Chapter Text
Lisa yawned and stretched, rolling over and running her hand across the sheets, searching for Jean’s familiar warmth. Her hand slid further, reaching the end of their bed without finding its target. Lisa lifted her head up, blinking in confusion.
Is she downstairs? Jean had slept on the couch a few times when she’d gotten home very late (which Lisa had scolded her for – “You won’t wake me, you know how heavily I sleep! And even if you did wake me up, that’s just another opportunity for you to kiss me, darling”).
She got up and shrugged on her softest cardigan, heading downstairs in search of Jean and tea.
There was no sign of Jean in the house. Lisa sighed, realising that she’d probably fallen asleep at work. Jean hadn’t done that for a while, but she’d been under considerable stress because of the recent increase in Abyss Order activity. Tea it was, then.
“Good morning, Miss Lisa,” Huffman inclined his head as she walked up the stairs to Favonius headquarters. She gave him a small smile and headed for Jean’s office.
Once inside, Lisa was confronted with, not a groggy Jean as she expected, but a very bemused Kaeya. “Our Grand Master isn’t with you?” He asked, eyebrows raised.
“No; I thought she’d slept in her office,” Lisa admitted.
“It appears that no one has seen her since yesterday afternoon,” he replied, a frown now appearing on his face as well.
Lisa sighed through her nose. “Kaeya, I think we may have a problem.”
He hummed in agreement. “I’ve asked as many of the Knights as I could without raising suspicion, but sooner or later we’re going to have panic on our hands.”
“And I’m wearing my good gloves today,” Lisa muttered dryly. Louder, she said, “I’m going to the lab to do some investigating. Will you fill in for the morning, tell everyone who asks that Jean needed a rest day?”
Kaeya gave her a loose salute. “I’ll do my best, but any reason is going to sound a little strange thanks to our workaholic of a Grand Master.”
Cursing Jean’s incurable work ethic under her breath, Lisa headed for the alchemy lab.
The large room was blessedly empty, Albedo likely keeping both Sucrose and Klee occupied in his Dragonspine headquarters. Lisa set to work preparing for some divination spells. While not as skilled as a mage like Mona who had dedicated her study to the practice, Lisa had learned some tricks during her time at the Akademiya that allowed her to scry with a very low margin for error.
She prepared the necessary incantations and laid out guidelines for the diagrams she’d need, and then called on her magic to start the process.
The centre of the sparking circle she’d drawn began to darken, which let Lisa know she had successfully found Jean. But instead of brightening to reveal her surroundings, the magical window remained black. Not good. Not good at all.
Lisa intensified her concentration, seeking out any outlines or shifts in light within the dimness. Success: she could now discern a small room with stone walls. The only source of light came from the edges of the door, which weren’t flush with the stones around them. Instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment at her work, however, Lisa’s heart sped up and she had the sensation of her blood running cold.
The only rooms that were constructed in that manner existed in the domains scattered throughout Mondstadt that were often the refuge of the Abyss Order.
Jean was in enemy hands.
///
Jean’s first sensation was pain. She tried to open her eyes, blinking slowly, and turned her head to the side. Cold, damp stone met her cheek, sending a freezing shock of realisation through her.
Her surroundings were dim, but she could discern a wooden door several feet away from her. Just that amount of light was making her head throb, so she closed her eyes and tried to take stock of the rest of what her body was telling her.
Breathing deeply was a mistake; she suspected a rib or two was cracked. That was the pain that had woken her. She reached for her head, intending to check for bumps or blood. For a moment, she thought her eyes were wide open because of the flashes that shot across her vision – black, red, white, all sparking in unison with the shards of pain going through her arm. Broken. It was her left, not her sword arm – where’s my sword?
Jean managed to struggle into a position propped up on her good arm, peering around looking for the familiar metallic gleam of her weapon’s hilt. No sign of it, or anything else in the room for that matter. She was completely alone, trapped and injured.
Fighting against the rising tide of panic and pain, Jean called upon her training – not that of a Knight, but that instilled in her by her mother. You are a weapon, a shield, and a guiding light for Mondstadt. You will stand firm no matter the storm around you – wind cannot harm you, for the wind is your strength. Anywhere you can draw a breath is somewhere you can call upon your faith in Barbatos and in Mondstadt.
She calmed her breathing, ignoring the daggers of fire stabbing into her side from her injuries, and extended her awareness to the wind currents around her.
Nothing.
Jean tried again, and again. But she could no longer feel the breeze against her skin, or discern its direction and intensity.
Glancing down towards her belt, she confirmed her greatest fear. The one that meant she had failed, as a Knight and as a wielder of the elements. The one that meant she could not heal her injuries, or sense her surroundings for an advantage in battle.
Her Vision was gone.