Chapter Text
“Congratulations, Aether… You’ve finished your journey. I’m so proud of you.”
The Traveler falls to their knees and drops their weapon, tears flowing from their eyes in globby waterfalls as Paimon flies on ahead to greet the best friend they’ve never met.
“Hello!” Paimon extends their hand, smiling brightly. “I’m Paimon! I’ve been the Traveler’s guide through Teyvat. It’s nice to meet you!”
The Abyss Princess stares at them for a second, not exactly smiling or frowning. They seem disinterested, but Paimon knows it’s just because they don’t know each other well enough and their time without their sibling has been hard, so Paimon won’t blame them for not saying hello back.
“Aether,” They continue, looking over Paimon’s shoulder toward Aether, and Paimon can’t blame them for wanting to reconnect with their family before meeting new people. Paimon would want to, as well, after all!
The Traveler runs toward their Abyssal counterpart, and the two embrace each other tightly.
“I missed you so much,” says the Traveler, still crying.
“I know,” replies the Abyss Leader, shedding a few tears as well. They pull their sibling closer, whispering what Paimon assumes is all the moments they spent thinking about how they wanted to reunite so very bad, but just couldn’t yet, and now they’re so happy they can.
Aether turns to Paimon then, and they almost think their bestest and favorite Traveling companion is frowning, but then they blink and they were completely wrong and Aether and smiling at them.
“Paimon,” they begin, and the bestest companion in all of Teyvat that they’ve been with for so long now is so excited to know what they want to say that they accidentally cut the blonde off, but they won’t let that bring them down when their friend is finally happy.
“Yes?”
“Er… I need a favor,” says Aether as their smile wobbles because they must want to smile even bigger than they physically can, and Paimon gets it because they want to, too, and then all three of them can smile together and learn about each other and be together for such a long time, they’ll all think eternities have passed.
“Anything! I am the best traveling companion in all of Teyvat, after all!”
Without leaving their embrace with their sibling, they pull out an absolutely enormous sack of Mora, and Paimon almost thinks it’s all they have, but that would be stupid because their friend is super duper good at budgeting, so they must be rich from the accumulation of their savings.
“Here,” they say softly enough for their words to be considered whispers as they hand the pouch to Paimon. “Could you go out and get food? Whatever you want,” they request. “We can hold a feast now that Lumine is finally home.”
“Ooh, yes! Definitely!” Paimon exclaims with a nod. “Paimon has been craving Sticky Honey Roast all day!”
“Then go and get as much as you can eat,” their friend suggests, and then they bury their head in their sibling’s shoulder, and Paimon would think they were crying if they were stupid enough to think their bestest buddy wasn’t actually the happiest person in the world.
They disappear from the blondes’ sights, speeding through a dimension they call their own to quickly hurry to Mondstadt and get all the best foods for this feast.
They make their way to all the best shops in all the nations, getting staples from every one of them, even though their companion’s versions are better, because they’ll obviously be too busy talking to Lumine to want to cook, so Paimon will get everything pre-made.
Once they’ve gotten everything, they hop back in their world to go super speedily back to the others.
“I’ve gotten-”
They drop the bags.
Aether and Lumine truly are twins. There’s no doubt about it. As they walk toward a large Abyssal portal, hand in hand and stepping in sync, Paimon cannot doubt their blood ties.
“Wait!” They fly toward the two, but the distance only seems to grow larger, and they’re sure they’ll never make it in time.
“Please! Aether! Lumine! Paimon’s still here! You can’t leave! You can’t!”
They don’t turn back. They don’t realize they forgot a very important person. They forgot a very important feast. They forgot a very important world.
“Don’t leave me!!”
They reach out, but they can’t grab the end of Lumine’s dress or Aether’s flowing scarf or anything attached to the ones that are leaving them behind. They try again, but it’s too late. They’re gone. They’re both gone and probably never coming back and it’s probably Paimon’s fault because they pushed Aether away and didn’t make a good impression on Lumine and now both siblings hate them and they’re never coming back.
Now Paimon is all alone.