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“Hey, Lumi, do you know why the moon only comes out at night?”
“No, Aether, I don’t,” Lumine mutters to no one and nothing in particular, turning her face away from the silver-brushed moon in the sky. She lets her words fade in the realm’s flighty seabreeze, trudges along the beach in light, unhurried steps, and continues scattering the sand without really changing their placement. Every single dent that her feet make is but a ripple in the ground, spilling over only to be refilled, swiftly corrected by the wind and by whatever kind of adepti-woven gravity that this place runs on. It is next to impossible to break the tranquil order of the realm, and even though most days she hardly takes any notice of it, the stark futility that her movement here creates somehow strikes her almost as deep as a Kairagi’s blade tonight.
All my actions in this world so far have brought me nothing. She weaves her way along a hillside road with an aching back and an equally aching heart, replaying the adventures she’s had in Inazuma. The friends she’s made, the enemies she’s slain. The wrongs in the land that have yet to be righted. The resistance group she’s suddenly a member of—and the fact that, even though she never regrets her decision for taking up their plight—actually shifts her focus from her one true purpose, the wish above all else, the unchangeable star that pulled her to brave the land of eternal thunder.
One more close encounter with an inscrutable god, and I am still no closer to finding you, Aeth.
Sometimes it makes me wonder, does all this truly have meaning? All the people I met along the way, all the nations’ battles I helped conquer?
And if all these scars don’t one day lead me to you, what use will I gain from fighting this world’s never-ending wars?
You said you’ve walked my paths before. Tell me, then, did you find another reason to live at the end of it, even though you hadn’t found me?
And if you did, then tell me one more thing…
Am I really that replaceable to you, brother?
Alone with her thoughts, Lumine doesn’t realize how far she’s left the main house, not until the scent of various blossoms hits her senses. There’s the elegantly smooth, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trace of crimson silk flowers, crouched in their bushels in one corner. It mingles with all the other windblown smells—the freshness of qingxins, the honeyed air from yellow sweet flowers—although all of them pale in comparison to one particularly beautiful, nostalgic fragrance, which reigns strong and crisp under the moonlight.
“I need you to sing to them. Singing to the flowers will make them more fragrant.”
Ah, so that’s why. Lumine closes her eyes in understanding as a voice floats from farther up the hill, deep and familiar, weaving a melancholy song. Her small patch of glaze lilies has never bloomed this fragrant before, maybe because she never really took the time—to sit here and sing them her heart melodies. It was a good decision, then, to invite him here, she thinks, as her legs find new strength the closer she gets to the small farmhouse. Time, after all, is what he’s always had in abundance.
At the center of the hilly island, Lumine stops and looks up, finding glimpses of her flower garden and the graceful figure in the midst of it. Zhongli is sitting at the edge of a wooden deck, his back to her, the glow of his lighter hair tips brilliant like amber. The song he’s singing is lovely but sad, tugging at heartstrings and bringing bittersweet images to mind, like ravaged land and war-torn lovers. Like everything that goes wrong but can’t be forgotten, like losing someone who used to share half your world, and—as embarrassing as it sounds—it suddenly makes Lumine want to lie down and cry, because for the first time in a long while, it feels like she’s been understood.
Maybe he does understand, she thinks, remembers. Zhongli has lost someone too, someone dear and irreplaceable. She— the Goddess of Dust—was his close friend, his partner—maybe more. And he’s walked the world for an unimaginably long time as well, so maybe he does understand a thing or two about loss. About finding new purposes when life feels bleak and fruitless, or about why the moon only comes out at night, as though the sun doesn’t need her to shine with him in daylight.
“I didn’t think you’d be coming here tonight, Lumine. Welcome home.”
Lumine jolts out of her thoughts, not realizing that the song has stopped. “Oh, hi,” she says, greeting Zhongli with a small wave upward and a smile. The newly-built farmhouse stands a little higher above, raised atop a cluster of joined boulders with the flower garden sprawled in front. “To be honest, I didn’t plan to, either. But, well—I suppose I just got tired of sleeping in unfamiliar beds.”
Zhongli lets out a low, fond chuckle. “Did you not find any of Inazuma’s inns charming?” he asks, as he stretches out a hand to help Lumine up. “Or did you really just miss the familiarity of your own home?”
