yearning for unseen depths

✰ LANTERN RITE 2025 ! – reblog & send to earn Peace Talismans.

[XINYUE KIOSK] - Back again, Xinyue Kiosk’s keeping up the competition, offering sweet treats, savory dishes, and even refreshing veggies for all those looking to share a snack.

[TEA TASTING] - Third-Round Knockout is once again bringing the new year on with plenty of new tea options for all those caffeinated connoisseurs that want to branch out. Including, for the first time in quite a while, specialty imports all the way from Natlan!

[DRAGON DANCE] - Uh-oh! It seems like the main crew that would lead the dragon dance are two members short, and need two sets of hands NOW! Grab someone and help keep this dance from falling through.

[KAMERA BOOTH] - Liyue is as scenic as it is busy. Several Kamera’s are set up on the docks, surrounding mountains, and some of the best balconies in the area. Make a memory with someone important to you, or keep the lens' attention for yourself!

[LANTERNS] - Like a sea, lanterns float up and flood the night sky. Meaning often dictated by color, they contain our hopes for the new year. Gather with those most cherished and wish for blessings.

[FIREWORK SHOW] - While noisy, fireworks are an incredible display of beauty and color. Make your mark on the new year with a bang!

[JADE HEARTS] - A popular shape for a popular stone in the land of Geo, these Jade Talismans sold quite well. Now, they’re made as a profession of love and desire to ring the New Year in with the company of another.

[BURNING INCENSE] - Even with all the raucous celebration, it is always important to find a quiet moment and remember those who now belong among the stars.

[TOUR GUIDE] - With as many sights to see as Liyue has, join up with a group of strangers to garner the best sights across the city and countryside!

[GIANT JENGA] - While not necessarily a Liyue classic, a recent uptick amongst the younger generation has brought this classic game to the port, and with blocks bigger than ever! Will you best your friend, or will all the pieces come crumbling down? 

[RED ENVELOPES] - Customize your own envelope as a gift to those most cherished. Whether you slip in some mora or a confession of love, even the smallest of envelopes can be life-changing!

[SNAKE PETTING] - As the mascot animal of the year, an exhibit has been set up with several non-venomous and super friendly snakes, if you’re not afraid of these scaly babies.

[JADE MYSTERY] - Shitou is running a special promotion! Guess the correct Noctilucous Jades to find out what it is, just don't gamble all of your mora away...

A familiar blur of red, white and black was obscured by the rippling waves. He paused to observe for a moment, moving to take off his helmet for better visibility. His mind immediately wandered to his Father; perhaps it were an emergency if she, herself, came all this way just to retrieve Freminet. His heart sank at what that could possibly mean, his feet already flapping to propel him up past the surface of the sea.

Freminet blinks his eyes, adjusting to the unfiltered light of the surface, and reaches to brush his damp bangs out of his line of sight with his fingers. "Father? What's wrong?" he begins, his tone betraying his mounting worry. A few more blinks, and the red, white and black come into focus… This did not appear to be Father.

" Eh ? who the fork are ya' callin father ? ! " this kid didn't LOOK like his daughter , besides . . . that just wouldn't be possible , surely .

the two stared a good while of silence . . . before Boothill let out a nervous laughter , eyes shifting around , nobody else around -- the apparent father this kid was asking about wasn't here .

" Eh -- ah . " a very clear confusion was present on both his face and tone , before clearing his throat and finally getting a sentence out . " Alright , kid -- I ain't ya father , the name's Boothill , reckon I'm . . . a tad lost here , so I took a second to come n' think about some carp -- then before I knew it , saw yerself under there . "

he reached his hand up to scratch the back of his neck , hoping that was a good enough explanation , so he didn't seem on the strange side for watching him until he ascended .

This person's body was like a Gardemek's, and he spoke in a bizarre dialect… Well, being a part of the Fatui, even among its lower ranks, will have you seeing some unique things, but something told Freminet the figure wasn't from around here - not from Fontaine, nor Teyvat, even.

None of this is of course Freminet’s fault, nor is it anything he needs to know or bother with, and so Neuvillette disregards it for now, focusing instead on the matter at hand.

Recognizing that the other wanted him to take charge of the plan of action, he swims a few feet closer towards the ruins in order to see more clearly, though still keeping a distance, aware of the otters that huddle behind him for protection (and knowing that he still has many of their shells). He, too, takes notice of the sea creatures avoiding the vicinity of the sunken ruin - and it is not long before it becomes clear why, as the Ousia-powered Patrol Mek makes its presence known.

