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It was easy to remember, a blood red sky and crumbling mountains, the wails of saurians and the strained creaking of the tired trees. The world tilting on it’s axis. Not even the greatest moron on the surface could be oblivious to the destruction that crawled across the ground like a spider on a web, or the fear that had consumed the people.
It was easy to remember how the wooden planks of his tribe’s foundation cried out in agony beneath the dark, heavy boots of a grey haired man with star-shaped pupils complimenting bloodshot eyes and robes doused in the liquid essence of human form. Easier still to recall how’d he’d yelled to all who’d listen:
“Khaenri’ah has fallen!” He’d hollered, “and those who brought it to demise have breached the barriers of your lands! Return to your homes and hide! Stay away from it! Away from them!”
A switched flip, and dawning realisation, the people dispersed like dandelions seeds in the breeze, the racket upon the shaky ground a chorus almost as deafening as the night itself, until only he and the elders were left.
The man looked up and turned to where they had congregated before rushing over, evidently winded. It was here that Kinich had first glimpsed Khaenri’ah’s dearest princess. For held tightly unto the mans breast, a precious secret or harmful virus, was a girl bathed in pure silk that reflected the colour of the sinful sky, ruby and ruddy and absoloutely ruined.
It was torn, the clothing she bore, on her arms and her legs and directly upon her stomach where there was clear evidence of a gaping wound, barely hidden by hastily applied bandaging and and whatever remained of the fabric in that area. She was injured and unconcious and the only reason they knew she hadn’t yet died, was the slow, hesitant ruse and fall of her small chest.
“Our princess,” the man croaked, reaching her out like an offering to a god, “please, i beg of you, take care of her, succeed where we have failed and protect her, she is the cure to this massacre, that much we are sure of.”
The elder’s stood back, all fighting the urge to ruch to their homes, to their families and safety. All except one.
Elder Leik tenderly reached out, taking the frail child in his arms and cradling her like she were a baby. The old man who was just holding her was so visibly relieved he looked about to bawl.
“Thank you,” he uttered repeatedly, like he had just been bestowed upon the greatest blessing known to man, “thank you sir, thank you.”
And with one last look at the injured child, the man said his farewells, and rushed off into the fray of war, dissappearing among the treeline.
Meanwhile, the elders did their best to remain composed as they did a final check for any injured or missing persons, all but he who now had a another child to care for. Approching Kinich, Elder Leik reached out his free hand and beckoned the boy to join him back in the safety of the house, a hand Kinich, albeit reluctantly, took.
The rest of the night however, was a blur, for the canopies would not stop shaking and shivering, and the house would not stop creaking, and Elder Leik did not rest until the girl was clean and comfortable. All of these things at once, it made the young lad dizzy, and so, he retired to his assigned room, hoping that when dawn broke, all would be over.
It didn’t.
If anything, the situation grew all the more confusing. When he awoke, it was to voices in the kitchen and still darkened skies. One of the voices he recognised, Elder Leik’s easy to pick out even in the largest of crowds, the second, although familiar, was far more obscure. Too deep and mature to be the girls, to light and gentle to be anyone from his tribe’s, but most certainly in his house. And thus, Kinich quietly crept out of his room, only to stop dead in his tracks as he reached the kitchen.
For there, in the middle of the room, was natlan’s very own archon. Blood-soaked and muddy yes, but no less important, and she was knelt down, speaking to his tribe elder while gently looking over the now awakened girl that Leik had just collected.
With more coherence than he bore the night prior, Kinich was finally able to see the girl past the soot covered and matted exterior.
He could only wonder how a godless continent had recieved a deity as child.
In the light of this living room and warmth of the archon, the was practically a beacon of lustre and incandense. Pale blonde tresses with long lashes to match, of which were fixed upon wide doe eyes of gleaming bronze and shimmering gold, the epitome of celestial contradicting the sin-drenched form she exhibited the night before.
“-ut we’ve yet to understand her,” said Leik, looking down at the girl, curled to her knees atop his sofa.
The archon seemed to consider this a moment before addressing the girl directly.
“Do you understand me like this?” She asked, making unwavering eye contact with the girl.
Said girl blinked once, twice, then thrice, before tilting her head like a confused puppy.
“Eh?” Was the noise she made, innocent confusion at a language she could not speak.
“Hmm,” the archon pondered for a moment, “nunc me intelligere potestis?”
The girl stared for a moment, before nodding vigorously, reaching out her other hand the grab the archon, uncaring of her soiled figure.
“Bonum, tu mihi quid accidit?” The archon said once more, reaching out and holding just as tightly onto the girl’s, now trembling, fingers.
Whatever came from the girl’s mouth was completely incomprehensible to Kinich who had only understood what his archon was saying due to the thick accent she carried.
Still, even if he’d tried to puzzle out the conversation, he wouldn’t have the midnsoace to do it for long, as Elder Leik had just noticed his peeking form, and wandered over, gently guiding the biy away from the scene.
Here did he explain that although the girl’s vocal chords were not damaged in her injured state, she hadn’t the slightest clue of either Teyvat’s native language nor Natlan’s region specific one, and trying to speak to her was like speaking to an animal and expecting to understand it. As such, he called in an expert who had told him that, although it was a Khaenri’ahn dialect, it was interchanged in some areas, likely due to the fact that the continent was too, shaped into sections.
It was lucky then, that the nations Archon had been dropping by for a welfare check, which had now led them to the current predicament.
Okay. That was fine, but, Kinich asked, unsure, “what of the sky and the nighttime apocalypse?”
To that the elder could not answer, nor could the silence that seemed to pervade every crevice and corner of his tribe, that ensnared the entirety of Natlan itself. The uncertainty was enough to make his stomach churn in a way he hadn’t felt in years and he truly wondered what would become of them, his peers? What would become of him? And most importantly, of the apparent remedy sitting bewildered in the living room.