Chapter Text
When Lumine had stumbled into Mondstadt on aching feet and with a severely swollen belly, no one had questioned her or her disappearance for years.
When she had collapsed on the cobblestone road, her legs too tired to continue moving, it had been Sara from Good Hunter who had helped her to the Knights of Favonius headquarters.
And when she went into labor only a few days after her arrival, it was Jean and Lisa who had sat with her, helping her through the pain while Barbara coached her through the birth.
Barbara had disappeared with the baby the moment the birth was over. Lumine sat in bed with sweat still beaded on her forehead and labored breathing. Gripping the sheets with an iron hold.
"Are you alright cutie?" Lisa gently dabbed at the sweat on Lumine's face with a cloth.
Still not having the breath to respond, she just nodded in response. Her grip slowly started to loosen as the pain subsided, or she got used to it, one or the other.
"Good to hear Traveler." Jean had never gotten used to calling her Lumine. Barbara re-entered the room with a now clean child.
"Congratulations! It's a girl!" Barbara said with the usual bubbly tinge that crept into her voice. She gently laid the baby in Lumine's arms, "what are you going to name her?"
Lumine looked down at the small thing. This ruddy-cheeked sleeping girl was all hers? She gently touched the child's face, just wanting to confirm that it was all real. "Lucinda's a nice name don't you think?"
"Lucinda? Cutie..." Lisa shook her head slowly with a heavy sigh.
"What's wrong with Lucinda? She could go by Lucy for short. It's an adorable name." Lumine hugged the sleeping girl a little closer to her chest. Lucy didn't deserve this sort of hatred so early in her, so far, rather short life.
"I think what Lisa might be implying is that Lucinda... isn't the best name for a girl." Jean cut in a bit hesitantly.
"Lucinda is a just fine name!" Lumine griped, covering the baby's ears to spare her from the negativity the two women were spouting.
"Lucinda is the name of my grandmother, do you want your child to have the name of a grandmother?" Lisa responded briskly.
Lumine felt something flare in her chest. "Well why don't you two just name my daughter then!" she snapped.
"That's a great idea! You have such a good mind." Lisa gently patted Lumine on the cheek before cooing down at the baby, "you want a better name than Lucinda don't you, little cutie?" The sleeping baby, of course, being a baby and asleep, didn't respond.
"What about something from your homeland Traveler, are there any more traditional names for her?"
Lumine stared down at the girl, attempting to think of a name that fit her daughter. Lisa was right, Lucinda was a nice name, just not for her child. Suddenly, it hit her like a rock, "Aurelia."
"Aurelia, that's a wonderful name Lumine!" Barbara beamed from her station where she was cleaning up.
"Agreed," Jean said, "it's a very nice name indeed."
And just like that, Lumine had a daughter. Named not Lucy, but Aurelia.
Not much long after, Lumine learned that parenting was a lot harder than she thought. All the little girl would do was cry and scream piercingly loud. Lumine would bet that Jean was regretting her offer to let the two stay with her until they found a more permanent residence in Mondstadt.
Every day Lumine woke up to the sound of crying from the girl sleeping in the makeshift cradle next to her bed. (Truth be told, it was a few old boxes that Diluc had found lying around near the winery fashioned into a cradle, but it functioned as needed.) Every night was the same.
Eventually, Lumine learned to decipher the cacophony of sounds that emerged from her daughter, as all mothers do. Not long after, she was able to make the girl calm down in a few minutes at most. Which was a blessing for both her and Jean.
But still, Lumine knew at the end of the day Jean wanted her out of the house. Aurelia was nearing six months old now, and Jean herself had just recently acquired a child of her own. The toddler was the daughter of an adventurer who frequently left on expeditions, and she was just as destructive as a toddler could be. Oftentimes while taking care of Aurelia, Lumine would have to supervise the girl, Klee, as well. Many times she'd stopped dish-ware and vases from crashing onto the wooden floor thanks to Klee's antics.
Jean, ever the hard worker for the Knights of Favonius, was gone for most of the day, so Lumine often had to leave the girls at the church with Barbara while looking for work and housing. The Adventurer's Guild was no place for a new mother with no one to watch her child, and she really couldn't keep staying with Jean.
