Chapter Text
Stories and legends are plentiful in every world, but many are all but forgotten with the passage of time.
It is said that in the ancient past, several thousands of years ago, if not more, this world of Teyvat was what would now be considered a fantasy setting.
Real gods walked the land, and ordinary people could gain the power to command and control the elements. The world was filled with magic and mystical creatures.
But not all is fated to last.
Forces of terrible darkness from below invaded the fantastical world, and the avatars of heaven descended to vanquish them.
Teyvat was caught in the crossfire, and all things magical died out as a consequence.
Humanity only barely survived, but humans are nothing if not tenacious. From the rubble, they rebuilt civilisation, and they learned and grew more and more advanced, until both Teyvat and humanity itself thrived.
That is how the world as we know it came to be.
…If you believe the legends, of course.
“…Hey, are you sure this is a good idea?”
Deep within the Chinvat Ravine, two students from the Sumeru Akademiya, a boy and a girl, walked along the stream.
For a place so close to the nation’s capital city, the ravine hardly ever got any visitors, due to its status as sacred grounds. Many were convinced that ancient spirits rested within, and that they were not to be disturbed, and those who did not believe stayed away all the same, repelled by the creepy atmosphere.
“Ugh, we’ve been over this! You want our project to do well right? If we want to be the best in our class, we have to be original! That means going where no one has ever dared! Besides, it’s all just stories, anyway. As if some ghost is suddenly gonna come out and curse us for stepping on his favourite patch of grass.” The boy looked around for anything mysterious, without much luck, until…
“Wait, look over there!” He immediately jumped over the stream towards a hole in the cliff wall.
The Girl quickly followed. “Hey, Be careful! And wait for me!”
The entrance was small and inconspicuous, but the inside of the cave they entered surprised them.
It was filled with plants, many of them glowing. Most were green, but there were colourful flowers, too. It looked exactly how they would imagine the hideout of some fairy, with ancient white pillars and arches covered in green engravings and vines.
What caught their eyes, however, was the item in the middle of the cave.
It was a flat, round ornament, around the size of a small umbrella and absolutely beautiful. The deep blue colour looked perfectly preserved, and the golden details in the shape of a lotus reflected the glow of the cave as if it was newly polished. Two pieces of cloth dangled from the ornament, and it was held upright by vines.
“Now, this is what I’m talking about!” The boy immediately ran to the ornament and took it from where it was held by the vines. He turned it this way and that in his hands. “Check it out, it’s a hat!”
“You have no survival instinct, do you?” the girl sighed as her companion put the hat on and started posing with it, “Seriously, I- …Oh my god, is that..?”
They had not considered that the hat had been placed to obstruct the area behind it.
There, in the back of the cave, was what they could only assume was a statue. It wasn’t a normal statue, though. Usually they would be made bigger than regular people to display the greatness of whatever god or hero it represented, and they would be standing tall and proud. This one, however, was the size of a regular human, maybe even a bit on the small side, and it sat in a meditating position with its head held low. The only reason they knew it was a statue was that it was covered in vines and not moving at all.
The boy took off the hat and approached the statue, a bit more carefully this time, and the girl hesitantly followed him.
“Were those ancient people always so good at making statues? This one is so… lifelike. It’s actually kinda creepy.” The boy reached out to touch the statue’s hair, which looked completely like real human hair, only to have his hand slapped away by the girl.
“Don’t touch it! Who knows what could happen! …You’re right though. We’ve seen statues from that time before, and none of them looked like this.” She knelt down to take a closer look at the statue. It didn’t look like any of the ancient important figures she’d seen before. It seemed to depict a young man, maybe nineteen or twenty years old, and his face…
“He’s beautiful…”
“Come on, you say that about every guy. Lemme see that.” The boy leaned down beside her and paused. “Oh. Oh wow. Does this make me gay? Am I being turned gay by a statue right now?” With the girl being distracted by the absolutely ethereal face of this statue, the boy reached out to touch it again…
But before he made contact with it, a strange whirring sound came from within the statue, and he quickly retracted his hand.
“What the hell..?”
“I don’t think this is a good sign…”
The markings on the statue, which they had assumed were supposed to represent some kind of tattoos, started glowing. It was a dim teal glow at first, but it only got brighter and brighter.
Without exchanging a word, the students made a unanimous decision to get the hell out of there, research be damned.
…
Within that mystical cave, awakened by the activity of mortals, the ‘statue’ opened his eyes…