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When Lumine crash landed into Mondstadt, for a few weeks, everything was blissfully clear.
The Fatui were bad.
The archons were good.
Her brother was gone.
And this world was desperate for a hero.
Childe was the first wrinkle in this fine distinction between black and white starting from the very moment he helped her escape the Millielith.
It could have very well all been some elaborate ruse– that bright, easy smile, his never ending energy, the simple way his very gaze seemed to fixate on her even among crowded Liyue Harbor streets as they prepared the sham Rite of Parting together– but Lumine found herself wanting, wishing against all odds that it was real.
She knew he was her enemy, just as she knew that the enigmatic Zhongli was not all that he seemed, either. But she was still new to Teyvat. Perhaps she had judged its players too harshly during her first jaunt through Mondstadt.
And then, at the Golden House, everything fell apart.
It was almost a relief when Childe tried to kill her, delusion in hand, the closure to their tenuous relationship that she could make peace with. No longer was she the only one who could wield more than one element at a time– here was her friend, now her enemy, channeling both Hydro and Electro at the cost of his very life force.
She couldn’t kill him.
Their battle ended with failure on both parts: hers to defeat him once and for all, his to seize the Gnosis from Rex Lapis.
Lumine left him on the floor of the Golden House thinking she’d never see him again. But not even a few hours later, he was back, staring daggers at his fellow harbinger over Zhongli’s shoulder.
They’d all been played by Signora: Fatui, Archon, and whatever Lumine was alike.
It appeared that even the Harbingers– supposed to be the Tsaritsa’s most loyal and elite crew of fighters– were not spared from this infuriating game of intrigue and backstabbing, of guessing where alliances truly lie, of unraveling the secrets that made up this seemingly innocuous land of Teyvat.
Lumine missed her brother. At least, she’d thought then, when they reunited, everything would once again be clear.
She stayed in Liyue Harbor to help clean up– and to figure out what to make of the 11th Harbinger, seemingly just as blindsided as her but going about his days as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Nevermind that they had been at each other’s throats only days ago, seconds and a well-placed blade away from ending one another’s lives forever. He sidled up to her like he was her very best friend in the world: paying for her meals, trailing after her on commissions, introducing her to his brother and bemoaning that she’d never get to meet the rest of his family.
It was mind boggling– and oddly charming. He seemed to have decided, in spite of everything, to ditch the pretense that shrouded everything else on the Archons’ forsaken continent and indulge himself fully in the pleasure of her company.
The simplicity, surprisingly, was welcomed. No, more than welcomed– Lumine craved it, the way he’d get her to smile, the gentle touches he’d lay upon her hand or around her waist, or even the way his eyes would light up as radiant as the Vision at his waist at the prospect of a fight.
Only Lumine’s single-minded focus on finding Aether pulled her away to Inazuma, the island nation so thick with secrets it manifested into physical fog that kept travelers at bay.
Childe, grinning from ear to ear, waved her off. Lumine watched him from the deck of Beidou’s ship until he was a spec in the distance, a mere splash of orange and grey.
“I’m sure I’ll see you again soon, comrade,” he’d said, and though she wasn’t so sure, she clung to those words like if she believed hard enough, they just might come true.
The Inazuman Archon was nothing like the two Lumine had met before– cold, unfeeling, and ruthless, purveyor of the Vision Hunt Decree, enemy to all who opposed her strict idea of Inazuman Eternity. Lumine didn’t mean to get involved– she was already sick of saving nations– and yet the kindhearted Thoma and Ayaka roped her in anyway.
Though the elaborate bureaucracy of the three commissions and their corresponding conflicts of interests made Lumine’s head swim, after Liyue, Inazuma’s crisis was a breath of fresh air. The only party she couldn’t quite place was Yae Miko– every bit the cunning fox she resembled.
But it didn’t matter. Lumine had to meet the Archon no matter what, even if that meant siding with a resistance army.
She even made a new friend, Teppei, who despite his lack of Vision, made a formidable ally– even when his hair began to rapidly fade to grey, or when the lines in his face started to grow more pronounced after a mere night’s rest.
