'Thought'
"Speak"
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Zhongli ended up making a mini funeral for the dead bird and now there was a mini grave beside the statue of the seven. It was a way to avoid eating the food but still be somewhat respectful. Kinda. You were still a bit pissed but hey, old man head paps were the best. Zhongli had brought you back to yujing terrace and had placed you on the table. Now, he was letting you while you were loafing on it. Your ears pricked up and when you heard Aether's footsteps against the stone flooring and turned your head in his direction. He held the cleansing bell on top of some sort of mini backpack in his arms. "Indeed. This is the cleansing bell. It seems to be in good condition. Let's place the perfume we prepared inside." Zhongli said while inspecting the bell. "Do you know madame Ping?" Aether asked while preparing the perfume and cleansing bell. "Of course. How would O know that the bell was with her otherwise?" Zhongli said. "That's suspicious. But if you don't want to talk about it, we won't pry." Paimon said while popping up beside Aether. "Oh yeah! That old granny told us to tell you something." She then cleared her throat. "If you have the time, you can come over for tea. I don't have much to offer, but you can always count on an old lady for a pot of tea." Paimon said while trying to mimic madame Ping's voice. "Ha, that tone does not suit you. Still, her teapot is indeed very good. There are none better for brewing tea. When a suitable time arrives, I'll bring a pot of fine tea and bring her a visit." Zhongli said while you bit him for stopping petting you.
"Now that we're done with the cleansing bell, we should test out the glider we got for Fluffy!" Paimon said as she gestured to the mini backpack Aether was holding. It was made out of a durable f/c cloth. It also had some golden parts that held some parts together. Aether removed your harness and removed your sigil, and placed it into the backpack thing. He then put the backpack on you. After putting it on, he held you up like Simba and then dropped you. You turned around to bite him but was only able to get his kneecaps as you were slowly gliding down. You looked to your side and saw wings made of black fading to h/c feathers sprout out from the backpack. They also had some golden speckled here and there.
(idk how to draw wings so there)
"Well that went better than expected." Aether said while the wings retracted back into your backpack. "What did you expect to happen?" Paimon asked. "That she gets fractured, or she doesn't end up gliding and falls into the floor and chases us for several weeks straight again." Aether said with a straight face. "I'm sorry, they did what?" Zhongli said while looking at Aether. "Anyway, what do we do next again?" Paimon asked. "...Next we need to purchase kites." Zhongli said. "And hope Fluffy doesn't destroy them." Aether added. You jumped onto the railing and glided down onto the streets then made your way to the toy seller where you waited. It was definitely something new. It was fun jumping through the roof but sometimes you could get lost. To you, the best part was the faces of the liyue citizens seeing a cat gliding down from yujing terrace.
Zhongli and Aether took very long to get to the toy seller but they got there eventually "Ah, sir, you're here. The seven kites that you asked for have been made to order. Would you like to take them now?" The old lady toy seller asked. "Yes, thank you." Zhongli said. You let them talk while you inspected your new backpack. It was light but it still had weight to it. The backpack seemed really spacious so you could store all sorts of stuff in there. Maybe you could steal one of the fatui guns and just keep it in there. It would be funny to see someone's reaction to seeing a cat lugging around a gun everywhere. Maybe you could even find a way to use it. Screw catalyst cat, it's cat with a gun. "Well, allow me." You snapped your head in the direction of Childe's voice. "Hey, it's Childe!" Paimon said. "Did you arrange to meet here?" Aether asked with suspicion. "Haha, no. I was merely passing through." Childe explained. "I see Mr. Zhongli is the same as ever. When paying- Well, when getting others to pay for him, he neither looks at the price tag nor his wallet. He knows a great deal about money and the trials of the common man. He just doesn't consider poverty that could be something to happen to him. Or perhaps, you could say that he could not imagine himself lacking money." Childe said with a smile. "Nah, he's just poor or has dementia." Childe looked at you with a smile. "What's this? Fluffy's harness looks quite different from what I remember." Childe said. "I got them a glider and storage." Aether said. "My, I didn't expect you to spoil them so much!" Childe said while laughing. "I'm not spoiling them, they just need it so they can be safer while exploring." Aether reasoned. "Suure, keep telling yourself that." Childe said.
"Childe, you are as fond of jokes as ever. Well then, since we've purchased our kites without incident, there's no need to take a break before moving to the next step of our preparations. The rite of parting requires helping hands as well as materials. We should be able to find some people near the harbour." Zhongli said. "Oh, by the way, take this bag of money. You probably won't want Zhongli to do the bargaining, if you know what I mean." Zhongli said while handing Aether a heavy bag of mora. You followed them and watched the cycle of Zhongli telling he'll pay in full, only for Aether and Paimon to say no and begin bargaining. For you, it kinda felt a bit strange. Whenever you went to buy from npcs you were never allowed to bargain. Either way, there were always two types of genshin players. The ones with no mora, too many materials to know what to do with, and terrible artifact luck, then the ones with too much mora to know what to do with, little to no materials, and the artifact luck that shoots through the roof. You speak from experience with your other genshin friends. (if you have no friends pretend that having friends was never mentioned)
You all went back to Childe. "All finished then? Splenid. Any leftover cash is yours to keep. A favour for the fatui should not go unrewarded." Childe said. "You thinks you can buy us off with some loose change? No way! Paimon demands to know when the next payment is coming!" Paimon said angrily while Aether face palmed. "Well, how does this sound: You give me the information I need and maybe I'll leave the northland bank's vault open and unattended for an hour?" Childe said with a smirk. "What info do you need?" Paimon asked enthusiastically. "No!" Aether said sternly. "Huh? Aether, does that mean you know what he's after?" Paimon asked. "Are you forgetting what happened in mondstadt?" Aether asked. "Yikes! You're right, Signora...!" Paimon said while Childe's smile instantly disappeared. "You both need to calm down. I don't know what's gotten into you Aether. Just what is this about? The atmosphere is so tense all of a sudden." Childe said instantly smiling again. "Bitch don't think I didn't see you." You said while biting his shoe in an attempt to wound his toes. "Even you Fluffy?" Childe while looking at you.
