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Lumine, he thinks, is a contradiction in terms. Constantly busy, unfailingly productive, terrifyingly energetic.
And yet Dainsleif has never met anyone who likes naps as much as she does.
“Come on, Dain,” she wheedles. “Pleeeeease?”
“No,” he says. “We haven’t covered enough ground today.”
“But Paimon is sleepy,” Lumine points out, and Paimon yawns on cue.
“Paimon can go home,” he says. “You and I have things to do, Lumine.”
“But I’m sleepy too,” she complains. “We’ve been walking for ages. Just a short nap, Dain, pretty please?”
She turns big golden puppy eyes towards him, mouth downturned in a pout.
He draws in a breath and holds it, wishing he believed in a god — any god, he’s not picky — so at least he’d have someone to pray to for patience.
“Fine,” he says. “Just a short one.”
Paimon cheers and dives for Lumine’s backpack, pulling out a worn blanket. She and Lumine stretch it over a soft patch of grass and tumble onto it. Lumine’s hair splays out, haphazard, around the crown of her head.
Dainsleif sighs and sits down on a rock. It feels nice to get off his feet for a second, to let stillness curl up in his lap like a cat without immediately shooing it off.
He does not admit this to Lumine.
If he has to sit here while the two of them slumber, he figures he might as well at least plot out their next steps. He pulls out a map.
“Dain, no,” Lumine says, and he looks up. “You have to come and rest too.”
“Absolutely not,” he says. “No.”
“Yes. Come on,” she says, sitting back up.
He shakes his head vehemently. “This is ridiculous. Unnecessary. I have no need of sleep.”
“Dainsleif,” she says sharply, and he marvels that despite his 500-odd years of age, she can still make him feel like a wayward child. “I’m not asking you to sleep. I’m just asking you to come and lie down, and rest for a few minutes. It’s not an unreasonable request.”
He glowers at her, more out of principle than any real anger. She folds her arms and scowls back.
He caves first.
“Fine,” he grumbles, folding up his map. “But only for a minute.”
Lumine is all smiles again. She holds her hands out to him, opening and closing her fists in the gesture she had once referred to as grabby hands. “C’mere!”
He shakes his head and positions himself carefully on the blanket, as far away from her and Paimon as possible. He may have agreed to rest — but the Twilight Sword, last scion of Khaenri’ah, does not cuddle.
Lumine shrugs. “Good enough.” Then she drops backwards onto the blanket and tucks Paimon into her side. “Goodnight, Dain.”
From across the blanket, Paimon is already snoring. Lumine’s breath evens out; the rhythm of it is soothing to him.
He closes his eyes — not because he’s sleepy, just so the noonday sun doesn’t blind him — and lets the warmth seep into his bones. A breeze ruffles his hair almost affectionately.
Dainsleif is just resting his eyes. He’s not tired. And he’s absolutely not going to sleep.
He awakes to a sky in which the sun hangs markedly lower than before. His tongue is sticky in his mouth, his eyelids heavy. Quiet chatter floats his way.
The Traveler is seated on a nearby rock with her legs crossed at the ankles. Paimon hovers behind her, tiny fingers weaving flowers into her hair.
Lumine glances towards him as he sits up, squinting into the golden afternoon light.
“Hey,” she says. “Have a nice nap?”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” he demands, his voice roughened by sleep.
“You looked so comfortable!” Paimon says. “Lumi said not to disturb you.”
“You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long,” he says, glaring at them, and then loses some of his gravitas by rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “We’ve lost so much time. We’ll have to make up for it–”
“Dainsleif,” Lumine says. “The Abyss will still be there tomorrow. What are you in such a rush for?”
He stands and begins shaking the grass from the blanket. “It’s just– a horrible waste of time.”
“Do you feel rested, though?” she asks, and takes his sullen silence as an affirmative. “Well, then it wasn’t a waste.”
“Dainsleif.”
He startles, nearly knocking over his inkwell. He whirls around to see her in the doorframe, arms crossed, messy gold hair shimmering in the lamplight. “Lumine,” he says.
“What are you doing awake?”
“What time is it?” he asks.
“Past midnight,” she says, walking up to his desk. “Everyone else in the teapot is asleep.”
“Except you.”
She gestures at the grubby oversized tunic she’s wearing as a nightgown. “I was headed to bed when I saw your light still on. You still haven’t told me what you’re doing up so late.”
“Same as always,” he says, turning back to his papers. “Tracking the Abyss Order.” He reaches for the inkwell — and she pulls it out of his reach. He turns to scowl at her.
“No more ink for you,” she says, like she’s withholding candy from a toddler. “Go to bed.”
“I,” Dainsleif says slowly, “am a grown man, not a babe in arms. I am five hundred years old, Lumine. I can set my own hours.”
“Apparently you can’t,” Lumine says, holding the inkwell out of his reach as he grabs ineffectually for it. “How many hours did you sleep last night, Dain?”
“I don’t have to answer that,” he says petulantly, sounding very much like the child he claims he isn’t.
