Chapter Text
Once, for a heartbeat, Jean had felt frozen in time.
Against the laws of the world, she was suspended in the air, just a short distance over the lush ground of the forest clearing. Her muscles refused to move, her voice refused to leave her throat. Her heart raced against her ribs, its beat ringing in her mind.
The loose parts of her knight’s robe dangled and touched the grass. The bright blue that identifies her as a young knight meant nothing to the world at large. Her steel sword had fallen from her hand as her position froze, she was defenseless. Unmoving.
Only blood had seemed exempt from the spell.
It kept dripping. Dripping.
Jean helplessly watched it soak into the earth. Her lungs felt tighter and tighter as her side burned with each shallow breath. A ring of teeth had cut through skin and fangs had broken the bones underneath.
The culprit’s eyes, a yellowish grey, were just as wide. Despite the wolf’s massive size, its bloody fangs, and scrunched snout, it was trapped in the same stasis. The low growl was fading slightly as light steps approached.
༄.ೃ࿔࿐໋✧˖°.
With a sharp breath, Jean wakes from a sleep that barely counts as rest. She groans in annoyance and relief. Her left arm covers her face, her blanket is partly kicked off and she’s sweaty from a dream that drains as much energy as a morning routine. Her pulse is quick, but that too became a baseline she knows, her heart just needs a moment to realise what is truly real. In the privacy of the empty room, she allows herself a moment of stillness.
She hasn’t been home in months, claiming a bed of the knight’s quarters that is more necessity than comfort. At least, it allows her a room with neither people nor work for a short few hours as Kaeya insisted, practically pushing her into these quarters last night.
She turns her head toward the window, thick glass reinforced with metal patterns and grid to let it withstand the growing winds of the past century. The light outside is dim, both cold and orange at once, some hooves clack against stone, a wheel creaking on an old wooden cart.
Her heart rate slows, a breeze forces its way through the thick stone walls, and the thin film of sweat makes her aware of the falling temperature of the changing seasons. She sits, pulling down the thin training shirt that has rolled up on her torso, her hands resting against her left side. These scars haven't truly hurt in years, but they keep demanding her attention, they do not want to be forgotten. She strokes over her own side, soothing the irritation. The skin there is uneven and scarred, but a miracle that it healed at all. Or rather, how quickly it was healed.
She feels the waves of a different memory spreading in her chest. Softer, warmer. Feverish glimpses of a thick duvet, of the inside of a small cottage stacked to the brim with books and jars and herbs, of a warm hearth that burns quietly, and of a beautiful woman that watches Jean with a displeased frown.
This forest is known for eating and changing your memories. She’d been young, barely of age, stumbling into something she greatly underestimated: The curse that changed its form depending on what village she had asked, she had assumed to be a legend, a way to keep children safely away from the wolves stalking the shadows of Wolvendom.
She tells herself she remembers clearly, the feeling of those fangs buried in her side. Everything after that is too fantastical, however. The soft steps, these annoyed green eyes, this small woman snapping her fingers…
All a product of a curse. Probably.
Jean rises despite the early hour, washes herself. Her blonde hair is tied back into a pony tail, her sweaty shirt switched for her knight’s uniform. It’s the fine white kind and the imposing dark blue shoulder cape, lined with golden threads, meant to mark her as the Acting Leader - a fact her noble mother is proud of, even though Jean would gladly give it away to have the guidance of the Grandmaster again. For the past four months, he has been missing, and the expectation for her to fill the role grows with each day.
The uniform, she conceded a few weeks ago. The title, she took hesitantly. “Acting,” Jean insists still, “I am but the Acting Grandmaster until Varka will return.”
Her mirror doesn’t care much for her words. And neither do Kaeya or the knights. There is no pin or scarf for the substitute, she looks eerily like the official leader. Someone has to do it, so Jean takes a breath that fills her lungs until the tight skin of her old mended sides protest, stands straight with one hand on her sword’s hilt, until her blue eyes and trained shoulders show more determination than she feels.
She turns on her heel and sets for the headquarters with a brisk pace as the empty hallways are echoing her steps back to her. She leaves the wing of quarters and training fields, passes the two knights she can afford to put on guard duty at night. Walter and Dimir. A senior with knowledge but slow bones and a new but still nervous recruit. She hopes this shared guard might help Dimir to find his footing, he is a good fighter, but he needs a calmer head.
The city state’s best men are protecting its Grandmaster on his journey, wherever this leads them. Her young knights must compensate until their ranks are full again. Maybe this month, hopefully, the others return.
The wind hunts through the streets, catching fabric and paper, pulling on vines and blooms and leaves. Somewhere, a tired citizen slams their window shut. The short strands of Jean’s hair escape her ponytail.