When the cause was revealed– that all-too-familiar Delusion– Lumine’s heart skipped a beat. Be that because it was a reminder of him or because it meant things were no longer as crystal clear as she’d thought, she couldn’t say.
Either way, she knew this: the Fatui were back, the hidden enemy of both factions.
There was only one place where Lumine could find answers, and it came with the risk of being cleaved in two by the Raiden Shogun’s Musou no Hitotachi.
Imagine her surprise when it was revealed Signora had gotten there first.
Lumine did not consider herself to be a rash person. She was quiet, at least among strangers, much preferring to let her brother or Paimon speak for her. She was strong, but in an unassuming way that didn’t quite match the reputation she’d begun to build; not quite a mass of muscles or power, merely a swordswoman who could wield the elements in a pinch. She did not let her emotions guide her, and thought carefully about who and what she fought. She was not the kind to rush into a fight without thinking– especially when, since setting foot in the land of Eternity, she’d been trying her best to avoid a fight.
And yet when she saw the Fair Lady again, she felt anger surge through her the same way Anemo or Electro power might, and the words left her lips before her mind could intervene.
I challenge you to a duel before the throne.
It was, like many of her decisions concerning the Harbingers, it seemed, an objectively bad idea. She’d only narrowly managed to avoid dying by Childe’s hands, and he was but the 11th of the Harbingers– Signora outranked him at number 8, and had the advantage of a level head.
But whatever slivers of doubt wormed their way into Lumine’s head were quickly replaced by images of all the suffering this woman had caused.
Venti beneath her heel.
The people of Liyue recoiling in fear at the monstrous sea monster threatening their entire city.
Teppei’s greying hair.
And the faces of the members of the resistance who would live to see a free Inazuma.
Perhaps this was why Lumine managed to win. Only when her sword was down, when the Raiden Shogun began her slow walk towards the defeated Harbinger, did the gravity of her actions begin to weigh heavy on her shoulders.
It could have been Childe, Lumine remembered thinking as she watched the woman’s body fall cold to the floor, ashes still smoldering around them. It very well might have been Childe lying there, motionless beneath the indomitable might of Inazuma’s protector.
Her thoughts seemed to manifest him right in front of her only a few days later, once the dust had settled and Visions were returned to their owners.
Missed me? He’d asked. It had been but a few weeks, and yet it could have very well been a century for how relieved she felt to see him again, how much she’d missed his easy confidence and his unwavering determination to… well, fight with anything that moved.
In a world of muddy greys, Childe was an easy reprieve back into the black and white world of when Lumine had first woken up. He was her friend, even if he was Fatui. He had his own agenda– in this case, to find the Balladeer, another damned Harbinger– but he was there for her whenever he needed her, to back her up in a fight or even just to keep her company as she puzzled through everything from the Archons to the Abyss.
He was wholly unhelpful in that regard, having positive opinions on the latter and looking to rob the former of their very power, but Lumine liked listening to him speak, anyway.
But in the blink of an eye, her time in Inazuma drew to a close. It was clear her brother was not there, just as it was clear that, despite his tenuous history, neither was the Balladeer Childe searched for.
He resigned to return to Snezhnaya to report his progress, while Lumine prepared to set sail for the ports of Sumeru. This time, when they parted, Childe saw her off with a smile undeniably twinged with melancholy.
It was fun to pretend for a few weeks that their journeys aligned, but ultimately, fate seemed to have other ideas.
Sumeru was more of the same: conflicting allegiances, another damn Harbinger pulling the strings, an Archon who gave up her Gnosis far too willingly and under far too suspicious circumstances. When the Balladeer appeared, hope blossomed in Lumine’s chest– perhaps it would summon Childe to her side, and they could spend a few days exploring the bustling streets of Sumeru’s cities once everything was over, or steal away to explore the desert rife with ancient ruins and more monsters than any normal human would consider taking on.
But that infuriating smile never appeared. Lumine never got to ask Nahida to scan through his thoughts and figure out where that never-ending spout of energy seemed to spout from. And even with the power of Dendro under her metaphorical elemental toolbelt, she was powerless to confront the feelings of loss that overtook her at the very prospect of never seeing him again.