So she wandered, offering help on odd jobs as an offer for vendors to "test her skills" as Lumine's sales pitch went. Sadly, Lumine apparently wasn't a very good businesswoman. Every single offer for a permanent job was declined. Lumine felt like she was doing commissions all over again, but this time without the entertainment of getting to fight some hilichurls in the process.
After a long day of collecting ore for Wagner, Lumine collapsed on a bench outside, admiring the dying light of the sky. She wanted to spend just a few more moments in peace before she trudged over to the church to hear all about how destructive her charges had been all day.
"Excuse me, Traveler?" A voice came from beside her. Lumine opened her eyes to see a wrinkly old man standing next to the bench she was currently sprawled out on. "Mind if I sit?"
"Oh, sure," Lumine said a bit awkwardly. The two stared at each other for another long moment before Mr. Wrinkles opened his mouth again.
"You're taking up the entire bench Traveler."
"Oh... oh!" Lumine quickly scrambled upright to give the man room to sit.
Once Mr. Wrinkles was situated, his face turned to the sky. "So, I've heard through the grapevine that you're looking for work. If you'd like, I have a job offer for you."
Lumine's ears perked up at that. "Yeah? What kind of job?"
"I run the Goth Grand Hotel. You know, the one in the center of town." Lumine knew it alright, it was the only hotel in Mondstadt. The man continued on. "Well my son, he used to help me run it, but a few years ago he got a job in Inazuma and he moved there for it. I need someone else fitting to do the job."
Helping Mr. Wrinkles run a hotel didn't really sound all that hard. All she would need to do is make a few beds and do some laundry. Considering how little there was to do in Mondstadt, she assumed business wasn't all that great anyway. Then she realized the old man wasn't done talking.
"...you can stay in one of the rooms permanently, of course, consider it a worker's benefit."
That was enough to seal the deal for Lumine. Jean would be thrilled to hear the news. "I'll take it, sir."
"Wonderful! You can start at the beginning of next week."
"Alright, sir."
"Please Traveler, just call me Goth," he said with a smile, standing up once again. "I'll see you bright and early on Monday."
Lumine learned two integral things over the course of the next few years of her life.
One was that helping out at the hotel was way harder than Lumine had originally thought. Making the beds and doing the laundry was a fraction of her job. Lumine was expected to do nearly every single task in the entire place, and while it was split between her and Mr. Goth, it was still too much to handle for just two people. Truth be told, Lumine didn't blame Mr. Goth's son for running off to Inazuma. If she had the chance she would as well.
The other was that Lumine had been severely underprepared for motherhood. She supposed hundreds of years of living alone with her brother hadn't helped to prepare her much. Barbara had happily watched Aurelia during the day until she started using the word "no!" very liberally (and loudly). After that, Lumine had double the amount of work to do. Watching her hyperactive toddler and scrubbing a toilet at the same time was a lot to handle. There was a lot of "Aurelia, do not stick that in your- what did I just say! No sticking other people's things in your mouth!"
The Fatui were coming and going constantly at the beginning of Lumine's time working at the Goth Grand Hotel, but slowly their presence in Mondstadt, and by extension, the Hotel dwindled. This meant more time for Lumine to spend with Aurelia, reading her stories while they sat in the lobby, waiting for a customer to need something. Oftentimes, they would also play games, and Lumine would mesmerize the six-year-old by discovering a mora piece behind her ear. Aurelia's hazel eyes would go wide as she gasped in the exaggerated way only young children could make endearing.
"How did you do that Mommy?" She'd say with an awestruck expression.
Lumine would reply with a smile as she handed her the coin, "it's a magician's secret, I can't tell you." Of course, what she wouldn't tell Aurelia was that Aether had been able to keep the trick a well-hidden secret for the few hundred years of their lives.
Goth would often join the two during late nights, recounting old folk tales and playing his lyre with arthritis-riddled fingers. His favorite was a short song about a bird learning to take flight that eventually grew into one of the Mondstadt winds. Aurelia usually sat in his lap during these tales, enraptured by the story. And while Lumine could say beyond a shadow of a doubt they weren't true, she wouldn't spoil their fun.
Goth gave Aurelia her own room when she turned seven, which Aurelia responded to with delight. Lumine had as well. Her daughter was a kicker.
