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Chapter Text

Paimon stretched her arms and legs as she floated up from her seat on the table in Mondstadt's Library. Aether had just finished quietly reading a really, really old book to her called "A Drunkard's Tale Vol. 3". The story told of a wolf who was wondering through some ancient ruins when he encountered a small young maiden with white hair playing a lute and singing in an unknown language.

The wolf had asked the maiden what she was singing, to which she replied "A song of the Seelie". She went on to say how the song was originally written for humans by the Seelie, but now she sings it to morn her race's own fate.

The story was a popular tale told by bards in the taverns of Mondstadt, and depending on who's telling the story, its said that the young maiden was one of the last few Seelie that were lucky enough to keep their physical forms after the rest of their race turned into the spirits found around Teyvat today.

Paimon wondered if the story was true. If the young maiden truly was a Seelie, then she must have been incredibly lonely. Paimon couldn't imagine not being able to talk with someone else that is the same as her.

Wait…

Actually, now that she thought about it, Paimon couldn't remember ever even seeing anyone else like herself, let alone speaking with another one of her kind. The thought of that put her into a gloomy mood.

Paimon was brought out of her thoughts by Aether standing up from his seat and putting the book back in its proper place on the self. He let out a deep sigh as he returned the book. "Although it was an interesting book, it doesn't contain the information I was looking for, let's go Paimon".

"Okie dokie! Let's hurry and head to Good Hunter's, Paimon is starving!" she cheered, before remembering where she was. She glanced in Lisa's direction and caught sight of the unhappy glare being directed at her. "Hehe, time to go!"

Feeling the twinge of static electricity growing in the air Paimon made a beeline for the door before she could get scolded for her outburst.

Chapter Text

Paimon sprawled out onto the soft sand next to a fire completely exhausted yet also relieved. She had no idea what must have been going through Aether’s head when he jumped of Starsnatch Cliff and started gliding of to a small island he had seen while fighting hilichurls. This left Paimon with little options but to float all the way across the dreadful ocean to follow him. 
Luckily both Aether and Paimon were able to reach the islands shores safe and sound. However both of them were out of energy and in Aether’s case, also soaking wet. It turned out that his rash decision to jump off the cliff had left him little time to calculate the distance he was attempting to glide. He ended up landing out in the ocean a little way from the shore and had to swim the rest of the way. Paimon was glad she was capable of floating, despite how tiresome it can be.

“Ahh… Paimon’s exhausted” she mumbled.

“You’re tired? How was that different than flying like you always do. Some of us had to swim you know” Aether was quick to quip back.
Paimon rolled her head away from him and kicked a clump of sand at her small foot.

“Hmph! So insensitive. You have no idea how tiring floating all day actually is!”.

Once Aether’s clothing dried from the heat of the campfire the two began to examine the ruins on the island. The ruins were in pretty poor condition due to erosion from the ocean waves and howling winds over centuries worth of time. Up two small sets of stairs Paimon spotted what seemed to be an ancient device of some sort. 

“Aether come look at this! Paimon found something interesting.”

“Hmm… This place seems to be the remains of a temple of some kind. Perhaps that is an alter of some kind?” he questioned. “Oh there seems to be some sort of engravings on it, but this isn’t the same language as the one you taught me Paimon.” He said.

“Let Paimon take a look” she said as she began to read the ancient text. 

“Stories brought on the wind will bloom into legends in due time.”

“What does that even mean? …Paimon has no idea. Still this place looks like it hides a some sort of secret… Let check the rest of the area out. We may find some clues!”

And so the two began searching the rest of the small island for any type of clues to the history of the ruins. Eventually Aether managed to find a ragged looking notebook that had been covered by some rocks and debris from the ruin.

Paimon could feel her excitement growing when Aether pulled the crumpled pages out of the rubble. The notebook was in poor condition, the cover was warped and the pages looked ready to fall out at any moment. There appeared to be some texted that used to be on the cover, but it was too smeared and faded to be readable. Perhaps it was the owner’s name? 

“These seem to be somebody’s notes, but what’s this scribbled on top?” she asked aloud. “Let’s open it and have a closer look.”

Aether and Paimon opened the notebook and began to read the entries inside. 

“The words on this sundial seem to follow on from the one by the Thousand Winds Temple. Taken together, the four lines then deliver the complete message. This place and the Thousand Winds Temple must have something to do with a god of time. How ironic that the ravages of “Time” have devoured all traces of the god who supposedly presided over it… Also – the few bits of literature that still remains says that some ancient thinkers believed the Anemo Archon to have some sort of connection with this god… If that’s true, there must be some evidence somewhere… Generally that would be in the form of elemental evidence… 
Also, it definitely feels particularly strange around here at a certain time of the day. Starts around 2 AM, and is over by 5 AM at the latest… There is a sundial here on this island after all. And in the early hours of the morning the blade’s shadow falls directly downwards. It’s quite striking, which is why it stands out in my memory. But I’m no vision holder. So while I can tell that something’s up and theorize about what the cause of the strange feeling might be, there’s no way for me to investigate it properly.” 

After reading the notebook Paimon flew back to the mysterious device in the middle of the ruins. This must be the sundial mentioned in the notebook then she decided. Unfortunately there did not seem to any hidden mechanisms on the island to activate and find hidden treasure, and the sun was beginning to set in the horizon. Paimon let out a yawn as Aether refueled the campfire for their late evening meal. As the night drew closer and their hunger satisfied the two adventures drifted off to sleep.