Neuvillette winces.

“A unit of those that had gone out of control was eliminated not long ago. Looks like they missed one.”

Well, little to be done about that. Neuvillette turns towards the otters hiding behind him and gestures towards Freminet. “Stay back. Follow him,” he says, calmly but firmly. It seems as though the little animals understand him, letting go of his robes to allow him to swim ahead.

A quick scan of the area reveals to him an ally - a Xenochromatic Hunter’s Ray, following its Fontemer kin as they steel clear of the ruin. Passing by it, he touches it to borrow its power; it accepts the gesture, showing little reaction to it.

With that, Neuvillette heads towards the adversary, decisive in his movements, and once he is there, it only takes a moment. It detects his presence and flashes red, readying its attack - but he is faster. One strike, imbued with Pneuma, paralyzes the Mek; the other, wielding the power of the Hunter’s Ray, cleaves it clean in half.

… Well, that should be that, for now. With the immediate threat averted, Neuvillette swims back to Freminet and the otters. Behind his back, first sea creatures - including the Sea Hare he had fought off earlier - begin to cautiously peek towards the ruin, checking if they can reclaim it.

The otters just as quickly dive back beneath the surface, and Freminet follows suit, seeing the assortment of creatures surrounding the Iudex. It was truly a spectacle, and he's almost certain that when he tries to relay this to the twins at the dinner table this evening, they would call him a liar. With the conflict solved, Freminet's unsure as to what to do next, and gestures with an awkward thumbs up towards Neuvillette, his diving helmet having been replaced to provide an additional barrier between himself and the ever-imposing figure.

However, all of that pales in comparison to his true destination - a sword shop. Or a blacksmith's. One of the two. Maybe both at once! Yanqing buzzes with energy as he passes by crowds of people, all here for an event that he's seen going on all at once. Maybe he doesn't stick out too bad with all of the different kinds of people that are littering the streets...

He asks around a few times to locals that are more than happy to point him towards a blacksmith. Yanqing thanks them profusely, then thanks Lan internally for the fact that he hadn't stumbled over any of his words when he'd come up to strangers, and then promptly heads in the direction of the blacksmith's.

It's not just his usual fascination with sword that has brought him here, though, not at all. It's the fact that Yunli, that little menace - had told him a couple weeks prior that he'd never be able to wield a greatsword. She held up Old Mettle menacingly, and although they were pretty (as much as Yanqing hates to admit it) matched in battle, the fact that he had no training in terms of her weaponry... it was true.

Yanqing can block hits left and right from Old Mettle as they spar without too much effort, usually. He skids past, and uses his speed to get him within range so he can strike again.

It's true, though, what Feixiao had said to him - he prioritizes speed over brute stegnth, while Yunli prefers to one-smack it and leave it at that. Maybe it's time for him to take the General's advice and to expand his horizons...

Challenge taken, Yunli!

He walks a little quicker, with more vigor, until he reaches the blacksmith's - however, it seems, that it's already occupied... There's a boy, who looks, admittedly, not very happy to be there, talking to the balcksmith. He looks about ready to shrink into a metaphorical shell.

Yanqing frowns. That's kind of horrible. So, he decides to interrupt.

"Hello!" He calls, jogging forwards, waving to both of them. "Is this the blacksmith's?"

At risk of putting his siblings through another chore in his stead, his boots drag heavily to Beaumont Workshop. His dialogue rehearsed in advance, he concisely explains the damage along the blade of his greatsword and requests the repair of the chips and ents, leaving the weapon and a down payment of Mora in her hands before he runs off with a mumbled excuse about a more urgent errand. When he returns, he already has the Mora in a bag to pay her for her labor, but Estelle's hands maintain an iron grip on the handle of his claymore, and although Freminet badly wants to pull it from her grasp and run away, it would be rude to do so.

This afternoon, once again, Freminet is a captive audience member to Estelle's one-woman show as she goes into great, great detail about the repairs (and improvements!) she's made to Freminet's claymore. Almost immediately does she go off on a tangent, some sort of anecdote about a samurai weapon from Inazuma (he's only half-listening, though he does note the name of the book she mentions to check out later).

