Disclaimer: I do not own Genshin Impact or any of its characters. The world of Teyvat and all of its residents are property of miHoYo. I'm just someone who likes to play the game.

A/N: The outline for this story started just after uploading The Death of a Cavalry Captain, on the 9th of July. This one will cover how Mondstadt reacts to losing Kaeya and Venti's reaction when he finds out Kaeya's condition and where he is.

To say that there was an uproar when Kaeya went missing would be an understatement. Jean had been pacing the floor of her office for hours before the door slammed open, revealing a harried Amber followed by two of the missing children – Timmie and Flora – in tow.

"Grand Master Jean," she said, "I have an update report on the missing children!"

Jean, having already been reaching her wit's end, deflated with relief at the sight of the children. Neither showed any signs of serious injury, though they both still looked a little shaken. Thank Barbatos.

"Yes, go ahead, Outrider."

With a nod, Amber gave a gentle nudge to the two nervous children. Both looked a little unsure but Timmie was the one who stepped up, clearly deciding to be the one to tell the story. Jean didn't miss how he and Flora hadn't let go of each other's hands since they walked in.

"We were kidnapped from close to Springvale. I was helping Flora find some flowers because she was too nervous to go that far alone," he says, circling his foot on the floor. Whether it was in nervousness or guilt, the knight couldn't tell. "I know we weren't supposed to go that far alone," he whimpers, hanging his head down low. Jean felt her heart go out for the kid. He was probably blaming himself for this.

"We – we were taken to a cave close to Liyue and kept there with other kids," he stuttered, fear creeping back into his voice. He squeezed Flora's hand as he obviously tried to keep himself from shaking. The girl stepped closer until she almost glued herself to his side. It made Jean and Amber's hearts ache at the sight.

"It wasn't too long before Sir Kaeya found us!" the young bird enthusiast said, his voice becoming lighter as he spoke of the captain. "He was able to sneak up on the bad guys and took most of them out pretty fast. When the big bad guy ran away with one of the other kids, Sir Kaeya took off after him after telling us to come back this way."

That gains Jean's attention.

"And where is he now," she asks gently. "He surely should have caught up to you before you could have gotten too far. A little girl can't be that heavy to carry."

The boy's shoulders slumped.

"After he chased that guy, we left on our own until we ran into a lady named Adelinde. We waited in the big house until Outrider Amber showed up. But Sir Kaeya…" the boy hesitated. "Sir Kaeya never showed up again. Neither did the little girl. We don't know what happened to them."

Jean felt like her stomach had dropped while her heart climbed into her throat. Kaeya was not only strong enough to take out a measly Treasure Hoarder and certainly fast enough to catch back up with the children. He was even known to give Amber a run for her money, much to the young lady's annoyance.

So, what had stopped Kaeya from showing up?

When she relayed the question to the children, they both hung their heads. Neither could really bring themselves to look her in the eye. It was Timmie who once again spoke up.

"They-," he stutters. "They just never caught up with us. We kept waiting, but they never showed up to the house."

Jean could feel her emotions swirling in her head as her thoughts raced with all of the things that could have happened. Had there been an accident that had slowed him down? Had he just not gotten there before but was waiting for them with the last child? Was he-?

In her heart, Jean knew there was only one reason that Kaeya hadn't returned.

"Lisa," she calls to the librarian. The woman isn't standing very far away, just by the bookshelves and obviously paying attention to their conversation. "Stay here in case Kaeya does show up. He might just be moving slower for some reason."

"Jean?!" Amber calls after her, clearly alarmed by the woman's actions.

"I'm going to put together a team to search for Kaeya," she shouts behind her, hardly slowing down as she rushes out the door. While she could have left that up to the Reconnaissance Company, but she would rather rot in the Abyss than just sit still while Kaeya was out there somewhere.

She couldn't lose another friend.

Needless to say, Jean had her own search party ready in under an hour. Her team was small, mostly consisting of Huffman, Swan, Lawrence, Adler, and Belinda. She couldn't afford to take too many because it would draw too much attention and possibly cause alarm. With her small gaggle of knights in tow, they set out for the Stone Gate.

