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Pain ripples along Lumine’s crumpled body like crackling lightning. Blood winds sluggishly through gaps in the cracked stone floor, sizzling and popping as it meets exposed and frayed wires. She coughs, tasting iron in the back of her throat as her ribs twinge in protest. Her eyes roll over the smoldering wreckage of the two Ruin Haunters that ambushed her, now twisted into blood-flecked lumps of scrap metal.
“Paimon?” Her voice is harsh and scraping, ravaged by the battle and her wounds. A muted whimper echoes from behind and Lumine cranes her neck to see a familiar starry cape and white hair laying in a lump on the ground, unmoving after the blow that struck her from the air. Panic nearly closes Lumine’s throat as she strains to keep her eyes focused on the huddled figure of her only constant companion, hoping desperately that she still lives. She can just barely make out the rise and fall of the small sprite’s chest, but that’s enough to send relief flooding through her battered body. At least one of them will be making it out of here okay.
Lumine stifles a sob at the thought. This wasn’t supposed to happen. A routine commission to eliminate a Ruin Guard in Lingju pass, nothing more. A task so typical and par for the course that there didn’t seem to be any cause for concern. But one Ruin Guard turned out to be three, and once they laid in pieces in the grass and Lumine’s breath felt like a knife in her lungs, the Ruin Haunters lurking just out of sight made their move. Stupid, to stand and fight, to think she could escape unharmed. She should’ve just run. But after Osial and Childe, hypostases and Abyss Heralds and a seemingly unending battalion of monsters, she hadn’t been worried. It would take a lot more than a few machines to take her down, right?
Lumine laughs humorlessly. Is this really how it’s going to end? She thinks to herself. Will Aether even know that I’m dead? Will he even care? A lump forms in her throat and tears spring to her eyes, stinging as they slide down the scratches and scrapes marring her cheeks.
Call my name, and I will come.
A voice seems to whisper from the slowly encroaching darkness. The voice, the words, it’s all so familiar, but thoughts are hard to focus on now, words slipping away like so many grains of sand. Exhaustion falls heavily on her like a blanket, and Lumine can feel the overwhelming urge to close her eyes, to give in and sleep. Shadows dance around the edges of her vision, swirling and elegant.
When I make you a promise, I will honor it.
The voice jolts her, startling her from her barely-conscious state. Lumine blinks and suddenly she’s somewhere else, perched on a mountain top overlooking Liyue Harbor. The wind caresses her skin and she sighs in contentment, breathing in the scent of qingxins and sweet almonds. Movement from her right draws her attention and she glances over to see a figure she knows all too well, standing guard ever vigilant over the nation of Liyue. He gazes at her with eyes like the sun, piercing through to the soul so foreign to this land.
“If you awake to a knife at your throat, if monsters dig their claws into you, if death comes knocking at your door. . . Call out my name. I will be here when you call.”
Another blink, and the scene dissolves into mist, fading away before Lumine’s eyes until only the ruins remain. Xiao. . . Maybe, just maybe, the Yaksha would come. Lumine licks her chapped lips and swallows against her dry throat.
“Xiao.” The name falls from her mouth like a prayer, broken and hopeful and pleading. Silence greets her as the hungry darkness prowls closer once more, swelling in her peripheral vision like an incoming tide, only to be blasted out of existence by a swirl of jade kissed night. A stream of steady, harsh muttering meets her ears, and Lumine smiles despite herself, tasting more than feeling blood beginning to drip from her cracked lips.
“—hope you have a good reason for summoning. . . Lumine? Lumine!” Xiao’s frantic exclamation echoes through the ruins and he’s by her side in an instant, his warm hands pulling apart the ripped fabric of her dress to expose the wound in her side. His hands are soon coated in her blood and he curses, tearing the fabric of his shirt away and pressing it against her skin to staunch the bleeding. His face fills her vision, the violet diamond on his forehead exceedingly vibrant against his skin, drained of color from fear.
“You came,” Lumine sighs. Shock flickers across the adeptus’ face, sending shadows through the depth of his golden eyes.
“You should have called for me sooner,” he admonishes her gently. “And of course I came. I made you a promise, and I will honor it until the end of my days.” He draws away briefly, only to return to her field of vision a moment later with Paimon clutched to him. He kneels at her side once more and his arms curl around her protectively, all bone and lean muscle. She’s hoisted up against a warm and solid chest, and that same scent from before returns to wreath its way around her. Xiao murmurs something next to her ear, his chest rumbling with the sound, but Lumine can’t hear the words over the sudden rushing in her ears, like waves crashing against a distant shore. The world swirls away into a sea of jade, and with it, awareness fades.