Work Text:
Qingce Village, Liyue
High on a cliff overlooking the waters of Bishui Plain, golden hair glinted in the morning sun just rising over the distant horizon.
This early in the day, nature was wide awake already, with lively birdsong permeating the air all around. Yet for most humans, sleep had barely released them from its clutches.
Floating next to her travel companion in lazy, languid circles that betrayed her tiredness, a sleepy Paimon rubbed her eyes, suppressing a yawn that made her eyes water. "Remind me why we're here this early again? We didn't even get to have breakfast."
Lumine rolled her eyes with a good-natured smile, used to the fairy's moods. "We're meeting Xiao."
Clearly pouting, Paimon put her hands on her hips in protest. "And why did we have to give up both sleep and food for that?"
With a sigh, Lumine kicked at a pebble that tumbled off the path and into the dense bamboo forest around them. She knew she should have brought some stuffed buns or meat skewers for her hungry companion. Now she had to live with her grumpiness until she could feed her, or find something to distract her with. "He said the time was important. Something about a taint he needs our help purging. Apparently it requires daylight to be fully cleansed. Since it might be a few hours before we’re done, he suggested we go as early as possible, so it doesn't take us until tomorrow."
Paimon turned up her nose, dripping with attitude, her arms crossed to show off her temper. "Whatever…"
Ignoring the huffy fairy who, as Lumine well knew, wouldn't stop complaining until she'd get her breakfast, the blonde continued along the path leading down the coastline and to the pavillon southwest of Qingce Village, their meetup point with the reclusive adeptus.
Xiao still wasn't too keen on humans and preferred to remain outside the boundaries of Liyue Harbor, so whenever they met away from their usual spot at Wangshu Inn, it had to be somewhere remote like there, where it was unlikely for someone to stumble across them.
Already planning a lunch break for later to appease the cranky Paimon, Lumine walked silently along the water, her eyes on the shimmering sunlight reflecting in the shallow waves.
Until a streak of soft blue caught her gaze and she found herself looking at a lone Glaze Lily by the edge of the water, the tightly closed flower head swaying softly in the breeze.
Still sulking, Paimon floated on, unaware of how her companion had fallen behind. When she finally noticed she'd gone the last few steps by herself, she turned back to see Lumine just off the path, crouching next to the wild blossom as if transfixed by the sight of it.
"Hey, why are you still back there?" Stomping her foot in the air, she beckoned the traveler over. "Come on, let's get this over with so we can go have a big lunch!"
Lumine glanced up and waved Paimon on. "Go, go ahead. I need a minute here."
With a disapproving shake of her head, the fairy turned, mumbling about how her companion never cared that she was starving, and floated the rest of the way, the top of the pavillon already visibly from their position.
Finally alone, Lumine touched a single finger to the tightly furled petals of the Glaze Lily. Something flickered in her golden gaze, a spark of melancholy that made her lower lip tremble and her eyes grow warm with unshed tears.
Taking a deep breath, she began humming a tune, a melody so familiar yet buried in memories so distant that she faltered, pausing a few times to remember the notes that had faded from her mind, before it all came back to her. And when she recalled the words that went along with the tune, her lashes fluttered, heavy with memories of a past she longed to return to.
At first, she whisper-sung them, her voice too feeble from the bittersweet pain of remembrance to carry the song with more strength. Then, along with the echoes of mellow laughter filling her mind, a soft, joyful smile spread across her face, retaining but the merest hint of wistfulness. It brightened her features, like the sudden light cast by the sun emerging from behind its veil of clouds. In the same breath, she put her heart into it, the melodious rendition of her past memories flowing from her lips in crystal clear notes.
A past where she hadn't been apart from her twin brother and in desperate search for him. Where there had been no uncertainty, or fear of the unknown, or the terrible, foreboding feeling that the more she would find out about her brother and the circumstances of his disappearance, the more lost she'd feel, and the more twisted the truth of their existence would seem…
After a few seconds, the petals of the flower trembled against her fingertip, as if tempted by the dulcet song. Smile widening upon feeling the movement, Lumine continued her quiet, heartfelt lullaby, so absorbed in the melody that she was oblivious to the presence on the path behind her.