It didn't take them too long to reach Dawn Winery grounds. The mansion looked as regal as ever and the vines ripe with a bountiful harvest of grapes. It felt almost surreal to not see a familiar head of red hair running around with another with blue not being far behind. The air around it seemed so quiet without the sound of laughter to fill it.

Against all the odds, Jean found herself hoping that maybe Kaeya had already arrived here and had taken shelter. Telling her envoy to wait, she deviated from the pathway and made a quick trip to the Winery's front doors. She knocked frantically, hoping beyond anything that Kaeya himself would open the door and tease her about worrying too much.

When the door opened, however, she felt that hope shrivel up into a husk as Adelinde opened the door. The woman looked exhausted, shadows forming under her eyes, though she obviously tried to hide it by standing tall and looking as professional as possible. While Jean's heart went out to her, she couldn't help but feel disappointed that it wasn't her friend.

"Good evening, Miss Adelinde," she said politely, trying hard not to let her desperation come through in her voice. "I just wanted to know if you had seen Kaeya. He hasn't returned from a mission he was sent on earlier today."

"I saw him making his way toward the Stone Gate," the head maid responded. Her voice was stoic as she talked, but the exhaustion made it clear that she had been on edge all day and had probably been looking for him herself.

Downtrodden, but trying her best to hide it, Jean gave her a quick and quiet 'thank you for your help' before turning around to walk away. However, she pulled up short when the sound of Adelinde calling out to her regained her attention before she got too far. Turning back to the maid, she's met with the sight of the woman biting her lip and squeezing her hands tightly together.

It was the closest to nervous the knight had ever seen her.

"What's wrong?" she finds herself asking, even as her heart beat already starts picking up again.

"Ever since the children came to the manor, I still haven't seen Sir Kaeya return from that direction."

Jean wanted to shake her head in denial, scream at the top of her lungs that her friend was fine, that he was probably just resting. But one look at the head maid's face, she noticed that the woman was just as worried as herself. Adelinde had been the one to help raise both Diluc and Kaeya when the boys were young, helped them when they scraped themselves up, comforted them when their father could not, put them down at night he ran late, and was essentially the closest either of them had to a mother figure.

If anyone had taken both of the boys' disappearances as hard as she had, it would be the woman who raised them.

"Thanks," she said sullenly.

After that short detour, they arrived pretty quickly to the scene. She tries to look the scene over and gives a start when she notices the indents in the ground. Going over to check it out, she finds that one groove was deeper than the other, obviously from a bigger and heavier body. The one close by was smaller, a slim form that was only as deep as it was from being held down by the bigger form.

An image of what happened here formed in Jean's head and she was definitely not liking the picture. The ground around both grooves was discolored, seemingly darker than the rest.

And the smaller body was nowhere to be found.

Kaeya never returned to Mondstadt.

Adelinde never even saw him come back up the road. Had the kidnappers had backup? What was she supposed to say to Grandmaster Varka?

To Diluc-

Jean knew she should remain calm as the highest acting authority on the scene, but her breathing was picking up.

Kaeya was gone.

Kaeya was gone.

Jean let out a scream of anguish so loud that it startled her companions. One knight, a man named Huffman, was quick to run to her side and kneel next to her, pulling her into a hug. The others could only watch in stunned silence. They had all been expecting the worst when they had joined the expedition, but no one was prepared for the young woman's reaction.

All they could do was watch and grieve in silence as the screams of a young woman who lost both of her best friends filled the air with her melancholy.

Venti barely held back a flinch as he heard the sound of mournful cries in the wind.

Another young life taken in the line of duty.

Despite their jobs, knights actually didn't die that often because of the strenuous training they all had to go through. So, whenever one did die in battle, everyone took a moment to mourn and pray for the departed soul.

Venti himself was no different.

Kaeya, despite his origins, had long been accepted by the Anemo Archon as one of his own the second he had stepped foot into Mondstadt. He knew why the child had been dropped off and it made him feel ire towards the boy's father for putting that pressure on a child, but he bore no ill will towards the boy himself.