"Aurelia! Grandpa Goth and I have a surprise for you!" Lumine had shouted up the stairs to the second floor where Aurelia liked to play.
A tentative "what is it?" responded faintly from the top of the stairs.
"Well, it wouldn't be much of a surprise if I told you!"
A few concerning thumps and bumps came from upstairs before the blonde girl came rocketing down the stairs, nearly slipping on the last one due to her socked feet. Looking around excitedly, the girl visibly darkened after just a few seconds. "There's nothing here."
"That's because it's over here kiddo."
Aurelia's head whipped around as she raced down the hall to the sound of Goth's voice. Lumine followed behind her, calling out "be careful or you'll fall!"
"I'm okay mommy!" Aurelia skidded to a stop in front of the old man. Lumine stopped just behind her. "What is it?"
Goth wordlessly opened the door he was standing beside. A sparsely decorated room greeted the three in return. A simple bed and play area on the right, and a gorgeous bookshelf on the left. Filled to the brim with books of all kinds. Lumine didn't even know there was a book house in Mondstadt, the closest she could think of was Liyue, but somehow Goth had managed to get his hands on all sorts of literature.
Aurelia stood stock still at the door with her mouth agape.
"Well, aren't you going to take a look around?" Goth asked the little girl.
"This is all for me?"
"It sure is."
That was all it took for Aurelia to run inside, looking all around her new room. She kept picking up various things and showing them off to Lumine like Lumine hadn't helped to pick them out.
"Mommy! Look at my sheets! They're green!"
"Mommy! Look! Grandpa Goth got me all of these dolls!"
"Mommy! A training sword! So I can me just like you!" Aurelia whipped around the orange sword so violently she knocked a few stuffed animals off of her bed.
"Maybe we should save swordsmanship for when you're older." Lumine laughed as she gently slipped the bendable thing out of her daughter's hands. Before she could start crying, she nodded back to Goth. "What do we say?"
"Thank you Grandpa Goth!" Aurelia had shouted as she ran across her room to give the old man a tight hug.
A chuckle as he gently patted her on the head. "Of course kid, you were outgrowing your mom's bed."
Goth passed away a few months later, leaving Lumine and Aurelia reeling from the suddenness of it all. One night he had been fine, singing soft songs to Aurelia and lulling her to sleep, then the next morning he was gone. Lying in bed with a still heart.
Lumine and Aurelia were the only guests at his funeral besides Barbara, who was acting as the coroner. They buried him alone in the graveyard behind the church.
Lumine, while looking for a book to read Aurelia to sleep that night, found it wasn't as spontaneous as she had originally thought. A specific spine caught her eyes, bound in emerald green leather without a title, how she'd overlooked it she'd never know. Lumine picked it up and flipped it open, the first page was a letter in the scrawling cursive of Goth.
My Dear Aurelia,
You won't understand this until you're older, but very soon I'm going to be going away for a while. Like a vacation. I've heard that the Golden Apple Archipelago is lovely in the winter months. Maybe someday you and your mother can visit together. For now, just know I'll always be watching over you and cheering you on. You're going to grow up and do some great things, I promise you that. So that you'll have something to remember me by, I had a nice young man in Liyue help me print out this book for you. It's not much, but I hope it will bring you some joy. Don't forget to tell your mother you love her, and eat your vegetables and brush your teeth. Most importantly, don't forget that I'll always love you, no matter where I am.
-Goth
Lumine covered her mouth to stifle the sob that wracked through her body. He had known he was going to die, and yet he hadn't said a word. Lumine had watched plenty of people die. Hundreds, if not thousands, but she was nearly sure that nothing would affect her as much as this did.
"Mommy?" Aurelia had gotten out of bed and was now holding onto Lumine's sleeve looking worried. Lumine hated the expression, she should be the one worried about her child, not the other way around. She pulled the girl into a tight hug and tried to get ahold of herself. Finally, with just a few more sniffles, she pulled away and looked down at Aurelia. A few stray tears were now making their way down the little girl's face.
"Mommy's okay sweetheart, we're both going to be okay." Gently, she wiped the tears from Aurelia's face and pulled her into a hug again. "It's going to hurt for a while, but eventually it'll get better."
