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The cold air could easily seep into under your clothing and into your bones at any rate. Every fraction of a second spent without heat meant you were that much closer to losing all sense of mobility and surrendering to the freezing temperatures that Iris warned you about.
The numerous torches and waypoints around the snowy land was what kept you alive and warm, as you fought off the cough building up from the cold air in your lungs after a long hard fight. It wasn’t even an intentional fight, because all you were attempting to do was smack a few trees for pine wood to bring back to your Serenitea pot to make some nice furniture.
But alone in that fight against the Cryo Hypostasis, you were doomed from the very beginning. It was too cold, the braziers too far apart for you to gain some sort of warmth and make sure that you weren’t going to get hit by its icy spinning wheel of death or the shower of icicles it would send across the arena. Trying to leave it was impossible, because unlike the other Hypostasis, it could leave the arena.
It was futile.
But the reason you were able to stand now was the man on the other side of the flame, his gaze scanning the grey skies and vast land of thick powdery white. Clad in a mix of brown, black and white, he could’ve blended in with the trees but stood out in the snow.
In that arena, you were nowhere near the braziers and the frost was eating away at your energy. The sharp edges of the Hypostasis’ wheel were coming in quickly before the loud shout of “Solidify!” rang through the air.
Your weak and beaten body was gathered quickly and brought to safety, as Zhongli’s shield staved you both off from the onslaught of icy attacks while the heat allowed you to recuperate. You couldn’t ask the question that had been lingering in your mind until now.
“Why are you here, Zhongli?”
The silence between you two was cut by your question, but he didn’t answer back as sharply.
“I came looking for you.”
But it didn’t make sense for him to be another nation away from home, in Dragonspine no less.
Curling your fingers into your palms, you approached him. “But all the way in Dragonspine?”
“I happened across that drunkard, and he told me you were in search of pine so that we may have tea together in your teapot one day. It seemed that a suitable location would have been the trees by the Cathedral in Mondstadt, he says, but you opted to go to Dragonspine instead.”
Your jaw dropped. “At the Cathedral in Mondstadt?” How did you not know this information after having passed those trees several times during your commissions? But… it didn’t answer your question. “But why–”
“Responsibility is important when I am the cause for your journey.”
“...Oh.” Your heart sank. Was that it? It shouldn’t have been a problem for you to fight back, but knowing that was his only reason for doing so was disappointing.
Your head hung, eyes downcast to the ground as your lungs found their warmth once more, until you could see Zhongli’s shoes approaching to stop in front of you, and you looked up.
His eyes are warm as their colour, his touch gentle as he reaches up to brush a piece of fallen snow off the top of your head. “We should find a place to take shelter.” His voice was gentle, reaching inside you to silence the loud thudding of your heart against your ribcage. His gloved fingers stroked down to your cheeks, then to the back of your head. “I’ll be fine, but we don’t want you catching a cold.”
The hand that nestled the back of your head gently pulled you towards him, until he could close his eyes and plant a kiss to your forehead.
Your stomach did somersaults, and heat was no longer a problem with the rush of blood to your face, colouring your cheeks red.