You didn't listen to what they were saying and continued to bite at Childe's legs, even when Zhongli came over to talk about getting incense. Childe ended up picking you up and holding you away from him to avoid getting bitten. After speaking, he put you down and left. You followed Aether and Zhongli to bubu pharmacy since you didn't see any parkour shortcuts you could take. While walking you thought about if you would need a gliding license now that you had your glider. Would you get arrested if you didn't have one? Or would you get arrested for not following the gliding rules? How would they even arrest you? Keep you in a kennel in jail? You followed Aether into the pharmacy and then jumped onto one of the shelves. You sniffed an expensive vase that held some sort of green plant. It smelled familiar for some reason. The sweet smell of it's leaves- "Wait, why is there catnip here?... I'm sure they wouldn't mind I chew on them for a bit." You began chewing on the catnip while Aether, Paimon, and Zhongli spoke to Qiqi. 'Wait... could I make a wind current and then just glide on it as much as I want? Wait, WITH THE POWER OF THE ANEMO GNOSIS CAN I BASICALLY JUST FLY?!' You needed to test this. Now.
You jumped onto the floor and went outside for more space. You saw Childe eavesdropping outside and didn't mind you, probably since you were a cat. You went to the back of the pharmacy and started making a wind current. Instead, of making a wind current, you accidentally made a large pulse of anemo which sent you up, very painfully, and then you hit the ground with a thud. "Maybe I should practice my anemo first-" You tried making the mini venti ult back when you fought the millelith soldiers in jueyun karst. A black orb surrounded with a turquoise aura appeared before you, and you quickly de summoned it. Next, wind current... how the fuck are you supposed to do that. You tried making really strong wind, and you instead made a mini tornado which you quickly de summoned in a panic. "Okay, okay, chillee. Make the wind less violent and go upwards." You tried to collect anemo energy in front of you on the ground that pushed things up instead of pulling things in. You ended up with nothing but a cool breeze. "Shit." You continued to slowly make the wind stronger until you were satisfied. You then walked onto it and spread out your glider. "Weeee~" The wind current brought you up and you were satisfied with your work, now you needed to work on constantly summoning it.
You glided back down and tried to do it again. It was a bit hard and took a while but you got it again. You did it again and again until you were satisfied. You spread put your glider again and watched as the wind current took you up. You shifted your body forward and summoned another wind current below you. You continued this until you made it across a decent amount of distance. You tried the same but making the currents higher. No one seemed to notice the flying cat just yet so you decided to glide down onto Childe's head. You shifted to his direction again and then retracted the wings.
He stumbled a bit when you fell on him, but regained balance to make sure you didn't get a concussion. "Woah there! What were you doing gliding up so high? Zhongli and Aether have been looking for you and worried sick! Well, Aether was more worried sick than Zhongli but they were both worried." He said while holding you Simba Style. He brought you over to a calm Zhongli looking through the bushes and a worried Aether looking everywhere frantically. The cat dad in him was manifesting. "Hey Aether, Mr. Zhongli! I found Fluffy!" Childe yelled while raising you in the air. "There you were! We were so worried!" Paimon said while she popped up beside Aether. "Just where were you?" Aether asked. "I found them gliding around. Don't know how they got up so high." Childe said while gesturing to where you were while gliding. "I'm guessing that they used their anemo abilities to raise the selves into the air to glide. As to why, I'm guessing they enjoyed the feeling." Zhongli said while looking at you. "Now that we foud Fluffy, give them back so we can get the cocogoat milk we need." Aether said while spreading his arms out so Childe can give you back. He placed you into Aether's arms and waved goodbye as he left. "I kinda wanted to start an air raid. Imagine a cat raining deadly rocks onto liyue harbour, majestic." Aether pet you while making his way for cocogoat milk.
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"My lord, here are the reports."
The subordinate kneeled down and offered up filed documents to a short figure. His hands took the files from the subordinate and turned around to read them. "Leave, you are dismissed." The subordinate looked up and opened his mouth to speak. "My lord, they found one of your-" "I SAID THAT YOU WERE TO LEAVE. DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TWICE?" The figure yelled with anger and annoyance. His day was already bad enough with their awakening. "Y-yes my lord, apologies!" The subordinate quickly scrambled to for the door to leave, lest he end up like the last one. The figure opened the files to see what they held. Various documents and files regarding how elemental energy is stored and knowledge about the nature of cat behaviour. The ones documents that there were less of were ones regarding artificial life. He walked forward to sit down on his chair behind his desk, the sound of his ornaments in his clothing dangling and clanking around as they swayed. He set the file down on top of a small pile of more files. He buried his head in his hands and groaned. "Why must this gremlin of a cat torment me so?..."
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>:]