The next morning, Lumine found Aurelia in bed, her hand curled around a bright purple Electro vision.
A few years after Goth's death was the beginning of Aurelia's question phase. Which Lumine was less than pleased about. Mainly because she had begun to hit the age where she was asking questions about her father.
"Mom?" Aurelia asked from where she was sitting at the breakfast table before Lumine had to drop her off for her lessons with Lisa. "Sage has a mom and a dad."
Lumine set a plate of eggs down in front of Aurelia and sat down across from her with a cup of coffee. "Yeah? That's nice."
"Well, I asked Sage why he had a mom and a dad when I only have a mom and he said that to have a baby you need a mom and a dad."
Lumine choked on the sip of coffee she'd begun taking, immediately attempting to backpedal. "Whoa whoa whoa, what did Sage tell you exactly?"
"He told me that to have a baby a mom and a dad need to be married. But you're not married mom, Sage said you can't have a baby by yourself."
Lumine would have to apologize to Sage's parents after she strangled their kid to death. She assumed, even if it had been a few years since she'd actively been on commissions and fought monsters, that it wouldn't be too difficult to kill an eleven-year-old.
"Well... you see girlie... your dad uh- he..."
"Did he leave like Timmie's dad?"
" What?"
"I know about parents leaving mom, Timmie's dad left him, and Miss Alice left Klee. Did my dad leave too?"
"Uh- well- you see..." The last thing Lumine wanted to do on a Monday morning was tell Aurelia that her dad didn't know she existed. So she did as all good moms do, and changed the subject. "We're going to be late if you don't hurry up and finish eating. You know how Lisa feels about lateness."
"But-"
"Eat."
The questions didn't stop there. On the short walk through Mondstadt to the Knights of Favonius headquarters, Aurelia asked another of the soon-to-be constant questions. "Can you at least tell me what he was like?"
Well, that was another hard-to-answer question. "Tall, and he had very nice eyes, his nose was quite nose-like as well. A very handsome nose-"
"Mom!" Aurelia whined.
"Oh look we're here! Jean is going to pick you up later and take you and Klee out for dinner okay? I'll see you tonight girlie."
"I'll see you tonight mom," Aurelia turned and started trudging toward the massive doors to the Headquarters.
"Be good!" Lumine called to her retreating frame.
"I will."
"How old is he?" Aurelia asked one night while the two were brushing their teeth before bed.
"Aurelia why does it matter?"
"I wanna know more about Dad." Aurelia had taken to just calling him Dad in recent months.
"But why do you need to?"
"I'm just curious. How old is he?"
"An old old man, thirty, maybe forty years old. By Barbatos he's nearly ancient by now!" Lumine said with a chuckle. Aurelia, however, was not so amused.
"C'mon mom, why won't you tell me anything about him?"
"It's getting late-"
"Mom stop avoiding me! I want to know about my dad!"
Lumine spit out her mouthwash and combed a hand through Aurelia's hair before beginning to braid it for bed. "It's... not that simple girlie. There are things that you're just too young to understand right now."
"No, I'm not, I'm almost eleven and a half, I'm practically a grown-up!" Aurelia crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her nose up in the air to prove her point. It didn't help her cause.
"...Okay, I can tell you a little about him-"
"Really?" Aurelia clapped her hands in excitement.
"But, you have to promise me that you'll eat all your vegetables on your plate for the next month."
Aurelia, however, didn't lose her glow as she beamed into the mirror and nodded profusely.
"Alright, where do I start. He was... rather smart, he knew all sorts of things. He was a bit of a history buff you know. He really knew a lot about Liyue's history, specifically about Rex Lapis. And he was really really good at housework, he was completely willing to do it too. You'll learn someday that's pretty hard to come by." Lumine gently poked Aurelia in the side, who giggled with delight. "And he was incredible in combat, absolutely amazing. He loved play-fighting too, but he couldn't use his weapon properly. I wouldn't have let him teach you anyway, his technique was terrible."
Lumine snapped the final loop around Aurelia's hair. "Now, it's time for bed."
"Will you tell me more about him tomorrow?"
"Maybe, goodnight girlie."
"Goodnight Mom."
Lumine in fact, didn't tell Aurelia much else about him after that night. But that didn't stop the questions, they kept coming and they were getting stranger and stranger each time.
