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the himegimi lies in a bed of sekkoku orchids, bathed in their ethereal luminescence. echoes of her linger at the back of the traveller’s frothy mind, filled too by summer festivities (kabuki masks, leaf friends, fireworks, wishes written on wooden plaques) and the bubbles kamisato ayaka had sweeped high with her fan and crystalised midair for her closing. the festival had been a display of ayaka’s nearly every dream, lumine could feel - for once, she too had donned the weightless, floaty veil like a wanderer’s glossy gaze upon foreign waters.
at first lumine had no intention in indulging her. finding her brother had become less of a polite passing word and more desperate where the frost of hopelessness had begun to set in. the kamisato clan was another roadblock, another aristocracy, another bundle of requests and favours. time is precious. erosion had taught her that. separation had taught her that.
and yet, it was simple, this. her words: might i bother you to stay… just a while longer…? had set in just as the frost had. only there was no catch, no bite or ultimately useless quest that served to waste time. pink petals and overgrown fields bathed in otherworldly light is where ayaka brought lumine. for a dance. a dance that sprouted like white lily in her chest and grew and grew, bursting forth from the cavern of her mouth where her voice bended and swayed with the breath of the trees. the frost racked up her spine in flowers.
they lie side by side, heads pressed against one of many torii on the winding mountain. the outermost layers of ayaka’s traditional wear that got wet in the stream folded neatly in the patch of grass beside them. chinju forest is colder today.
ayaka hums under her breath; that song again. lumine wants to sing too, wants to feel the call of apple-sweet wind in her chest. wants to synchronously retract and outstretch the way herons in flight do. so she does. she does until she realises ayaka’s long stopped to listen, and the insects have hushed their chorus.
“what is it,” says lumine. voice watery and unclean; clogged gutters after a storm. ayaka reaches out but then halts. draws her hand back.
“…you,” the himegimi’s eyes are soft. “it is still hard to comprehend the wonders of this night. of the festival. of every kind heart i’ve come across. and you.”
“me? i’m nothing more than a wanderer.”
ayaka smiles. “nonsense. you carry yourself differently than others of inazuma, or from any other nation in teyvat. you move as starlight does.”
“so i’ve heard.”
the smile doesn’t dim, though her eyes when she meets lumine’s are faraway. “i am sure you’ve heard this countless times, i simply… needed to tell you. for myself. had you not come at such a fateful time, and been so profoundly yourself, there is nothing to have ensured we would make progress. i want my gratitude to fully reach you.” and… lingers at the closing breath. lumine hangs onto her every word. it is protocol. it is proper manners and politeness. and it is something else entirely.
she lets out a tenuous sigh and squints with her eyes and mouth. had lumine not known any better she might think her to be sad, but she surely mustn’t be. processing, likely. her tightened hold round lumine’s hand keeps her grounded.
“my heart is full when i am with you. i feel serene, and noticed. if i might lose everything at the end of this, and if my fate is written truthfully nowhere else, i’ll hope you tell a story of me one day. i’ll hope your word keeps me, ayaka, not kamisato ayaka, the shirasagi himegimi, or involved with the yashiro commission, or a symbol of perfection. just me, a… a friend. yours. but - oh, i-i hope this isn’t… too much to ask of you…”
“i will,” lumine finds herself saying. ayaka’s cheeks are glistening with tears. hyacinths and clear streams are nowhere near as brilliant a blue as she is. “you are dear to me. i. if i could stay with you i would.”
“oh, do not flatter me now, i-i’m -” she chokes on a sob-chuckle, the tears coming steadily now. lumine thumbs a few away.
“i’m thankful to you. there are parts of inazuma that feel almost like home, especially because of the people i’ve met thus far, and - and my brother, i think, would like you, too - he’s .. was… a lot like you,” says lumine, small and a little breathless.
thank you, is unsaid, but the forest lays over them sweetly. rushing water and cricket chorus and symphonies rung in the hollows of aralia trees. tears dried in the shape of sakura blooms.
(somewhere, in dimensions twisted and laced with timespit and worldsick, a version of her lies alone. or a version of ayaka never sees the festival. neither of them sing and lumine’s brother aether is suffering by his own hand and the tanuki of chinju forest cry when night falls.
but here - here, kisses pile on lumine’s chest disguised as leaves and water mist, and ayaka’s shuddery arms are warm where lumine holds her. here it is safe and sound and time moves not.)
slowly lumine opens her mouth and “i want you to dance again” spills out, followed by a much, much softer i want to dance with you, this time.