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“Aw, don’t cry, Lumine!” Paimon drifted closer to her face, reaching out to pat her cheeks as she struggled to hold back the burn in her eyes. “We’ll find your brother again and get him to come back!”
She took a deep breath, blinking at the fairy with watering eyes. “Yeah,” she managed to whisper out. “All we can do is keep going forward.”
“That’s the spirit!” Paimon cheered, and what was she do but dash the back of her hands against her eyes to clear away the tears and allow the fairy to tug on her scarf to help lead her out? Her steps staggered, however, when she caught sight of the prone body kneeling at the base of the statue. “Oh…”
Paimon followed her gaze. “Oh,” she echoed. “Um… Lumine, we should… Really get going from this place…”
“I don’t want anyone else to come in here, though,” she said. “And we haven’t destroyed the statue yet.”
“But we don’t know what’ll happen when we destroy it! What if unleashes some uber mega evil Abyss magic!?” Paimon tugged on her scarf again. “C’mon, let’s go!”
Lumine, instead, walked forward, reaching out towards the body. “Let’s… At least get him out of here.” She grabbed onto the back of the man’s shirt, trying to ignore the cold skin that she could feel even through the rough material. She pulled, arms trembling, and tried to ignore the bile rising in her throat as he unfolded with a few sickening cracks.
Somehow, they managed to make it out. She dropped the body in the grass, shaking, staring with unseeing eyes down at the man with cold skin and an unbeating heart—she spun around and retched, body convulsing. She felt more then heard Paimon’s tiny gasp, then Paimon’s tiny hand on her back; on her head as she held back her hair and scarf as she coughed out acidic bile and dripping saliva. Still shaking, she stumbled into the freezing river, scrubbing her mouth and trying her best to scrape away the sick feeling of death. She ended up sitting in the river, curled up in a ball and shaking, trying her best to hold back her sobs. It wouldn’t do to have a panic attack here.
“Lumi,” Paimon’s voice echoed, and she felt a distant tug on her hair. “Lumi, come on! Let’s go back…”
The water felt nice against her skin. It was cold, yes, but felt smooth and light. So easy to just sink down and forget about the world.
Paimon slapped her cheek, and she resurfaced with a cough. She blinked the water from her eyes, staring straight into the stars in Paimon’s. The fairy’s face was pinched in worry, her form trembling and bobbing more than usual, hands fisted onto her scarf.
She tried to smile. “Sorry. Fell asleep.”
“This is no place to fall asleep!” Paimon screeched, and she winced and leaned away. “Let’s get going already! We have to report back to Lan, and then get Diluc and Razor and go back to Wangshu Inn…”
“And get you something to eat, yes?”
“That’s right! Paimon’s hungry!”
She smiled again, feeling the edges of her lips curl up more naturally this time. “Okay. Let’s go.” She stood and stepped from the river, ignoring how the current curled invitingly around her legs.
They teleported to Liyue and told, in heavy, stuttering words, Lan about the body laid out on the riverbanks. The woman’s face went ghost-white, but she promised to recover him. Before Lumine could turn and find Diluc and Razor, Lan reached out and laid a warm hand on her shoulder. “Get some rest,” she said, gentle and kind. “We’ll handle this.”
For a moment, she leaned into that touch, closing her eyes and savoring her warmth and the quiet sounds of Liyue’s nightlife, before turning away and searching for her companions.
She couldn’t quite remember what happened after that, exhaustion blurring her memories. There were brief snatches of Diluc’s red hair and Razor’s red eyes, warm hands against her own chilled ones, Paimon’s high voice recounting a few of the details. The taste of shrimp and flour as Venti stared worriedly into her eyes, reaching up to press his fingers against her temples and carefully brush her bangs from her face.
She drew away from him. His touch reminded her too much of her brother.
She remembered sinking into a warm bed before waking up only a few hours later, a scream trapped in her throat as she lay trapped in the memories of the Abyss Herald’s knives cutting into her skin, the dead man’s heavy, unmoving back against her palms, and Aether’s cold eyes tearing her apart.
She staggered to the balcony, dragging her blanket along behind her. It is silent, and she blanky wondered where Xiao was as she sank to the floor. The stars were bright, but not bright enough to flood her vision like her wings did in the darkness of space.
Lumine and Aether. Light and space. Moon and stars.
Purification and corruption.
But that isn’t right, she thought as she pressed her hands to her face. They were twins, meant to complement each other but never be opposites. They were always meant to be together, two halves of a whole, a bird with both wings.
“Aether, Aether,” she’d called, begged, reaching out. “Let’s go home.”
Home was the two of them, hands tightly clasped. Home was two pairs of wings, fractured into 12 shards. Home was flying high above the cloud cover, her breath leaving her lungs as sunlight pierces her eyes, her sword made of curving moonlight matching perfectly with Aether’s made of flaring stardust.
She curled in on herself, shoulders shaking as she sobbed, hand pressed to her mouth to subdue her agonized wails of alone, alone, why did you leave me?
She found herself back at the ruins. The body was gone, and she carefully navigated her way through the ruins, hand placed flat on the wall and following the planes and divots of stone, squinting in the purple darkness until she arrived back in the room. The statue hung before her, hands clasped around the ball of corruption, wings chained and cracked.
She blinked, and suddenly the statue is grinning maniacally at her, taunting her for her weakness.
White-hot fury gripped her, and she screamed.
She summoned her sword—and oh, how she wished she had her original sword, glittering gold and white—and struck —one, two, three—horizontal, diagonal, diagonal. Just like how she was taught, in tandem with Aether.
You will cover each other’s weaknesses. You will be unstoppable together.
She summoned wind and earth with her left hand. Aether always stood to her right. Her first few months in Teyvat—Paimon screaming and blood dripping out on grass, right hand useless as she stared up at the mitachurl that had almost cleaved her right arm off because Aether was supposed to be there—
The chains shattered, and statue fell and snapped and shattered. She continued to attack, though, breaking through stone and corruption alike. “Fuck!” She screamed in her original language, chest heaving. “Fuck the Abyss! Fuck the gods for tearing us apart! Fuck you, for leaving me here alone!” She stopped, shoulders shaking as tears streamed down her face. Festering Desire’s clattered to the ground, a single blood-red eye staring up at her, and for a moment she thought yes, surely this what Aether feels —abandoned and cold and alone, cursing the world and the gods. She remembered the feeling of freedom as she sank in the river, and imagined the stars and darkness of the Abyss feel similar.
She lifted her sword again—and her dreams are filled with so much fire and bloodshed, why shouldn’t she make that her reality?—and stopped when she caught sight of a broken braid.
Like her brother’s hair, his braid swaying gently as he turned his back on her. Like Venti’s braids, as he leaned forward to play a tune for her, humming and communicating his thoughts in song when she didn’t have a good grasp on Teyvat’s language yet. Like the glimmering strings of lanterns; the sweet swells of flower garlands, both cherished so much by the gods.
The sword faded from her hands.
Outside, the stars and moon glittered from their space in the sky, familiar and unfamiliar constellations dripping and turning the river into a current of stars. She idly stood on the bank. skipping stones across the water and reaching back to rub her aching shoulderblades.
Dawn was approaching, and it is only then that she will allow the rays of the Sun to dry the tears on her cheeks.