Leaning on his spear, the Conqueror of Demons silently observed, listening to the golden-haired traveler sing. Though she did so quietly, he heard every word and every note of her song, the pure, unadulterated emotion in it stirring something deep in the adeptus' chest.
He stood there, motionless, and watched her coax the ice-blue petals into unfurling until the flower had fully bloomed for her, the proud blossom rocking gently as if dancing along to the melody that brought it to life.
When Lumine finally rose from her crouch after letting the last tunes fade, her movements slow and sluggish, like she was just awakening from a deep sleep, she froze at the sight of Xiao.
Waiting a bit down the path, not far enough to be out of earshot, his dark gaze was trained on her face, something unreadable swirling among the shadows that perpetually haunted the depths of his eyes.
A deep blush crept up Lumine's neck and over her cheeks at being caught. "H-how long have you been standing there?" Almost furtively, she dashed at her eyes as if to check for stray tears she didn't notice shedding, then swept her fringe from her eyes with a trembling hand.
Xiao cocked his head, his grip tightening on the handle of his weapon for the fraction of a second, before he passed it to his other hand with the ease of a warrior who saw it not as a tool, but an extension of his own body. "A while."
That meant he had probably heard her.
His next words confirmed it.
"I never knew you could sing."
Leaving the flower she had sung to life behind after one final, fleeting caress of the petals now spread out in all their glory, Lumine avoided the inquisitive look Xiao gave her and walked past him. She didn't slow down until her back was to him, and only did it because she felt bad about having let him wait while singing to a flower she didn't even end up plucking. Only when he was behind her, unable to see her expression, did she dare speak. "It's because I…I don't do it often."
Lumine expected him to tease her about what he'd witnessed, like Kaeya or Childe would, but behind her only silence reigned. She kept walking, slowly, her thoughts bouncing back and forth between premature relief and a persistent tension that told her not to let her guard down, that he would poke fun at her for it any second…
Until she realized she couldn't hear Xiao's footsteps either, and turned back to see why he wasn't moving.
Instead of following her, he still stood in the same spot, his eyes lingering on the lonesome ice-colored blossom sitting abandoned in a patch of green beside the path. "You're not…taking it?"
Lumine blinked, overtaken by surprise. That was not the question she'd expected from him. "…no?"
Why did it sound like she wasn't sure, when it was his behavior that had caught her off-guard? "No, I'm not taking it," she repeated, firmly this time, and watched him turn to close the distance between them.
"Why not? I know you can use it." When Xiao reached her side, he passed his spear to the other hand again, the side that Lumine wasn't walking on, and kept it there.
She knew he didn't have to carry it in his hand, that his adeptal powers allowed him to contain his weapon somewhere akin to an invisible pocket within the fabric of time and space itself. But whenever he was with Lumine, he held his weapon at the ready, always making sure not to accidentally hurt her with it.
Her heart clenched at this pattern of his she had identified long ago, this habit his subconscious -or maybe completely deliberate- need to protect her never allowed him to forgo.
Peeking up at him from the side, she noted the way his hair seemed tousled, one of the teal-colored strands dyed a dark crimson at the bottom. The same hue dotted his skin in several places, irregular stains of different shapes and sizes she only noticed now that she was physically close to him.
Blood. He must have had an encounter with tainted beasts on the way to meeting her.
Yet again, compassion for this tortured soul in front of her squeezed her chest, making it hard to breathe.
Xiao had lost everyone he'd ever loved, everyone he'd ever cared about, and in immeasurably terrible ways. Now he was the only Yaksha left, scarred by the experience of watching his contemporaries succumb to the corruption of time. And although he'd never told Lumine, despite how close they'd grown over the past weeks, he had to be living with the constant fear of losing himself and turning against those important to him.
Just like his fellow Yaksha, his companions in this curse he'd been carrying with him for thousands and thousands of years, had.
Lumine's musings were interrupted when Xiao turned his head, his golden eyes catching hers. She saw the expectant look he gave her and tried to remember what he was waiting for. What they'd been talking about before her thoughts had drifted off.
Right. He had asked her a question.
With a soft sigh, she curled her fingers into a fist, then relaxed them, still feeling the silky softness of the wild Glaze Lily against her skin, like the mystical flower had left an imprint there.
