Chapter Text
When Jean first hears about a mysterious, unknown person from another place taking the skies and fighting Stormterror in midair after the dragon caused undue chaos upon the city, she feels both wariness and relief.
Relief because it seemed like the Knights wouldn't have to do the job all by themselves any longer, struggling to protect Mondstadt and keep peace within it while trying to find a way to defeat the age-old dragon that all of a sudden started terrorizing the nation; what person who singlehandedly fought off a powerful, ancient dragon and continue to stay in the city in spite of knowing they might be in terrible danger (or at least inconvenience) while only having been in said city for a few hours not agree to help in defeating the dragon?
Wariness because, despite being an honest savior that came out of nowhere, they were still a stranger, and they would have no time to test the waters with them because of the urgency of the state of the nation's safety..
..and because of how intrigued her cavalry captain seemed to be whilst giving her a report on the strange savior.
Jean knows Kaeya being interested in someone is not often a good thing.
Kaeya is the type of person to test the limits of the object of his interest, whether the methods to test said limits be harmless or borderline alarming. She fully trusts that he won't do anything before their work alongside the savior was finished-after all, this was his city as much as anyone else in Mondstadt, and she knows he truly cared for the nation's people, no matter how much he tries to hide it-, but still felt some wariness that could be attributed to the maybe scenario that the savior might be too.. interesting of a person.
Say, unpredictable in the worst kind of way.
The wariness is, however, pushed aside when Kaeya reports that the savior-who called themselves a mere traveler and had a rather strange, fairy-like companion alongside them-agreed to meet with the head authorities of the Ordo Favonius (which, in all honesty, was just Jean, Lisa, Kaeya, and Amber, as they were often the only head authorities who were actually available nowadays) the following morning.
Every personal thought Jean has initially had about the mysterious savior was quickly pushed aside in favor of work on the blockades around the city and the populated areas in Mondstadt.
And every expectation she initially had about them would then be exceed by the highest of surprises in the following morning.
~~~~~~~~
Come morning, and Jean waits anxiously for the Traveler's arrival.
She's pacing around her office tensely, mind whirling with possibilities of how the meeting could go, as Lisa watches bemusedly from her lean against the railing of the mini-staircase.
"Jean, dear," Lisa eventually sighs out, normally relaxed face marred with an exasperated frown as she watches her dearest not-quite-friend-not-quite-lover pace around the office with high tension as if a war was going to arrive on their doorstep anytime soon. In a way, it wasn't quite far off from the truth as Jean wanted it to be, and Lisa knew this, as well. "I get that you're concerned, but you're going to wear a hole in the floor with how much you've been pacing around. Why don't you sit down and relax for a moment, and I'll have Noelle fetch you some tea?"
That was what took to break Jean's tension, at least for a moment, and the blonde let out a deep, weary sigh, shoulders drooping. "No need, no need. They're arriving any moment now, and it wouldn't do to disrupt Noelle from her tasks just to make me some tea. A lot of work still needs to be done, after all, even if we aren't all helping to relieve that." She waves a dismissive hand for good measure, but Lisa has already gotten the message, and has gone back to leaning against her perch.
"But Jean, you're already causing yourself undue stress. Kaeya and Amber are with that person, and you know how good those two are at sizing up strangers. If they felt as if that person couldn't be trusted, they'd have sent a messenger bird by now." Lisa reasons, watching Jean's movements with careful eyes.
Jean's body slumps as she leans her back against her desk, the wooden edge digging uncomfortably into her back, but she pays it no mind as she rubs her face with her hands tiredly. "I know, I know, it's just-" she cuts herself off with another weary sigh. "I can't help but feel.. irrational. If there's an off chance that this.. savior could be a hidden threat to the safety of the city, we're doomed. The only sure feeling I have about them is that they're definitely a powerful person, and I'm just hoping this meeting goes well enough and that we don't offend them in any way. Even if they're not a threat, if they end up refusing to work with us in the end, we'd still be stuck and have a higher chance of messing everything up and bringing ruin to Mondstadt."
Lisa smiles sympathetically, crossing the room in a few short yet elegant strides to wrap her arms around the other woman. Jean instinctively leans into her comforting touch, closing her eyes as the other places her chin on the head of gold. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, it's best that you calm yourself down before you end up doing what you want to avoid." She murmurs, and places a soothing kiss on her head.
Jean feels a tired yet appreciative smile tug at her lips. "Thanks, Lisa." She sighed out. "I wouldn't know what I'd do without you."
"I wouldn't know what you'd do without me either." Lisa says.
~~~~~~~
Jean's first meeting with the Traveler goes like this:
She's distracted herself with paperwork in the meantime- too pent-up to sit down and stay still but too anxious not to get her hands on something to do. So she paces around mindlessly as she does her paperwork, while Lisa rereads a book.
Soon, footsteps could be heard echoing lightly just outside of the office, but while Lisa snaps her book shut and glues her eyes to the door in anticipation of it opening, Jean is much too absorbed in her work, pacing and muttering and lost in her own head.
It's when the door opens and Kaeya and Amber squeeze themselves through and Lisa reacts that Jean notices.
Honestly, it was in part due to Lisa's previous silence aside from her page flipping and also in part to Kaeya's faint alcohol-stained scent (Jean seriously needs to have a talk with him in cutting down his drinking), but mostly because of the all-consuming presence that entered the room.
It made goosebumps flutter across Jean's skin even though the room wasn't even cold, and the only reason she managed to keep herself from whipping around in obvious high alert was because the thought of not offending the savior before they even exchanged a word with one another came first.
But Lisa's reaction-
Jean can practically feel Kaeya's smirk from the other side of the room, and she doesn't fail to catch Lisa's muttered "oh, my.." in an appreciative tone she doesn't often use.
Feeling a little wary and more than a little curious, she turns around and sees for herself what they're all looking at- or rather, who they're all looking at.
She feels herself suck in a breath.
Oh, my, indeed.