Wayward Travelers

Lin nodded. “I second the ‘not killing us’ statement. I will not beg for your charity, but I do request your respect.”

Lin’s eyes darted to Ray’s. There were stars in his eyes. What that meant, he didn’t know. Whenever Estella Fay used her powers, she’d get a small film over her eyes that made them glow. But igni never had anything like that. Their eyes were permanently animalistic. Lin’s weren’t too remarkable with their dull brown, but Artemis’s had always been a bright yellow. Stars, however, was completely new.

Kirux stared, eyes wide in horror at the thought of anyone dying.

"We're not planning on killing anyone," Evie quickly said. She put the robot in her pocket and held her hands up. "If you were fatui, we would have just kicked you out from this camp. That's what we did with the camp's original owners."

She looked over at Viktor.

"We should go to the nearest waypoint," Evie said, "unless you have one of Lumine's portable ones on you."

Viktor gave a tiny, tiny smile. Kirux, meanwhile, had absolutely no idea what a waypoint was or why they needed one right now. "I have two, actually."

Evie grinned. "Perfect! I could take three people and you could take two?"

"Where are you thinking of bringing us?" Winnie asked, wary. Kirux nodded in agreement, still very confused by this whole thing.

"Somewhere warmer," Viktor said.

"There's a town near here," Evie said. "It's a bit of a walk, so we use the waypoints to travel instead. But there's a limit of four people per waypoint and you can only use them if you've actually come into contact with them before, so Viktor and I will have to split you guys up during the transport."

Michael perked up. “Cool! Can I go with Evie?” He was still quite curious about the robot. There was technology back home, but the robot was just so cute and nothing like what he’d seen before. Michael bounced on his toes, wondering what the waypoints would look like. What was a way plus a point? Michael guessed it’d be like a point in the air that opened into a way? But either way (heh), a town sounded good. “We can get food in town, right?”

"Waypoints," said Ray. "Well that technology is more out of date than I was expecting, but then it did work perfectly fine. It can't hurt to use it a couple of times. I do have to ask though, is this the latest breakthrough in teleportation technology or does this remote outpost in the middle of nowhere just have outdated tech."

"Oh, there's so much food in town," Evie reassured Michael. "We usually go to the Good Hunter, but there's technically the Cat's Tail and the Angel's Share. And I don't have a problem with you coming with me."

"I want to go with Winnie," Kirux signed and mouthed. Winnie smiled at that. She was glad her brother wanted to stay with her, even though she was the only one who could understand him.

"Kirux and I want to travel together," she said.

"You could come with me, then," Evie offered. "That would be four people. Viktor can take the rest."

After that, she faltered. She looked at Ray and then at Viktor. Winnie couldn't shake the feeling that the two of them had a secret they didn't want to share with the group they had just found.

"It's old technology," Viktor finally said. "Nothing else has been made since then, but they're good at what they do. If they were any better, Celestia would have probably..."

Viktor fell silent.

Evie, meanwhile, gave a very awkward and strained smile.

"We could set up the waypoints now," she quickly said. "So you can get out of the cold sooner rather than later."

Michael adjusted his coat and nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, sooner!" He paused for a moment. "Does the Good Hunter have vegetarian options? From the name, it seems like they serve meat. But in my school, we try not to eat animals, because for any animal you can think of, there's probably a student who has some of that animal's characteristics... Like my friend Bessie! She has cow ears, so I couldn't bear to ever eat beef." Michael shuddered.

Then something else Evie and Viktor had said caught up to him. "Celestia? Who's that?"

Evie and Viktor exchanged a look.

"It's the home of the gods," Viktor said, and left it at that. Even though Kirux didn't really know what Celestia was, he felt uneasy when he saw the look the two shared. Whatever Celestia was, Kirux was sure it was bad.

"And the Good Hunter does have vegetarian options," Evie said. "I don't usually get them, but I've heard they're pretty good."

"One last thing before we go." Lin nervously looked towards the sky one more time. "How long until nightfall?

