Chapter Text
Once upon a time, a wild bunny called Lohen who lived near the flower fields of Millhaven was lured by a melodic tune carried by the wind.
He had never heard such a beautiful song before. It was filled with joy and wonder that praised the lands of Mondstadt, describing its terrain from a perspective he had never dreamed of.
Maybe the Anemo God was pleased by the tune and decided to share it though all his land, because Lohen had already traveled the ruins of Brightcrown Canyon and the woods of Wolvendom and still had not found the source of such a beautiful voice.
As the light diminished with the setting sun, the wild bunny felt more and more as if the Anemo God had mockered him, but since he was already so far away from home, he did not see the point in turning back now.
With only his ears and the moonlight to guide him, he found himself closer to the river mouth at the edge of Mondstadt in Dawn Winery, and right there, on a lonely tree in the river mouth islet, sat a finch.
The bunny had never seen a beautiful bird like that before. Only the shadows of the night could so shamelessly try to hide such a graceful creature, with iridescent feathers enhanced by the moonlight, as if not even the Moon Goddess herself could allow such angelical features to be hidden by the night.
Lohen hopped his way into a large rock protruding from the river surface and stayed there, transfixed by the song that prayed for a peaceful sleep for all living creatures and by the bird himself, who still had not noticed the bunny’s presence.
As the song came to an end, Lohen instinctively clapped his hands in appreciation, but by doing so, he startled the little bird, who snapped his head to Lohen's direction, eyes full of fear and heart hammering wild in his chest.
“I’m sorry little bird, I didn't mean to scare you.” The bunny bowed his head, flatting his long ears along his hair and exposing the back of his neck to the bird.
Lohen tentatively raised his gaze back to the bird, and was stunned once again by his beauty. The bird's blue eyes glimmered in the moonlight while his golden hair gently waved with the breeze.
“Beautiful…” escaped Lohen’s lips before his mind caught up with mouth. He would have felt a little embarrassed if not for the bird's reaction.
A lovely shade of pink kissed the little finch cheeks, while still clutching his startled heart over his chest.
“Y–you have the eyes of a predator and the fur of a prey… W–what are you?” Stuttered the bird.
Lohen disliked when others called him prey, but he could understand the concern in the bird’s question. He would let this slide as an apology for scaring the poor little bird.
“I’m just a wild bunny, nothing else, I promise.” He raised his head and pointed his ears up again to emphasize. “You may call me Lohen. May I have your name, little bird?” Lohen aimed for a gentle smile, but hit a grin.
The already frightened bird didn't stand a chance, too scared to understand the gesture, he immediately flew off the tree, trying to escape the strange beast.
Lohen, disheartened by the fleeing bird, forgot for a second that he was surrounded by water and leaped forward, an impulsive reaction with an unrealistic goal to reach. “Wait–”
He fell bodily into the water. Panic flooded his mind as his body tried to discern up from bottom as freezing cold weighted him down. In his initial agitation, Lohen inhaled a mouthful of water instead of air, setting his lungs on fire and blinding his mind.
The concept of time lost meaning as he suffocated and his body sinked. Tragic how one can only find the way up when reaching the bottom.
–
The little finch was terrified, he had initially fled due to how dangerous the self-called bunny looked. He flinched when the bunny shouted for him to wait but kept flapping his wings. Only when he heard a splashing sound did he dare to look behind.
The bunny had fallen into the water, flaring his limbs trying to escape the river but failing in doing so. Alarmed, the bird flew back down, landing on the same big rock the bunny was before and plunged his arm into freezing water in an attempt to reach the grayish teal bunny.
“No no no, please! Don’t” The bird cried, realising that he was responsible for the tragedy befalling the poor creature and that he was powerless to save him too.
He clasped his shaking hands together as tears streamed down his face and started to pray.
“Oh might Sprite of Brilliant Sea-Foam, i–if your luminous authority can still reach far and wide in this distant body of fresh water, I h–humbly beg for your mercy and allow this poor soul who fell into the freezing embrace to live another day. I–I don’t have much but I offer you anything you so deem righteous.” The bird was panting while his whole body shook with fear and desperation, still, he kept praying and begging with everything he had.
Dark water suddenly beamed with light and expelled the limp bunny who slammed on the gravel at the river shore. A candid hope illuminated the little finch as he flew to the bunny side, turning the body on his back. The bird then gently tapped the bunny face, what was he called again? Oh, right!