She gives the nightguard a sharp nod, and they stand at attention. Their shift will still last for another hour, until the sun can breach over the main cities walls. The younger one opens the heavy oak door for her, and Walter gestures with the gentle expression of an older man that is all too familiar with his role to stick to the tiny rules. “Mornin’ Master.”
Jean concedes to a ghost of a smile, “Good Morning, Walter. Dimir.” before she vanishes inside, heading for the largest, most decorated door.
The situation room is lit, albeit dimly. The ceiling and walls are high, holding torches that have mostly burned out from yesterday. The thick stones radiating a blueish gray, turning only slightly warmer where the flames cast a hazy light.
The room stretches double its size in length, using the width of the headquarters to its fullest with three walls of windows. The slowly rising sun has not yet reached through the thick glass here.
Once, this was used for ceremonies and gatherings. Families like Jean’s celebrated their sons and daughters' acceptance in the ranks of the city state’s guard. Political power spread across military and noble ranks.
At least that was how it was, until the winds became so strong that they took shape.
Now, a noble would gladly hand over their rank until peace is found. Now, the knights, stretched thin and separated, tackle what no man can truly fight. Now, several tables have been joined in the middle to keep a large patchworked map displayed. From the sea and the cliffs on the south and east, to the high mountains in the west and rough hills in the north. The borders, agreed upon rather than drawn, partly fall over the table’s edges as the map, too large, falls like a tablecloth.
Over one of the map sections hovers a quiet scholar born in the freezing mountains of the southeast, Albedo. Smaller than the average man, but taller than a woman, pale as the snow, light blond hair bound back for practicality, they are handling pins in the map with careful precision and blue wool.
“Good morning, Acting Grandmaster,” Albedo says with an even voice.
Jean steps up to the table. On the far east side, where the map just spans water, a few letters sit. She eyes them, but decides to wait until her team is assembled. Instead her gaze settles on Albedo, watching them work backwards pulling a pin out of the map where a village was left destroyed weeks ago. She expects the worst. “A new one?”
“Fortunately not. I merely hoped to find a pattern.” Albedo frees the pin from the blue wool that curled around it, then places the pin back to the settlement. “Yet the order seems….” They just shake their head to deny the thought.
In the silence, another strong gust hits the city, pushing against the windows. The frames rattle, then it quiets again. Jean sighs, turns to the map although it can’t answer her questions.
“The intervals?” Jean whispers but Albedo hears her.
“Shorter.” They take out another pin holding the wool, repeating the process.
“...of course.”
Albedo discards the wool and walks to the window that took the brunt of the gust. Trying to see something in the twilight of a cloudy dawn. “If you have time after the meeting, I’d like to visit the windmill on the north gate.”
Albedo is their only tether to maybe understand the raging elements, so Jean would not refuse them. “Of course,” Jean says again, but before she can ask why the room’s door opens with the force of one energetic grinning knight. His uniform, intended or not, is worn with flourish: the collar standing, the highest buttons open to show off his tanned skin. A long black braid falls over his shoulder and reaches nearly his hip. One eye hidden under a dark fabric bind, and yet his confident grin is undeniable.
“Morning, Jean, Al,” he says, flopping into a chair that once belonged to one of the tables not holding the map. Jean is nearly glad that her friend did not prop up his boots on the table as he tended to do in simpler times.
“Someone is in a good mood,” Albedo comments evenly.
“The clouds are moving, the sky is blue and bright. At least today, there won’t be any crash landing dragons.”
“It’s not a dragon, it’s an elemental entity that-”
“Looks like a dragon,” Kaeya interrupts.
“It’s dangerous to miscategorize the threat.”
“It’s dangerous anyway. Don’t make that my fault.”
Albedo sighs deeply. “You know that is not what I’m saying. I just don’t want you running in, thinking you can stab it.”
“Would’ be easier that way though,” Kaeya grumpily admits. “Right, Grandmaster?” His tone is slightly mocking. Jean looks unimpressed.
The next time the door opens, a young woman half in a knight’s uniform, half in a maid’s, comes in backwards, pushing it open with her hips. The black and white cotton dress falls widely over her small frame, but her knight’s boots and gloves make her movements loud instead of soft. She brings a tablet of tea, carefully placing it on a desk against the wall. She bows deeply for Jean, and stays like this. Jean gets increasingly uncomfortable, Kaeya increasingly amused, and Albedo just returns their attention to the map.
Jean relents, “Thank you, Noelle, she says softly.
The young maid eagerly straightens. “If you need more assistance, Master Jean -”
“Not as of now.”
“I can fight with you.”
“The official age to join is seventeen.” The rule is simply pro forma and disregarded by any family that brags with their last name. Jean famously broke it by four years, just like Kaeya who covers his mouth to hide his grin.
Jean frowns at the hypocrisy, but she’d rather not draft young girls into a fight with a threat she can't even name. Varka might have, and the discrepancy lodges itself sideways in her throat. “You help greatly by caring for us, Noelle.” Jean hears herself say. “Maybe check on young Klee for me?”
