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Lumine wakes up to the sound of muffled crying, the fog in her mind struggling to clear as she slowly pushes herself up in confusion. She can still feel the heat of Paimon’s body by her side — knows it’s not her making those pained sounds — and the bedroll beside her is empty in a way it hadn’t been when she’d gone to sleep last night.
Gone was the Wanderer — Kunikuzushi, Scaramouche, the Balladeer — and with him her last dredges of sleep.
Quietly, Lumine slips out of her bedroll and crawls out of the tent, peering outside towards the direction of the sounds. There, huddled with his chin resting on his knees as he stares angrily at the horizon, sits the Wanderer, his hands curled into tight fists that grip at his skin harshly, his hold unrelenting and unkind as he had been once upon a time.
It’d been a few months now since the fight and while they’ve learned how to tolerate each other, how to co-exist, there is still a distance between them both are unwilling to cross. It’s clear in the way he rarely shows any emotion other than pride and anger around her, similar to the way Lumine is still hesitant to be vulnerable when around him, preferring to dress her own wounds or, if need be, let Paimon and her clumsy attempts at first aid clean her up rather than asking him for help.
As another pained and stifled sob escapes the puppet’s lips — one that makes her own heart ache at the anguish in his voice — she thinks that, perhaps, it’s time that she bridge that distance.
She starts for her companion, ensuring to make her presence known by purposefully ruffling the tent flap louder, her steps heavier, and her breathing more apparent. The last thing she needs is for him to assume she’s planning to ambush him in his moment of weakness.
Scaramouche’s voice quiets upon hearing her approach, his hands moving quickly to wipe down the tears that trickles down his porcelain face. Lumine politely averts her eyes in an attempt to give him the privacy he deserves and the time he needs to pick up the broken pieces of his mask and put them together. When she looks back, the mask is back in place, a cool look in his violet eyes as he turns to face her.
Her own amber scan his face thoroughly, but she finds no hint of tears or evidence of his crying. His skin is as perfect as can be. Scaramouche’s eyes narrow as he watches her watch him. She's finding it hard to speak and break the sudden silence that has fallen between them, and wonders if, maybe, approaching him might have been a mistake when he speaks,
“Why are you awake?”
“Why are you?” she retorts back as she moves to sit beside him, a substantial distance between them. Lumine doesn’t expect a reply, knows that her words only serve to put her companion on guard rather than lower his walls. Nahida has tried to help her filter her words so the hurt stay in her head and the words she says aren’t filled with vitriol and anger, but it’s hard.
Three times now she’d been at the end of the Balladeer’s metaphorical sword, the sharp tip of it missing her just barely thanks to the help of her friends. It’s hard to remind herself that the Wanderer is different from the Balladeer, but it’s even harder to trust in him and who he says he is.
She still dreams of laying there on the floor of the Delusion Factory, helpless as the Balladeer makes his way towards her, taunting and laughing at the face of her pain. Sometimes, Miko appears to save her just like she had in real life, but most often than not, she’s left there, paralyzed as the Balladeer strides towards her, amusement glittering in his dark eyes. Those were the worst of her dreams and she would often wake up in cold sweat, her heart pounding against her ribcage ,and her breath shaky as she tries to calm herself down enough so the ringing in her ears would disappear.
There’s not much she can do to stop the anger that fills her whenever she remembers Teppei and the others.
But she’s trying at least.
Lumine fiddles with the hem of her dress, takes note of the ripped stitches and plans to stitch them together later today once the sun has fully risen when he suddenly scoffs.
“As if you care,” he says bitterly.
She tries to tell him that she does, but she can’t even convince herself to open her mouth. He’s right — she doesn’t care.
“Told you.”
Lumine sighs. Her fingers lets go of her dress and the idea of mending them back together, and tries hard to focus on the conversation, to be present and an active member rather than let his words flow into and out of her ears with glazed eyes like her mind wants her to do. Carefully, she tries to reach out to him with her words, to extend her own version of an olive branch as burnt and broken as it may be. “I can’t say that you’re wrong, but you’re my companion — at least for this portion of our lives. It would be terrible of me to not comfort you or try to help you when you’re clearly hurting.”
Wanderer lets out his own sigh and with it the weight that’s been holding him down. His shoulders loosen and his nails stop trying to break skin, leaving only crescents on the bottom of his palm. Lumine rubs her thumb on the same spot of her own hand and remembers the times she’d broken skin and left bitter red flowing through, a reminder that’s she’s still alive, that she’s human, immortal or not. She wonders if that’s the same reason Scaramouche does it too — a reminder that he can bleed just like the rest of them, uses the hurt and the blood as medicine to help him sleep at night and keep the intrusive thoughts at bay.