“Hey, Lohen! Your name is Lohen right? Please, wake up!” He shook the bunny's shoulder and the only response he got was the limp head bobbing with each shake. The little light of hope was snuffed and flooded with a panic that multiplied by the second, he pressed his ear to cold chest.
No heartbeat to hear or feel.
“No no no no, please, come on.” the bird cried out tilting Lohen’s head back. He pinched the nose and puffed air directly into the bunny lungs though the mouth. He counted five and moved to the chest, pressing the heel of one hand on the center of the chest and interlocking his finger with his other hand.
He pushed hard and fast with a steady rhythm while crying his eyes out. He counted thirty and went back into pushing air into the bunny’s lungs, only twice this time. He repeated the process again while mentally praying to the Anemo God for his blessing too.
His arms were becoming numb and all the adrenaline wasn’t enough anymore, but he kept going.
“Please, please…” he begged to the silent night.
Relief washed over him when the bunny started to cough. He rolled Lohen to his side, angling his mouth down to help the bunny with draining the fluids, supporting his upper body with his arm. In tandem with the relief, a sinking feeling slotted in the bird's mind as he heard the water sloshing and taking shape by the margin.
“Foulish little bird, you know better than to strike a deal with underlined terms with a fae kin.” Said the Sprite of Brilliant Sea-Foam, a serious expression on her face.
“Eula…” the bird's sorrowful eyes lifted from the bunny to the Elemental Being who lingered where the water met gravel. “I’m sorry… I–”
“What is done is done,” she cut the bird off, stealing a quick glance to the debilitated bunny expelling water while also trying to gulp air. “I must now collect my part of the deal. Do you understand?” Her cold gaze once again fixed on the finch.
“I–Yes… A life for a life, right?” The bird, absent-minded, caressed the bunny’s hair and ear, flatting it along the natural curve of the head. He didn’t think things through when he begged for help, but he understood the responsibility he had with his words. “Do you wish for my True Name, or my life?” At least he would not be responsible for the death of an innocent, he could console himself with that.
“There is no need for your True Name, Mika. Nor your life this time.” Eula said with pride in her tiny smile, happy with how the little bird was willingly holding his end of the bargain. “You had an active role in saving the bunny’s life too, so I cannot take a life in exchange, the scales must be balanced.” She winked to the bird, who finally understood that the Sprite could have completely saved the bunny, but by letting the bird do the final work, had reduced the weight of the deal.
“Thank you so mu–”
“Don’t thank me yet, you still don't know what the price is.” She interrupted him, with pity in her eyes. After a long sigh she continued. “The payment for your wish is your iridescent feathers.”
Mika paled. That was no different than a death sentence for him. His feathers were where his Elemental Energy resided, not only that, he would become unable to fly for months or even years, until he accumulated enough energy to grow them back. He would become an easy target to the monsters of the Abyss.
He closed his eyes shut for a second, trying to regulate his breathing. Before the sob robbed him of the ability to speak, he said “I understand… I’m still grateful that you helped me save him.”
“I’m sorry, Mika.” Eula lamented while reaching for Mika’s feathers with her power.
—
Lohen’s mind was muddled. His whole body ached, his fingers were numb with the cold and his ribs throbbed at every cough, he was lightheaded with too much ringing in his ears to understand where he was, just that was drenched from head to toes, with gravel caking half of his body. But something was petting his head, and the soothing motion was the only nice thing happening at the moment, so he tried to concentrate on that to ground himself while his body regulated back to normal.
That didn’t last long, as he was shocked back into the present by the sound of a sharp cry of pain. Rolling his body away from the sound, but turning his face to the source, he saw invisible forces holding bloody iridescent feathers above a trembling body.
Mika was trying to breathe through the pain, all his primary and secondary feathers were yanked out of his wings, leaving open wounds on both limbs. The pain was burning its ways through his body, spreading to his back. He braced a hand on the gravel as his body tilted forward, reaching over his shoulder with his other hand in a futile attempt to sooth himself. All his Elemental Energy had siphoned out of him with his feathers, leaving him powerless to even heal his wounds.