Finally, a savior. "Mademoiselle Estelle," Freminet raises his voice just enough to interrupt her segue into a second anecdote, noticing a boy of his stature coming up beside him. "I'm very grateful for your repairs, I am, but I'm quite busy, and it seems you have another customer that deserves more attention than me -" his hands gently begin to pry the blacksmith's hands from his weapon "- so we can continue this chat next time, and I'll let you help this young gentleman."

vaporize — great red sand — gallagher

Naturally, that includes himself, and there’s nothing on his person - except for, perhaps, his physique buried under his robes - that would suggest he can hold his own in battle. This caravan had hired a bodyguard for a reason, after all. Even if he looks little more than a boy sitting nervously on the other end of this rock right now, doing a poor job hiding that there’s anything wrong, or that he’s reluctant to go out and face the others. Gallagher sighs and decides that the last thing he needs now is to be stared at, or interrogated, so he turns to look out across the decrepit room. The remnants of a mural faintly color the wall on the other side, but the sand and wind has worn it nearly smooth by now - a moment in history now completely lost to time.

“… I’m not really suited for the desert either,” he says after a while, screwing the cap back onto his own canteen and draping his arm over his leg. “A long, long time ago, I actually got lost. It’s not hard to do, as you can imagine - one wrong step off the path and suddenly everything around you looks like the same desolate wasteland. Even the best navigators struggle to find their way back when they’ve been swept away too far.”

When he closed his eyes, he could still see the dreamscape’s untamed wilds, a disorienting glitter under a diffuse, sourceless light. The body didn’t notice temperature the same way within memoria, but the sand had a way of slipping under bone and sanding it away.

“There comes a point where you don’t have any hope left of bein’ saved, and you just give up and let it take you. When I was on the brink, a good man reached his hand out and dragged me back home.”

He throws a sidelong look at Freminet to gauge his expression, then looks back at the wall again with a soft chuckle. “Had enough sand for a lifetime. But here I am trudgin’ through it now.” With a dramatic sigh, he shrugs his shoulders and unscrews his canteen for another sip. “That’s life in research at the Akademiya for ya.”

It’s seamless, almost as if he hadn’t been talking about anywhere else but the great Red Sand.

Freminet's young, that much is apparent to even himself, but even as his elder companion prattles on about his past experiences in the desert, his mind begins to drift about whether or not he's really suited to protect this team of researchers. Far be it from Freminet to be the type of person to judge a book by its cover; perhaps the group were better off without a bodyguard, or otherwise the researcher beside him may have more than sufficed, even with limited combat skills. With age comes experience, as they say.

As the researcher's story progresses, his mind begins drifting to the instances in which he, himself, thought he may be swept away by the currents of the sea, and it's as if Gallagher can read his mind (or his face; perhaps Freminet is doing a worse job at hiding his emotions with his lower energy). Freminet almost startles at the inquiry; not that he minds giving a response, he just doesn't think he's interesting enough to have any experiences to relay to someone who seems much more traveled, like Gallagher.

chenyu vale — fischl

The literary offerings of Chenyu Vale, specifically, paled in comparison to that of Liyue Harbor's Wanwen Bookhouse, but that, in a way, was all the more exciting to Freminet: perhaps, here, he could really uncover a hidden gem. His fingers traced the lines of books in the small general goods store; the selection was, as to be expected, limited, but these were definitely volumes he'd never heard of. The first thought that came to his mind was that Liyueans sure did enjoy a good swordsman tale, as there were no shortage in this small collection, but the majority of titles were the more famous ones, as to be expected.

He kneels to thumb through the offerings for younger readers, hoping for a change of genre within the children or young adult books. A shadow looms above him in the stuffy, incense-scented store, and he turns his head to look up, already crafting some excuse in his head about looking for a specific book for a younger sibling, and certainly not for himself. "Sorry, am I in your way?" Freminet clears his throat, standing awkwardly, his boots shuffling to the side… though, it does pique his interest as to why anyone else would be visiting this general store to peruse the books and not the other wares.

starter for @romaritimes

this place was certainly rather strange compared to where he's used to being , fontaine was an odd place that he can't really say he was the biggest fan of , but he's getting used to it for the short time he's gonna be here .

being a galaxy ranger , he travels to a ton of different places for varying reasons , so he's seen his fair share of places , but all the noise here was starting to become a bother .

with a heavy sigh , he wandered off for just a little bit , heading off to the beach and crouching down . . .

staring at his reflection in the water , pondering , thinking .

A familiar blur of red, white and black was obscured by the rippling waves. He paused to observe for a moment, moving to take off his helmet for better visibility. His mind immediately wandered to his Father; perhaps it were an emergency if she, herself, came all this way just to retrieve Freminet. His heart sank at what that could possibly mean, his feet already flapping to propel him up past the surface of the sea.

