#unless I establish a proper AU for Dain

[reginrokkr]

Although I've already been flirting with this idea before in petit comittee, the confirmation we got from Mavuika that there are indeed other worlds outside even in the smaller Genshin microcosmos as well as the Abyss is striking other worlds, this is when I want to make out of this an official matter for how this blog will operate with crossovers.

Using the Imaginary Tree as a base for the universe at large and where every leaf is a world —explained as per both in HI3rd and HSR— and where time flows within its trunk —as stated in HI3rd—, back when I first began to entertain this idea I used my ravings of establishing a connection between Irminsul and the Imaginary Tree. Granted that Irminsul works as Teyvat's Axis Mundi and is also titled as Tree of Time, to this day I believe that it can work as a plausible link to the Imaginary Tree.

Secondly, it's important to note that every power that caused a substantial change in Teyvat has always been a «power from beyond», starting first with the one that is attributed the Heavenly Principles (be it the light blue or black-red palette, it doesn't matter) and then following suit with the Forbidden Knowledge as one of the potential branches that the Abyss is composed of. Dain himself talks about this power in 「Travail」 and given his vast knowledge as well as what little was shown of his sentience and powers, I wouldn't put it past him to be in the possession of such power of his own, which I coined it as it being [A]ether (as it was already mentioned in a book alongside the Void, presumably another way of naming the Abyss).

In order for him to obtain the power from beyond he uses, there is the implicit need to search it outside the boundaries of Teyvat like the Heavenly Principles came from outside, or Nibelung went out in search of Forbidden Knowledge before. And this is precisely where the door for crossovers opens for Dain: in using his own wide connection to Irminsul, he finds a way to trace a way out of Teyvat by understanding that there is something even bigger that acts as a point of junction for Teyvat and other worlds. The time frame-scenarios that his journey outside of Teyvat apply will be as follows:

✧ During Khaenri'ah days when the kingdom hasn't fallen yet as a mistake in the process of figuring out why he's able to have visions of the past or the future as per a loose (or yet to be forged) connection to Irminsul. In this scenario, his corporeality is more likely to be ephemeral and spiritual at best because of his lack of mastery over what he can do as per Irminsul's concession.

✦ Post-Khaenri'ah fall, when he's learned about the truth of the world and he came to the understanding that if he wants to provoke a change to defy Teyvat, he needs to find a power from beyond. Given the more properly acknowledge connection he has with Irminsul, as long as a significantly greater mastery over everything he can do, his corporeality can be either spiritual or material.

✧ Post-canon in which he leaves Teyvat and roams to different worlds until he expires his life doing what he wants without any sense of duty weighing heavy on his shoulders. Because of the journey he has gone through for his own mission and the headcanoned release from the curse and thus broadening of his own personal capabilities —reaching the Gnosis as per the Gnosticism, not to be confounded with the draconic authority turned into a divine item—, this scenario will make his corporeality fully material.

Lastly, the most prominent thing to take note of is his ability to connect with the world he finds himself in as per how he can in Teyvat, this time extending it to said world being linked to the Imaginary Tree. Unlike in his own homeworld, it'll take him time to figure things out on his own until he does in order to see a larger picture of the world, as well as to extract information from it for that purpose and others that may be of use for him. The second one is his foresight, its clarity variable the more he learns about the world he's presently in (due to the understanding he may have of such providence based on his knowledge of the world and the connection he establish in resonating with the world).