He briefly wondered if it was a good idea to tell them the truth, but while he had the privilege to ascertain that his fellow travelers wouldn't mind, he certainly couldn't say the same thing about these two. They already seemed quite uncomfortable when they learned about the whole other world thing.

"I'm only asking because we have no place to rest."

"Well as long as you all wouldn't happen to be escorting us to some sort of trap where you plan to enact some genius plan to take us down, let's do this," said Raymond. He maintained the serious expression for about a minute before he dropped back into a smile. In his experience that was about the time it took for most of the people planning exactly that to let out some sort of signal with their body language. These people were either really, really good or they had no malicious intent for the moment.

Viktor glanced up at the sky. Winnie didn't know how he was able to see anything with the clouds in the way, but it didn't take long for him to reply with, "There's still several hours until night."

"And if you need somewhere to rest," Evie said, "there's an inn in town. You could also stay with us, but our house can get a little...cramped sometimes. And Felix might get a little overprotective..."

She clapped her hands together.

"Well," she said, "we can figure out your sleeping arrangements later. Let's get out of the cold first and get you all something to eat."

With that, Viktor and Evie set up the portable waypoints in front of them. The group was split up. Michael, Winnie, and Kirux all went with Evie, while Lin and Ray went with Viktor. Winnie made the mistake of blinking right before they touched the waypoint and teleported. When she finished blinking, they were standing on the grassy shore a short distance away from a stone bridge.



Kirux tugged on her arm and excitedly pointed at the impressive stone city in front of them.

"Whoa," Winnie got out.

As the other group teleported in, too, Evie said, "We couldn't teleport right into town because the best teleport waypoint's right near the fatui, and it's probably not the best idea to let them know how they work."

She looked back at everyone.

"Speaking of the fatui," Evie said, "you'll all want to take your coats off, because everyone's going to think you're part of them if you don't."

Michael eagerly shrugged his coat off and dropped it in the grass, then skipped a little closer to the city. "Cool! Look at all the windmills! And the gate! And the fluffy trees!" The city looked a little medieval, and Michael doubted they had tablets or smart communication devices like he was used to, but any safe food and bedding sounded wonderful. And anyways, all cities had a bunch of nooks and crannies to explore, right?

The last of the snow melted from Michael's antlers as he turned back to the group. "Let's go!"

Ray proceeded to quickly remove the coat, neatly folding it.

"Umm...where do I put this exactly?"

Lin quickly discarded the coat, hoping his waistcoat didn't look conspicuous. "So, is this a stronghold of some sort?"

He never had much experience with cities, but if London itself was unguarded, then that was most likely the norm. Would Lin and his otherworldly companions even be allowed in? No one else seemed particularly worried, so maybe it was best not to question it.

Kirux took off his own coat, then turned to Winnie with a hand held out. When Winnie gave him her coat, he grinned. He still didn't know where to put it, but he was happy to take his sister's jacket.

"Oh, you can give the coats to me!" Evie said. As she spoke, Viktor leaned down and grabbed the coat that Michael had dropped. He didn't hand it over to Evie.

Winnie stared. "Didn't you say it would be suspicious to wear them?"

"I'm not wearing them," Evie reassured her. "I like collecting used clothing. You never know when it's going to come in handy. And we do do some fatui infiltration for kicks, so it's worth saving them."

Kirux hesitated. Wasn't it going to be hard carrying all of those jackets? But even though he wanted to be nice and carry his and Winnie's, he needed his hands to sign still.

He frowned.

After another moment, he gave Evie their jackets.

Evie turned back to the city.

"That's Mondstadt," she said. "It's not really a stronghold, though it could act as one if it needs to. There's guards stationed outside of the entrance, and it's never hard to find one of the Knights of Favonius wandering around."

Viktor looked over at Evie. "We should drop the coats off at our house when we get into town."

"I'll do that," Evie offered. "You can give everyone a tour."

Viktor blinked. "But you know Mondstadt better-"

"You know it well enough," Evie reassured him. She grinned, then started for the big stone bridge that went across the water.

Ray handed the coat over.

"A tour seems like a great idea," said Ray, with a smile.