The outside world is even stranger than the child had ever imagined it'd be.

There are no walls to keep the animals from escaping. There are no collars to let the livestock know of their place. There is no shouting; voices demanding the monsters in the arena to dirty their hands with crimson, a metallic smell in the air as the sounds of an opponent's agony is drowned out by the cheering of the watchers, who throw away their gold as if it is nothing of worth just to watch the beasts that had been bred and tamed in the chains of wrath use anything at their disposal to ensure that they get to live another day.

In a forest in the outside world, there is a river. And next to that river, there sits a child, a robe over their shoulders so long that it would drag over the ground they walked upon, and a crown two or three sizes too large atop their head. The upper half of their face resembles that of a pig, and their ears are pointed and pierced with golden hoops. Messy roots of [hair color] hair move with the wind, slowly untangling the unkempt mess. Blank eyes lacking pupils stare into the waters of the lake beneath them, the child taking in their messy appearance as their uncut and sharp nails pick at the grass around them, the cuffs with broken chains around their wrists making noise with their movements. Rather than toes tapping boredly against the ground, small, black hooves make a clicking sound with the floors of the woods, the noise being enough to make the child's ears twitch.

Eventually, however, after moments of silence, the child's snout twitches; picking up a scent of what one would call a mixture of star dust, morning dew, and flowers. The scent was a bit drowned out, though, and that was probably due to the fact that it was coming from under the waters of the lake.

Pointed ears twitching once again, the child tilts their head to the side in wonder as something small slowly passes by them with the currents of the water. The child's curiosity piqued at the sight, so they of course decided that the next best course of action would be to grab whatever the thing in the water was by its ankle and lift it out.

Small ... Bringing the thing closer to their face, the child's nose twitches as they take in its scent once again, confirming that this thing was indeed what had been producing the scent they had just caught not too long ago.

Dead? Standing back up to their hooves, the child proceeds to hold the thing out farther away from their face before shaking it around, wondering if it would open its eyes or not.

"Ugh ..." Ah, so it wasn't dead. Such a shame. The child was beginning to get hungry, but they supposed they could scavenge for something else to eat later.

"Where ... is Paimon?" Paimon? Was that the name this thing went by? "And ... why is the world upside down—"

The Paimon's words come to a stop all of a sudden, and the child huffs, releasing their hold on the Paimon's ankle and allowing it to drop to the floor.

"OW!" This Paimon creature's voice is loud. Not as loud as the watchers', of course, but the child was sure that if it started screaming their ears would begin to bleed. "Hey! What was that for?"

The child doesn't bother providing the Paimon an answer. Instead, they turn heir back to it and begin to walk away.

"Wha—" The child's ears twitch at the sputtering sound the Paimon makes from behind them. "Hey! Hold on! You can't just leave like that!"

The child opts to try and ignore the smaller creature, but that soon proves to be a rather useless feat once the Paimon suddenly flies in front of the child, stopping them in their tracks completely and making their eyes widen by a small fraction in both shock and awe.

How?

"You ... don't look like anyone Paimon's ever seen ..." 

The child didn't respond and only continued to stare at the small—now flying—creature, who curiously looked over their form with wide eyes.

"Whoa ..." The Paimon flies around the child, taking in the rest of their appearance. "What are you?" it asked, both itself and the child completely ignorant to just how rude its question actually sounded.

The child doesn't provide any sort of answer once again, and the Paimon huffs; placing its hands on its hips and lightly glaring at the [hair color]-haired child in agitation.

"Hey, are you even listening?" it chides, flying closer to the child's face.

The child merely blinks, finally snapping out of their shocked state and leaning their face closer to the Paimon's as well in return, their nose twitching as they took in its scent.

"... Sweet."

The Paimon's eyes widen. "W-what?!" As if surprised by the child's statement, the creature flies back and released a sputtering sound once more, its eyes still wide. But then, slowly, its agitated expression from before returns. "Ah-HA!" It points its finger at the child accusingly. "You can talk, so you have been ignoring Paimon!"

The child blinks once. Twice. Thrice. And then, in a moment of innocence, they tilt their head to the side and let out what appeared to be a small, barely audible trill.

The Paimon could only blink back, astonishment eventually appearing upon its face.

"Do ..." the Paimon hesitates, "... do you even understand Paimon?"

The child continues to stare.

The Paimon sweat-drops. "Okay," it smiles nervously, "perhaps a game of charades is in order?"

The child sneezes, and their nose begins to twitch again soon afterwards.

Yep. The outside world truly is a strange place.

* * * * *
NOTES !

yes, the reader's character was based off of technoblade and sad-ist's design for him. i have no regrets.

also also, i wanna apologize beforehand if any of the characters in this story appear ooc. this is my second try at writing for genshin impact, so please acknowledge that this may not be perfect 😅 but either way, i still hope you enjoyed this story, because i have a lot of things planned for it! :D