Work Text:
Start.
“Hey, it’s been a while. Do you know what today is?” Lumine stares into the face of the computer monitor before her. Red lines of the audio recording bounce up and down across the screen as it picks up her speech.
“Did you guess our birthday? Cause if so”—she breathes in deep and lets a grin overtake her— “then you’re right! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to us! Another year older, another year closer to a mid-life crisis!
“Or, well, it’s a year here, at least. Would it be a year for you too? That far out…”
As she hums, small mountains and valleys of red appear on the black void that is the display. Her reflection frowns back at her. Even though the details of her expression are lost in the dark, the sensitive mic picks up on each of her murmurs of uncertainty.
A cough rips through the sudden lump in her throat and sends the audio spiking. “It doesn’t matter. You’re a year older, like I am. Let’s count like you’re on Teyvat. It’s too difficult to account for time dilation. My math would be off—what, with you moving and all into different levels of gravitational fields? Not consistent at all. Not at all…
“But if you’ve managed to forget your own birthday, well, then you need to work on your memory.”
Shaking her head, she presses on with sass—a defense mechanism that she relies on in doses that increase with the passing days. “It’s a little concerning that Control would let you pilot if you can’t even remember the most basic of basics about yourself. How’s anyone going to trust you in a spaceship then, huh? Huh?!”
She pauses. The red flatlines.
“…Makes no sense.” Her voice treads through the room, low and slow in a whisper of a secret prowling between her and the computer. Her dangerous thoughts take form, rising from her mind into tangible audio, shaping into a permanence that can’t be brushed off as an errant flicker of doubt. “Should’ve let me go with you. Instead of leaving me here to keep running calculations…”
Diagrams drawn by her own hand box her in. Her writing scrawls over entire boards. Numerical madness sprawls over every inch of the prison cell that she used to proudly call her workstation. Their lab.
“It’s not like they can be used for anything else right now. We’re not going to send another ship out ‘til you and the crew get back. I’ll have to tweak my calcs off your new data.”
Lumine likes the simplicity of math. She likes the logic that can’t be beaten. The answer is always there, proven true. Wherever logic holds, she will always have an answer, even if it leads to the far reaches of a place she’s never been before—even if it leads to the far reaches of space.
But under the cover of night, when the lab empties out and the ringing in her ears serves as her midnight companion, Lumine can’t find the truth.
Or rather, she doesn’t want to find it. Can’t fathom it.
In the dark, logic unravels and spins away in a universe transcendent of numerical formulas. In the dark, she watches his hand slip from hers. In the dark, she sits, reaching out for everything she has no hope of grasping.
Faith? Intangible. Insensible. Illogical.
It's been a long time without a response from Aether.
But…
She tilts her chair back, gazing up through the glass ceiling. One of Teyvat’s moons looms large. Past that and to the right, she can make out the twinkling speck of the nearest planet, Celestia. Their astronauts have been there and back. Now, they’re venturing beyond.
A smile, wilted at the corners, crawls onto her face. It’s the numbers—the formulas and answers that she has repeatedly confirmed—that bring her peace. The answer is there; Aether is out there. In the stars. In the spacecraft she helped engineer. In everything held together by her calculations.
“You’ll come back.” She wraps her arms around herself. The moon casts a spotlight on her lone figure. “And next time, maybe, we can convince them to let us both go. Someone else can log here. I’ve already trained a team. If I’m onboard, it’ll be quicker to fix the Paimon. I have an idea on how to improve the fuel usage for—"
“Maximum recording size reached.” The computer’s voice rings hollow of humanity, devoid of love. “Recording will terminate in fifteen seconds.”
Lumine sighs. “Guess that’s it for this one. I’ll send another when I can. I know you’re busy, probably hopping around on some other planet out there.” She laughs at the thought, but it peters out quickly, asphyxiating in the lonely space of the lab.
“…Haven’t got any of your messages lately. But it’s to be expected—long distance and all. Keep sending them, they’ll get here eventually. By the time you get back, I’ll have worked out something quicker for comms. You know me.
“When you get back home, let’s celebrate for all the years we’ve missed.” Her voice grows warm with a softness unfit for the cold lab. “A nice cake. I’ll let you pick the flavor. You’ve got to miss real food.”
The countdown reminder beeps.
“Talk to you soon, Aether. Love y—"
Stop.
The received messages blink a cruel red zero. Empty. Same as it’s been for years now.
Faith holds no inherent logic, but hers stems from her calculations, rooted in logic. She can believe. It’s not baseless. It’s not. Lumine knows he’s up there. Somewhere in the stars, in distant galaxies.
He’s there, and she’s here. Based on the mission’s timeline, Aether and the crew should be on the return path.
It’s a waiting game. She’ll win it. Being reunited is a matter of time. A when, not an if.
Until then, she’ll keep on waiting, calling out to him from their home.
Send.