Chapter Text
The sun shined brightly the next day. Seeped through the cracks and holes in the wooden walls, covering the inside of the house in a spiderweb of light.
One such ray shone directly onto Lumine’s closed eyes. The girl groaned and shifted in her sleep. It was a mistake. Her movement disturbed the thick layer of dust settled on the floor and the next thing she knew, the blonde was lurching forward, a loud sneeze echoing around the room.
It all started coming back. The memories of yesterday or, to be more precise, the disconcerting absence of any memories besides that. Lumi remembered her name, recalled waking up in the middle of nowhere not knowing who she was and a draining trek through the snow-covered forest with some random guy, but—
She jumped to her feet anxiously looking around! Adrenaline instantly awoke her drowsy mind.
She was together with a guy!
And there he was, laying on the floor, sound asleep. Her eyes narrowed. Her sneeze earlier could probably wake up even the dead given how loud it was yet this lazy bum was still snoozing as if nothing had happened...
Wait.
She fell to her knees, blood frozen in her veins, then hesitantly pushed at the man’s body to turn him onto his back.
He was heavy, just as heavy as yesterday when she dragged his sick ass through the snow.
"Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead," Lumine chanted quietly, lowering her cheek to his mouth. Waited.
There!
Barely, but she could feel his breath, and upon closer inspection, also his slowly beating heart. He was unconscious and unnaturally hot, but he was still alive and that was all that mattered.
Lumi wasn’t sure why she cared so much – she didn’t know him. The guy could have been her enemy, maybe even the reason why she ended up in this accursed place but... Part of her simply didn’t want to be left alone. Even this stranger was better company than the overwhelming silence of the snowy land outside the door.
"Come on, we need to lift you off the floor."
It took her good fifteen minutes to somehow haul the ginger onto the old dusty couch and bundle him in blankets she found rummaging around the nearby bedroom. It wasn’t ideal but a good start nonetheless.
Having Ajax (that’s what he called himself, right?) secured, the girl spent the rest of the morning shovelling the snow from inside the house, semi-fixing the door she destroyed last night so they could finally close them, gathering semi-dry wood and semi-figuring out how to light the fireplace. Sadly no matches or even flint could be found in the small living room, which left her with no other choice but to check the rest of the house.
Before venturing into the kitchen Lumi walked up to Ajax. His forehead was still on fire, but he started sweating which was a good sign. His body was trying to fight off the illness.
But we need fire and hot water, and fast.
In the current situation, if drafts won't kill him, dehydration will.
As Lumine was about to leave, the man’s eyelids fluttered. He wasn’t able to open them, but the ginger instinctively reached for her hand still laying on his forehead.
"...don’t ...go..." Ajax murmured weakly.
She could barely discern the words.
Lumi knew he wasn’t actually talking to her. Maybe saw his mother in a dream? Maybe a loving grandma, a beloved sibling or a precious lover? The sickness pulled them out of his subconsciousness even if he couldn’t truly remember who these ghosts were. No one would so desperately cling to a stranger... or maybe they would?
If you sensed the end was near, would it really matter who stayed by your side? Perhaps everything we needed was just a sympathetic presence to keep us company in our final moments. The feeling of not being alone.
Lumine sat by the man's side and gently caressed his cheek. She couldn’t even put a cold compress on his face fearful that it will only make things worse in this freezing room.
Not for the first time she wondered why the temperature didn't seem to bother her at all.
"Don’t worry. You’ll be fine, I will make sure of it."
"...really...?" he mumbled, already slipping away again.
"Really. Just rest, Ajax. Rest."
*~*~*
The kitchen was just as dusty as all the other rooms. This house didn’t see a living soul in years if not decades and nature and neglect have taken their toll on it. Still, it would be weird not to find at least one box of matches somewhere. Cabins like this were built to get away from society and as a result, were usually quite well equipped – after all the main idea was to be self-sufficient for as long as possible.
"Pantry or a storage room... There must be one."
The cabinets mostly contained some typical clutter like cups or plates so that meant the supplies must have been kept somewhere else.
But where...
That’s when Lumine noticed a rug in the middle of the room. It was probably white and fluffy during its prime time, but now appeared dirty and full of holes. And what’s more – something was shining in the sunlight through one of the tears.
The girl quickly kicked the rug away and—
"Bingo!"
