Chapter Text
Cold... It's too cold ...
Everything is white around her. The icy air around her leaves her body in a warm puff that would be more pleasant if it weren't for the desperation it brings to her at seeing it disappear as quickly as it was created. Tremors attack her body with every step she takes, and the strong blizzard of Dragonspine doesn't do much to help her already impoverished situation.
Sucrose should have listened to Albedo when he told her to stay in the lab.
What was she doing here in the first place?
Ah, the seelie.
Earlier that day, Sucrose decided to try reaching the Chief Alchemist's camp on her own, and almost upon arrival she was distracted by a seelie. It was an orange color, unlike the blue seelies that are usually seen throughout Teyvat. And as she drew closer, Sucrose could feel heat emanating from it. Albedo told her about these, but it was the first time she had seen one firsthand. Her curiosity activated, she began to follow it, step after step until she was involved in a brief fight with some hilichurls and lost sight of it.
Now, she didn’t know where she was and there was no shelter around her, or even any pitiful bonfire to serve as a source of heat for her frozen hands. She had not prepared herself to make this trek, confident that she would arrive at the camp and there she would have everything she needed. Tears stop halfway down her cheeks, so cold they burn when the swirling blizzard freezes them on her skin.
She feels stupid.
This was the reason Albedo hadn't brought her to Dragonspine.
If she was going to die here, then she would at least like to apologize to him. An apology for being such an incompetent assistant ...
Sucrose begins making her last prayers to the archons, and apologies to everyone who has ever welcomed her in Mondstadt. Strength failing, she falls to kneel in the snow as she cries, the tremors in her body finally beginning to subside.
She doesn't notice it at first, busy between thoughts of her looming demise, how hard it is for her to breathe, and how painful the snow is soaking through her clothes until she can't feel her body. At some point, the icy snow stops being painful and Sucrose assumes the numb feeling is just a prelude to losing consciousness.
However, that moment of darkness never comes.
Instead, the frozen tears on her cheeks begin to flow freely like a torrent towards the ground, and when she opens her eyes, her blurred vision distinguishes something purple amid the whiteness of the landscape.
Her first thought is that it is Lisa, for some reason the powerful grand mage of the Sumeru Academy has come to save her from her miserable last breaths. Sucrose is so happy that she is willing to forgive all the discomfort she’s been subjected to from her flirtatious jokes whenever she goes to the library, and even make a plant to produce infinite valberries as she’s asked for (Sucrose doesn't know if jokingly or seriously) . She’ll do whatever it takes to express the immense gratitude she feels awakening in her chest .
But when she opens her eyes, it is not Lisa Minci who is staring at her, but a seelie.
A purple seelie.
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Sucrose blinks countless times, both to wipe the remaining tears from her eyes and to make sure what she sees in front of her is not a hallucination. Closing her eyes and counting to three, Sucrose takes a deep breath. She’s grateful that this time the stabbing pain doesn't run down her throat, but that it only leaves a dull discomfort along the way.
Looking again, the seelie is still there.
It is not worth saying what anyone’s normal reaction to the situation would be, because Sucrose has never had normal responses at all. It was like that even when she received her vision.
Wiping her tear-stained glasses, Sucrose sits in her place, the snow acting like a cushion as she regains perception in her body.
Now only mere seconds from death, her heart twists painfully in her chest. A cry rips from her throat at the sensation, that prompts her to sit there helpless and incapable until someone comes to rescue her. However, her dreaming, curious spirit was far more powerful than any other fear or suffering, including death.
Sucrose began to study the creature in front of her.
In appearance it was exactly the same as any other seelie and that is why she was able to quickly recognize it as one. The only notable difference is it’s coloration. In features it was more like a Dragonspine native, with the ability to emit enough heat to keep travelers warm and protected from extreme cold.
If there was something that had caught her attention more than the color or origin, it was the fact that it continuously floats around her.
The seelies, despite being mysterious, all seek the same thing: return to a Seelie Court to finally rest. They will seek any passerby help and reward their kindness with treasures if they guide them. Legend has it that the Seelies once had beautiful forms and immense wisdom, and Sucrose believes that this is why, despite their desire to finally rest, they are too proud to come back for anyone if they are left behind… If the Seelies really are the remnants of a bygone race, then they know more than anyone that everything will come in due time.
The variable that some Seelie other than an infant like the one accompanying the traveler would go out of their way to help someone about to die, was definitely not accounted for in any of her possible scenarios.
This purple seelie did not carry the air of interested kindness that his species usually have, but an air of elegance coupled with a bittersweet disinterest, which has been contradicted because it has been forced to do so.
Sucrose manages to stand on her shaking legs. If this creature has saved her, then it has to be for a reason. The seelie increases the heat, pulling away from her as it waits for Sucrose to follow. As a promise to lead, not a treasure as such, but to something beyond her understanding.
She decides to follow it. She has never been the type to leave her promises incomplete.