With plans for the day set, the conspirators set out to fulfil their tasks. The Mondstadt duo headed for the central elevator to get onto the aquabus line to the opera house, Cyno went off to meet up with his contacts, and Yelan accompanied by Xiao made their way to the home of one of Fontaine's most famous magicians. However, upon exiting the hotel with an umbrella in hand, Yelan couldn't help but notice the contingent of guards down below in front of the Steambird's headquarters. While she planned to go along with Cyno's suggestion and visit that reporter friend of Aether's later, seeing them made her reorder her plans.

However— "If you are not an employee of the Steambird or have pressing reasons to enter, we cannot allow you to enter this building." —she was stopped by one of the said guards at the entrance. He was probably irritated by the sudden rain and was not in the mood to entertain anyone.

"I see. I was hoping to visit a friend of mine." Well, a friend of a friend.

"Then do so later after Lady Furina is done with her business here."

Ah, so that was why there were guards out. That made sense. Yelan was aware that the Hydro Archon sometimes mingled among her people, mainly at the opera house; having an interview was not out of the ordinary considering recent events. Yelan made a mental note to try scheduling a meeting with Fontaine's Archon. Maybe Keqing or Kaeya could use their status as visiting representatives from other nations to help push them to the top of the waiting list. In any case, that meant they had to go back to the initial plan of visiting the magician first.

Meanwhile, in one of the Steambird's various meeting rooms that would temporarily serve as an interview room, Charlotte sat across from Furina and Aether (who has since taken off his cloak). Clorinde stood by the entrance to the room, standing guard as was her job.

"Ahem—" the reporter cleared her throat to get into her more professional voice with a notebook at the ready. "Firstly, I would like to thank you for allowing us to hold this interview on such short notice, Lady Furina. It is truly an honour to be in your presence." Pandering to the interviewee's ego was journalism 101 and would help her get more answers.

Charlotte's compliment did its job and put a satisfied grin on Furina's face. "You are so welcome, my dear citizen. It just so happened I was in a charitable mood when I was told of your request."

"Can we please get started?" Aether frowned and sighed at her playing things up again. "Charlotte, what sort of questions can I expect?"

"Uh…" Charlotte checked the list of questions she prepared. While about half was hers, the rest was put together with the forced help of some of her co-workers. A couple of them were rather… blunt in a way and she knew she had to rephrase them in the best way she could. "You will see," she smiled to help comfort him but it only did the opposite. "I'll at least say all of them are family-friendly."

"…Isn't this supposed to be just about my case?" The bad feeling Aether had suddenly grew tenfold.

"Yeah… supposed to…" Charlotte could only ask for his forgiveness later on. For now, they can begin the interview.

"If my sources are right, he lives up here," Yelan muttered to herself as she and Xiao walked up the wet stairs to a bridge over the main road. There was a building straight ahead and to their right but it was the latter that was of interest to them— the home of one Lyney and his family. From what she understood, the magician and his sister/assistant were one of the first people Aether met when he arrived in Fontaine and he invited the Traveler to his magic show at the Opera Epiclese.

However, things didn't go as planned as the Traveler would find himself (once again) in the middle of a murder investigation as a magic trick gone wrong led to the death of another one of Lyney's assistants. At least it wasn't Aether being accused this time unlike when he came to Liyue for the first time. There were a lot of details to the incident that Yelan found interesting but for the most part, it played little matters at the moment… except maybe him being Fatui. That may matter still. In any case, Yelan assumed that he and Aether were still friendly since they worked together on a decade-old case regarding a phantom thief shortly after.

Yelan was simultaneously in awe and worried about how Aether constantly seemed to be in the middle of something. And now he himself got arrested.

Back to the present though, there was someone outside the house by the boxes. He seemed undisturbed by the rain and continued going through the boxes without complaint. "Excuse me, sorry for disturbing you," Yelan apologised, getting the young man's attention. "May I ask, is this the residence of the famed magician Lyney?" She asked with a smile.

"Oh, hello there…" the freckled boy timidly replied. "Yes, this is his house. Can I ask why you are looking for him…?" He asked in turn, giving worried glances at Yelan and Xiao behind her. "Is my brother in some sort of trouble?" It was clear that her high-class appearance and Xiao's general look were intimidating to him.