There was a hatch hidden under it! She grabbed the glistening metal handle and pulled. It required a few tries before the hinges finally let go and the passage opened with an ear-grating creak.
The stairs leading down were narrow and unstable, but luckily next to them hung a rope with a yellow stone attached to it. She instinctively knew it was the same kind of mineral miners used in the Chasm to illuminate the underground tunnels.
If only I could recall as easily what the heck am I doing here in the first place.
Lumine pulled it and soon the whole space was showered in a warm light; the mechanism seemed to be connected to the lamps lining all the walls. The basement turned out to be quite large and filled to the brim with shelves, but their contents were... mismatched and bizarre – here and there lay a few food cans, various rusty tools, building materials, even books or wool and old rotten vegetables.
The smell was... not something Lumi wanted to dwell upon.
The workbench at the end of the room she checked last, and that finally yielded some results. Whoever lived here before stored a whole bunch of matches in one of the drawers not to mention a black weird... box? Of sorts?
It looked like a simple metal toolbox but no matter how hard Lumine pulled she couldn’t get it to open and prying the lid with her sword didn’t work either. It was interesting though how the item had the symbols of elements engraved on top and no visible lock or a keyhole, but her curiosity had to throw in the towel this time. Though tempted to solve the mystery, she had far more important things to do – like making a fire, patching the holes in the walls upstairs and keeping the delirious guy she was forced to babysit alive.
Her stomach suddenly rumbled, and Lumi couldn’t suppress an unamused snort.
Yeah, while I’m at it, I can make us something to eat too.
*~*~*
When Ajax woke up, he felt immensely tired.
The man found himself laying on a couch in front of the fireplace bundled in gazillion blankets. It was dark, the fire crackled happily and his body felt like jelly.
The last thing he remembered was a trek through the woods with that strange blonde girl. Somewhere on the way he just blanked out and finally came to right here and now: in some kind of house and apparently well taken care of.
Ajax groaned trying to sit up, but a startled voice stopped him.
"Don’t get up!" Someone jogged to him, and a soothingly cool hand firmly pressed at his forehead preventing him from moving. "You were unconscious for two whole days. The worst has passed, but you still have a small fever, so better sleep it all off while you have the chance."
Two days?!? And it was the same girl. Despite their rocky first meeting and crappy conditions, you could see the sorry state of this cabin from a mile away, she still went out of her way and saved his life.
His conscience prickled. Now I feel shitty for suspecting her before...
"Thank you," Ajax mustered his strength and tried his best to sound sincere. This time he truly was. "I will repay your kindness, I promise."
He couldn’t know what kind of life his past self led and what rules he lived by, but if he had to choose, Ajax preferred to be someone who respected other people’s efforts and paid off his debts.
"So you don’t think I’m here to kill you anymore?" Lumine asked, handing him a glass of water he gratefully accepted. His throat felt dry like a desert in the middle of summer.
"You had plenty of chances to do so, but I’m still alive. I don’t think I could have asked for a better proof."
"Sadly, I don’t have such luxury." The girl sighed and walked up to the fireplace carefully retrieving the pot she had previously placed above the flames. Warmed baked beans began to spread a pleasant aroma and even though he wasn’t a big fan of beans, Ajax’s mouth began to water. Who would have thought, huh? Hunger could really pull a number on you. "But... I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy, but for some reason, I believe you will keep your promise."
"I will." He nodded looking her straight in the eye. "Maybe we were enemies in our past life but here we’re comrades."
"Comrades?" Lumine lifted an eyebrow.
"Yeah, comrades in arms. You took care of me, so now I’ll take care of you."
She snorted, visibly not convinced, especially considering his bedridden condition, but he took a small smile that danced on her lips as a good sign.
Even if it wasn’t a beginning of a beautiful friendship, maybe it could have been a beginning of a promising alliance.
"You’re awfully chatty for someone who nearly died."
"The appetising aroma of your cooking brought me back to life."
This time she couldn’t stop herself and outright chuckled.
"Let me tell you, these food cans look absolutely terrible, but their contents taste way better than I expected. Just you wait."
And leaving him with that hardly trustworthy assurance, she marched into the kitchen to fetch the plates.
