Young Writers Society

"Tour!" Michael agreed enthusiastically. "Can I climb up the windmills? I bet you can see so much farther from up there." He grinned and bounced on his toes.

Viktor shot Evie a helpless glance, but she was already walking down the stone bridge and leaving Viktor with the group. She waved at the guard by the entrance as she passed him by. He didn't stop her. From the way he was standing now, Viktor doubted he would stop their group, either. The guards in Mondstadt, he had learned from experience, were mostly for show.

Viktor sighed and started for the entrance.

"Most people can't," Viktor said. He thought he had seen Lumine do it a few times before, but that was besides the point. She had also climbed the outside of the windmill for reasons he couldn't understand. The stairs were right there in the inside.

Michael pouted for a moment, but then Viktor's words fully registered in his mind and he perked up. "Most people? Not all people?" Perhaps he could give it a shot, then.

Michael was soon distracted by the various plants around him, however. There was a tree with strange orangish fruits, and a bright blue plant, and a white-and-yellow flower all within a few paces from him. He darted off to the side and peered up into the tree. "Are these edible?"

If Evie hadn't gone on ahead, she would have been able to answer that one. Viktor probably could, too, but she was far better at analyzing plants he hadn't even thought of eating before.

"The sunsettias fruits are," Viktor said. Having noticed what he was looking at earlier, Viktor added, "The dandelion leaves are, too, and you can crush the sweet flowers together and process them to make sugar."

The boy with white hair and mismatched eyes dropped his jaw. He pointed at the fruits with an excited glint to his eyes. He mouthed and signed something, but Viktor didn't know the language he was signing and couldn't read lips.

He could guess from the pointing, though.

"You can eat them," he said. Evie would say it was a good snack before they go to the Good Hunter, probably, even though they were five minutes away from the restaurant.

The boy beamed, then beelined for the tree and took two fruits: one for him and one for the girl that was apparently his sister. Then he was back with his sister, offering a fruit to her.

Lin eyed the fruit suspiciously. It looked similar to apples, except it was stretched out. He had never had an apple before since he only ate what grew in his home for his own safety. He had heard the horror story of his friend, Artemis, trying chocolate for the first time and decided to stay far away from foods he had no experience with.

Especially considering he was in another world.

"We should keep going." He crossed his arms. "Only so much time in a day."

Ray nodded. "I've found the darkness is only good for exploring when you've got a very specific sort of exploring in mind. A tour of a city is usually not going to fall into that type of exploring."

Winnie didn't eat her fruit, but that was okay! She could save hers for later. Kirux really wanted to try his, so he took a nice, big bite out of his. It was really sweet, and really good! Winnie and the others were missing out.

He happily took another bite.

As he enjoyed his fruit, Viktor led the group past the guard and into the city. Some people were walking about in the street, but most of the people were behind stalls or in shops. Kirux paused, fruit juice dripping down his chin, as he took everything in.

"Well, this is interesting~" a man suddenly said from nearby. Kirux spun around to see him approaching from down the street past a flower stall. He had dark skin and pretty blue hair, but what Kirux's eyes lingered on was his eye patch. It looked so cool!

Viktor turned to him with an expression on his face that Kirux couldn't recognize. "Hi."

"I've never seen any of your friends before," the man said, in a cool, almost playful kind of way that reminded Kirux of both Lea and Isa.

"They're new," Viktor replied. "Evie suggested I give them a tour."

"I see," the man said. He didn't say anything else as he looked the group over.

Lin drew his coat closer to himself, frowning. So far, the two people that had found them have been kind. But anyone new might not be.

But he hadn’t immediately lunged and attacked his companions, so that was a good sign. Not quite enough to settle all of his nerves, but enough to make him not panic.

“Is there a problem, sir?”

Lin smiled as warmly as he could without showing his teeth.

"I don't know," Kaeya said. "Is there?"

Viktor gave Kaeya a very tired look, all too familiar with the cavalry captain's antics despite not being one the Knights of Favonius that served under him. For reasons Viktor still hadn't been able to figure out, Kaeya was fascinated by him.

That, or he liked trying to push Viktor's buttons.

"This is Kaeya," Viktor explained. "He's one of the Knights of Favonius."

"The cavalry captain," Kaeya elaborated.

"The cavalry captain," Viktor repeated, giving everyone a look that clearly said he didn't want to deal with Kaeya on top of this tour.

"So where is Evie, then?" Kaeya asked. Viktor wondered what he had to be scheming right now. "The two of you are practically joined at the hip."

"She's dropping something off at our house," Viktor said.

Kaeya mulled this over.

Michael munched on his sunsettia as he watched the conversation. This new person seemed interesting... he had fancy clothing for sure! Michael polished off his sunsettia, taking a moment to savor the last bite with his eyes closed. When he was done, he asked eagerly, "How'd you get your eyepatch? Can I get one too?"

Kaeya smiled.

"It's genetic," he said, which Viktor knew was a blatant lie. He had caught a glimpse of Kaeya's eye underneath the eye patch, once, and there was also the important fact that...

"Eye patches aren't genetic," the youngest of the group said. Viktor was admittedly impressed that she knew enough about how inheritance worked to comment that. She couldn't have been over eleven.

Her brother, meanwhile, looked down at his pants' pocket with his brow furrowed and his lips drawn into a thin line.

Kaeya ignored the girl's critique.

"As for where to get them," he said, "I'm sure you can ask Evie for one. She's taken enough of mine before."

The white-haired boy suddenly grabbed something from within his pocket. He walked over to Michael with his hand still clenched together, then opened his fist to reveal a plain black eye patch. He pushed it in Michael's direction.

"Kirux always keeps a spare on him," the girl said. "Because of his golden eye. He wants you to have it."

Kirux gave a big nod.

Michael's eyes widened and he glanced excitedly at the eyepatch, then at Kirux. "Really? Thank you thank you thank you!" He'd have a souvenir from this adventure now! Miri and Pam would be so jealous when he got back home. (They would get back home, right? All quests had a happy ending... they had to.)

Michael quickly strapped the eyepatch on and struck a pose. Hmm... Seeing with one eye felt weird, but he was sure he'd get used to it.

Ray watched the scene unfold with a sigh. At the very least it seemed like nothing was too negative for the moment. He could deal with the waste of time. It wasn't like he normally didn't have to deal with far more childish behavior in worse situations. He smiled, hoping to look threatening. That usually worked far better than words, unless you happened to be Kate or Vankous, but that was a different story.

"I'll leave you and your friends now," Kaeya said, with a tone that almost reminded Kirux of some of the villains he had met before. But those villains didn't have friends and Kaeya and Viktor were friends, so that couldn't be right. "But you might want to stop by the Acting Grandmaster's office before you continue your tour. I'm sure she'd find their arrival in Mondstadt interesting."

With that, Kaeya was gone, the tiny bit of fabric on his back moving in the wind as he turned around.

Viktor sighed.

"...Kaeya's probably right," Viktor admitted. "We should check in with Jean right now. I can point out some locations as we're walking over, but we won't be able to go back to them until later."

Michael adjusted his new eyepatch, then nodded eagerly. "Is there anywhere we can pick up food to eat? The sunsettia was delicious, but I'm still hungry..." Visions of the salad from the campsite swam through his mind. "You mentioned someplace called the Good Hunter, right?" Michael generally disapproved of hunting (thinking of it always made him touch his antlers protectively), but if they had vegetarian options...