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"There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask 'what if I fall?'
Oh, but my darling -
What if you fly?"
― Erin Hanson
Another year passes Lumine alone. The world turns, day shifts to night. Over and over and over again, a monotonous cycle that leaves her feeling just as lost as she did when she first awoke in this world. Birthdays aren't something she and Aether had been overfond of - when you live as many centuries as they had, the years begin to blend together. It is just another day, another mark on their endless journey through the sea of stars in search of a home.
But - she is alone, this time. Surrounded by precious people but achingly alone, in a world she is reminded once more that she does not belong to. Were this an entire lifetime or three ago, she and Aether would have collected their altar together and given thanks to the gods and ancestors both, for granting wisdom and strength to make it through yet another year.
There is comfort to be found in living, breathing gods that walk amongst the masses - but having spent these months journeying Teyvat, Lumine knows that they are as disappointing as they are tangible. Reliable, certainly, now that she'd solved problems of their own making - she thinks it with as much affection as she does bite; being a deity is not simple, nor easy, and she understands well her Archon friends have done as well as they could, given the circumstances. But still it is frustrating, grating on her last nerves and making her teeth itch with the words she keeps pressed secretly behind her smiles. Lumine is happy to help, truly she is - but none have helped her, when all she'd done is give and give and give. Vague suggestions, withheld answers - all this time searching desperate, far and wide, and she is as wrung as an old washcloth, brightness faded and frayed in all the wrong places. Her simmering anger coalesces in the twin scars on her back, where her wings had been ripped away. She shrugs her shoulders back impatiently to stave off the ache, and pretends it helps.
She appreciates the efforts of those who live close to her heart. The kindness and laughter and love that they surround her with. Kaeya and his smirk, as distant as her own, Zhongli with his stories and freely-offered hand. Ayaka and her affectionate, pure heart that cradles Lumine as though she were something precious. All these people she has grown to love over the course of a few short months, but her selfish nature only using them as a stark reminder of who is missing from her right hand.
It isn't fair, not to any of them. They should be enough to fill the gulf that has threatened to swallow her since the day both her wings and her brother were taken. But they - aren't. And she grieves for them more than herself.
The sun sets on her first birthday in Teyvat, following the whirlwind of Sumeru. Scaramouche says not a word as he settles himself with legs neatly folded in the corner of the room, arms crossed over his chest and eyes slipping shut. He doesn't sleep, she discovered early; but he spends much of his time in his own head, mulling and thinking and oftentimes muttering beneath his breath to himself. She watches him with an affectionate sort of smirk, this latest stray she has picked up on her journey, and turns her back to give them both privacy.
Lumine sighs, a barely-perceptible hush that she frowns around. Her hands are practiced, now, even if it has been too many decades since last she'd done this. Carefully she pulls free what she'd spent days gathering from the worn leather pack beside her, setting each item down atop the low and polished table. The candles laid out in a familiar pattern, offerings of dried flower petals sitting in a bowl of ash. The table housing her meager ceremony is nowhere near as grand as it should be - but the intent is what matters, here, and Lumine possesses no small amount of hope and longing and desperation.
The gods of Teyvat are her friends, but they are not the gods of her home. Ancient and chaotic, of blood and bone. She nods once to herself at the collection, and takes the small knife that Childe had gifted her. Pulling it free of the thin sheath about her left thigh, Lumine pricks the middle of her palm until red beads on the surface of her gloveless hand.
A sharp intake of breath from somewhere behind her makes Lumine roll her eyes, but she does not still. The knife is wiped clean and placed beside her, hand turned over and muscles gone limp until the blood runs from her palm to the tip of her middle finger, dripping lazily down to stain the too-white petals of her prayers.
Lumine had never been particularly devout, those long years ago when she'd still had a home. But this isn't for her, not really. It is, in so much as it is a familiar comfort of childhood and family, memories lingering in the recesses of her mind as she remembers the smell of hand-rolled incense and how it had burned her eyes when her mother bid her light it for the ancestors. Familiar smells curl around her like a too-heavy blanket, though the room has not changed; the smoke and wicker and scent of flowers will guide them home, she remembers with her mothers voice. That is why they are lit, on auspicious days of remembrance and celebration both.
No, this is not for her. It is for Aether. Perhaps, somewhere beneath these stars, entrenched in the dragging claw-tipped fingers of Abyss - he will recognize it, and return.
She's aware of Scaramouche, of the weight of his stare at her scarred back. This man, this puppet, who watches her with shining violet eyes that see too much and too little. He studies her, often, when he thinks she doesn't notice; curious or suspicious or both. He doesn't understand her, this much is certain. Nor does he understand why he lingers at her side.
What a pair they make.
The wanderer does not ask. He doesn't balk, or frown, or judge. He doesn't do much of anything, really; simply watches until her mystifying work is done, waits patiently until Lumine unclasps her hands and turns her head towards him, and stands in one graceful arch that barely flutters the long sleeves of his haori.
