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Lumine stalks through the streets of Inazuma City, ignoring the droplets pattering on her head. A dense fog of exhaustion wraps itself around her shoulders and weighs down her neck like a heavy cloak, trailing in the street behind her and catching on every rain-slicked tile.
She’d sent the members of her party off earlier with instructions to rest up between commissions. Childe ran off gleefully to compete in a card game tournament, dragging Paimon with him. Zhongli intoned something about the Yae Publishing House before strolling away, and Shinobu excused herself to bail delinquents out of jail. Scaramouche… She doesn’t know where Scaramouche is. She doesn’t care.
She’s been travelling with the Balladeer — ex-Balladeer now, she supposes — for about three months. It’s harder than travelling with anyone else. He’s petulant, angry, disinclined to follow orders. Nobody else on her team has given her as much trouble as he has — not even Childe, who mostly just likes to kill things. But for some reason, he wants to travel with her; and for some reason, she can’t bring herself to kick him off the team. Call it an act of charity: sacrificing her peace of mind for the displeasure of his company.
All that to say, the past three months have given her a rough approximation of what hell must be like.
She’d watched her allies walk away and felt nothing but a sense of deep exhaustion, settling in crevices of her being that she hadn’t even been aware of, displacing all other emotion. She misses Aether, of course, but even that has dwindled to a dull sadness in the soles of her feet.
She’s tired.
And maybe she’s spent too much time in Mondstadt, because when she’s tired, she drinks. Not much — she’s no drunkard. Just enough to wet her lips, to make her feel something other than exhausted.
She approaches a seedy bar on the city outskirts, hoping this is far enough away from her usual haunts that she won’t bump into anyone she knows. She’s not in the mood for well-intentioned inquiries and concerned looks. She needs to go somewhere nobody knows or cares about her — but places like those are rare for the saviour of Inazuma.
She pushes open the door of the bar and winces at the sudden cacophony. A group of patrons are singing a sea shanty wildly off-key. Glasses clink loudly; chairs scrape across the floorboards. The room is dim, but she can make out a man standing on a table at the end, beer stein raised in a toast. Drunken cheers accompany the man as he jumps off the table, slips on a spilt drink and crashes to the floor.
Lumine sighs, stepping into the bar and scanning the room for empty seats. The only one she can see through the gloom is by the bar, between two people whose silhouettes are blurred by the smoke in the air. She hops up on it in a rather undignified fashion, cursing her short legs, and waves down a bartender.
“Firewater,” she says. The man grunts, pours some rich-looking amber liquid into a grimy glass, and slides it her way. She shoves a pile of Mora at him and grabs the glass, wiping the lipstick stains off the rim. She takes a sip. It tastes like piss, but it’ll do.
“Well,” says the man to her right, and Lumine stiffens at the familiar voice.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, more aggressively than necessary.
Scaramouche grins: a sharp, vicious thing. “Same thing you are, I assume,” he says, cutting his eyes at her from under his giant blue hat. “Drowning my sorrows.”
There’s a note in his voice that she would classify as “being a little shit” if she hadn’t been travelling with him for months. But she knows better now. It’s exhaustion she hears on his tongue, sharpening the edges of his consonants. It had never occurred to her that he might be as tired as she is. She… doesn’t know how to feel about that.
He continues when she doesn’t respond. “Who knew the legendary Traveler frequented establishments like this one? I’m sure the tabloids would have a field day with this.”
“Shut up, Scara,” Lumine says. She takes another sip of her firewater. “You wouldn’t tell them about this because that would just bring more attention to me, which would bring more attention to you, which you don’t want.”
His eyebrows lift slightly but he doesn’t disagree, only makes a movement with his shoulders that might be a shrug. “Fair enough,” he acquiesces. “So, are you going to leave, or should I?”
It’s a tough decision. Lumine has just gotten here, and the fatigue seems to have glued her to her seat. On the other hand — she may be tired and angry but she’s not a complete asshole (yet). She doesn’t want to kick him out into the rain, especially since he got here first.
“Can we just–” she starts, and then sighs. “Can we just ignore each other and pretend we’re drinking alone?”
He scoffs. “You’re soft. But… fine.” He lifts his glass and takes a gulp. She follows suit, feeling the familiar burn of the liquid as it streaks down her throat.