*~*~*
After regaining consciousness, Ajax recovered in no time. Spent one more day glued to the couch per Lumine’s request but couldn’t wait to finally get up and explore. His vitality was so strong you could even wonder how he managed to get himself sick in the first place.
During that one day, the two talked a lot and came to a simple conclusion – no matter what kind of relationship they did or didn’t share in the past, if they wanted to survive this shitty predicament, working together seemed like the only viable option. Being lost in an unknown place in the middle of winter was featured in a dictionary under "danger" and "trouble." To return to civilisation in one piece, first and foremost the pair needed information, supplies and a functional base of operations.
The first thing on that list they didn’t have, the second was scarce and the third... well, let’s just say that fixing the base had to be promoted to a priority mission.
Lumine tried her best to patch the house while Ajax was unconscious, but it still needed a lot more work. The living room was the sole liveable space and only because of the fireplace giving off heat and allowing them to cook. Dust floated everywhere, cobwebs "adorned" the corners and the floor creaked as if it was some kind of haunted mansion. In a way, it looked exactly like that – the only thing missing were the ghosts.
"We need to fix the roof, too," Lumi stated a few days later leaning the ladder she had pulled out of the basement against the house’s wall. Most of the heat was escaping the cabin through the leaky roof, not to mention how lucky they were that it hadn't rained or snowed so far, but the weather could change at any moment.
"We do," Ajax agreed skeptically eying her actions. "But can I do the fixing? I don’t feel good about this."
"You barely recovered. How can you even think about climbing roofs in this condition?"
"Thanks for a reminder, Mom." He rolled his eyes. "I’m telling you, this ladder looks unstable as hell, and don’t let me start on these shingles. They’re half rotten!"
"And that’s why I’m gonna use this"—Lumi lifted a hammer in her left hand—"and this"—and a sturdy plank in her right—"to remedy that."
The pair stared at each other for a moment longer before Ajax finally waved his hand and looked away. To think the first thing he managed to learn about this girl was her infuriating stubbornness.
"Wait." Something else caught his attention. "Why do these planks look way better than the ones you used to fix the walls in the living room?"
"Because I smashed the dresser to get those." Right. If you don’t know what to do, violence is the answer. And even if you have some clue, it’s still a legit option. "The pretty ones were stored in the basement, and I didn’t find them until later."
"Then where did you get the hammer or the nails?"
"I pulled them out of the dresser, too? It didn't need them anymore. And we have a perfectly usable meat mallet in the kitchen."
Ajax decided not to comment. Instead, he looked at the blonde climbing up the wobbly ladder with growing anxiety. Unfounded, at the moment.
Everything went smoothly for the next half an hour. They managed to get all the materials on the roof and Lumine was easily hammering the nails into the sturdy planks. That’s the second thing Ajax learnt about her – for such a small body she was really strong. But maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise? After all that golden sword they found was supposedly hers – and you needed a well-trained body to wield a blade.
A sudden crush snapped him out of his thoughts!
A crack of a rotten shingle.
I knew it. I fucking knew it!
"Ahhh!" Lumi yelled fighting to regain balance but to no avail. An old slate broke underneath her foot and sent the girl tumbling down the roof. She screamed frantically trying to grab something and succeeded at the last possible moment, clutching the creaking rain gutter, her body dangling above the ground.
"Shit!" Ajax swore looking around but found nothing helpful, and moving the ladder would take too much time. "Okay, listen, you have to let go."
"What?! Are you mad?!"
"It’s gonna be fine, I’ll catch you." And trying to appear more confident than he felt, the man reached out his hands. "See? I’m ready. And it’s not that high."
"You’ve got to be joking," she grumbled. "If you think I’m gonna go along with this crazy plan—"
Lumine wasn’t given the chance to have a say in the matter, though. The rain gutter suddenly snapped and she was falling down with an undignified yell.
Falling straight at Ajax.
They landed in a heap on the snow; his arms protectively squeezed around her middle and her body sprawled on top of his. Stayed like that for a few more seconds simply too stunned to move and then—
"Ha...haha... Hahahhahaha!"
The two exploded into laughter.
"When you said you’ll catch me, I imagined something more along the lines of a princess carry, you know?"
"That might have been a slight miscalculation on my part."
And his back will certainly remember the hard landing on the ground for the next few days.