“More the latter than the former, I think.” Inside the flower garden, warm breeze picks up around them both, and Lumine breathes in the glaze lilies’ perfume with Zhongli’s hand still in hers. “Your own familiarity included.”
Zhongli smiles, a gentle crescent shape that mirrors the moon above. “I am pleased that you think of me in such high regard,” he says. “How are you feeling tonight, Lumine?”
“Tired, mostly.” Lumine smiles back half-heartedly, squeezing Zhongli’s hand once before letting it go. “And yet I find myself not really wanting to go to bed. Not this early, at least.”
“Really? And why is that?”
“Because I’ll soon wake up in the morning only to do it all over again. All my ‘adventures’ in Inazuma.” She takes a seat at the wooden deck Zhongli has just vacated, and reaches out a finger to touch a lily’s blue petals. “Don’t get me wrong, I love adventuring. I always have, and maybe I always will. I like meeting new people, and I like helping them. I like discovering new places too, you know—new riddles, new treasures, but…” She sighs. “I don’t know, it’s just…”
“It’s just not the same without your brother.”
Lumine blinks in the quiet, both dreading and relishing the choked, gripping pull of being known. “Yeah,” she answers finally, one arm snaking around to hug her knees. “It hasn’t been half as meaningful, and you want to know what the worst part is? The fact that I’ve been to three nations already, done things I’ve never even dreamed of—fought a dragon, an ancient sea monster, even a real archon—and not one of those heroic actions has given me a useful clue about finding him.” A bitter laugh escapes her, short and ready for tears. She keeps them at bay, though—because crying has never done anyone any good. It won’t change the world, and it won’t bring Aether back, no matter how much he’s promised in the past to be there for her and deck whoever makes her cry in the nose until they apologize. “It’s all useless, isn’t it? And it’s not like I haven’t met him, either. I’ve caught a glimpse of him, I’ve asked him to come home, but—but he didn’t listen to me.”
Once she begins laying down her thoughts, there’s no going back. “It’s like I’ve lost him a second time, Zhongli, but this time, he chose to leave me,” she continues. “He told me I’d understand once I’d explored the whole of Teyvat, but what if at the end of it, I still lose him? What if I later have to fight him, instead of having him fight beside me? What if, in his life, I’ve been replaced? What if he sees me not as his sister anymore, but his enemy?” She puts her forehead between the crook of her knees, trying to breathe all her jumbled helplessness away. “If that happens, then what am I doing here? What am I doing now?”
Slowly, carefully, Lumine feels Zhongli land on a seat beside her, long legs folding gracefully into a lotus shape underneath. He smells like tea and old parchment, a strange combination that is oddly comforting, softly lulling the storm inside her heart into something resembling silence. “Nothing you have done is in vain, Lumine,” he starts, face upturned to the night sky like he’s greeting the moon, “And nothing in this world is replaceable. Certainly not love, and certainly not you.”
“How do you know?” Lumine almost cringes at the petulant whine on her last note. More than five hundred years of time under your belt, and you are still so childish. “Do you have a story for that too, Zhongli? Like you do everything else?”
Zhongli smiles, not taking offense in the slightest. On him, great age becomes patience, wrought in tales of virtue and sometimes, riddle-like opinions. “As a matter of fact, I do. Would you care to listen to it?”
“I would.” Lumine nods. Her rhetorical question earlier wasn’t meant to attack or to insult, for she truly likes hearing the god’s calm voice weave words of wisdom and history. “If you’d like to share it, then I think it will make me feel better.”
“Then I shall tell you. It’s going to be long, however, so I suggest you get comfortable.” Zhongli smiles again—a moonlit, serene one—and opens his arms wide. “It’s also a windy night, so come here and let me warm you a little.”
“Fine.” Lumine scoots closer, an answering smile tucked behind her hair. “Thank you, Zhongli.”
“You’re most welcome.” It only takes a soft tug for Lumine to fall against Zhongli’s chest, and there she remains during the beginning of his story, matching her breaths to his bottomless ones and letting his immortal hand smooth away the tangles in her hair. “It begins, as always, with a boy and a girl. But while the boy is as human as can be, the girl is decidedly not.”