They sit in silence for a while. Lumine closes her eyes and lets the chatter of the bar wash over her. A woman behind them is bragging about her newest girlfriend to a companion who is clearly not interested. Someone at the end of the bar counter lets out a sob and quickly muffles it. An old man coughs the hacking, phlegmy cough of the ill and dying. Lovers bend their heads together and giggle shyly.
The sounds of people living, Lumine muses. How foreign. How mortal.
As if reading her mind, Scaramouche tilts his head and makes a face that might almost be a sneer if he put a bit more effort into it. “Humans,” he says, and there’s something that sounds like baffled awe in the one word.
“Funny creatures,” Lumine agrees, forgetting her intention to ignore him.
Scaramouche’s brow furrows. “Huh,” he says. His fingers find the feather attached to his Vision and tug on it absently. “Sometimes I forget you’re not like them.”
Her laugh comes out sharper than she would have liked. “There’s a reason they call me Outlander, you know.”
He must pick up on her bitterness, because he scoffs and turns towards her. “That’s not jealousy I hear in your voice, is it, Traveler?” He clicks his tongue when she doesn’t respond. “You can’t seriously want to be like them. They’re ants, hurtling towards their destruction, their lifespans diminishing by the day. Filthy, faithless insects.”
“I don’t want to be like them,” Lumine objects. “It’s just hard to be continuously reminded that I’m different.”
He stares at her. Which is not, in itself, remarkable. Scaramouche stares at her a lot: mostly glares, sneers, with the occasional glower thrown in. But this stare is less hostile than she’s used to — searching, almost uncertain. “But you are different,” he says finally, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.
“I know,” she says. She takes a sip of her drink to dull the edge of despair in her voice. “I know. I just wish there was a way to be different, while still… belonging. You know?”
She sees a flicker of something that looks like recognition in his dark eyes before he blinks and looks away. “I have no idea what nonsense you’re babbling about now,” he says.
Lumine definitely doesn’t care what he thinks — but for some reason his dismissal stings. “Liar,” she scoffs, turning back to her drink.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Scaramouche bristle. “What did you just say?”
She debates for a second whether this hill is worth dying on. But her patience has been worn thin over the past few months, and gods, maybe she’s had enough of being kind to him. “I called you a liar,” she says, swirling the drink. “And I’ll add that you’re a coward, because you know exactly what I mean and you’re scared to admit it.”
He laughs, harsh and brittle. “Don’t presume to know what I’m thinking. I’m not like anybody else you may have met–”
“Oh, because you’re so special,” she interjects derisively. “Nobody else has ever experienced difficult things or had conflicts with their family. Nobody else has ever lost someone they loved. Just you, Balladeer.”
Scaramouche slams his glass on the bar counter and levels a look of pure hatred at her. “You couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like to be cast aside by a god, to be rejected and betrayed by your only kin–”
“I couldn’t possibly understand?” Lumine repeats in disbelief. She can hear herself getting louder but can’t be bothered to lower her voice. “I couldn’t possibly understand? Fuck you.”
He jerks slightly and frowns at her. “I– I forgot–“
“You didn’t forget,” she snaps. “You just never thought about it, because you don’t think about anyone but yourself.” She leans in, so close that she can smell the hot scent of alcohol on his breath. His eyes track her movement as she tilts her chin towards him. “But you were right about one thing. We’re not the same. We may be different from the humans, we may have had similar experiences, but I don’t throw temper tantrums. I don’t name myself ‘Destroyer of Cities,’ and I don’t walk around killing people–”
She stops short as Scaramouche barks out a laugh, bright and angry. “You don’t kill people? Oh, Traveler. And the swaths of Treasure Hoarders you’ve cut through on your way across Teyvat? What about the hordes of my recruits you’ve sent home in body bags?”
“That’s not–”
“Do you know how many bright-eyed young people I’ve had to ship back to their families in boxes?” he asks, leaning closer until they’re practically nose to nose and she has to fight the urge to lean away. “How many condolence letters I’ve had to pen? Dear Mrs. Ivanova, my deepest sympathies on the loss of your daughter.”
“Shut up,” Lumine breathes.