Noelle hugs the round tray against her stomach and bows once, twice, three times, “Yes, yes of course.” She hurries out so quickly she nearly runs into Eula, who, silent as ever, has joined them around the tables.
Eula steps next to Jean, likely one of the few people who can match her in height, experience and noble titles. Her uniform, a mix of Jean’s white shirt and the dark pants of Kaeya’s captain’s status, is in pristine condition. The emblem of her family, a small golden pin, sits over her chest.
“Jean,” she greets with a nod. Eula is a few years Jean’s senior but accepted Varka’s decision about his successor without any complaint.
Jean nods back, then turns for the letters. Their contents are mostly expected. Routine, although the senders differ from week to week. She sighs, about to reach for them when Kaeya is quicker. He makes a little flourish to open them all, stacks them together until different qualities of paper form a mixed heap.
“Border to Liyue has nothing new,” Kaeya reads, falling back into his chair, only picking up words here and there as he rapidly sorts through a few pages. “Neither good nor bad…” The pages rustle as he flips them. “Oh, Albedo, your friend in Dragonspine is doing well but hasn’t seen anything either.” Kaeya squints. “...and something about an…S... ice rose?”
Albedo, quietly but decisively snaps the more gilded papers from Kaeya’s hands. They sigh. “Sucrose,” Albedo corrects, “It’s her signature…”
Kaeya grins. Eula steps behind Kaeya to read the words of the next report for herself. Jean leans against the table nodding to the one eyed captain to just continue. The fine paper of the Akademiya is still missing from the stack of letters.
༄.ೃ࿔࿐໋✧˖°.
The citystate of Mondstadt covers a small hilly space from sea to mountains. The cliffs in either direction are steep and hard to navigate with anything requiring more space than a horse and a simple cart. With no harbor and only one stable trade route to Liyue, the city state relies on good relations with their neighbour and mostly self-sufficient agriculture.
The city with the same name is a settlement ringed by a high stone wall, built on a sharp and reaching island that sticks out from a large lake. Windmills built into the stone wall, catch the weather’s resource for multiple centuries, turning breeze or storm into the power that pumps the water from the lake to the sealed off main city.
The people here learned to harvest the resources that made their land unique. Learned to use it not only to grind grain, but to pump water to houses and fields. Their land is littered with windmills of different sizes, many fell victim to recent destruction.
A wind, they are made to receive.
A storm, they are known to endure.
A dragon made from wind however, has torn many of them apart in the recent years. And more so, in the recent months.
Albedo currently inspects the base of Windmill on the city’s east entrance. It’s the lowest in height, and the closest to the lake, and the most important for the common folk that live or hide in the safety of the main city.
Albedo strokes over the stones that mark the round base, then they press their hands against the structure, flat and feeling. Their eyes look down to where they dropped their notes before. Many lines have been scribbled and crossed, until four stay legible once you figure out the alchemist's peculiar handwriting.
Jean cannot decipher it, not from this distance, at least. She’s standing a few paces apart, watching Albedo breathe until they speak.
“What once was weak,
Must now be honed,
When winds shall peak,
It won’t be thrown.”
Radiating from the contact of their palms to the base, a golden glint travels up the structure, until seemingly coating the fans, and vanishing to Jean’s usually perceptive eye. She has no base to verify what happened, but she has a rough reference.
“A spell from your Akademiya years?” Jean asks, carefully reaching out to touch the windmill as well, not quite committing until Albedo watches the action unbothered. The structure feels the same as ever to her.
“Not quite,” Albedo admits, critically watching the invisible results of their work.”I wrote it myself.”
Jean frowns. “Isn’t that…”
“Yes,” they say. “It is. But they can’t throw me out twice now, can they?”
Jean just nods silently, finally letting go of the stone as that won’t offer her any insights. She hopes Albedo’s work proves helpful.
“Do you have a horse I can borrow to head to the Dawnwinery?”
“Sure. But… wouldn’t it make sense to enforce the other ones here too?” The sky is calm today, the winds bearable. But Jean would rather not send her only elemental studied ally across the land and fields.
“Tomorrow maybe.” Albedo nods, looking deep in thought. “My ability to call magic is not the greatest, and though a selfformed rhyme helps, each iteration will lessen its impact, and we have one, hopefully sturdy, here now.”
“I’m not sure I can follow.” Jean can feel confusion on her face. Mondstadt hasn’t had magically gifted people for a long time. Their history made it clear, the fear of the common folk regarding those commanding the elements drove most of them across the sea or over the mountain path. For her, magic is in the legends of how Venessa gave to fields, and how the god of winds created the city of Mondstadt to teach people how to use it with hands rather than words.