"What's his favorite color?"
"How did you guys meet?"
"Where's he from?"
"Does he like stories?"
"What's his shoe size?"
Lumine looked up from the table she was wiping down to get a good look at her daughter, who was reading in her favorite armchair. "What would that even tell you about him?"
Aurelia just shrugged.
"I don't know what his shoe size was, I didn't exactly check."
"Damn-"
"Language," Archons, Lumine was turning into that mom.
"Sorry, mom."
Finally, Aurelia moved on to a different obsession, one that may have taken off one pressure but brought on another. Boys. Much to Lumine’s chagrin, this brought on an entirely different set of questions, that were even harder to answer.
Aurelia was nearly fifteen, so it wasn't entirely out of the blue. Lumine assumed that "the talk" she had to give a few years prior was finally coming back to bite her in the worst way possible.
Most conversations these days were about boys.
"Mom?" Aurelia spoke up while Lumine was examining fruit at Quinn's fruit stall. "You dated dad right?"
"...in a sense, sure."
"Well then you know best, what's a good boyfriend look like? Like... what are good things about them."
"Hmm..." how in the Seven was Lumine supposed to answer that question? "I guess someone who respects you and chooses to love you. What do you think are good traits in a boy?"
"That's why I was asking you, mom."
"Well, I'm not the one choosing your boyfriend." Lumine picked up a sunsettia and examined it, gently feeling the sides for bruising. Suddenly, she realized why Aurelia was asking and looked up to meet her daughter's eyes. "Is there a boy?"
"No mom! Ew!" Aurelia's face quickly turned a deep shade of red as she crossed her arms. "I was just curious, that's all," she mumbled.
"Alright, well you can come to me if there's ever a boy you want to tell me all about."
Lumine quickly noticed that Aurelia had a taste for the knights in training. Which she was very poor at hiding. Whenever the two passed the headquarters together while the knights were training outside, Aurelia specifically kept her eyes off of the boys roughhousing and dueling with their wooden swords.
"Why don't you go talk to them?" Lumine asked one morning when they passed a few knights practicing near the Adventurer's Guild.
"Mom! They're like, an entire year older than me! You don't want me talking to older guys do you?"
"They're not that much older, Sage is training to be a knight and you're friends with him."
"Yeah but-"
"Look he's over there right now." Lumine pointed to the group they had almost fully passed. "Sage!" She called over to him.
"Mom he's with his friends-" Aurelia stopped dead in her tracks as the teenage boy in question waved to her. He said something inaudible to the boys as he jogged over to her. Lumine quickly made herself scarce. Aurelia better not say Lumine had never done anything for her.
Of course, Aurelia didn't care very much about her mother's meddling when she started dating Sage. It had been a quiet morning after Aurelia had left for training with Jean, but soon she'd be back to help out at the hotel. Not like Lumine needed much help anyway, only one person was staying there currently. One of the new hires at Bubu Pharmacy. She didn’t exactly need help taking care of one guest, but she appreciated the thought.
Lumine heard the slam of a door from where she was sitting behind the front desk, and two pairs of shoes racing through the hotel. Giggling, she heard another door slam shut. Lumine wouldn’t go eavesdrop, she would not go and eavesdrop on her daughter. But if she just so happened to overhear something while walking over to tell her not to slam doors, then she wasn’t at fault.
Quietly she walked through the hall to Aurelia’s room, she could hear more giggling coming from the room as well as muffled voices. “…mom likes him, I don’t think she’ll be mad.”
“I won’t be mad about what?” Lumine said as she opened the door and stuck her head inside. Aurelia was sitting with Diona on her bed, hugging a pillow and blushing.
“N-nothing!” Aurelia shouted, turning a deeper shade of red.
Diona rolled her eyes “You look so guilty right now.”
“Aurelia?” Lumine asked the child sitting on her bed, trying to hide her face now with a pillow, an eyebrow now cocked. “What’s going on?”
“Sage… asked me on a date.”
Lumine immediately felt all the tension in her dissipate, she couldn’t help but laugh. “Why would I be mad about that?”
“Hey! That’s what I said! I knew you weren’t going to be mad!”
“I’m not mad.”
“I know!”
