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Venti had spent the last few weeks in a not-so-good mood, Lumine had been avoiding him, ever since her return from the Golden Apple Archipelago she had always found herself busy when he wanted to spend time with her. And in the few occasion that she accepted his offer, it was clear that she was willing herself to not create a lie that had her departing from his side.
Her leave for Sumeru was getting closer and closer, and he knew that once she left it would be months before she stepped into the land of Mondtadt once again.
His valiant hero leaving for new adventures once again, months that he would spend yearning for her presence at his side, months without her smile, her laugh, without her.
She was leaving soon, her return unknown, and the past weeks instead of spending them at his side as she had done before departing to Liyue and Inazuma, had been spent with her running and hiding from him.
Daily he wondered, had he done something wrong? Did he offend her somehow and he hadn’t even realized it? Had he given her the impression that he no longer wanted her?
A million of doubts plagued him, and day by day he would feel how she was closing herself more and more from him. Was this his destiny? The winds that would never reach the star no matter how fast they blew, how loud they raged, and how high they traveled.
The bard that could only do nothing more than compose songs and fables about the hero that stole his heart and then got away. The hero that he had dared to think was also his in the same way the he was hers.
Destiny was laughing at him he was sure, he had only deluded himself before, the destiny of a star was always to go back to the sky in which it belonged, and what could the wind do about it?
She was a Traveler, she was always going to leave, he wondered, was this her way to show him mercy?
To distance herself now that they were close to being something more than friends? To build up her walls once again, blocking him and not allowing him to enter?
Was it a warning sign?
Walk away now, it will hurt, yes, but if we keep going down this path it will hurt even more when we reach the end.
Many times he had heard how mortals described the mercy of immortals as something that could be cruel and cold, was this the thing that they referred to?
As he lamented the wind blew gently around him, the leaves of Venessa’s tree softly rustling, and some falling down to the river below.
The oranges in which the sky was painted as the sun descended, would usually help him to feel tranquil and calm after hard and difficult days.
But today they did nothing more than remain him, that with the sun leaving the stars were soon to show.
Only a bottle of good wine could come well to accompany him in his current tragedy.
***
A million of stars shined above him, with care he looked and analyzed every single one, their color, shape, size, how far or close they looked. And with every star that his eyes landed on he couldn’t help but to campare them to the star that fell to Teyvat.
He must have spent hours like that, and in the end came to the conclusion that none of them compared to his savior.
She shined brighter than all of them combined, and while he agreed with the mortals that the stars were beautiful he still thought that Lumine’s beauty was greater.
There was a shift in the wind, announcing the arrival of someone.
“Tone Deaf Bard!”
In between sparkles and small lights, Paimon appeared teleporting from winds knows where.
“Paimon, is everything alright?”
The small Pixie was obviously agitated, worry present on her face. Hands shaking and arms wildly flapping.
“It’s Lumine! She’s… she’s not okay and-” There was a moment in which everything stopped, has something bad happened to Lumine? A fight in which she was left too injured? Had something gone wrong while she was out exploring?
“And Paimon has been trying to help.” “Paimon!” “She has, she really has, Paimon promises!” ”Paimon!” “But no matter what Paimon tries nothing has been working, and, and, Lumine just gets worse and worse.”
Venti had always admired the way in which Paimon could talk, and talk, and talk, and never stop. But right now, with the Pixie hyperventilating, throwing around her words with no care if they made sense or not, and on the verge of bursting into tears, he had never loathed her talent more.
“Paimon!” ”And there’s nothing that Paimon can do about it!” “Paimon!” “And Paimon is so worried because Lumine isn’t getting better. And, And.!”
“PAIMON!”
Acting on his orders the wind picked up, and trapped the little Pixie in a rather strong current, the mini tornado was only strong enough to make her swirl in her place, she would only end up dizzy and maybe with a little bit of nausea but in no way hurt.
When the wind stopped the silence made itself present, Paimon still coming out of her vertigo, and the millions of questions that he had for her being forcibly held down until the Pixie was in a state in which she could answer him.
“YOU STUPID TONE DEAF BARD!” Paimon had one of her hands in her head, still swaying a bit. “Why would you do that to Paimon!” Breath, he told to himself, Lumine was more important.