For what seems like long-but-lovely stretches of time afterward, Zhongli spins her a poetic, almost lyrical lore of the Moon goddess, who took on the form of a beautiful young woman in order to bathe in a lake deep in the woods, three times a week. One day, however, a man accidentally saw her. He fell in love at first sight, and so, in order to make her his, he stole her magical, swan-feathered cloak and hid it so she couldn't fly back home to her castle in the sky. But despite the treachery, the goddess returned the man’s love, and her heart expanded at the look of his stubborn purpose and the steadiness in his brows. She decided to stay on earth and married him, and she used her magic powers in secret to feed the household with just a single grain of rice every day. This, however, was something that she must keep other people from finding out, because if it was ever discovered that she was a goddess, she would have to leave.
“For a short while, they were happy. The goddess settled into a life on earth, taking care of household matters during the day and spending lovely moments by her husband’s side in the evenings. But like everything else in the world, all good things must come to an end, including their happiness,” Zhongli continues, the rumble of his voice deep and soothing, “Because her husband finally discovered her secret.”
“Oh. Did that make her leave him, then?”
“Yes. Him, and their daughter. Long story short, she finally found her swan-feather cloak and used it to return to the sky, where she remains until this day.”
“Hmm.” Lumine turns her body sideways to look at him, and the amber light of his eyes twinkles with something kept. “That’s not the end of the story, is it?” she asks, realizing.
“Smart girl. No, it’s not.” Zhongli smiles. “She did go back to the Moon, where she belonged, but only at night. Daylight hours, in contrast—bright, radiant moments of joy and love—she spent them with her husband and daughter. And that, Lumine, is the reason why the Moon now only comes out when the sky is dark.”
/
“Hey, Lumi, do you know why the moon only comes out at night?”
Lumine rolls her eyes, already used to her brother’s impractical fancies but still annoyed by them regardless. “I don’t know, Aeth. Why?”
Beside her, staring straight into the dancing fire at their camp for the night, Aether dons a smile—soft-edged and purple-tinged, reflecting the strange hue of their current world’s vegetation. “Because she has people she loves, ones that she would leave the sky for, in order to meet them during the day.”
“Why doesn't she just stay on earth for good, then?”
Aether laughs. “You always have this ‘all or nothing’ mindset, don’t you, sis?” He stands up slowly, iridescent wings fluttering in the thin wind. “Well, sometimes life just doesn’t work that way. Sometimes you have more than one responsibility, more than one purpose, and you have to fulfill them all. Sometimes you even have to leave the people you love for that, but that doesn’t mean you stop loving them.”
“What does it mean, then?” Lumine answers with a sigh, then continues to polish her sword. It gleams in the moonlight, blue-silver turning golden by mirrored licks of fire. “I usually operate on the belief that you don’t leave the people you love, not for anything, because they can’t be replaced. Not for any noble purpose you might have.”
“That’s an admirable philosophy, little sister, but sometimes leaving is the only thing you can do to prove you love them.” For some reason, Aether’s voice suddenly turns wistful, like misty eyes on the horizon. “I’d like to think that the Moon leaves the people she loves at night so they can sleep not in total darkness. With her light, she keeps them safe, so she can meet them again in daylight.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Aether—You and your fanciful theories.”
Aether laughs, then bends his knees and leaps to the air, coming to a final perch at a tree with cascading blossoms nearby. “It’s still a beautiful thought, no?” he asks, still laughing contentedly. “Remember, Lumi, sometimes leaving can be an act of loving, too. And when someone you love leaves you, it doesn’t mean he stops having you in his thoughts.”
“Really? And what makes you think that?”
Aether smiles, brightening the dark forest. “Because love lives on,” he says. “And that’s all there is to it.”
/
“Now, Lumine. Why do you think the Moon goddess kept coming back to earth in daylight, despite gaining back the ability to return to her own home?”
Lumine closes her eyes, opens them again, and feels the holes in her heart knitting back together despite only finding Aether in her memories. The answer to Zhongli’s question burns behind her chest, making its presence known, and this time, she understands. This time, she doesn’t need to ask why. “Because she loves them. Her family,” she says, firm and certain. “Because her love lives on, despite herself having to leave. And because—” She blinks wetness out of her eyes, cherishing how clearer the world looks now. “Because you might leave people because you love them, not because you’ve replaced them in your heart.”