"Aren’t you grateful now that we didn’t switch places? I wouldn’t be as eager to play your pillow—" The words, however, froze on her lips as the girl lifted herself up a bit and suddenly came face to face with Ajax. Their noses were only centimetres apart.
Breaths caught in their throats; the two were too hypnotised to even blink. Could only stare in wonder at each other’s eyes. Blue and deep like the ocean. Gold and shimmering like the setting sun.
Ajax’s mind blanked. He didn’t know what to do. Couldn’t understand why every fibre of his body longed to pull her even closer...
The forgotten hammer slid down the roof and hit the ground, bouncing off a stone with a metallic clank, breaking the spell.
Flustered, Lumine quickly scrambled to her feet. Awkwardly cleared her throat. "Sorry about that," mumbled looking away.
"It’s fine," Ajax managed to answer slowly sitting up, though wasn’t sure if he just spoke the truth or told a white lie. Hissed when the pain in his side flared again and that fortunately cleared the air a bit.
"Come on," Lumi swallowed the embarrassment and helped him stand up. "You still need rest."
"We both do," came the immediate counter and the corners of the girl’s lips curled a bit.
"Fine, we both do." Their cuts and wounds were healing fast but the two still needed to take things slow, not get involved in random accidents featuring falling off a roof. "Let’s go inside. I was almost done with the repairs anyway, so we can just finish tomorrow."
*~*~*
It took three more days to restore the house to a mostly liveable state. It seemed that the phrase "take it easy" just didn’t exist in the dictionary of these two peculiar individuals.
They finished the outside repairs, fixed the roof, dusted the rugs and cleaned the inside of the house – it was almost sparkling now. Who would have thought that this dilapidated building could turn out so nice and cosy with a bit of work, huh?
And thanks to that Lumine could trade napping in a rocking chair for sleeping in a real bed. Ajax offered to keep to the couch, probably feeling bad he hogged the only comfortable space for so long.
You could say their new life was finally taking a turn for the better... if not for the fact that they started running low on supplies. The food cans from the basement were a true lifesaver but not many were left and one couldn’t survive on mint and sweet flowers alone.
"We need to hunt," Lumine declared one evening, munching on her share of baked beans. Again. She was honestly getting sick of them.
"That’s a good idea," Ajax agreed from the spot next to her on the couch. Eating dinner together became their daily ritual. Truthfully, they spent most of the day by each other’s side – and weirdly enough it didn’t feel awkward at all. "While we’re at it, we should also scout the area."
Lumi nodded. It was a reasonable suggestion. With the base secured, their next focus should have been finding a way back to civilisation.
And our past lives.
Though that last thought made her somewhat... uneasy.
*~*~*
Lumine sceptically eyed Ajax.
"You sure you can pull this off?"
"I’m sure," he answered twirling a black-red bow. It was super heavy but fitted perfectly in his hand ensuring the man he must have been using it a lot in the past.
Just before setting out on the planned hunting trip, the two experimented a bit with their pocket spaces. It was kinda spooky that their bodies remembered how to use that thing even though their minds didn’t. Lumi pulled out a few different one-handed swords from hers, none of them, however, was as beautiful as the golden blade she retrieved from the snow that first day. Ajax, on the other hand, only found one weapon stored in his magical inventory: a bow.
The two initially cheered, convinced it suited their intentions perfectly, later though, Lumine’s expression soured.
The longer she watched the more convinced she got that archery simply wasn’t this guy’s calling. His posture was atrocious! Even she could tell and by no means considered herself a master of this particular craft. But they will get at least some food today, right? ...right?
Ten missed arrows later she wasn’t so sure anymore.
Luckily, the forest was full of game but catching anything proved to be an almost insurmountable obstacle.
"Well, one thing’s for sure: you definitely weren’t a hunter before."
Sullen, Ajax didn’t grace her with an answer. The girl shook her head.
"Maybe you would have more luck throwing the arrows than shooting them."
Lumine didn’t have a clue why she made such a random weird suggestion but it seemed as if something suddenly clicked in the man’s head. Ajax looked at her with a thoughtful expression, then at the weapon in his hands.
The next second a rabbit hopped out of the snowy bushes and he took a swing.
The guy actually threw the arrow like a fricking javelin! Lumi’s jaw dropped and did so even lower seeing not only he followed her insane idea, but also successfully carried it out!