“Well my little floaty friend, so deep were you in your worry that absolutely none of your words made sense. So what else was I supposed to do?” Both of Paimon’s hands were moved at her sides, her little hands closed in fists, and she took a depth breath, but before she started her tirade at him, he interrupted.
“Now, you said that Lumine wasn’t well, I’m gonna get ahead of myself and assume that she isn’t hurt, considering that both of us are still here.” At the mention of her friend her anger disappeared and her shame and worry took its place, Venti just hoped that her worry wouldn’t overtake the fairy once again, and leave her spitting nonsense.
“No, Lumine is not hurt, she’s, just, Lumine is just… these past weeks had been hard for her, and it’s just like last year after we went to the Archipelago, but this time Paimon hasn’t been able to help, and Lumine also can’t get herself better. And she has started to close herself to others, and she’s sad and angry all the time.”
Relief washed over him knowing that she wasn’t in danger, and then, what immediately followed was concern over what could be troubling her, (and a small part, was glad the Lumine hadn’t just been acting distant and cold with him).
“And you think that I will be able to help her? Because I cannot fathom any other reason as to why you sought me out.” The pixie firmly nodded her head. “Paimon knows that Tone Deaf Bard is the only one that can help Lumine. Even if Paimon doesn’t really understand why.”
Knowing that Paimon, Lumine’s closest companion had him as the only one that could help her reignited the hope that had started to die in him.
“Well then, let’s waste no time, if I’m truly the only one that can help I’m glad to do so. So Paimon, where is Lumine?”
***
The little beach that had formed under the Stormbearer mountains was often overlooked and thus left alone.
And that’s how he found her, sitting all alone over a log near the shore, the waves gently crashing against it, no fires were burning nearby, she was illuminated only by the moon and stars above.
Her back was turned to him, but still, he could see how she had both of her arms around her folded legs, her head hiding between.
His heart hurt, it cried seeing her like this, his valiant and brave knight, the immortal star, brought down in a moment of pain and doubt.
Slowly he got close to her, the sand shifting delicately under his steps, as he got closer if she had taken notice of his presence she gave no signal.
Finally he arrived at her side and sat besides her over the log.
There was a light shake on her shoulders, and for some moments he feared that she would run away from him. “Lumine.” Slowly, so slowly she raised her head and looked at him.
“I’m here.” His voice couldn’t help but tremble at the sight of tears over her golden eyes, they fell unstoppable and silently. “I’m here.” He opened his arms and immediately she crashed against his chest, her hands strongly closing over his shirt.
“I’m here.” He closed her arms around her, and she broke.
The tears quickly doubled, and then her whole body was shaken by the force of her cries. “I’m here, I’m here.” His arms closed more around her, and she was brought closer to him, he could feel her tears wetting his shirt, but right now he didn’t care.
For stars now how long both of them stayed like that, the only sounds to be heard were her cries and his murmurs that were nothings and sweets words of assurance.
He was here, he was here, he kept telling her, I’m not leaving you, I’m not leaving you.
One by one, the stars above them started to disappear when her cries were brought to an end. Still, the occasional tear still escaped her eyes, and her body still trembled.
Her hold on his shirt softened and she let it go, her face left its place on his chest but she didn’t leave his embrace. Slowly she moved her position, her head now resting on his shoulders, her legs ticked to the side, and her hands over them.
One of his arms moved to rest on her back and he moved the other with her hands, both of them then grasped his.
“Sorry.” Her voice was hoarse and was barely above a whisper. But to him it was as loud as the bells of the church. “What for?” She raised her head from when she was looking at their interjoined hands and locked his eyes with his.
“For avoiding you. For running.” Her stare is intense, never looking away from his eyes. “For going back against my word and breaking my promises.”
“Apologies accepted.” A small smile forms on her mouth, and he can feel his heart doing leaps at the sight of it. “Paimon told me that the same thing occurred the last time you went to the Archipelago. If you don’t mind me asking, what is it that is upsetting you?”
What is it, he wondered, please tell me, please let me know so then I can help you, he begs to himself.
