whimpered.
That was neither Lumine nor Aether.
“Where is Miss? I want Miss.” Another girl’s voice sobbed.
Beidou came across a bag tucked under a carrier. She dug through it by the light of the moon. She pulled out a lantern someone had tucked in there. She lit it carefully and held it up. Dread filled her. She was in the deserts of Sumeru with Guuji Yae and the Raiden Shogun.
“Come here, girls.” Beidou beckoned the girls over to her. “Miko and Ei, come here.”
The two girls inched closer to her.
“Where are we, Miss?” Miko reached her and climbed into her lap. Ei was not far behind.
Beidou scanned the desert around them. “Sumeru.” She said with grim horror. “We are in Sumeru.”
Beidou realized she should have heeded Director Tao’s words that it will happen again. She might have forgotten to mention that to the others.
*****
Diluc sprung up with his claymore drawn. He was the last one to get hit with the light. He glanced down at his body and was relieved that he was still an adult. He didn’t lose his age.
Diluc heard the sloshing of waves. Cave. He was in a cave by the sea. He started walking in a circle with his sword lit. Bare rock walls were around him.
There were a couple of bags in a pile next to two unconscious lumps on the sandy floor.
Diluc dropped down next to them after stabbing his flaming sword a little ways away for a light. He spotted green and dark hair. Venti. He reached for the anemo archon’s small wrist for a pulse. Alive. Thank archons.
The other lump filled him with even more dread. That was the Tsaritsa. Diluc was alone with the beloved Tsaritsa of the Harbingers and not a Harbinger was in sight.
“Should any harm come to her, they will never find you again.”
Childe’s words drifted through his mind.
Diluc felt water brushing against the soles of his feet. He looked to the mouth of the cave. The tide was rolling in. He needed to move and he needed to move now. Figuring out where he was could wait.
Diluc strapped the bags to his back. He lifted Venti into one arm and lifted the Tsaritsa into the other. He stepped into the water and began making his way outside.
Diluc stepped outside and looked around him. He sighed deeply. He hated boats. He was on an island. Inazuma then.
*****
Kamisato Ayaka woke up with a cry. She sat up as fast as she could and glanced around herself. She was laying in a patch of grass with the traveler and her brother laid out next to her. A carrier and a pack were on her other side.
The moon was shining high overhead and she was on the shores of a lake. Water lapped against the shore calmly.
“Where are we?” Ayaka rubbed her forehead. “Thoma. Thoma!” Ayaka called desperately. No answer. She was on her own with a baby Lumine and a baby Aether.
Ayaka stood up and began to explore. A mountain top. They were on a dangerous mountaintop with a lake and a treacherous path down. The worst part is, Ayaka had no clue where she was.
Ayaka spotted a stone table and chairs in the middle of the lake on an island. Someone lived here. There were round flat stones in the lake leading to the table and chairs under a tree.
Ayaka picked up an unconscious Lumine and Aether. She grunted a little under their weight but managed to shift them evenly to her hips. She started walking on the flat stones to the island. Maybe someone there can help her.
Ayaka set down the twins and examined the table for anything that would help. She nearly fell into the lake when a loud voice shouted in anger.
“Who dares disturb one’s abode?”
*****
Kaeya paced in a rare case of extreme anxiety. One minute they were eating dinner as a group the next a white light happened and took everyone at the table except him, Columbina, and Thoma.
Thoma was getting angry and shoving things in a bag. “I have to go after her.”
“Thoma! Stop!” Columbina was trying to stop him.
“No! Her brother trusted me to watch after her! She has never let Inazuma before. This was her first trip out. It was on me to keep an eye on her when the Kamisato siblings lost so much. Ayato trusted me to watch her and now she’s gone all alone somewhere new where she has never been before!” Thoma shoved more and more into a bag.
“Yes, but where is she?” Kaeya put in. “She can be anywhere in Teyvat in any nation. You have to wait for us to find them. As much as I hate to say it, Columbina will be our best bet with that. She can contact the other Harbingers and send out word to their network to be on the lookout. The minute we know where they are we can leave to find them. It does no good to shoot off in a direction that might be wrong with no information.”
Kaeya gentled his voice. He spoke softly to the distraught man. “It’s not just you who lost someone you were supposed to protect. My brother is out there and her archon is missing. Who’s to even say that the Tsaritsa is with Childe? We need more information before we do anything.”
“Master Kaeya! What happened?” Adelinde came into the room as fast as she could.
“Master Diluc has disappeared. For now, I will help run Dawn Winery until he gets back. He’s not dead, Adelinde. He will be back. Or I will drag his sorry butt from the afterlife and kick it myself.” Kaeya turned to look out the window at the falling leaves. “You better be alright Luc.”