"How did you do that?!" She looked at the fallen animal in awe.
Ajax rubbed his chin.
"I think... I think I did this before. When you joked about throwing the arrow I just knew I can do this. Someone... made fun of me because of this in the past just like you did right now." Noticing the snow slowly piling up in her hair, the man impulsively reached out and brushed it off. "Our memories – they’re not lost, just...sealed."
Hidden behind an impenetrable veil, maybe never to be accessed again.
And she believed him. Why? Because the gentle touch on her head made Lumine want to close her eyes and lean into it. Convinced her she experienced this sensation before. The soft easy affection.
But who was on the other side of this void? A mother? A father? Brother, sister, friend?
Or maybe a lover her body longed to reunite with?
*~*~*
The hunting trip turned out quite fruitful – literally, too. Two wild rabbits and a tree full of winter apples, a species found only in Snezhnaya, sounded like a recipe for a tasty dinner so the pair could return to the cabin in much better moods. At least that was the plan, but then Ajax noticed something brown between the trees. A movement.
"A deer!" he hissed grabbing Lumi and pulling her down. They hid behind a bush peeking at the unsuspecting animal – a creature this size would solve their food problem for weeks! The two exchanged a glance and nodded. It would be a shame to let it go.
The man nocked an arrow, aimed, took a slow breath, held it in and... shot!
The projectile swished through the air but its deadly singing, though quiet, was enough to alert the animal. The deer jumped to the side trying to dodge and the arrow only grazed its hind leg.
"Szlag!"
"Come on, after him!" Lumine urged refusing to give up.
The two lunged forward following a trail of red dots. From the looks of it, the deer was losing quite a lot of blood – perhaps Ajax’s shot wasn’t as bad as they initially thought?
"Slow down and be careful where you step," the man warned gradually proceeding forward. The snow piled up really high around this part of the forest easily reaching his knees – for much shorter Lumine it was even worse. "I’ll make a path, stay behind me and try to stick close."
She nodded and complied. To be frank, he expected her to disagree – Ajax already noticed that the blonde was a very proud person who didn’t like asking for help – but Lumi probably cared more right now about their meat running away than arguing and it worked in their favour.
Half an hour of trudging through the snow later, the two weary would-be-hunters finally spotted their prey. The deer was lying on the ground, probably too weak to move anymore. Its eyes were filled with fear and its expression... was hard to face.
The conscience suddenly prickled them both.
But what could they do? That was the harsh reality of this world and the situation they found themselves in. This beautiful creature was sacrificing its life for their survival – and in case they fail to find a way out of this winter trap, perhaps one day their bodies would provide nourishment for the forest soil, hence giving back what they had taken.
"I’m sorry," Lumine whispered gently stroking the deer’s trembling body, but Ajax shook his head.
"No. What you should say is 'thank you.'" And with that, the man summoned a small hydro dagger and ended its suffering. As he observed the life force slipping away from the creature, Ajax couldn't help but notice that at that precise moment its eyes – listless and vacant – looked exactly like his own.
He still remembered the shock of seeing himself in the mirror for the first time. Ajax dragged his tired body to the bathroom's sink and was startled by the reflection staring back at him. An image of a handsome man in his prime, with a vibrant mop of ginger hair, but it was clear that something was off. Despite his lively appearance, the guy in the mirror appeared lifeless. Already dead inside.
Was he born like this? Or was he made this way?
"Ajax..." The uneasiness in Lumine’s voice immediately snapped him out of the morbid thoughts.
"What is it?"
"Just..." The girl was standing on a ledge a few meters away, gazing at the view down below as if hypnotised. "I think you need to see this."
And what a view that was.
When Ajax joined her side all the comments froze on his tongue.
"What... what is this?" he finally stuttered out, wide-eyed.
"I think we should be asking how that happened. And why."
A small bay stretched out before them and what must have been a port town in the past. Now, instead, it took the form of a huge crater, as if something had exploded there on an unimaginable scale. Its circular edge was littered with the remains of old houses and shipwrecks by the sea.
It almost seemed like a statement. A horrid, tragic, dastardly show of force that made your knees weak and throat dry.
And there was no sign of humans anywhere.
Lumi shyly tugged at the man’s sleeve. Searched for the closeness of another living being when faced with such overwhelming and jarring emptiness.