But he only presses on, lowering his voice to a hiss. “At only 19, Arina believed wholeheartedly in the Tsaritsa’s ideals of love and sacrifice. Unfortunate, then, that she laid down her life not for these noble ideals, but because some golden-haired Traveler decided she needed more insignias and didn’t mind wiping Arina’s blood off her pretty white shoes.”
“Shut up!” Lumine snaps, finally pulling herself away violently and almost toppling off her stool. “Shut up, Scaramouche!” She registers absently that she’s shaking.
He leans back. She expects him to look smug or triumphant at finally making her snap, but he just looks tired. “Arina used to help me mend my uniform,” he says quietly. “She dreamed of being a seamstress after she left the Fatui. And you dare tell me you don’t kill people.”
It’s not that Lumine hasn’t thought about this before. She’s met enough Fatui who are uncomfortably close to human — Childe, for one, whose little brother still thinks he’s a toy salesman. Katarina in the Chasm, whose quest so eerily mirrored Lumine’s own; Lyudochka in Inazuma, born into a life that suited her so little; Trofin in Sumeru, whose ragged note she still keeps tucked in her pack. She knows the Fatui are real people, with hopes and dreams, with lives as real and full as her own. But — they get in her way. And so she cuts them down, and tears their carefully-polished insignias off their bloodied uniforms. So maybe she is just as bad as the Balladeer, after all.
Scaramouche picks up his glass and holds it up to the light, staring at the amber rays that filter through. The shadow of his hat lifts off his face for a moment, letting his dark eyes catch the light. “If I’m a monster, then you’re a monster too, Outlander.”
Lumine grabs her glass with an unsteady hand and takes a swig, too fast. It goes down the wrong way and she chokes, coughing into the inside of her elbow. Scaramouche thumps her hard on the back, and she can’t tell whether he’s being uncharacteristically kind or just taking any excuse to hit her.
It’s only once her coughing has died down that she registers what he said. “I never said you were a monster,” she says, voice a bit hoarse from the firewater.
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. It’s what you were thinking; I just said it for you.”
“Don’t presume to know what I’m thinking,” she says, spitting his words back in his face. “You can call yourself a monster, but don’t put words in my mouth.”
Scaramouche narrows his eyes at her like she’s an interesting bug he wants to pin to a corkboard. “I orchestrated a rebellion that killed hundreds, including your little friend Teppei. I drugged you and tried to murder you on multiple occasions. And yet you still won’t call me a monster. Are you an idiot or something?”
Lumine laughs mirthlessly. “You said it yourself: if you’re a monster, I’m a monster too. Non-human vagabonds cast aside by the divine and rejected by our family. We’ve wrought chaos on those stupid enough to stand in our way and thought little of the consequences. Unfortunately, Wanderer, we seem to have been cut from the same bloodstained cloth.”
He exhales and it almost sounds amused. “A pretty corner we’ve backed ourselves into. We can’t condemn the other without condemning ourselves. I suppose we’re both monsters, then.”
She drums her fingers on the counter. “I’m not willing to label us that just yet.”
He shakes his head, rubbing the edges of his Vision absentmindedly. “What else could we be? Half human, half not. Not quite god, not quite mortal. There is no place in the mythology of this world for a fallen star and a puppet who tried to be divine. We’re monsters, Traveler. Face it.”
She wants to argue, to say that there must be a place for them, to say that one day maybe they will fit in somewhere.
But she doesn’t quite believe that. And she knows he won’t, either.
So she takes a sip of firewater and sits in silence, watching the visibly drunk man at the end of the bar try to coerce the bartender into giving him another drink. The man seated on Lumine’s other side finishes his drink and leaves. She hears his footsteps drag to the door.
And she thinks about halfway points. Not quite god, not quite mortal. Never fully belonging anywhere.
“Have you ever been to Dragonspine?” she asks finally.
“What?” he demands. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.” She glances at him and raises an eyebrow, and he relents. “A few times. Not recently. Too damn cold.”
“There’s this place that I go when I need to think,” she says. “It’s at the foot of the mountain, near a Fatui camp. There’s this giant rock, and if you stand at the top and look south, you have the most perfect view of the mountain. And if it’s a clear day and you look north, you can see all the way to Dawn Winery.”
She sneaks a glance at Scaramouche and sees him scowling at her with open confusion. “It’s not quite Dragonspine, and not quite Mondstadt,” she explains. “But it’s one of my favourite places.”