“Huh…?” Paimon found herself wide awake in the middle of the night. She had a strange feeling in her head. The feeling reminded her of a headache, except there was no pain. No a headache was not the right word. It was more like… an urge. A feeling that she needed to wake up at that moment. 

She looked around. Aether was still asleep. Visible by the dim light given off by the dying coals of the fire and the soft pale moonlight. She found her self staring at the sundial. The urge was stronger now. Without realizing it she found that she had flew over to the ancient artifact and was now hovering in front of it. Looking at the shadow cast by the dial’s pointer in the moonlight, it was not quite facing strait down. Passively reading the shadow’s position, it was around 1:30 AM. Half an hour before the time mentioned in the notebook. 
The more that Paimon looked at the dial. The more she felt like she remembered being at this place before. Yet that could not be right. She has never been to this island as far as she could remember, yet the feeling remained. Maybe if she closed her eyes and focused solely on remembering this place the feeling would dissipate? With a deep inhale she closed her eyes and began to think.

The feeling was stronger now. What was once an gentle but annoying urge in her mind had now spread throughout her entire body. It was as if her entire being was now resonating with the feeling.

“Pa… Piam…. Paimon…. PAIMON!”

Paimon was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of Aether yelling her name.

“W-What… Huh?” Paimon gazed about with a dazed look in her eyes.

“Paimon, are you alright?” Aether asked, his tone full of concern.

“Of course! Umm… why wouldn’t Paimon be alright?” she asked confused as to why Aether was asking.

“You were glowing.” he replied. “You were glowing so brightly that the light woke me up.”

Glowing? Paimon can’t glow. At least not as far as she was ever aware.

“Paimon was glowing?” she asked for reassurance.

“Yeah, in fact you’re still kind of glowing now, but it is fading quickly” he said.

Paimon quickly looked down at her hand. Huh, it was dimly glowing for a mere second before going completely dark. That was new. The feeling she had felt when she closed her eyes had died back down to an urge in her head again as well.

“Well we can figure that out later, for now look!” she pointed to the time indicated by the dial. “Its just now 2 AM, that’s the time that the notebook said. Quick use your elemental sight to look for traces of energy.”

After Aether found and cleared some clusters of Anemo energy scattered around the island an Eye of the Storm appeared out of nowhere and began attacking. Aether spent over half an hour trying to land a hit on the elemental being with his sword. However the Eye of the Storm simply flew high above and thus stayed out of Aether’s reach for most of the time. If only Amber where here with her Bow.

During the fight Paimon noticed something odd. This Eye of the Storm seemed much more calm than the few they had encountered in the past. It was as if the Eye of the Storm was actively trying to draw out the fight and not cause too much harm. Another thing that she noticed was that the Eye of the Storm never tried attacking her. In fact none of the Anemo creatures she encountered has ever tried attacking her, while the other elemental beings and the hilichurls have at least tried to attack her before she made herself disappear from sight.
After Aether had managed to land a few lucky hits, the Eye of the Storm summoned a large gust of wind and flew off towards the mainland.

As it flew off, Paimon heard a faint voice almost whisper into her ear saying “An ancient tale comes whisked in the wind…”

“Did it escape? Also did you just here that too?” 

“Here what? All I heard was the howling wind” Aether said.

“O-oh… Paimon must have just imagined it then… heh heh…” she chuckled unsurely to herself. “Anyways, that way leads to the Thousand Winds Temple. C’mon, lets move!”

After riding the wind current left behind by the Eye of the Storm, and Paimon holding on to Aether’s cape so she didn’t have to fly herself this time, the two managed to reach a second ruins located close to the thousand winds temple. There they found a second sundial. Paimon read the inscription aloud for Aether once again.

“Seeds of stories, brought by the wind and cultivated by time.”

Aether found some more clustered Anemo energy around the ruins using his elemental sight and cleared them just as he did at the island and the Eye of the Storm reappeared. 

Once again Paimon heard a voice whisper “In time, it will grow and sprout once again…”

Aether didn’t react to the voice once again and instead got ready to fight, so she could only assume that she was the only one who heard the voice once again. After a much longer battle than last time, with a group of hilichurls that happened to be near by joining into the fight on their own side, all of the enemies were defeated and the Eye of the storm dissipated with a burst of wind.

Paimon and Aether ran into a researcher named Henry Morton on their way back to Mondstadt. He and his friend had been researching the sundial as well, and the old notebook that they had found had actually belonged to his friend.

Once the two of them made it back to town Paimon dragged Aether over to Good Hunter for some fisherman’s toast. While eating her mind wondered over what happened that morning. What could the inscriptions on the sun dials mean, was it related to the voice of what she assumed to be the Eye of the Storm had said to her? And what was with the strange glowy Paimon powers she apparently had but never used before. Could she glow at will like some kind of built in lantern? That would be useful. Perhaps she could try practicing again later when she had time for it. For now it was time to check the adventures guild for any commissions. 

Meanwhile up in the branches of a very large tree, a lone figure lay slumped on their back upon a branch, listening idly to the sounds of the wind. Suddenly the wind picked up speed a voice was carried along to the figure’s ears. 

“She has returned.” 

“She is awake.” 

“But she is still weak.”

Hearing the voice brought a big smile to the figure’s face. 

“Welcome back my old friend, Welcome home” he spoke softly to himself. Then he summoned a lyre, and began to play a local tune.