“I, well I suppose-” There’s trepidation and fear, and a part of him shrivels up at the fact that he’s the one causing her this. But the other, the part that wants to help her braves on, and waits as she thinks for the words she needs.
“I suppose, that I. I have been, lately I-”
Preferring to use her sword to words, he has heard some people describe her. Maybe to strangers, but to those close to her words are a constant. Either stories of her travels or just nonsense, but words are always there.
“Homesick. I have been homesick, and I have been allowing it to drag me back into a past that I don’t want to remember.”
With her confession done her eyes leave his and she moves them to focus on the dark sea in front.
“My home?”
He had asked her shortly after their meeting, while he was aware of their existence a world traveler had never stepped in Teyvat during his life.
“My original world… let’s just leave it that the less about it the better. But home, home is wherever I am with my brother!”
“Homesick as in,” rare were the moments in which he held his tongue back, “homesick, for your original world,” but there were moments in which even if he wanted to swallow back his words, he had to tell them, “or, homesick… for your brother?” because sometimes honesty, wasn’t about avoiding what one felt, sometimes it was about seeking liberation, even if said liberation caused pain and sorrows.
She lets out a shaky exhale that sounds like the beginning of a cry. But before the tears start to fall again she closes her eyes and wills herself to not let them fall. She pushes herself more into him, seeking his comfort and touch.
“Both, it’s for both. But, at the same time for neither of them.” One of her legs moves, kicking up sand. “I, I have accepted, that, that Aether has chosen his path.” One that she doesn’t agree with, he knows, one that she fears that one day will mean the end for one or both of them.
“And, I hate it, but I have come to the realization that instead of missing him, I have started to mourn my brother. I HAVE STARTED MOURNING HIM AND HE IS STILL ALIVE!”
Her whole body shakes, sadness, anger, confusion, grief, all of them combining inside her heart.
“I mourn for him, I mourn for the brother that I had before, the brother that was kind and the better person between the two of us. I hate it!, I hate it because I cry for him but immediately after that I start cursing his name.”
Tears once again slide down her face, but in face of her anger they go unnoticed by her.
“And I- I miss him so much that it hurts until I feel like I can’t breathe, but then I get so angry! And I fear for what will happen if I were to meet him while rage is the only thing that I can bring myself to feel towards him”
He has always considered one of the biggest tragedies that can be found, the siblings that end up destroying one another.
“But then, aside from- aside from the anger, and the sadness and the pain there’s … there is nothing. Sometimes, I think about him and I feel nothing.”
Her shaking stops, her breathing is still erratic, and the tears still fall.
“And, and feeling nothing. It’s terrifying. I don’t like, I don’t like the things I do when I feel nothing.”
Many are the ones that describe the Traveler as someone of a pure heart, a hero of light that brings hope and salvation, Venti won’t refute them, she is capable of good, she acts and aligns herself to the morals and customs that are considered good and are accepted.
But to pretend that she is incapable of evil, to pretend that in the same way that she brings liberation and restoration she isn’t also able to bring chaos and destruction; that is nothing more than the thinking of a fool.
The beliefs of an ignorant.
Venti wonders, do they revere her as a hero because they are truly unable to see the darkness that festers inside her, or they do see it, they see it, and it scares them?
It scares them so much that it makes them throw praises and her existence as if they were offerings to a savage beast.
Whatever it is, ignorance or fear, Venti isn’t like them, he knows, he sees it, sometimes he shares it, but he knows, while Lumine had taken the mantle of a hero here in Teyvat there is no reason for her to not have picked the role of a villain in another world.
Venti knows, that in her long life Lumine has spilled enough blood to fill all of the oceans of Teyvat at least 10 times.
He knows, and he knows that she knows, that he is aware of the blood on her hands, but it is something that they never talk about, who she was before being trapped into Teyvat is of no importance to Venti.
But on this night, in which feelings that had been kept under key and lock for so long are finally seeing the light, he knows that it is also another buried truth that will emerge.
“What are they?” He asks, even though he already knows. “What are the things you do when you feel nothing?”
One of her hands leaves his and it goes to wipe away the tears running down her cheeks.