He concentrated on inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth while another wave of pain stabbed him, his wings instinctively constricted flat on his back. He stopped another screech from escaping his lips by biting the inside of his mouth, he shouldn’t draw attention to his pain in the middle of the night, the monsters that lurked The Abyss loved an easy prey in distress like him. Still he heard a one sided shouting match in between his own sobs.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?” The bunny’s eyes burned with untold fury while glaring at the Sea-Foam Sprite, he had a dagger gripped so tight in his hand, that his knuckles were white.
“It is what it is. He made a deal with me to save your life and that was the price.” Eula’s cold eyes were daring the bunny to try anything.
“What?...” Lohen felt haunted.
“Be happy that you can walk another day on Teyvat." Eula coldly directed to the bunny. "Farewell little bird, take care.” She said to Mika in a much soft tone, dissolving into sea-foam together with all the feathers.
Lohen was stunned. How come all this mess happened in a single day? Had he known all this was going to happen, he would have spent his day making traps or even hunting abyssal creatures. He turned back to the little finch, now collapsed to his side on the gravel, with blood traveling from the wings, though the back and landing on the ground.
Lohen kneeled in front of the bird, unsure where it was safe to touch the poor thing. The birdie face was scrunched in pain, whole body shaking with shock, eyes fighting to stay focused and a hand unconsciously clutching a handful of gravel .
“Hey, are– are you okay? What do you need?” Lohen gently tried to brush blond hair away from the bird’s face. He didn’t know if he was shaking due to the cold or due to the nerves, the bird slowly focused his eyes on Lohen, and after processing what the bunny had asked, tried to smooth his features and give a reassuring smile, which was stained with blood, therefore, not reassuring at all to Lohen's anxiety.
“I’m fine…” The bird said in between gasps. “I… just need to– to rest a little…”
“Ha! There is no way in all Four Winds that that is true, Birdie.” Lohen said looking at the wings, he gently pried opened the hand clutching the tiny rocks, the poor bird didn’t need another source of pain.
His left ear twitched, picking a telltale sound of abyssal monsters not too far away. Damn it.
“Look Birdie, I’m really sorry, but we need to move, we are sitting ducks here.” Lohen patted the finch hair in a way that he hoped was comforting. “Do you think you can move?”
“Sorry…”
“No no, it's okay, it's okay Birdie.” Lohen was getting a little desperate now, he wasn't familiar with this part of Mondstadt, he didn’t actually know how to help, and he was losing the feel of his fingers to the cold. He was frantically scanning the area in hope to find something useful.
He could try to bring the bird to Wolvendom, he knew a golden wolf that could help them, but the problem was that he wasn’t sure he could climb the terrain fast enough with an injured bird on his back.
“In the center of– of the vineyard... There is an owl's nest… He’s called Diluc, can you… Help me get there?” The bird tried to lift his body from the ground but whimpered in the process.
“Yeah, yeah. Anything you need Birdie.” Lohen was relieved to learn the bird knew the area. He turned his back to the little finch and repositioned his legs in a kneeling stance. “Think you can climb on my back?”
The bird didn’t say anything but warped his arms around the bunny neck. Lohen tilted forward and rearranged his arms under the bird’s knees.
“On the count of three, okay Birdie? One. Two. Three.” He lifted as gently as he could, but the shift still made the bird whimper in pain and squeeze Lohen’s neck a little. “Sorry, Birdie.”
“Mika...”
“What?”
“You can… call me Mika.”
“Oh, nice to meet you Mika. You can call me Lohen– No wait, sorry, I already said that before.”
The bunny kept apologizing all the way to the vineyard every time Mika tried to suppress a moan of pain. He was too worried with the bird's wellbeing to notice how much his chest was hurting, or how hard he was wheezing.
Almost lost in the middle of the vineyard, he started to doubt the existence of an owl's nest, when a coughing fit apparently summoned a red haired owl who landed right in front of him.
“What a wild bunny is doing in my territory in the middle of the night, carri– Mika?!” The owl, Diluc, interrupted himself when he smelled the little bird’s blood in the air. His glare morphing into concern.
“Pleased to meet– cough-cough… you, sir?...” Lohen tried to speak in between coughs, why couldn’t he stop coughing? “Mika said– cough-COUGH-COUgh… You could help…” he managed almost breathless, why was his vision blackening at the edges?
“Hey! What happened?! What’s wrong with you?”
And that was the last thing Lohen managed to process, before an overwhelming fatigue took hold on him, snapping his strength like a dead leaf on a cold autumn falling from a tree.