"I…"
Recalling a moment in another world, another lifetime, of her brother's gentle hands sticking a flower into her hair, she briefly glanced back and felt a melancholic smile tug at her lips. "I've been told that wild Glaze Lilies in full bloom are rare because they blossom to music filled with a pure, beautiful energy, and infuse the memories they absorb into their fragrance when flowering. I've never come across one myself…and I think it would make someone happy to find a blooming Glaze Lily out here."
Feeling vulnerable while sharing her innermost feelings, Lumine kept her eyes on the path under her feet as the two of them strolled towards the pavillon side by side.
"This world," she continued quietly, "every world, has too much darkness in it, so I like to think that by doing this, I'm helping to spread more light, more good in it. Even if it's just through a single flower nurtured and brought to life with someone else's distant happiness."
Xiao didn't comment, only kept to her pace, a quiet presence at her side.
Despite having managed her embarrassment well so far, she felt her face heat at the continued silence stretching between them. And when the pavillon became clearly visible just a short distance away, she couldn't contain herself anymore.
Stopping in her tracks, she bit her lip, fidgeting with a lock of hair the wind had pushed over her shoulder. "It's stupid, isn't it? You think it's a silly, useless habit…"
Any moment now, he'd say something in his usual gruff way, not unkind or harsh, just…indifferent.
Xiao didn't pay much mind to worldly, human things, which tended to reflect in his behavior and manner of speech. Fortunately, he had become less broody and reserved since meeting the traveler, but that cold, taciturn attitude he'd been using as a defense mechanism for millennia upon millennia…it was unlikely to ever leave him completely.
Which is why Lumine was accustomed to the way he could still come off as harsh or abrasive sometimes, even if he never meant to be like that with her. She wouldn't take it to heart, she told herself as she waited for them to come, those words that would sting despite her being used to his bluntness.
"I don't."
Lumine almost missed the soft declaration, nearly drowned out by a breeze that shook the branches above them and made the leaves rustle.
Unable to keep the confusion from leaking into her features, she blinked up at him. "You don't?"
Xiao's Yaksha mask bumped into Lumine's hip when he whipped around to face her, as if losing his patience. Slitted pupils focused on her face, the gold irises surrounding them a few shades darker than her own. Swathed in those ever-present shadows.
"I don't think it's silly, or stupid. It's a very kind and selfless thing to do. A special favor to the world, even though it owes you nothing." Moving closer, his gloveless hand rose to cup the side of her face.
Going stiff at first, Lumine stared up at him in mute surprise, before her shock faded and -tentatively, just a little- she allowed herself to lean into his touch.
"It's quite like you to do such a thing." His voice went all soft and gentle again, where the words before had been hoarse with a fierce kind of admiration. His thumb stroked over her cheek, tenderness in the feather-light caress that was as rare and precious as the way he looked at her.
Like she owned his heart, and more. Like his very soul yearned for her even when she stood right in front of him.
Because, tainted as he believed himself, he never allowed her as close to him as she wanted to be.
Sudden moisture blurred Lumine's vision, and though she wanted nothing more than to burrow into his arms, to hold him with the same tenderness she felt in his mere palm against her face, all she did was cover his hand with her own. Clutching his wrist, she let the single tear that streaked down her cheek fall onto his fingers and willed it to wash away those shadows keeping him buried under the burden of his own past.
A past that clung to him wherever he went, like a beast refusing to release him from the murderous grip of its jaws.
Well, from now on, Lumine would fight that relentless beast for him.
At the same time that Xiao's fingertips brushed away another tear caught in her lashes, Lumine reached out to draw him towards her by the collar of his shirt.
She glimpsed his golden gaze widening, her unexpected forwardness taking him by surprise, before she was too close to see more of his expression. Rising on tiptoe, she let her eyelids flutter shut and brushed her lips against his in a soft kiss that held all of the desperate affection she had for him, this pounding need inside her to ease the never-ending torment she had yet to see him freed from.
Oh, how she longed to see those cat-like eyes devoid of the shadows perpetually darkening their beautiful golden glow.
The kiss was but a mere few seconds long, but it felt like eternity.