“My home world, the world where I was born, did I, did I ever told you that, that the.” She looks once again at him, her golden eyes once again fixating in his eyes. “That the color of your eyes.” A big smile forms in his mouth, “Is like the color of your hometown’s sky?”
Under nothing but the light of the moon he can barely see it, but her face is painted with a beautiful blush.
“Ah, my dear star, how could I ever forget a compliment as sweet as that one?” He thinks he hears a low ‘idiot’ being murmured but for his hero he will let it go ignored. “And so out of nowhere came, just like a true compliment that has no hidden objectives. Even now, after so long that it had been said, I can’t help but feel elated every time I remember it. Such a magnificent compliment, and out of the lips of my valiant knight it came, this humble bard can’t help but feel, so, so honored.”
A loud groan that escapes her lips interrupts his tirade, and for a while he expects maybe a punch or a shove but they never come.
“It came out of nowhere because I truly said it without even realizing it, you know? When I first meet you I hadn’t realized it, I was too busy with the whole, waking up alone and powerless in a new world, but once I saw your eyes it was the first thing that came to my head. I, I , ever since my world fell, millennia ago, I have traveled to millions of worlds, and not ever once, no matter where I went, had I encountered a sky like the one above my hometown.”
‘Ever since my world fell’, his mind repeats, for the little that she had talked about the place in which she was born, he had realized that it was a place to the one she could not return. Exile he had thought, or maybe there was nothing of importance to her to come back to. But none of them had been the truth, instead, its destruction was the thing that drove her out of it.
“I, I didn’t tell you before, when I was apologizing, but that was also one of the reasons as to why I was avoiding you.” He’s almost afraid to ask but he knows he has to, “Is it painful? When you look at my eyes and see the sky under the one you grew?”
The sole thought of bringing her pain like this, he can feel how his heart cries and shrivels. “No, it isn’t, not really, but it does bring memories that I would prefer to keep on ignoring.”
“What was it like? Your world?”
She takes a shaky breath and speaks.
***
She speaks and speaks, for what must be hours, and as she talks he learns.
He learns about a world that not even his wildest dreams would have been able to conjure. He learns about a world, that breathed, a world that had a conscience, a world that was alive. A world that was capable of love, and that love was directed towards the star-born travelers who lived in it.
A world that loved them so, so much, that it keep itself in constant growth, in constant change, a world that replicated every single condition, place, creature, or danger that could be found in another world. And when a traveler came back to it, carrying news and descriptions of a new place, the world replicated it.
All just to keep its inhabitants prepared and able to face whatever they found in their travels outside of it.
A lovely place, it must have been, he can feel his fingers itching for his lyre, and inside his head rhymes and songs are already forming, indeed, what a lovely place, but as he knows it all ends in tragedy.
“How did it fall?”
He asks, and the story that slips from her lips is a familiar one for him.
A tyrant takes the throne, one that rules through fear and spilled blood. All of those who speak against him are quick to disappear.
And when none oppose him, all too scared to do so, his cruelty and lust for power grows.
“We are the superior species, is what he would preach. We have the power, we have the knowledge, to bring all of the worlds down.”
His words were nothing more than poison, but many believed them, ignoring the blood on his hands many swore loyalty to him.
And then a rebellion breaks out.
And heroes are born with the same facility as they fall. Hope is dwelling, and their numbers receding. The tyrant will win, they started to fear.
And then hope came in the shape of a warrior clad in white. Unstoppable and capable of bringing down armies all alone.
But this was no hero, she was nothing but a killing machine, cutting down all who crossed her path.
“Some still called me a hero, as long as the ones that fell were the enemy they didn’t care about the cruelty which I did so. But demon, calamity, monster, beast a devil they more commonly called me. They feared me, but because as I was on their side they still tried to paint me as some kind of martyr.
They liked to say, that I was but manifesting my righteous anger, after all, we were in a war against a tyrant. Others said that it was but my nature, everyone knows that when a star dies it also takes out all that surrounds it. But their favorite story was that I was but grief and pain manifested. All their anger, the hate, the sadness, all the feelings that they didn’t want to carry with them, they liked to say that they simply found another vessel.”
But it was none of that, she tells him.
It wasn’t anger, nor hate, or sadness, or any other emotion that fueled her, and allowed her to bring down millions.
