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“Now Lumine, after the petals have dried you need to grind them up until they are nothing but fine dust.”
She was still young, probably not even in her first millennia yet, though that was of no importance to her mother and earlier than the rest of the parents she had taken to teach her some of her family secrets.
“Once you have the dust, you will take the root of the flower and boil it in a cup of water.”
These days Lumine wonders, was her mother aware that their world was going to come to an end and that’s the reason as to why she took to impart her knowledge unto her kids so early in their lives?
“The water should boil for only 10 minutes, and once that is done you will take out the root, and add the dust.”
Healing potions and medicine were her mother’s family specialty, and while it had actually been some centuries since the last time someone from that side had actually worked as a medic, the knowledge prevailed. Passed from parents to kids, generation after generation.
“Stir it, until the dust integrates with the water, and the liquid turns a rust-like color. If the color is too dark then add more petals, but if it is too light you’ll need to do everything from the beginning once again.”
The specialty on her father’s side had been the carving of special runes that would allow one to change the qualities and characteristics of different elements. To be honest she had been looking more to learn from her father, but the man had refused his wife’s idea of teaching them younger. That was probably the only time that Lumine had seen them fight, and in the end the accord was that while her mother could teach them, her father would still wait until she and Aether were in their second millennia.
“Once the color is the one needed, you will now use the leaves of the flower to make a paste. Combine the liquid with the paste, and let it dry.”
Lumine remembers that she was still too short to be able to see the top of her mother’s worktable without the need to stand up on a chair. And while she was allowed to grind and mince and make strips with the ingredients all of the knife work was done by her mother. And she wasn’t still allowed near the fire when it was used.
“This needs to be let dry by the shade, if you put it under the sun the healing effects that we want will disappear, this paste is to be put over burns and cuts only once all of the liquid has evaporated.”
Home remedies is what her mother had convinced both Aether and her to call the things she taught them. For some motive that Lumine never understood teaching the family secrets to those younger than 2 millennia was a taboo thing. What her mother was doing, if it was discovered by those outside of her home, it would bring her severe consequences.
Still her mother didn’t care, no matter what, she was determined to pass on her knowledge.
“And with this done, Lumine, can you tell me how many recipes I have taught you?”
“746”
“Good, those are many already, but there are still more to learn.”
There had been one strange expression on her mother’s face, at that moment Lumine hadn’t been able to understand what it was. She was still but a child, but now, now that she has even forgotten how long she has lived, she knows what she saw that time drawn on her mother’s face.
Now that she has experienced loss, and pain, defeat, abandonment, hopelessness, the her of the present, familiar with pain and the inevitability of destruction she knows that her mother was grieving. To this day she’s still ignorant of the how, but her mother knew, that their world was coming closer and closer to its end, and she grieved this, the imminent end, it brought her nothing but pain. Yet her mother remained strong, and where others would despair and give up, her mother had decided to focus on the things she still had, the things she could still save.
Her kids, and her knowledge.
But alas, time was against her, and eons of knowledge were impossible to teach in less than two millennia.
Still, day after day she taught them, her hands always form, her voice never wandering, her words simple and clear.
And just some decades before they reached their second millennium their world fell.
Alongside the life and knowledge of millions.
***
Outside, the sounds from the harbor are carried all around Liyue by the air, the shouts of the merchants, the ships and vessels arriving or leaving the port, the orders being barked around by those that are in charge of moving around the cargo from both ships that have arrived or ships that are leaving.
The chatter of hundreds of persons, the barks of the dogs and the occasional cat mewing near.
All kinds of sounds surround her, but right now in what she focuses is on the sound of the water bubbling indicating that it has come to a boil, and now she has to count up to 6 minutes.
In front of her, laying over the cutting board, a dozen of qingxin flowers await to be used.
Six of them have been dried under the sun previously, and now they will finally be used, the other six are still fresh, and have been just picked some hours before.
From the dried ones, she will grind their leaves until she has a powder, and for the fresh ones, she’ll make a tea out of their petals.
The water keeps bubbling, 3 minutes left she counts.
“Lumine.”
She makes quick work with her hands and tears all the petals of the fresh flowers.
“Lumine, I once again insist.”
She then does the same with the leaves of the dried ones, she summons a mortar and pestle and drops the leaves in the former.
“I can take care of myself on my own. I’m aware that you are also dropping your commissions of the day because you are looking after me.”
2 minutes left.
She starts to grind the leaves, the movements, and actions to be done at this point she does without even having to think about it. And she doesn’t have to, she has centuries of practice, behind her.
“Lumine, please.”
1 minute.
Little pieces are what remain of the leaves, but it’s still not the fine dust that she needs. She keeps on grinding and focuses on nothing more.
“Lumine.”
30 seconds. She keeps on crunching the leaves.
“I assure you that my current state is not a matter of importance that requires your consternation over it.”
15 seconds. She still has some rather big pieces of leaf.
“Lumine.”
8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, done.
With a drag over the handle, she moves the recipient in which she was boiling the water from over the fire to one of the countertops.
Already taken out beforehand, she already had a glass jar and a strainer out, and where she needs them. With care, so as to not drop the hot liquid over her, she strains the substance, separating the liquid from the sweet flowers she had been boiling in the water.
“If you excuse me.” And when those words leave his mouth she knows that he’s about to try to get her out of the kitchen and prove that he can look after himself.