“That’s right.” Zhongli’s voice is firm but melancholy, touched by resurfacing memories. If Lumine could peek inside minds and watch them like moving images, she might have been able to see snippets of long-buried grief—thin blue sleeves drifting in the wind, long black hair, a jade hairpin. A golden brooch. A stone dumbbell with a solemn pledge fluttering inside. All of them proof that Zhongli had loved and been left, but neither the love nor the person was ever replaced inside his heart. “Nothing in this world is replaceable, because everything—and everyone—was loved at least once. And sometimes—” He brushes aside a strand of hair from Lumine’s forehead, the warm pad of his finger lingering. “Sometimes once means forever.”
Lumine leans into the touch, her soft exhales mingling with Zhongli’s. “Do you ever stop thinking about her?” she asks. “Does it ever, you know, get easier? With time?”
Zhongli smiles. “To your first question, the answer is never,” he says. “And as for your second… Yes, I suppose. Yes, it gets easier, but I often find that easy doesn’t mean painless.”
“How very true.” Lumine nestles deeper into Zhongli’s arms, mind swirling with endless memories of small, stingy wounds from mere five-seconds battles. Easy still ruins. Easy still hurts. “But I still hope I can make it even easier for you, someday.”
Once more, Zhongli sighs into a smile, warm and reflecting a thousand different stories she will never tire of hearing. “Oh, Lumine,” he says, “You already have.”
They fall together into an embrace, both reaching for the other at the same time. As Lumine breathes the air just under Zhongli’s jaw, she is again reminded of their own story—of a fallen god with elegant tastes and a weary traveler with two nations’ elements running in her veins. Of how they journeyed together, slept under the stars together, told and retold tales from different worlds over perfectly-steeped tea. How Lumine cried on Zhongli’s chest for hours after Aether left, and how the centuries-old loss imprinted on his heart finally called for the one on hers. The sun started to shine brighter, after that, golden afternoons filled with leisurely walks amidst Liyue Harbor’s bustle, hand-in-hand all the way to Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. The nights, too, became something Lumine anticipates, with indulgent silk sheets and Zhongli’s marble-like skin flowing under her fingertips.
“Zhongli, I— I want you to know that you’re also not replaceable to me. Not now, not ever,” Lumine begins, forehead firmly pressed to Zhongli’s shoulder. “And I also want to tell you that—that I will never leave you, if I can help it. Not even because I love you.”
“Really?” Beneath her, Zhongli shifts a little, bringing Lumine’s face into a cradle between his hands. “And may I know why that is?”
“Because life just loses its luster when we’re not together,” Lumine tells him, honest hands playing with the edge of Zhongli’s hair. “Of course, I’d still save you from a hit as well, if we are ever in a war together—and if I die from that, then technically that would be counted as me leaving you. But we both know that you are way more powerful than me, so the chance of that happening is probably negligible. And since I refuse to entertain any other scenario where I leave you to chase after my own purposes…" She pauses. "Then I think you’re stuck with me for as long as I can make it.”
It’s quiet for a few seconds, the kind of silence that dips and swells before a meaningful oath, until Zhongli’s answering laughter greets her all fond and a little surprised. “Will you promise me that, Lumine?” he asks, bits of mirth fading as the light in his eyes gradually dim, “Will you promise not to leave, not even because you love me?”
“I promise. And I also vow never to break that promise.”
“Oh, but I think you will, Lumine.” Once again, Zhongli gathers Lumine into his arms, and it is quite a while before Lumine hears his four simple words repeated, draining out in a sad, factual surrender amidst the combined beats of a god’s and a traveler’s hearts:
“I think you will.”
/
Because, Lumine—your place is among the stars, shaping miracles and igniting the sky…
And I am but a temporary rock in your celestial path.
“Even though this is the dawn of our farewell,
it feels like the sun has set on our separation
and the night of our union is at hand.”
— ‘yaad,’ by Faiz Ahmed Faiz (translation by Mara Ahmed)