“But no funny business girlie, you’re fifteen, not forty-six.”
“Mom!”
Lumine laughed as she closed the door behind her. A date with Sage, why in the Seven would she be mad at that? She’d been trying to set them up for Archons’ sake.
Aurelia’s relationship with Sage was going scarily well. Not that Lumine didn’t want that of course, but she just found it odd that three years into their relationship, they were still going strong. Of course, Lumine couldn’t exactly gauge a proper relationship length, she’d never dated anyone before.
Sage had become as much of a part of the family as he could. He’d brought Lumine flowers on Mother’s Day two years in a row, and often offered his help fixing up broken appliances. Just because she refused his help every single time didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate the offer, but she was an independent woman, and he was a busy kid. Almost done with his training with the Knights of Favonius, he’d become a favorite of Kaeya. Aurelia had trained with him near daily for the past three years, and it showed. Soon he’d probably become Kaeya’s errand boy so he could continue slacking off in the Knights of Favonius headquarters.
Aurelia was home now more than she was out. She’d recently joined the Adventurer’s Guild with Bennett as her mentor, but most of the time she’d finish her commissions before the morning was even over, and then would rush back home to the hotel. The guests weren’t exactly flowing in, so Lumine truly didn’t know why Aurelia spent so much time helping her. She suspected it was so Aurelia could shed the hideous green outfit that the Adventurer’s Guild required for new recruits.
Lumine was remaking a bed for the fifth time since someone had slept in it when she heard the door open. A customer. Finally, looking down at the still half-made bed she called down the stairs “Welcome to the Goth Grand Hotel! I’ll be with you in just a moment!” She quickly finished remaking the bed (which now looked much shabbier than it had before she started making it) and ran down the stairs.
Sage was leaning against the desk, when Lumine walked in he quickly straightened. He was still in his training armor. “Hi, Ms. Viatrix. Sorry, it’s just me.”
While the pang of disappointment was there, Lumine pushed it down and smiled. “It’s fine kiddo. Aurelia’s not home yet, but if you want you can go wait for her in the kitchen. There are some leftovers in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
“Actually… I came to see you?”
“Sage I already told you I can manage fixing that bed frame by myself.”
“I know, and I’m going to stop bothering you about it I just… well I wanted to ask you something.” Sage produced a small box from somewhere on his person. How he’d stashed it in his armor Lumine would never know.
Lumine looked down at the velvety box. What was he trying to- Oh. Oh. She’d only read about this sort of scenario in books. She’d never expected this sort of this to happen to her. “Sage-“
“I already know what you’re going to say. That we’re too young or too busy or too irresponsible. I know she’s only eighteen, but I love your daughter Ms. Viatrix, and I promise you that I’ll take care of her. I just want your blessing before I go through with this.”
“Quite the speech, did you practice?”
“…maybe?”
Lumine took the box from him and opened it, a bit extravagant for Lumine’s taste, but she had a feeling Aurelia wouldn’t mind.
“It was my grandmother’s, my parents said I should give it to her. Do you think she’ll like it?”
“I don’t think she’ll care much about the ring if I’m being honest.”
“Do I have your blessing then?”
Lumine looked up. She hadn’t said whether or not she had blessed him, had she? “It’s not up to me if she says yes or not.”
“I know that.”
“If she says yes though, I won’t be against it.”
Relief spread across Sage’s face and he took the ring box back from her hands. “Thank you Ms. Viatrix, thank you so much.” He started walking to the door and opened it before turning back to her “If you ever need help with that bed frame, you know where to find me.” The door shut before she could respond. The boy, she was going to take back her blessing if he kept pushing this matter.
Months passed, and no ring suddenly appeared on Aurelia’s finger. Every morning she would still leave before dawn and be back before noon. Lumine usually shooed her out of the house after she showered and changed, her daughter shouldn’t have to be subjected to menial busywork, after all, she was still young.
Once it was late enough that she decided there weren’t going to be any mysterious travelers wandering the city looking for a room, she decided it was time for her to go out herself. Months on end of nothing but taking care of the hotel had begun to take its toll and while she hadn’t physically aged, she could practically feel herself becoming a crotchety old woman. She’d lost all of her youthful glow, her playful sarcasm, her radiance. Lumine needed to get out more in general, but if she could only barely manage it, that would be enough.
