[ 🦚 ] -- plotted starter for @devctiion ;
Kaeya doesn’t know what it is that draws him to old ruins. He takes the patrol routes that go the furthest out from the city because he honestly doesn’t mind the treks through those abandoned places, lifeless and empty.
There’s something in the wreckage of it all (a carnage he’s too old to remember even if he tried, yet too young to have really witnessed the destruction) that speaks to him. He barely makes a sound as he walks, a caution settled in his bones that he’s sure he was born with. The only sound to accompany him is the soft crunch of gravel beneath his boots and the howl of Barbatos’s winds as they coast through the valley.
And then in the downwind, the scent of smoke. A hilichurl camp already? He’d been through this area not but a day ago.
He draws his sword, the weight of it in his hand a comfort as he crests over the hill.
His eye widens when he sees them- Abyss Mages, at least three- gathered together and... conversing? Kaeya strains his hearing, trying to pick up what they’re saying. Their words aren’t spoken the way that the people in Mond speak. Their tongue is different, and yet, he understands it the same.
Their chanting begins to draw energy, a spell woven between them that swirls with dark energy. Before them, an ancient stone door begins to glow, responding to their will until its doors are eventually pried open by their enchantment.
The wind howls, its foreboding sound sending shivers up his spine.
Something evil has been unleashed. He feels it in his gut. He knows with a certainty that he’s afraid of.
A roar echoes from the bellows of the domain, and its enough to send him running back down the hill, pebbles tumbling from his haste as he rushes back towards the city.
Just as he’s approaching Mondstadt’s gates, right before the bridge, he sees a familiar shock of red hair. It doesn’t go accompanied without various other Knights, likely just back from an expedition.
“Diluc!”
The worry must show on his face- (Kaeya’s been telling himself not to be such an open book, otherwise his brother would take on even more burdens that weren’t his own to bear) because the moment his foot even touches cobblestone, Diluc is ready to meet him halfway.