Just like that, an uncomfortable pit forms in her stomach and she finds she can’t even manage to look at him anymore. It’s like looking in the mirror and seeing herself again from two years ago, lost and confused as she wakes up without her brother, a part of her gone, and feeling desperate to find it again so she can fill the void in her heart, to fix the gaping hole he had left behind. Or, maybe, it’s like watching herself when she finally saw her brother after being apart for so long, only for him to reveal that he was a part of the Abyss and that he had no plans to return with her until she’s completed her journey.
“Why bother,” he mutters, exhaustion filling his every word. His head is ducked down low and the evening shadows shroud his eyes from her view. “It doesn’t matter in the end, anyway.”
Sometimes she wonders the same thing.
Why keep chasing after a brother who doesn’t seem at all interested in returning to her? Why bother helping out all the people she meets in her travels and putting herself in danger every single time when it would be far easier to keep her head down and blend with the scenery.
“Because it does matter,” Lumine ends up responding, much to her own surprise. When the Wanderer turns his head towards her, she shrugs and looks up at the fake sky above them. “Is it really living if all we do is lay low and let the others pass us by? Are we still alive if we’re not laughing or crying with the people we’ve met in our adventurers? Is it really that much to ask for forgiveness or for kindness from anyone?”
Beside him, the Wanderer says nothing and simply ducks his head once more.
Her amber eyes watch as a star twinkles brightly before streaking across the sky, and her lips curve up into a small, sad smile. “Does it matter if this world and its sky is fake when we are real? When the feelings we feel are real? When you and I bleed red just the same as anyone else in this world? Are we not real? Because I think I’m just as real as you are and it doesn’t matter if anyone tells us otherwise because we are. Whether that’s family, your friends, or yourself.”
Lumine pauses. She’s scared the words she’d said would cause the Wanderer to retreat once more, leaving behind Scaramouche. Worst, she’s scared the Balladeer will appear as his way of protecting himself.
And yet, she doesn’t regret saying any of it.
“We’re alive, Yuuto,” she finally says, speaking the name she had given him all those months back that she had never once been able to utter since she’d given it. She hates the way his body stiffens and he looks on edge at her calling him by his given name. Hates the way she’d been failing him these past few months by refusing to call him by his name, the name that was supposed to give him a new start and freedom from his past life.
Scaramouche barks out a sardonic laugh and Lumine jolts, head twisting to look at him with wide eyes. Shaking his head, he gives her an amused look as he asks, “Do you really think a few fancy, poetic words are going to fix everything between us? Do you?”
“No and that wasn’t my intention,” she says defensively, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “What do I have to tell you to show you that I’m sorry and that I want to be your friend?”
Scaramouche’s sharp eyes pin her in place. Leaning towards her, he whispers, mockingly, “Maybe try saying exactly that? Have you ever actually said anything like that to me?”
No.
No, she hadn’t.
She’d thought it, at times, but actually saying it to him — she’d never —
“Exactly,” Scaramouche clicks his tongue and leans back, readies to push himself up so he can head back inside and away from her when she grips him by the wrist and stalls him. “What.”
Lumine bites her lip. Steeling herself, she looks up at him, really looks at him — Yuuto, the Wanderer, and not Kunikuzushi, Scaramouche, The Balladeer, but the new and free him — and says seriously, “I’m sorry for not calling you by the name I gave you. I’m sorry for barely tolerating you and for not giving you the patience and kindness you deserve after everything you’ve gone through. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you why I was doing the things I was, why I treated you the way I did. I’m sorry.
“But at the same time, I’m thankful you joined my team and that you’re able to experience the world not as a pawn of anyone but as yourself. I’m happy you’re able to live for yourself now rather than living for others, and I want to make sure you feel comfortable and welcome here with me, with Paimon.
“So, can we try being friends?”
The Wanderer stares at her and she hopes he’s seeing her for herself too. Not the Traveler, Liyue’s Hero, or any of the names and titles she’s earned in her travels but her, Lumine. The Lumine that sometimes likes to just sit in front of the big tree in Mondstadt and watch the fake stars at night. The Lumine that enjoys teasing Paimon about bring her emergency food.
The Lumine that’s sitting right in front of him with a hopeful heart, but, inwardly, is scared she’d be let down again, abandoned just like before.
It’s quiet all around them with only the far away sound of crickets as their only companion, and yet she almost misses it when he says, “Fine. Sure. Why not.”
But she doesn’t miss the way his eyes seem hopeful too as he stares back into hers, accompanied by a trace of fear in those violet eyes of his.
Maybe this time, just maybe, the other person will finally stay.