As she was walking to Angel’s Share to meet presumably either Venti or Kaeya, whichever was there, she spotted down an alleyway Sage and Aurelia. While out of earshot of the conversation, it was quite obvious to Lumine what was going on when Sage kneeled down and produced a box out of his pocket. Now, Lumine wasn’t a snoop, but who wouldn’t want to be there to witness their child’s engagement? She was pretty sure they wouldn’t notice her either way, as now Aurelia was in Sage’s arms probably bawling her eyes out.
Lumine couldn’t help but smile to herself as she continued her walk to the tavern. Aurelia was going to get married. It was all quite surreal. Lumine could still remember when Aurelia was a chaotic child in diapers, and now here she was, engaged. How strange the world was. How strange.
Aurelia yawned as she entered Mondstadt’s border after her commissions. The shielded mitachurl she’d had to fight when clearing out a camp that day had been extra feisty and now she was ready to go home and change out of these sweaty clothes. Taking a beating wasn’t her favorite thing to do every morning, but mora was mora, and her mom would never give up Grandpa Goth’s deteriorating business. And then her mom would, of course, throw her out of the house right after she changed if she offered to help with anything in said deteriorating business. Even when sitting behind the front desk was the easiest job in all of Teyvat.
Aurelia opened the door to the kitchen and slammed it behind her, a shout came from upstairs, her mom was trying to fix the bed frame again. Why she wouldn’t accept help from her or Sage she’d never get. “How many times do I have to tell you not to slam the door girlie! You’re going to ruin the hinges!”
“I don’t think that’s how that works mom!”
“Don’t talk back to your mother! I know more!” She called down the stairs, yet Aurelia could hear the clear lack of anger in her voice.
Aurelia walked to her room and stretched tiredly as she peeled the ugly green uniform off. She couldn’t wait until she was out of this stage, only a few more months and then she could wear proper clothes while fighting. She showered and changed, admiring herself in the mirror for a moment before walking back out and calling up the stairs. “You need anything, mom?”
“Nope! I’m all- shoot!”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah just cut my finger! Could you grab me a bandage? They’re in my dresser!”
“Yeah, which drawer?”
“One of the top three! I’m not sure which!”
Aurelia walked to her mom’s room and opened up the first drawer. A pair of scissors, a few rubber bands, an old flower with one petal that was a different color, but no bandages. On to the next drawer. Socks, socks, socks, and a necklace wrapped so tightly around a pair of socks it looked like it would never come off, still nothing. “Third time’s the charm,” Aurelia muttered as she opened up the final drawer. Sitting in it was a large box of various medical supplies that barely fit in the drawer at all, she pulled it out and paused when underneath was a thick leather-bound book. Aurelia flipped it open to the first page. It read in scrawling black ink:
Property of Lumine Viatrix
Glancing through it. Aurelia quickly gathered that it was a diary. But not just any old diary, a diary from before she was born, that her mom had completely filled with pictures and words from cover to cover. A shout from upstairs caused her to jump. “Did you find them? I don’t want to bleed all over the carpet.”
“Yeah, sorry, coming!”
Aurelia quickly grabbed a bandage and raced up the stairs, handing it to her mom, who was on all fours in front of a completely taken apart bed frame. “Are you absolutely sure you don’t need help with this? I think that you might have made it… worse.”
“Things always get worse before they get better girlie. To replace the broken board, I had to take the entire frame apart.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s an easier way to do it.”
“Well, this is my method. Now you go ahead and go out and have fun okay? I love you.”
“I love you too mom.” Aurelia bent to give her mom a kiss on the cheek and then ran back down the stairs. She paused when she passed the open door to her mom’s room. The medical kit and the diary were still sitting out in the open, and while this wasn’t about to be Aurelia’s proudest moment, she quickly slid the diary under her shirt and put the medical kid back in its’ place, racing out the door as fast as she could. She went straight to the Knights of Favonius headquarters, where she’d spent hours pouring over the library’s books.
After a short, and incredibly awkward, conversation with Lisa about her wedding, Aurelia made her way down to the tables. Sitting down in her favorite spot, closest to the shelves themselves, she opened the book and began to read.