It was nothing.
“My family died in the beginning of the war, and after that, it was only Aether and me.”
For beings like them, for stars born, death is nothing more than a concept.
Death amongst them is rare, and it is normally the result of a battle, rarely it’s because of some sickness. But aside from that death never touches them.
But during war, death was all that they knew, and many for the first time in their lives were experiencing it.
For Lumine it had been like that.
And when death was all that she knew, she just- she just didn’t know how to react. She wasn’t her brother, always calm and collected when it came to his emotions. He always knew what he was feeling, always knew how to react and act.
So when carnage and decay surrounded her? When the world that loved them so much perished under the bloodshed? When her family transformed into nothing more but a number to add to the list of the deceased?
The truth is that she broke, her world crashed and burned around her and she did the same, and when she was nothing more than fragments and broken pieces she found herself unable to feel.
The world around her meant nothing, because her life itself meant nothing.
The only thing that truly made her keep going was the fact that Aether was out there, fighting.
So she joined the fight.
She joined the war and as her blade cut through skin and bones, she felt nothing of it. When after days, and days, and days of fighting both her clothes and skin were dyed in red, she felt nothing. As the whispers of hero, demon, savior, monster,beast,fallenangel,protector,killer,knight,calamity,devil,evilevilevilevil, started she felt nothing.
Around her war brought her world to its end and she felt nothing.
She, brought her world to its end, and
she
felt
nothing.
***
“And, and feeling nothing. It’s terrifying. I don’t like, I don’t like the things I do when I feel nothing.”
Indeed, what a terrifying thing, if feeling nothing allowed her to spill oceans of blood and not bat an eye.
She finished her tale long ago, and it won’t take too much time before the stars and the moon start to go down and the sun takes its place.
“I miss a lot of things Venti, I have lived so long and experienced so much, but in the same way, I have lost too much. I miss my home, ever since I left its destroyed remains so long ago I see it in every world I step in. But I have accepted, I think, I thought that I had accepted the fact that I would never find a home again.”
But she did, he knows that, he knows that after all the tragedy she was able to find a home again, alongside her brother. That was where her home was, but destiny is truly a cruel thing. And once against she lost it.
“I miss my word, but I know that I have lost that right, and I miss my brother, I miss him but I resent him. But there also some nights in which I think about both and feel nothing.”
The first rays of the sun start to make an appearance in, front of him the water starts to be painted in yellows and oranges, white sparkles reflecting all over it.
“Some nights when I think about home it is no longer about a world long gone and my brother.”
The sun makes its appearance, the world is illuminated and the night and darkness are driven away.
“Recently it hasn’t been about them, recently when thinking about home, it is about the wind on Mondstadt’s plains, recently home is the peak of Liyue’s mountains, home is felling the rain and thunder that falls in Inazuma.”
It’s a new day, and with it come new revelations. He had been wrong.
“These days,” she says as she snuggles against his side, their eyes meet once again, and green gets lost on her gold, “home is here,” her eyes are bloodshot, after all the crying there was no way for them to not be, “besides you.”
Under a new beginning, their hearts open to one another and they interjoin.
***
Lately, Lumine has been feeling homesick, while in Mondstadt she misses the flavors of Liyue’s traditional cuisine and the seafood that is fished out of Inazuma’s ocean.
When in Liyue, she misses the sound of the bards performing in the taverns and in the streets, and while out exploring sometimes the lack of bake danukis feels weird.
In Inazuma she finds herself despairing because she misses Mondstadt’s breeze, and even if they are good, Inazuma’s storytellers will never compare to the ones in Liyue.
Soon she will leave for Sumeru, and she wonders, while in that new land what will she miss, and once she returns, she questions herself over what part of her will be forever left behind in the land of Dendro.
Lumine misses, and misses and will forever miss, places, things, foods, smells, textures, people.
It is part of her nature now, she has realized, some days she hates this part of her, this part that seems so determined to drag her heart and mind into the past and not allow her to enjoy the present.
But some days, when she finds herself missing and grieving she just needs to share her grievances with the wind, and now she knows that there will always be an answer.
Her beloved is always with her, even when the distance between them is immeasurable.