She had wanted to do this for a long time now, to overcome this distance he deliberately maintained between them and show him how she truly felt about him. To let him know that it was no use keeping her at arm's length when she was willing to fight his demons for him if it meant they could be together, despite his fears of dooming her with the karma he couldn't get rid of.
She wasn't leaving him alone with the biting pain of his existence.
When Lumine broke away to fill her protesting lungs, the adeptus who'd gone motionless the moment she'd grabbed his shirt finally moved.
Drawing in a shaky breath, his hand still holding her face slid to her neck and pulled her back towards him for a second, brief touch of their lips full of a raw sweetness that made Lumine's breath catch. Then he withdrew just enough to leave their foreheads touching, the purple diamond between his brows sending tingles of energy through her skin as if the magical marking reacted to her vicinity.
For a few endless moments, there was nothing but the feeling of having him close, their breaths mingling and her heartbeat thundering in her ears.
"This is also very much like you…but I'm glad you did it."
The husky words startled Lumine into a smile that lit up her face, shadowed as it was by the curtain of multicolored hair surrounding the two of them.
Xiao's chest clenched painfully. Fighting his urge to push her away—restore the safety distance between them, physical and emotional, to have her out of harm's way and lessen the risk of tainting her with his karmic curse—, he slowly brushed his thumb across her bottom lip.
He knew he didn't deserve her, and he would forever detest himself if he ended up tainting her innocent kindness after all, the pure goodness that was as much part of her being as that courageous, selfless heart beating in her chest…
But, gods, did he adore her smile.
It made the countless millennia of agony and loneliness he'd gone through to reach this very moment worth it, to meet her and to see her smile for him…despite the ways he continued to suffer the consequences of his bloody past.
Tracing the curve of her smile with his eyes, he consciously forced himself to relax and push aside the protective instinct constantly scraping at the back of his mind.
For once, just for a few stolen moments, he wanted to enjoy being near her with none of the urgency he usually felt to keep her safe from himself and what it meant to be around him.
And when Lumine finally spoke, whispering softly into the intimate space they'd created together, he absorbed every word like he was starving for her and the glimpses of her own painful past she shared with him.
"The song I gifted the Glaze Lily was a lullaby me and Aether used to listen to as children, every night before we went to sleep."
Raising her hand to his wrist again, to hold onto him, Lumine closed her eyes like she was traveling back in time recounting her memories. "I don't remember much of our childhood, but those nights we stayed up late, talking in secret, singing our favorite lullaby and giggling under the sheets whenever we got close to being discovered…"
Her smile deepened until tiny dimples creased her cheeks, earning Xiao's wide-eyed fascination.
"…I will never forget those."
Why had he never noticed that she had dimples?
There were so many things he didn't know about her, he realized, and it made him want to learn all of her. Every little thing there was.
He wanted to know what she looked like waking up in the morning. Wanted to find out if she got as peckish as her fairy friend when hungry. He wanted to know what it took to make her happy, and what he could do to keep her from ever being sad.
Oblivious to the storm of emotion raging within Xiao, the absent-minded traveler continued. "I sing that lullaby to myself whenever I lose heart on this search, to remind myself that Aether is still out there somewhere, and to not give up looking for him. And I sing it to the wild Glaze Lilies to give whoever picks them a piece of the hope I hold on to for myself, and the love I have for my brother, until I can give it to him in person one day."
Xiao had never wanted to be selfless for someone before, but this person in front of him with the golden hair and her heart of gold that made her put others before herself without fail…he would give everything he had to bring her happiness. If it took finding her lost twin to achieve that, he wouldn't leave a stone unturned, in this world or the next.
And he longed for Lumine to be selfish when it came to him in return, because he needed her like he had never needed someone before.
Most of all, he wanted to be with her…but not at the cost of hurting her, ever.
He already knew she had no intention of leaving his side for now, even though he kept telling her he was cursed, that sooner or later, he would end up cursing her too. So, he wanted to find a way to end it, for her. A way to get rid of this curse that he'd been carrying with him for longer than he remembered.
A way to become hers, without his violent, murderous fate becoming hers as well.
No matter how long it would take, or what it would cost, he would find it.
For her.
For this brilliant flower that had bloomed in his life at the strangest moment, lighting up the darkness of his unending path with her ethereal light.