“You ever think of taking a break?” she asks, then smirks. “Sorry, I forgot. What was that you said last time?” She pitches her voice low and gravelly in a tone that Dainsleif realizes is meant to be a mockery of him. “Vacation? The very notion. The word has no business being in my vocabulary.”
“And I stand by that,” he protests, a little flustered at her remembering his words verbatim. “I have no need or time for a vacation.”
“You’re running yourself ragged,” she says, perching herself on the edge of his desk and screwing the cap back onto the inkwell. Her legs dangle endearingly off the desk. “I didn’t give you this room so you could work into the wee hours of the morning.”
“What did you give it to me for, then?” he demands, standing and facing her. He looms over her like some monster from a storybook (which, he thinks ruefully, isn’t far from the truth), but Lumine just tilts her head up to give him an unimpressed look.
“So you could have a place to rest up in between excursions,” she says, like it’s obvious. “So I could make sure that you’re sleeping in a bed and not at the bottom of a well.”
“That was one time,” he protests.
“Dain,” she says. “Can I offer you some advice?”
“No,” he says, but she continues anyway.
“You have to carve out time to rest — put it in your schedule if you need to — if not you’ll burn yourself out. You have to take time for yourself. And I mean take time, like grasp it with both hands, because nobody is going to just give it to you.”
He sighs, shoulders slumping. “But there’s so much to do.”
“And there will be even more tomorrow,” she says. “And the day after that. I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet, Dain, but it never ends. Take it from me, one of the only people in the world who’s older and wiser than you.”
“Older, sure,” he says. “I’m not yet certain about the other one.”
She grins and kicks him lightly in the thigh. “Okay, wise guy. Anyway, what I’m saying is that the work will always be there. It’s like Dragonspine, you know?”
Dainsleif squints at her. “I do not know.”
She gestures vaguely, hands creating little eddies of air in the space between them. “Like, Dragonspine will always be there. But you can’t climb it all in one day. You just have to take on a little bit of the mountain at a time, and rest up where you can.”
“But the Abyss–” he starts, and she puts a calloused finger to his lips.
“The Abyss will also be there tomorrow,” she says. “And even if it isn’t, there will always be bad guys to fight. The mountain can wait, Dain. Okay?”
He sighs, his breath ghosting over her fingertip. “Okay.”
“So you’ll stop working? And go to bed now?”
“Yes, and yes,” he says.
“Good.” She hops off his desk triumphantly. “But just in case, I’m taking your inkwell with me.”
He clicks his tongue, running a hand through his hair and mussing it up. “Do you trust me so little?”
“I trust you with my life, Dain.” She reaches up to comb his hair back into place, rough fingers brushing over his forehead. “But I’m still taking your inkwell.”
“No Paimon today?”
Lumine rolls her eyes. “She ate too much yesterday and can’t get out of bed. She told me to go do commissions so that she can eat more when she recovers.”
“How does she fit so much food in such a small body?” Dainsleif asks, genuinely curious.
Lumine shrugs. “Dark magic, I think.”
They head out on one of their regular reconnaissance patrols, circling known Abyss Order haunts. But the morning wears on with no sign of Abyss activity, and Lumine’s steps start to lose their usual bounce.
They stop for a late lunch and eat their pita pockets, trading stories of the happenings around Teyvat. She tells him about a recent Shroom-training event in Inazuma, and he updates her on the gossip he’s heard around the taverns.
When every last crumb has disappeared, Dainsleif stands and shoulders his pack — but Lumine flops backwards onto the grass. “Sleepy,” she says, sprawling out.
He groans. “Again? We just started.”
“We’ve been walking for six hours!” she complains. “And my legs are shorter than yours!”
He grimaces. “What do you want? A nap?”
Her face lights up. “A fantastic idea, Dainsleif.”
“Fine, if it will help,” he sighs.
She spreads the blanket out and drops down onto it. “C’mere,” she says, holding her arms out to him. “Naptime.”
“I’m not going to sleep,” he says, and figures he probably deserves the skeptical look she gives him.
“I’m not asking you to sleep,” she says. “Just take a quick rest with me.”
“That’s what you said last time, and we ended up losing the whole afternoon,” he points out.
“I’ll wake you up this time,” she says. “Promise. Come here?”
Dainsleif shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. There is so much to do.
But he shrugs off his pack anyway and joins her on the blanket. She grins at him as he gets settled. “G’night, Dain.”
“Goodnight, Lumine,” he says.
This time, when he feels himself drifting off to sleep, he lets himself go.
He awakes to find Lumine curled up in his arms.
He has no idea how she got there. Her back is flush against his chest. His arm rests on top of her body, one of his hands covering her own. Strands of her hair tickle his nose. The edges of her body, tense and powerful when she’s awake, are softened in sleep.
The entire day appears to have slipped away from them. The light is golden, the edges of the sky already starting to turn pink.
There may be time yet for them to do another circuit of an Abyss Order hideout before nightfall. He should be shaking her awake, getting to his feet.
But.
She is so peaceful in his arms, her shoulders rising and falling in a slow rhythm. Her body is warm against his. The Twilight Sword, last scion of Khaenri’ah, suddenly sees the value in cuddling.
Maybe a few more minutes, he decides.
The mountain can wait.