Chapter Text
Sleep still had its distant hold on you as you lay back on the fir tree you had chosen as your sleeping perch for the day. The breeze swayed around playfully looking for chaos to cause and adding a white noise that ensured sleep’s claws were blissfully draped around you like a fine shawl. The late morning sun threatened your slumber as the rays kissed your cheeks you’ll be sunburnt by the time you get up but that doesn’t really matter to you does it now.
You shift yourself in the tree turning back to the world, and the rest of Monstat's Whispering woods, face to the shade waiting for the night stars to greet you and whisper to you where to go next. Well, truly you were waiting for ‘red’ or as the people called him the dark night hero to get your message offering to help with some of his duties. You were in his stomping ground after all and you didn’t want to be a bother. Although you remember him assuring you that a bother was the last thing he would refer to you as.
Your unconscious dreams seem to repeat your meeting and his story about how he heard about you from his brother every once in a full moon, but it appears your brain also thinks that we have had a full moon for about a week now so here we go again
“ Master Diluc-” the blue-haired eyepatch-wearing calvary captain shifted on the stool behind the bar a well hidden slur in his voice. Resting his head on one hand and his very alcoholic drink in the other- “ did you hear the rumors we have company in Monstat!”
“Does the Calvary Captain really have the time for tavern rumors? and I’m not interested in any high-ranking Fatui member walking into Monstat,” He didn’t even look back at Kaeya behind him or he would have noticed the letter between his two fingers.
“You wound me! Although I thought you would have met her already since you and she are so similar.” He placed his drink down pulling out a letter and shaking it in front of his brother’s nose. “I think you would like to meet her Diluc.”
Against his better judgment, Diluc grabbed and pulled out the folded pages in the little parcel investigating the difference between the crisp new pages of both Favonious paperwork and paperwork from the Liyue Qixing and the worn well-loved paper with elegant handwriting marked all over it. The older pages were lists of crimes with dates and times listed on them. And all of them were clipped to paperwork from the Qixing that just confirmed what was written on the original page along with a list of witnesses.
The Qixing also met with said list of witnesses and most all of them had eyewitness accounts and evidence to support our ‘Hero’ who was reprimanding crooks and leaving the legal parts to the millionth. Said crooks were often left tied up with the notes posted above them. Most of the witnesses also admitted that they were threatened into silence and when a winged girl offered to help they said yes because they felt as though they were out of options and that she was some sort of adepti. All of the eyewitness accounts only mentioned her via her pronouns except one bartender’s account of the winged girl who stopped in his bar occasionally.
When he was asked if he knew who she was he responded with this:
“Oh, Iron Blossom?”
“Is that her name?” questions the militia soldier
“No, no one knows her name that’s just the drink she orders whenever she comes around. It’s one of the only non-alcoholic drinks we have.”
“Do you know anything about her?”
“I know that she is a wind glider mechanic and her work functions more like a pair of prosthetic wings than a glider... Some folks around here claim her to be an adepti but when I asked her she denied it even asking me to correct people who called her one...”
“Hello? Tevat to Diluc? Anyone home?” A tan gloved hand was being shaken in front of his brother's face as a dumbfounded look plastered over it.
“She’s In Monstat?”
“Well if you bothered to read any of the paperwork I did you would know that already.” And in one swift movement, Kaeya’s pushing himself up off the bar and getting off of his stool walking to the door.
"good luck lover boy--” Kaeya said just loud enough to be heard by one of the many girls in the tavern hoping to catch the eye of Monstat’s most sought-after bachelor.
“Must you be insufferable in my tavern Kaeya?”
“Why someone’s got to have some fun around here no?”
+SNAP+
And just like that, your slumber has completely left you as you jolt up and scan your surroundings. A wild boar just stepped on a twig and spooked you fully awake. Might as well get something done today anyway. So pulling your bag from its hidden location higher up in the tree you pulled out whichever one of your wind gliders you shoved into it yesterday.
Well, at this point your gliders function more like prosthetic bird wings than a glider and the fact you had multiple pairs was a little overboard. A pair of wings based on the snowy owls up on Dragonspine, another based on a handful of the migratory birds you’ve seen. And your predatory bird wings were its own little circle of hell to make since most predatory birds don’t land very often. Being a Claymore user also helped so much when you were attempting to use a bow to shoot one out of the sky. Luckily, Red let you watch him handle his pet hawk and allowed you to inspect her feathers ( you even got to fly with her since she was already comfortable being around humans ).
Your predatory wings were industrial and built to withstand a fight with steel feathers hiding in between the other ones, producing a shield many hits wouldn't render useless. You were proud of the enhanced functionality and the streamlined design, especially after all the work you put into them. It just made you happy ok you can be happy about your accomplishments.
The way you put on your wind glider would confuse many a seasoned adventure. The full-body leather harness was the ONE thing you could not find a way to streamline. But with the complicated wings that weigh around a third of your body weight, you needed to keep them attached to you ya know? And you allways keep a pair of wings on you. At this point the madness of your contraptions doesn’t bother you anymore. And after worrying about people’s opinions about said harness required for your wings you have made some clothes that go over and hide most of the harness. The bits around your torso are still visible yet you are more comfortable now and that’s the good thing.
Now you had arranged to meet red at the Thousand Winds Temple if he agreed to your proposition so up the mountain you went.