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A low drone emitted from the Abyss portal as it emerged. The watercolor swirls of purple and blue, its blaze blinding, aimed to swallow everything with a mind worth breaking. Maybe the sound came from the sheer amount of energy concentrated in one place. Dainsleif, in the last moments he could think clearly, believed it to be a desperate warning, although he hadn’t dwelled on that thought long enough to figure out the why. That, or the who.
It could’ve served well as white noise to ease his growing fears, especially on seeing Lumine, his Lumine, so close to stepping into that flurry of lights and sounds. If his words hadn’t betrayed him in a fleeting moment of panic as her fingers disappeared into the portal, he would’ve screamed for her. All that he managed was a choked gasp, no air really reaching his lungs.
Lumine turned on her heel, amber eyes locking with his. He watched her pupils dart from one eye to the other, searching his face for whatever he may be feeling. It occurred to him, while he stared at her pale skin, that she looked afraid. Eyes wide like that of a dog caught misbehaving. Frozen like a criminal hearing siren sounds. After that thought, the next ones rolled in steadily, misery capturing his heart at each nauseating idea.
She’d been planning to enter in the night, to leave him wondering where she’d gone in the morning. Leave him waiting for days at their camp, to leave him searching as far as his feet will carry him. Dainsleif stared at her in disbelief, watched her mouth open, shut again, then open once more. He wordlessly mouthed a question, the only one his scattered mind could produce — why .
He knew why full well. She’d told him on a walk weeks prior, something he had dismissed as her over the top emotional outbursts she not-so-infrequently had.
“They’re your people, Dain! Those are your friends! Brothers! People you knew!”
“They haven’t been people for a long time.”
“You of all people should understand. You should…you should understand, damn it!”
“That’s enough.”
“If you won’t do anything about it, I’ll find somebody that will.”
“Do whatever you please.”
He had scoffed, confident in the fact that she wouldn’t really do that. After all, 500 years is an awfully long time to spend with someone that you’d abandon at the drop of a hat. When she sped ahead of him, far away and going quicker by the time he even noticed, the most he had to do to ease the inkling of nerves was tell himself that. If she wanted to leave, she would’ve done it by now.
He caught up to her at some point, but he never reached her.
To his horror, she smiled at him. She fucking smiled and it was so empty he could’ve screamed. That’s what he loved about her, that spark that simply never went out. He loved the light that radiated from her, a true smile always dancing on her lips and her eyes always brimming with feelings that not even half a millennium could describe. That’s what he loved and despite his silent pleas, Lumine held none of it. She looked fuzzy. He may have been dying.
With a start, all of his words rolled up and out of his throat, tumbling out onto his tongue. The only one he managed to spit out is her name. It came out as a whisper, betrayal lacing his voice. She had the nerve to smile wider, and for it not to reach her eyes.
The only thing he wanted is for her to step down and come to him, hold him in her soft, loving arms and stroke his hair. Some needy, pitiful part of him that never quite died with the rest of his heart begged for her touch, yearned for her lips to touch his again. He wanted so badly that it only managed to amplify his pain, a raw pain that felt too visceral to only be emotional. He wanted more than anything he’s ever wanted before, wanting with such a ferocity that his extremities tingled and his heart could’ve burst.
He learned in the few moments it took for her to respond that refusing to blink can prolong tears.
“Dain,” she started to say, smile since replaced with an apologetic, large eyed look. He knew he looked pitiful, he was damn near okay with it, but her condescension hurt more than any words she could’ve said then. Someone who used to be his equal, his best friend, his lover , looked down on him. The snakes of nausea had long since unraveled inside of him, sliding along each other and making the world quake underneath his body. If he wasn’t already dying, he was then.
Roughly, he turned his head away. If it had been any other time, she would’ve turned it back. Looked into his eyes and teased him, called him a coward. This time, she only stood before him, blankly staring into the dark sky.
“Why?”
Momentarily, she looked stunned. Less stunned, more braced for something that never came. She’d anticipated him to yell, most likely. That couldn’t have been further from the truth, his words only able to escape via broken whispers. “Dain, you’d understand if-”
“No,” he snapped, eyebrows deeply furrowed and lips trembling. “Why, Lumine?”
Dainsleif turned back to face her, eyes red with tears unshed. He burned with anger, his deep fear and unabated despair shielded comfortably by rage.
“You aren’t willing to do anything. I found someone who will, just like I said I would. What more do you want?”
You, his heart begs. Instead, his mind forced out through gritted teeth the most truthful response he could’ve. “I want to know why you’re leaving.” Leaving me, he wanted to say. That’s what she’d been doing, isn’t it? Leaving him, and getting caught in the act.