Comprehension dawns on his face and he barks a laugh. “You can’t be serious. What are you trying to say, Traveler — that we’re like your favourite lookout spot? Absurd. Stop trying so hard to belong in a world that doesn’t want us.”
His words sting — not because they’re unfamiliar to her, but because they aren’t. They ring in her ears when she wakes up; flicker at the corners of her eyes as she passes through a crowd; echo in the empty corners of her chest. A constant, unwelcome companion along her path.
“Here’s what I think,” Scaramouche continues, a gleam in his eye. “I think we should leave them all behind, reject their cities and petty mortal lives. We’re never going to fit in anyway, so why try? Aren’t you tired of being a wanderer without a home? We may not be gods or mortals, but we can carve our own space out of the bedrock and make the earth itself accept us.”
“What,” she says, “so just run away? Abandon the humans?”
“Yes,” he breathes. “No more curious or hostile looks. No more cult-like adoration. We could just be… We could just be.”
It’s tempting. Horribly tempting. Lumine closes her eyes, and the sound of the bar fades away. She imagines leaving civilization, not having to explain her funny clothing or why she can wield the elements. Finally fitting in, snug in a niche she carved herself. She imagines being called Lumine instead of Outlander, of gaining the privilege of forgetting that she’s the other — if only because she’s the only one there.
But… she would miss her friends. Amber, her first human friend in this world. Albedo, maybe the only person outside this bar who understands the agony of this specific difference. Collei, who trusted her with her greatest secret.
And Paimon would be sad.
Lumine opens her eyes. The Wanderer is watching her, his hand pressed flat to the bar counter in front of them, with something like hope in his eyes.
“I can’t,” she says, and watches him wince as if physically struck.
“Why?” he demands, leaning towards her until his dark hair falls forward to frame his face. “What could this world possibly have to offer you?”
“There are good people here,” she says, and he laughs. The rough sound reminds her incongruously of shattered porcelain, crushed underfoot.
“Right,” he says, turning away.
“No, listen,” she says. Impulsively, she grabs his hand and he whips back around to glare at her. “There’s beautiful music in this world, and delicious food, and people living like they’re never going to die. Every day they open their eyes and they know there’s a non-zero chance that today is the day their life ends, and somehow they get up and do whatever they want, anyway.”
“So they’re fools,” he says. For once there’s no rancour in his voice; he says it like he’s stating a fact.
“Sure,” Lumine says. She notices vaguely that his hand in hers is warm, that it feels like human skin. She’s not sure why she was expecting it to feel brittle. “But they’re brave fools. And I’m not willing to give up on them yet. Even if I never fully acclimate to humanity or to divinity, I would rather be a piece of a tapestry than a thread on my own.”
“So you’re okay with just never fitting in?” he demands. “Wandering for the rest of your life, always homesick for a home that doesn’t exist?”
“Look, I don’t like it,” she says, voice tight. “It hurts like hell. But I don’t see any other way.”
They fall into silence for a moment. His fingernails dig crescents into her hand.
“You know,” she says quietly, “maybe we have it all wrong. Maybe we’re not missing out because we’re different — we have a perspective none of them will ever have.” She glances sideways to see him watching her, his eyes inscrutable.
“You’re saying it’s like that rock on Dragonspine again,” he says.
“Maybe,” she says. “The view is beautiful from there.”
He looks away. His shoulders rise and fall in a sigh. “You can’t seriously believe that.”
“I don’t always,” she admits. “Some days are hard. Today was hard. But I have to believe something.”
He glances down at their linked hands. “Damned optimist. I liked you better when you were yelling at me,” he says. But he doesn’t pull away.
“I know,” she says, and grins wryly. “I promise to yell at you more. But someone’s gotta have hope, and you haven’t stepped up so far.”
He clicks his tongue in exasperation and gazes at the ceiling like he’s drawing strength from the bar lights. The light catches his sharp cheekbones and she finds her eyes drawn to the lines of his features. She doesn’t let herself admire him often, doesn’t like staring in case he catches her. But he’s very beautiful. And Lumine likes beautiful things.
“I still think we should escape into the wilderness,” he says finally, still not meeting her eyes.