Albedo has never been too vocal about their past, either. They came from the mountains when the dragon was first sighted, and never left Jean’s little circle since. Yet now, they elaborate, “I suppose you can think of it…” Albedo sighs, turning pensive, “...as if having to convince the air to be allowed to breathe it.”
Jean breathes consciously. Unbidden, she thinks of breathing against broken ribs and skin that is torn at her side. It’s not anymore, it hasn’t been in ten years, yet now with every breath she feels the stiffness of the scar. “That sounds…hard,” she says, a little clipped.
Albedo nods. "Elemental magic is like that. You are born with the ability to breathe, but the air has will. As for magic, some are born visible to its flow, but…” Their hand reaches up and closes around nothing. “It’s probably here, in this air, it knows I'm here too, but it doesn’t care.”
“So it's just… it sees you?” Jean tries to summarise, trying to push the calm alchemist to speak more.
Albedo nods. “I usually have an easier time calling the earth, but I know the air sees and hears me too. It’s just harder to convince. You have to get its attention, only then you can ask it to do your bidding.”
Albedo’s hand falls again. “And for some reason it likes rhymes.” They shake their head with an exasperated smile. “But it gets …bored easily.”
Albedo crouches to pack their notebook, to close their evidence of spellcrafting and put it in their bag. “If I leave now, I will be back before the sun sets.”
“To the stables,” Jean says. She doesn't own any horses, and neither does Albedo, but the title of Acting Grandmaster has people comply with simple requests. Jean will find a way to thank them later.
༄.ೃ࿔࿐໋✧˖°.
Jean makes it back for lunch, which is of course skipped in her drive to find something to do. There’s no magic at her command, and no life long experience, just the wish to maybe save, maybe salvage something.
She greets the day guard with a nod, and climbs the first set of stairs, beelining for a dark oak door carved with wind patterns. It’s not a door she stepped through much in the past. Varka was -- …is a man who prefers his hands around a hilt of a sword, not the feather dipped in ink. It was easier to find him on the training grounds than here.
The door creaks, the interior is dark.
Someone had closed the curtains months ago, and they still effectively keep the sun out of this room even today.
She steps into the office of the Grandmaster, a rather vast room for a single purpose. Lined with bookshelves that gather dust on one hand visible even in the twilight, and a long tapestry on the other depicting a green comet striking the earth where wars are fought to let a giant tree grow.
A bout of nostalgia turns her expression into a complicated smile. She always loved the legend of Venessa and its green, life-giving depictions, although it's hard to know how much of it is true and real. War and time have a habit of influencing such stories. Making it more grand, perhaps, but…
Her smile grows.
She decides she still loves it.
A quick turn brings her to the window, and she rips the curtains open with a small renewed energy, dust dancing in the rays of sunshine. The window is next, now open it brings fresh air and the faint sounds of the markets, the sun now highlighting the central piece of the room: the massive wooden desk with its highbacked chair.
It’s likely the last transgression, the last big one, to inhabit a title or role she shouldn’t have, but she pulls the chair back, sits, and feels the sturdy wood under her finger tips. She finds paper in a drawer, the ink thankfully not completely dried despite the halfhearted attempt to cork it, and readies a feather.
With the hustle of the markets and the voices of people in the far background, Jean writes to Liyue, planning a deal to secure a few of their crops if winter and wind may leave the people hungry.
Liyue is a nation of trade, its harbour unparalleled. Governed primarily by its seven richest parties, the Liyue Qixing, who have a will and drive on their own, so Jean makes sure to draft seven letters. She had not much to offer, Mondstadt is not a city state of great wealth, although the Dawnwinery’s wine is well liked by nobles across countries. She hopes it might sway one of them.
Varka wasn’t well known for diplomacy, in fact, he would actively stay passive in matters that are already running. An established trade route was and is a great success for both parties, and political interest, be it good or bad, had a chance to change that. So Jean’s ink hovers over the bottom section, unsure of how to sign this request.
The door opens, startling Jean, and Noelle enters in the same way as in the morning. Backwards, with a tray in both gloved hands.
“I heard you returning, Master Jean," Noelle says in lieu of explanation and greeting, “I thought you might need some… energy rations.” The young maid carefully places a small bowl of fruits and a plate with bread on the edge of Varka’s desk.
“How did you know where to find me?” Jean asks, a little curious as her eyes travel over the different berries and pre-cut slices of apple.
“There aren't many rooms still occupied on this floor, and I heard you on the stairs," Noelle says dutifully, placing a glass of juice next to the snacks with a proud expression.
“...I see.”
“Would you like something else?” Noelle asks as if Jean had specifically called for her.
“No. Thank you.”
With a bow, this time only one, much less nervous than in the morning, the maid turns to leave.
Jean eyes the fruit, sighs, and ends up signing with both before allowing herself a snack.
Kind regards,
Jean Gunnhildr
Acting Grandmaster of Mondstadt