She finally turns to look at her companion and can do nothing but huff in annoyance.
Just there, barely managing to stand straight, in the entrance of the kitchen is Zhongli.
As if he were nothing more than a child caught misbehaving, he does nothing but freeze under her gaze.
‘Good’, she thinks. And continues to think so, as she walks towards him as he does nothing but stay in his place. Not daring to meet her eyes, but also not running away.
“I’m okay he says,” she makes sure to inject nothing but poison and sarcasm in her tone, “I can look after myself, he says,” she stands right in front if him, her finger accusatory hovering over his chest, “I don’t need help he says,” tentatively he looks down, his eyes finally meeting hers, and she’s glad that she can find nothing but regret and shame on them, good, at this point he should know that he’s far too grown to go around acting as a youngling so worried about their image that they lash out at anyone that will try to help them, “Zhongli, you can’t even maintain your human form!”
There are some seconds in which she truly finds herself full of the urge to smack him on the head over and over again, as she sees confusion and slow realization in his eyes.
His ungloved hand, (no need for the gloves while under the security of his own home,) goes to touch his cheek, and he feels with his fingers the part in which all along his jawline, scales have appeared. When his hand goes up, and his fingers stop and the corner of his eye, she had to hold her laugh when he brings his hand away from his face and simply stares blankly at it. His claws are out, and considering that he hadn’t realized it, it means that she will have to check some of the furniture for scratches or claw marks.
His right hand is still unmoving in front of him, his eyes never straying from it, already standing close to him she doesn’t need to get closer to grab his left hand and move it to the top of his head. Almost without realizing it he moves it alongside his hair, but it comes to a quick stop when it meets with one of his horns.
She just leaves him there, so out of it, so unlike himself, and turns to the kitchen once again.
Now in silence, she finishes with the leaves, and once she gets the fine dust she needs she leaves them for a while, and goes for the jar of sweet flower tea and drops in it a spoonful of honey.
To any normal human, the concoction would be nothing more than a normal tea with honey, and they would be unable to even tell that something is different from a beverage like the same one that was actually meant to be consumed by a human.
But the thing that separated it from a normal one was the fact that the honey was collected from bees that feed exclusively on glaze lilies. This along with the sweet flower tea would have no effect over them but used on an Adepti its effect would be one that caused them to relax and even in some would maybe cause sleep and tiredness.
It would make their heightened senses and abilities to go dormant and would make them more humanlike, a state that would allow human medicines to work on them when otherwise they wouldn’t.
She serves some of the tea in a vase, and behind her, Zhongli seems to finally come back to himself.
“I- maybe my state is worse than what I originally thought.”
“Hmmm” She comes back once again to the crushed leaves, she summons a small sachet bag filled already with a mix of other herbs and ingredients, she adds the powder, and closes it again. The bag is nothing more than a precaution, its only effect is that the smell caused by the mixture inside will make its wearer aware of every single part of their body, (in certain dragon’s case, make him aware of the characteristics that he hides while out in the public.)
“Maybe it would be better for me to go and get some rest.”
She quickly grabs the vase with the tea and turns around to him once again.
“Drink this.” She hands the vase and he thanks her and leaves.
She has almost finished, the qinxing petals haven’t been used yet but she decides that for now, she’ll simply save them for later, she has already procured some medicine from Bubu pharmacy, so she currently doesn’t need to make more, the petals disappear in a shine of sparks and light and are stored inside her personal bag-dimension.
The only thing she has to do now is the cleaning.
***
Home remedy is what her mother had told her she was teaching her to do, they were nothing more than little homemade cures for when their ailments weren’t that severe.
Lumine knew that wasn’t exactly the truth; but she also knew that it also wasn’t a lie, it was just that what her family defied as a minor ailment was different that the rest of the world (after all, when in your knowledge lies the way to make a potion that will fool death, not other sickness is really severe.)
And then came the fall, and the knowledge that her mother carried had been lost, the fraction she had was minuscule in comparison. Still, she never renounced the knowledge that she had, not even when the already limited knowledge she had had been reduced when she realized that all of the potions she knew how to make weren’t going to work outside of her world.
Not even when she was unable to find the herbs and flowers necessary, did she stop repeating the process and recipes in her head. It was knowledge that ultimately didn’t help her, it was simply stored inside her head, and she had resigned herself to the fact that she was never going to need it. (After all, can it be considered a home recipe if she no longer had a home?)
And then came her fall to Teyvat, and amongst heartache and betrayal she somehow found a home once against.
The star unable to return to the skies had handed her heart over to the dragon, and the dragon did the same, and now the home of a former ruler and God was also her home.
And as her knowledge of her new world increased her past education showed itself to be able to be used once again.
Potions were tricky, she still had a lot of practice to do when it came to Alchemy but slowly she was getting the hang of it, and yes, the things that were possible to do were nothing compared to the things that her mother did back home, but it was still something.
And as she explored more nations with it also came the discovery of new plants, herbs, trees, flowers, fruits, ferns, nothing escaped her. And even though at the beginning she had quite some difficulties now she was able to relate a lot of Teyvat’s flora with the ones that she used back in her world. And from that point, it was just trial and error. But soon she was able to replicate some of her recipes, and as her knowledge expanded with it the amount she could replicate.
And today, repeating what her mother had taught her so long ago, in the commodity of her new home, knowing that they were to help the one she had come to love, Lumine had never been more grateful for the home remedies she was able to do.