"Come with me," he bids of her, not even a question; both his tone and the way he disappears from the room indicating he expects her to follow. Lumine finds herself marginally annoyed at that, but her own curiosity wins out. It always does. She stands from where she kneels, careful not to let the blood stain her dress, and follows.
He brings her to a low hill, just overlooking the roof of the inn she'd picked for the night. The sky is awash in stars, moonlight bathing the earth around them in a shocking relief of silver and black. Shadows everywhere; beneath their feet, at their backs, in their minds. Lumine bites her teeth down harshly into the meat of her tongue, irritated and ready to thrash as a wounded animal would. She misses her brother, and finds herself out of patience for the whims of others when her heart is so tender and bruised.
Scaramouche can sense her discord, and refuses to waste any time. Yet instead of explanation, he holds his hand out to her -palm skyward, fingers twitching- and makes yet another demand.
"Give me your hand." His tone reveals nothing, empty and dross as it usually is whenever he asks her genuine questions, as if to hide the fact they tiptoe on the edge of something unspoken. Something new, something whispered and private and theirs and no one else's. None can encroach on whatever it is they share, words cannot define it; which makes it equally as terrifying as it is exciting to unfold.
Yet his eyes. His eyes, always his eyes; no matter how he lies and insults and scalds, his eyes hide nothing. Of his yearning to be seen, understood, wanted. That look returns as he watches her, his hand and a gulf between them. Lumine refuses to break their stare, arm half lifted as she watches those eyes that hide nothing for a hint of a trick.
(Tired tired tired she is so tired; of being used and having nothing to show for it. She's been on the receiving end of kindness, to be sure, but is this another instance of being scalded before the warmth?)
She does not trust him - not wholly, not completely; not quite yet. Old habits do not easily abate, the cruelty in his expression and his words both still linger in her mind, from months past. Before he'd - changed? Before she had. Before. Before before before.
Even amongst her hesitation the wind bids her welcome, teasing the loose ends of her hair and bringing with it the smell of fresh flowers. She doesn't need to see in the dark to feel the wind, and with a deep breath for courage she closes the distance between them.
He saved you, the breeze tells her, sounding suspiciously like Aether (too kind, too accepting, too good - so alike and yet so unlike, where once Lumine was the voice of caution despite the sunlight in her eyes and her twin the brash and kindhearted shine in the dark of night). Or - the Aether she remembers. Before Abyss sunk deep its claws. Before their fall. Before.
He saved you, the breeze tells her. After you saved him. Overwhelmed by memory and emotion, with no small amount of fear swirling the room - he saved you from a version of himself, with the freshly awakened Vision of the element of freedom and laughter, that has cushioned you since the beginning of your harsh journey.
You have saved countless, traveler from afar - who, then, saves you?
Thus Lumine takes his offer, hand steady and sure when her fingertips brush over his palm. Her pulse jumps, instinctive and nervous, when his lithe fingers turn to wrap tight about her wrist, and pull her closer. She frowns at that, even as her own hand mirrors his and clutches him like a lifeline.
(Maybe he is. Maybe she's broken and tired and lonely enough to see the exact same brand of broken and tired and lonely reflected back at her in those old, lovely eyes.)
She doesn't even have the time to ask, before at all once she goes weightless. Anemo wraps around them like a caress, the Vision proudly placed atop his breast lighting up in the dark. Scaramouche pulls her tight into his side, and she no longer has the need to question. It is as instinctive as breathing, even after so long clipped of her freedom. Into the darkness and up from the earth - together they leap.
Her laughter is lost to the wind as they step through the sky, and though the cold is bitter and her eyes begin to sting still Lumine laughs, slotting her fingers between Scaramouche's and throwing her head back to gaze at the stars long denied her.
She realizes, then, what exactly this is. An olive branch, in his frustrating and roundabout way. Not just a gift for her, nor even one for him; but a symbol of what she has lost, what he can give. Lumine hopes beyond all hope that the sudden gasp that escapes her throat will be blamed on the shock of taking flight, that the way her head turns to stare at him, reverent and touched - maybe he wont see it.
Unspeakably and heartrendingly kind, even now. Even after everything he had suffered, even after she had been the one to rip free his desperate attempts at possessing a heart.
(He never needed the gnosis, she thinks. He already had a heart.)
He's prickly and conceited, with too sharp a tongue. But he is - he is giving her wings.
He squeezes her hand, the other pressed tight to her hip. Lumine knows that the view must be lovely, the world quiet and awash in silver light through the darkness. But she cannot tear her eyes from his face, from the placid frown he wears like armor and the smallest divot on his lower lip, bitten until the soft skin turned chapped from the wind.
Oh, but her heart could break from the tenderness of it.
She does not thank him. He does not want it. He carries her beneath these distant stars, and says not a word. If her head turns until she can bury her face in the crook of his neck, laughter breathless and just this side of manic - he says nothing of it, either. Merely holds her that much closer, and takes them both higher.