She laughs. “You’re that eager to get me alone, huh?”
He turns and fixes her with the most offended look she’s ever seen. “You wish. You’d be lucky to even get to touch me, let alone date me,” he declares, apparently forgetting that his hand is still in hers.
“Who said anything about dating?” she snipes back, horribly aware that she hasn’t let go of his hand, either. “Maybe I just want you for your body, Wanderer.”
It’s funny, she thinks, as his cheeks turn as red as his eyeliner, that in her months of travelling with him, she has never seen him blush like this. It spreads from his cheeks to his ears and down to his neck, disappearing under his collar, and she finds herself wondering how far down it goes.
“Wha– I– You– You can’t–” he splutters. Then he juts his chin out like he’s too good to respond to her, makes a grab for his drink with his free hand, and downs it in one movement. He wipes his mouth on the sleeve of his coat, which drops slightly to reveal a sliver of skin, and sneers at her. “You’re disgusting. You disgust me.”
Gods, he’s so pretty. Especially with his upper lip curled and his embarrassment staining his cheekbones like red ink. She wants to make him blush again.
She opens her mouth to tease him more, and at that exact moment someone smashes a chair over someone else’s head. An inebriated roar goes up from the other patrons. The bartender lumbers out from behind the counter, eyes dark with fury, as a woman jumps up and throws a punch at another patron, seemingly for no other reason than the allure of violence. Multiple people stagger to their feet and start swinging at one another.
The Wanderer peers out from under his hat. “Ugh,” he says. He hops off his stool, the bells on his outfit jingling, and tugs on Lumine’s hand. “Bar fight. Come on, dumbass, let’s get out of here.”
“That’s not my name,” she says. She doesn’t know why she says it.
He rolls his eyes and tugs on her hand again. “Come on, Traveler.”
The brawl is growing more rowdy by the second. A man slams another man up against the wall in a position that might be almost romantic if he wasn’t also trying to stab him. If they stay in here much longer, Lumine thinks, they might have to fight their way to the door. But she shakes her head anyway. “That’s not my name, either. Ask nicely.”
He narrows his eyes at her, then gives her a sharp grin. For some reason, Lumine suddenly feels as if she’s misstepped.
He tightens his grip on her hand and sidles up to her, slowly. He steps in front of her, then closer, slotting himself between her knees. From this angle, he has to tip his head up to look at her. The movement exposes the line of his neck, still half flushed from her teasing, and Lumine glances away, feeling entirely too warm. The brawl rages on, but she can’t hear anything past the pounding in her ears.
The Wanderer leans up and puts his lips close to her jaw, tilting his head sideways to avoid hitting her with his hat. His breath tickles the juncture of her neck and jawline. His free hand moves to her back and trails upwards, skimming past fabric and corset strings, until his fingertips graze the bare skin between her shoulder blades. He spreads his fingers against her skin, pressing his palm flat to her back, and her breath stutters.
And then he yanks her off her stool.
Lumine hits the ground and stumbles into him, face crushed against his shoulder as he steps backwards to break her fall. “Hey!” she protests, startled into laughter. “That’s not what you were supposed to do!”
“Know when you’re bested, fool,” he says. She sneaks a glance up at him and notes that he looks entirely too pleased with himself. “Now let’s get out of here before I have to kill someone.” He disentangles himself from her and pulls her by the hand towards the doorway.
“Where did you even learn that?” she demands, still breathless.
He casts her a smug look over his shoulder. “The Knave taught me. Never had a chance to use it before.”
They step into a particularly rowdy section of the brawl, and a man wielding a broken bottle throws himself at them, yelling a war cry. The Wanderer sighs and kicks him across the room. He doesn’t even wince at the crash as he pushes the door open, just helps Lumine across the threshold with a strangely gentle touch. The door shuts behind them, muffling the sounds of violence.
The night air is cool on Lumine’s skin. The rain has slowed to a drizzle, which is almost welcome after the heat of the bar. “I didn’t even finish my drink, Wanderer,” she grumbles.
He sighs. “It’s not like you’re short on Mora, Lumine. But I’ll buy you another one some other time, if you’re that stingy.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she says. “Now let’s get back to camp.”
The Wanderer follows her into the night. And if either of them notices that they’re still holding hands — well, neither of them remarks upon it.