The woman sighed, taking a single step downward. At the click of her heel on the stair, he felt his hands again. Blood rushed back into his face and body, providing him with the smallest bit of relief. “The people of Khaenri’ah need me. A powerful force has offered me help. They’ll protect your people better than I…better than you ever could. Did.” She only added the last part to hurt him, and it worked. For immortals like them, 500 year wounds are still fresh and bleeding. She just rubbed salt in them, mocked his failure.
Dainsleif’s face burned with shame, the shame of letting his walls fall for her just to have them turned around in the blink of an eye. Regret at the nights he spent holding onto her body tight, where he whispered each and every one of his troubles and she soothed him through it all, told him everything he needed to hear. He barely comprehended her movements as she walked up to him, towering over him despite her stature. They no longer filled him with relief, only anguished dread.
“You don’t know that,” he breathed. Even though mere moments prior he had craved proximity to her, it felt like a gut punch when it truly happened. The pit that had formed in his stomach only seemed to get deeper and deeper with each passing second.
He didn’t realize he flinched when her fingers made contact with his cheek. In a cruel turn of fate, it mirrored everything he wanted. The warmth he longed to feel from her skin was no more, her touch was not affectionate in the way he dreamed it would be and all he can think is that this must be it for him.
“I do.” Lumine’s hand comes up to cup his cheek, her nimble hands so light against his skin and so heavy against his heart. He only knew that he began to cry when her thumb jutted out to swipe away a lone tear. His shoulders slumped, all of his body weight coming to rest on the palm of her hand. His eyes that used to shine a deep blue faded to an almost gray, miserable tears swimming and dropping off his eyelids and down his cheeks. She wiped them softly, cooing like she always had to comfort him. This time, it only made him want to cry harder.
Then, she murmured something into the night, four words he hung onto so desperately that it became utterly pathetic.
“I love you, Dainsleif.”
The man in question has nothing to say. None of the words he wanted so badly to say would come out. Mouth thinned out into a tight, shaking line, he leaned into her touch, wet tears slipping from his nearest eye onto her perfect little hand. From the way she looked at him, which he could see from the corner of his eye, he didn’t have to say it. She already knew his answer.
Lumine starts again, more of that vaguely apologetic look spread across her features. “There’s nothing more I can do-”
“You could stay.”
His voice broke, plunging down and shattering with each and every word. Just those three words held all of the deep melancholy inside of him, all of the white hot pain he felt deep in his chest. Getting it out should’ve made him feel better, instead it only fueled his suffering.
She tried again, this time using her other hand to force eye contact. “No, I can’t.” In turn, he grabbed her wrists as lightly as he could and stared into her big, amber irises. Ones he may never see again, he thought, tears accompanying those words as they made their way through his body, inflicting pain on all of his already open and weeping wounds. “If you wanted to, you would.”
It felt so childish coming out of his mouth, that and his desperate sobs that near hyperventilation at each and every moment didn’t do anything to ease the still aching burn in his cheeks. He badly hoped that she would still think of him fondly after this helpless display. “Please,” he begged, the sound struggling to even form properly with his irregular breaths. To his credit, he’d done well at staying silent. She wouldn’t be able to remember any awful keens he made. It would just be the visual, and he could(n’t) live with that.
“Dain.”
“…Lumi.”
When she inhaled, he braced himself. “…I could imagine a life with you, Dain.”
That’s all he’d ever wanted. Just that. Just her. Her and him, her sweet voice to wake him up in the mornings, her hands to fix his tousled hair, her body to sleep against his for nights and nights to come. A dam somewhere breaks.
“Then please, please,” his hands found her shoulders, firmly grasping down with what little strength his battered mind had been able to gather. “-let me make it a reality.”
The world seemed to stop spinning when she slipped out of his hands and turned back towards the Abyss portal. With her back to him, she apologized. A lot of times, she did, but he heard none of them. All that he heard was the blood pounding in his ears and the expansive silence of Teyvat. The wind stopped blowing if only to preserve his tears, visible in clear streaks down his cheeks and yet still coming.
He didn’t hear her as she called out to him one last time, before resigning to the portal. He barely saw through blurry vision as she disappeared into its depths, barely recognized the profound emptiness of his surroundings. Instead, he crumbled down to the earth and held himself tightly, the only thing that broke the silence for the rest of the night was his fight for air against his cries, and the birdsong in the morning. If the storm that barreled through their… his camp bothered him, he didn’t say anything. The rain washed him clean of her touch, and when it stopped he would do anything for it back.