"The whole town was wiped from the face of Teyvat."
He felt tempted to reach for her hand and lace their fingers together. Borrow some of the girl's warmth.
"But who would do something like this?" Ajax couldn’t comprehend such an absurd scenario. Who in this world possessed power able to wreak havoc on this scale? Even Archons themselves weren’t that mighty.
“I don’t know... And I’m not sure if I want to find out.”
Yet they couldn’t help but ponder the answer to this question in silence walking back to their cabin.
*~*~*
Lumine was flying. Not on her own wings, no, those she lost long ago, but at that moment when the wind carried her, not letting the girl fall, she didn’t really mind. Even a glider was sometimes enough.
Yet the joy of reclaiming the sky got tainted by a huge beast soaring through the storm clouds.
Roaring at the frightened town.
A dragon.
I fought a dragon, a stray thought shined through the haze of old memories.
Battled with a monster a hundred times bigger than her while the air raged all around.
And she was absolutely terrified.
*~*~*
Ajax was a light sleeper. Surely a story hid behind that quality, the reluctance to doze off and almost constant alertness didn’t seem normal – and it wasn’t pleasant either. Staring at the ceiling for hours or waking up at the smallest noise annoyed him every time the sun has set. He longed for a proper rest; for his body to fully heal and his mind to stop replaying the moment he saw that destroyed town in the afternoon. Obliterated and forgotten. A shadow of some unknown past, unknown war.
Or maybe execution?
Stop thinking how his stomach dropped when he lay his eyes on the familiar bay.
Don’t think about it. Just don’t. Sleep.
That night, however, even those not plagued by the skeletons hidden in their closets wouldn’t be able to sleep through.
Stretched on the couch the man felt a light breeze coming from the bedroom. It seemed unusual – as if Lumi opened the window but... she couldn’t, right? Who in their right mind slept with an open window in the middle of winter?
The wind grew stronger with each passing minute. From a light breeze to an enthusiastic zephyr, into a violent gale.
Something wasn’t right.
Something was very wrong.
Ajax jumped to his feet and barefoot ran for the bedroom. Struggled against the current pushing him back.
"What the hell?!"
The man dodged at the last second, almost hit by a flying flower pot seconds later crashing into the wall. Luckily it was empty but nevertheless, he didn’t want to imagine having any close encounters with it.
Everything was soaring in the bedroom. Stray pillows, forgotten tools and nails, books the shelves were full of, dust. So much dust. Circling the bed – the eye of this storm – as if it was enclosed in a tornado.
The cause of all this trouble wasn’t the bed, however.
"Hey, girlie! HEY!" Ajax tried to outshout the wind. "Wake up!"
He run up to her, fought the wind bent on not letting him pass. His eyes hurt full of dust, his skin pricked cut by paper and nails; the man winced and almost fell to his knees in a daze when a book’s hard edge hit him straight in the temple.
Finally broke through and shook the girl. She was deeply asleep, almost in some kind of coma. Her eyes moved like crazy underneath the tightly shut eyelids.
Lumi was dreaming. Facing a nightmare that triggered her dormant powers – the might of Anemo Ajax didn’t know she possessed, after all, she didn’t have a Vision – that were now leaking into the real world.
A few more minutes and their cabin would be torn asunder.
"LUMINE!" he yelled in desperation cupping her cheeks and suddenly—! Everything just... died down.
As if someone waved a magic wand – one moment the roar of the wind was unbearable, the next dead silence rung in their ears, disturbed only by the panting of a blonde girl staring at Ajax in utter horror. She suddenly threw herself at the man’s neck, clung to him so tightly she almost strangled him. And he didn’t have the heart to push her away. On the contrary, Ajax felt an incomprehensible relief being able to hug her. Pull even closer indulging in the soothing warmth of her small soft body.
They were alive. Their home still stood. They survived. Together.
"You’re all right now," he whispered. "It’s gonna be fine."
Lumine’s fingers clutched his jacket even tighter.
"I think...” she began, having trouble vocalising her jumbled thoughts but pushed forward nevertheless. They both needed to hear this. "I think I remembered something."
They needed to know that whatever happened to them wasn’t permanent. The spell already began to break. There was a way to reclaim what up till now hovered beyond reach and whatever revelations were to come with it.