"Nothing of the sort." Not from them anyway. Yelan also made a mental note that the person before them was one of Lyney's siblings. "I simply wish to speak to him regarding a mutual acquaintance. You see, a friend of mine recently got into trouble here in Fontaine and Lyney might be interested in helping him."

Even with that small description, it was easy for the boy to figure out who she was referring to. "Are you talking about the Traveler? Lyney would be willing to help but he's still sleeping," he told them. "You're welcome to wait inside while I go wake him up."

Seeing as the alternative was to wait out in the rain, Yelan took up on the offer to wait inside.

Fortunately for her, they didn't need to wait long before the famed magician came flying down the steps into the foyer with his younger brother in tow. "Good morning, monsieur and mademoiselle. I apologise for the wait. I usually get up earlier but I stayed up late practising for my next show." he greeted them with a cheery smile before clearing his throat. "Where are my manners? You already know me but allow me to introduce myself. I am Lyney and this is my little brother, Freminet. He doesn't like to talk much so please excuse him for his silence." At being introduced, Freminet tried to hide behind his brother, clearly not wanting anyone to focus his attention on him.

His anti-social behaviour was somewhat adorable in Yelan's opinion but that's beside the point. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, monsieur Lyney," she courteously replied before introducing herself and her companion. "My name is…" For a brief moment, Yelan considered giving him a fake name considering Lyney's background but seeing as they'd be working closely towards a common goal, that was unnecessary. So long as she keeps her occupation a mystery from him, it should be fine. "—Yelan. And this is my associate, Xiao. He also dislikes talking so don't mind him. We're visitors from Liyue Harbor."

Lyney tipped his hat at Xiao but was ignored as to be expected. His unfriendliness did little to change the magician's demeanour though and he decided to get straight into business. "Freminet say you two are here because of Aether's arrest?"

"That's right," nodded Yelan. "Xiao and I are friends of his. When we heard the news of his arrest, we along with another companion made our way here quickly to see if there was any way we could help. I've heard of your trial where he defended you. I was hoping you'd be willing to pay him back by helping us… make things go favourably for him."

Her odd choice of wording piqued Lyney's curiosity. "Oh? I'm more than willing to lend a hand but I do have my reservations." He grinned like a Cheshire cat. "What sort of plan do you have in mind?"

—BANG

"Can you believe this?! …Where did everyone go?" Keqing was not expecting to find the hotel room empty. She was carrying a tall stack of papers, magazines and such up to her chin (which she was more than experienced in doing) and went to place it on the table. She could wonder what everyone was up to later; for now, she had to translate and analyse the articles in Fontaine's native language.

Outside of the panels theorising the Traveler's relationships— 'Some things never change,' she rolled her eyes —there were some reports on his general activities in the nation. Putting together a timeline of events should be relatively simple. Now where was that dictionary she bought?

A/N: And done. Took a while longer than planned but real life commitments got in the way unfortunately. I planned to have the interview this chapter but decided to dedicate the next chapter to that. Lynette was also supposed to appear and I had this fun idea of her and Xiao having a non-verbal conversation with each other but I can save that for next time too.

Anyway, funny story. As you know, I was planning to save for Furina and it was going well. I got up to a hundred rolls saved… then I broke. I'm too much a gambling addict to hold off unfortunately insert crying emoji. So with four days left, I tried to roll for Yelan for my Hu Tao team. I even went to the teahouse for added good luck. But luck was not smiling on me this time and I lost the 50/50… to Keqing. Welp, luckily there's no other Limited-Standard pairing in this story… unless Xiao counts. Good thing he's not coming anytime soon (I think). So long story short, I'm a Keqing main now; I even bought her skin for the shop. Also used my guarantee on Zhongli and got C0 Freminet as a bonus so yay.

Can't wait for 4.1 and see what lore drops would contradict this story… and for Staff of Homa for Hu Tao. She and Furina are tied for my favourite Genshin character. See ya all next time!

P.S. adding while getting ready to upload. I'm only realising how much of a main character Yelan has been so far. That was unintentional lol