Even though he hardly interfered, Venti did like to watch. It was sad to see the boy be so afraid of something as normal as kindness. The look of fear in his eyes when Crepus had gathered him up in his coat and huddled his tiny body to his chest. To say that Venti had stuck around for a while would be accurate.

It had been so long since he had seen a Khaenri'ahn, that he just couldn't help himself. He watched that fearful child learn what kindness was and bond with the boy that would soon become his adopted brother. He oversaw the boys training and entering the knights together. He watched painfully as they turned their blades on each other.

It was in that moment that he granted Kaeya his Vision.

That boy who always held that secret inside his heart was now bearing his true self to his brother. He was truly himself, letting go of his heavy burden and allowing himself to just feel. But in the aftermath, with that young boy kneeling in the mud and clutching the Vision with one hand with that grim expression on his face, Venti wondered if he made the wrong decision.

Shaking his head, the Archon dispelled those thoughts as he let the wind carry him faster. It didn't help anyone to focus on would've, could've, should've's.

He has an old friend he needed to talk to.

Calmly sitting and listening to a storyteller, Zhongli calmly sipped his tea. The people of Liyue passed by, going about their business and their daily routines, completely ignoring the Archon.

As he wished it to be.

He could feel the wind rustle behind him – whipping his tied-back hair softly in its current – and the displacement of air behind him but didn't even bother to turn around. He didn't even flinch when the new arrival sat next to him.

"Morax," the other mutters under his breath.

"Barbatos," he muttered back. "So," he says a little louder, "what name do you go by these nowadays?"

"Venti the Bard, at your service!" the other says with a smile that seems just a little sharper than usual, just a little bit more dangerous. "And may I ask in turn what address you now yearn?"

"Zhongli," he says simply, not bothering to say more than he needed to, unlike his poetic companion.

The two sit in silence for a moment, the quiet filled as the storyteller goes on. They can hear the men a few tables over talking about something or other but didn't bother to listen. The sound of a child loudly complaining to her father about wanting a kite could be heard from further away, but even that also went ignored.

"Where is he," the Anemo Archon asked, finally breaking the silence.

Zhongli doesn't bother playing dumb. He knows what the other Archon is here for.

"The boy has taken up employment at Bubu Pharmacy under the pharmacist, Baizhu."

He could feel the other's eyes drilling into the side of his skull.

"Why did you take him? Surely, you noticed that he was from Mondstadt."

"We simply made a contract," Zhongli informs him calmly.

He feels the wind pick up but bears it no mind. He knows that the other won't do anything with all of these witnesses watching. When Zhongli turns to look at the other in the eye, blazing amber clashed with torrential teal.

This was Barbatos, the Anemo Archon who cared deeply for his people.

Giving a sigh, Zhongli relented.

"Zhongli made a contract to finish the mission that Kaeya had started in exchange for giving him a second chance at life."

"What do you mean?"

"He is a Jiangshi."

For a moment, no one moved. The two remained so still that they could be mistaken for very life-like statues. Venti looked stunned, his eyes wide and mouth agape in surprise – or perhaps shock would be a better word.

Then, suddenly, it was like the world started moving again.

"Is there any way to completely back to life," Venti asked frantically. While he was careful to keep his voice down, he felt like screaming and not caring if everyone around heard him.

Zhongli takes a moment, wondering if he should say anything, but the look in Venti's eyes inevitably wears him down. He hated that look.

"There is a way," he admits, piquing the other's interest and calming him down. The two's eyes meet again and Zhongli makes sure that to convey the seriousness of what he was about to say. "However, the question is are you willing to do what it takes to do it?"

"Yes," Venti immediately agrees, steel in his gaze.

Maybe Barbatos wasn't such an idiot drunkard, after all, Zhongli thinks.

"Then shall we make a contract?"

To Be Continued...

A/N: This took longer than I expected it would and I'm frustrated it took so long. A death is mourned and a new contract is formed. I can't remember when I started this draft, but I ended it on July 31st. I need to pick up the speed on these one-shots because I do have it roughly planned out, but I also have a really hard time writing it down.

Please put up with me.

- Addict