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Her stay here was never intended to be for long.
A quick stop, and on to the next place. That was how it had always been, until her family was ripped away from her.
She grew a new life around the hole she couldn’t fill. Built herself a new home within the Teapot, filling it with mementos of her journey through Teyvat. Went on countless adventures with the allies she’d made. Sometimes they were grand adventures, like something right out of a storybook. Slay the dragon, save the princess, win the crown. Sometimes they were small, everyday things. Taking a part-time job at a cafe, helping plan a festival. With the right person, even hanging the laundry out to dry could become an adventure. She cherished every last one.
There were still days where none of it did anything to lessen the ache. Where all she wanted to do was curl up in her bed, feeling so homesick she could barely breathe, terrified of the weight on her shoulders.
Other days, she looked around at her new home, her new friends, feeling so grateful to have all of it that it brought her to tears. No matter how hard she tried, she felt that there would come a day when she would lose everything she had tried not to grow too attached to. It became hard to even enjoy something fun happening without preemptively mourning the eventual loss of those moments.
With Paimon by her side, at least she could still consider herself as part of a set. Paimon could never be her brother, but she still had come to feel something like family. The only companion privy to the full spectrum of her moods, one with whom she felt safe enough to be raw, for whom she needed no mask.
For all the rest, she always had a role to play. A shining golden hero, a dependable partner, a shoulder to lean on. Many never bothered to look deeper than that, and those that tried, she kept distracted with the comfortable illusion of trust. Lowering the mask just enough to keep them close, make them feel like they’d been let in on a secret, all while revealing nothing of herself. Even though they were all precious companions, and it stung to feel like there was a wall of glass between her and them, she could not let that wall down.
She had one foot in the place she was supposed to call home, and another foot in a world she would never truly be a part of but loved looking in on as a bystander. Teyvat was a beautiful world to bear witness to. But it wasn’t home. Not really. Not when her brother wasn’t by her side.
Without Aether, she was only one half of a whole. An incomplete, alien existence.
Always following the path he had laid out, her every footstep falling perfectly within the spots where his had long since faded, still in sync despite the time and distance between them. Like every move she made was already scripted. Living out the role that was more important than any other, the role of his sibling.
Every fun and exciting thing that happened, every devastating failure, even the mundane things like recipes she’d learned to cook and wanted to partake together… She kept it all in a scrapbook to share with him later, knowing none of it would be new to him. But it was new to her, and he had missed out on her first time experiencing it, so a scrapbook would have to do. Every time she added a new page, she ached wondering how long until she could show him all of these things.
Everything she witnessed during her journey through Teyvat would fade away into a fond and distant dream of yesterday, and they could finally go forward together.
So she filled her days with whatever tasks she could, to keep herself distracted from thinking too hard about it. Thinking only brought more fear, more grief. Running around doing errands, helping people, finding treasure, it wasn’t a bad way to pass the time. She did everything she was asked, and she did her best. Sometimes it could feel like an endless grind, but she clung to the sense of routine it gave her. It was something she could predict, something she could control.
Being praised for a job well done made her feel both warm and hollow. Why were they being kind to her when she didn’t belong? She was just a traveler passing through. A lost lamb searching for the road home. A scribble in the margins of a story that would keep repeating. No one special at all.
The praise she wanted most wouldn’t come, not for a long while, even if she ran herself ragged. Yet she kept at it, day after day after day after endless day, all for the sake of that ultimate goal. To be reunited, to fall into the embrace of her only true family. To lay down her sword and at long last hear the words she worked so hard to earn.
Good job, Lumine. You did well. It’s all over. Let’s go home now.