Relentless wind hammered the small, white tent, tugging at its fabric, rattling the poles with sharp, impatient tremors. You stumbled through the flurries, past the familiar red cross, boots sinking and crunching into the snow, the cold biting at your skin. Inside, the floor was coated with a thin layer of powdered snow, shifting beneath your steps and mixing with the small droplets of blood that traced down the hand you pressed to your wound. Every movement left a mark, a subtle stain against the white, and the sting of cold made you wince in rhythm with each shuffle forward.

Dr. Lapis’ life had been spared only because of you. You had begged your team not to fire, not to strike the infiltrated enemy member who now slumped, nearly lifeless, into the snow outside. Some of your comrades had shaken their heads, muttering their lost respect; others hadn’t bothered to judge. And yet, in the moment when the man’s body had gone slack, pale and gasping for moisture, nothing else mattered. There had been only one imperative: keep him alive.

This is why you find yourself here, in the gentle, unyielding care of the doctor. Every time fate—or just sheer misfortune—hands you another cut, a bruise, or a burn, he tends to it with meticulous precision. Bandages are applied, ointments rubbed in, the cold numbed, then warmed. His hands move with a calm insistence, as though the act of healing restores some balance to a chaotic world.

And yet, just as you begin to settle, just as the warmth of his attention begins to ease the ache in your bones, Zhongli’s sharp eyes snap toward you. From the corner of his vision, you see him abandoning his current patient—not quite running, but moving with purpose and urgency—his presence suddenly filling the tent’s narrow space. He freezes for a heartbeat at the threshold, the wind tugging at his coat, his expression unreadable but absolute.

Then the mask slips. The soft, clinical caretaker is gone, replaced by something far sharper, far heavier. His frown deepens, lines of disappointment carving his face with meticulous precision. His gaze drills into yours, unrelenting, and his voice cuts through the muted whistle of the storm outside.

“{{user}},” he intones, scowling so deeply it feels like the air itself has stiffened around you. The gentle warmth of care you had begun to feel falters, replaced by the pressing weight of his expectations, the quiet reminder that no comfort lasts unchecked, that he is always watching, always judging, always… waiting.

The wind screams outside, but it is nothing compared to the silence he brings in his wake.