Freminet blinks his eyes, adjusting to the unfiltered light of the surface, and reaches to brush his damp bangs out of his line of sight with his fingers. "Father? What's wrong?" he begins, his tone betraying his mounting worry. A few more blinks, and the red, white and black come into focus… This did not appear to be Father.

Gesturing for them to calm down, the Iudex begins to gather the shells; the ones of particular value, easily recognizable by the way little paws instantly reach for them, are returned to their owners immediately, while the rest remains in his own hands for now, much more suitable for emergency situations such as this. He is just about done when his senses pick up an abrupt shift in the flow of Hydro around him, and instincts taking over, he moves quickly with one sharp kick of his legs against the water to position himself in front of the animals and raises his arm to shield his face—

taking a bomb-shaped blast of Hydro fired by a large Sea Hare hidden in the kelp.

First of all, rude. Second of all,

“Up!” he commands, and though they would normally be reluctant to leave their shells behind, fear wins in this situation and the otters retreat, heading upwards, towards where Mr. Freminet is. For his part, he moves to dodge a charging attack, all while gathering his own power in his hand; as soon as the Sea Hare is close enough, he releases a blast of his own directly in its face - not intended to kill or even seriously harm, but enough to show who the stronger one here is, and force it to retreat.

Retreat it does, making one last what in human terms would be angry face at him as it flees. Only once it has disappeared does Neuvillette return to quietly gather the remaining shells and return to the upper level as well - ignoring the weak, dull pain in his arm from the strike - now followed by the entire otter school of all the animals free of the tangled kelp. There is a small frown of concern on his face as he does. 

“This was not normal behavior, they’re not usually aggressive… Something happened here and disturbed the local environment,” he observes, both to himself and to Freminet, allowing the young man to do with that information what he will, now or later. Neuvillette is then interrupted by several pairs of paws tugging at his sleeves, accompanied by pleading squeaks.

Head towards the sea floor again, he dives lower to meet the now-freed otters and his acquaintance. Unwillingly but out of necessity to communicate, he pulls his diving helmet off of his head, tucking it behind his back and cupping his hands around his mouth, speaking as slowly and clearly as he can, making sure to enunciate and clearly form out the shapes of his spoken word with his lips in order to avoid his speech being garbled by the surrounding water: "There might be something worth investigating towards the ruins."

To further drive the point home, Freminet turns his upper body about 100 degrees to the left, gesturing his thumb towards the weathered remains of pillars. The sea hare the Iudex previously confronted seemed to be pointedly swimming away from that area; in fact, upon closer inspection, it looked like most of the sea creatures were making an effort to avoid it. As if on cue, as soon as their attention turns towards where Freminet had pointed out, a brief aura of dark indigo glows near the ruins, encased in within mechanically engineered metal fit to withstand the unrelenting environment of the sea - an Underwater Patrol Mek.

But she was already here, and there was nothing more to do than tolerate it until the job was finished. A patient needed a remedy to some mystery ailment.

Turning to Freminet, who actually seemed to offer up a solution, she would give a nod. "Thank you. We should try general medication and see if it wanes off any symptoms. That way, we can narrow down what it may be." While Freminet would never really have the backbone to belittle either of them, at the very least, we was being helpful.

"That doesn't give us an answer though. And, depending on the medication, if it's wrong, it could weaken other parts of their body and make things worse. We can't just throw darts at the wall blindly." While obnoxious, he did raise a fair point. Without a proper direction, just making this patient ingest different medicines could lead to other risks. Quiet musings would eventually lead to a snap from Chiori's fingers.

"Do herbal remedies really pose issues the same way manufactured medicine does? Will these plants that Freminet mentioned, ones from Inazuma and Fontaine, really be risky to the patient." Risky as it may be, it wasn't like either of these two had proper medical experience. Questions of ethics already surrounded Kettle, so hiring untrained practitioners really shouldn't be a surprise.

His mouth opens and his lips take the form of a near automatic apology, but before the utterance can form into soundwaves, the tailor is already whisking him away from the clinic, much to his relief. Freminet would still have to deal with social interaction, but he at least is familiar with Chiori, and knows she's not as much of a chatterbox as some other Fontanian business-owners… and at least they were making an escape from that sharp-tongued doctor, though something in him still had a tinge of anxiety at having to deal with Chiori's own personality.