Howling winds stung any exposed skin of Aether’s, ice frost falling from the tips of the jagged edges of mountains surrounding him. Pushing through, each crunching step left an imprint of his boot on the snow, an easy trail to follow for any adversaries. Such a careless action wasn’t much of a worry for him, all he needed was a bit of warmth. Desperation was at high tide, if he didn’t find something to warm him up, he’d become the next frozen boar left for another traveler to find.

A grunt left his lips, raising his arm to cover the sharp bits of ice blowing into his eyes. Paimon was struggling herself to continue floating alongside him. “Oh… Paimon doesn’t like this! Let’s turn around!” She whined. Aether simply ignored her request. Honestly he really can’t tell where he is for him to ‘turn around’. This was his first time stepping in Dragonspine after off putting it as such a simple mountain in between Liyue and Mondstadt.

Turns out, it was far more than that.

Lucky for him, the enemies here were everything short of spectacular. Nothing new to him that he hasn’t faced before. Aether’s arm fell a little, gaining a bit of his sight back other than just snow to see up ahead. But the window of opportunity to see where he was disappeared.

“Watch out!” Paimon screeched.

A painful flash of white blinded his vision, knocking him to the snowy ground and in the process hitting his shoulder harshly against a boulder. Waves of pain came from not only his joint, but the back of his head. Aether could only lift his head a bit from the snow, his consciousness lulling to go under.

He could only see a pair of boots in front of him. Just who was this?…