This was unreasonable, she knew; to be tangled up with the Fatui in any regard meant he was possibly around any corner she took, and at least when she wound up in Sneznayha, he would probably want to breathe down her neck as she confronted the Tsaritsa.
But Sumeru seemed to mark a turning point in her journey, and she wondered if he felt it too, wherever he was in the world. No longer was her quest solely about finding her brother and absconding back to wherever they’d come from. Now, the fate of the world seemed to be up to her– a world she was slowly coming to care a great deal about.
There wasn’t time for idling around with someone who could very much be one of her greatest foes when the time came to stand off against the Fatui, once and for all. No. Lumine had to focus: she was the traveler, the Honorary Knight, the Hero of Liyue, and so on the list went. Childe– Tartaglia– was a member of the Fatui, the organization seeking to undermine the Seven. Seeking to rob Venti, Zhongli, and Nahida– Lumine’s friends – of the power that they used to protect their nations.
She remembered shaking her head and turning away from the rapidly disappearing green of Sumeru on the horizon, where her traitorous eyes nonetheless wished to see a gloved hand waving goodbye. In Fontaine and Natlan, she had a job to do. There was no room for Harbingers to worm their way into her heart, no matter how much they smiled and laughed and flirted.
Perhaps the gods, or whoever it was that controlled fate, truly weren’t her friends, however; not even a few hours after she’d made this decision did he appear again in front of her. “What are the chances?” he’d remarked with that easy smile, and then just like that they were in a battle again–
Except it wasn’t against her, it never was anymore, it was against some enemy of the Fatui who owed Childe– er, The Northland Bank– money.
But he was chatting with her and Paimon like he’d never been more happy to meet anybody else in his life, forgetting everything he’d come for to update them on his family and hit them with that sunny smile.
He came from a nation of ice and snow. Spent some portion of his childhood in the cold embrace of the abyss. Served his life from there in the shadows, carrying out the Tsaritsa’s underhanded agenda.
There was no reason for his very presence to stir such warmth in Lumine’s chest. It curled down her throat and seemed to wrap around her very heart, until it was the only thing guiding her forward– into battle with two men who very much could have been her allies under other circumstances.
Lumine and Childe were nothing if not a fantastic duo. Even after months apart, she knew what his next moves would be before he seemed to make them, and he fell into place beside her like he belonged there: covering her blindspots with his blades made of water, laughing at their foes when they made a grave misstep or failed to find their targets.
Even after Childe’s Hydro Vision lost its luster, his blades falling away into two puddles atop the cobblestones, the assailants had not even a sliver of hope in defeating the legendary duo of the eleventh Harbinger and Teyvat’s most beloved traveler.
When all was said and done, Childe looked down to the gem at his waist and for a moment looked every bit his name: young, innocent, and, Lumine noticed with a painful squeeze in her chest, utterly lost.
“This is strange,” he remarked, his voice betraying nothing. “I’ve never lost my Hydro powers before.”
“Maybe you’ve angered the Hydro Archon,” Paimon suggested helpfully. She, for one, did not seem too distraught about a Fatui Harbinger seemingly losing some of his might.
“No, I doubt it,” Childe replied without a hint of irony, then shrugged, remarking that he shouldn’t rely too much on his vision anyway– especially not when he had his Delusion.
Lumine bit back the words that bubbled in her throat. This was a perfect reminder of everything she’d been stewing over just hours before: that they would never be that easy pair of friends in Liyue Harbor ever again. They had their own troubles, their own journeys, their own agendas. It shouldn’t hurt her to see him down, even if he was trying hard to downplay his confusion. And it shouldn’t have been so sweet when he took his vision out of his pocket and handed it to her for safekeeping.
Paimon named it for what it obviously was: an excuse for him to seek them out again. He brushed it off with his usual easy confidence, a laugh and a wave of his hand, and then disappeared before Lumine could push the issue further.
She remembered turning it over in her hands. It was both the first time she’d held a Vision and the first time she’d taken the liberty of studying Childe’s up close.
Hydro energy already swirled in whatever recess of her body stored elemental power, but she swore for a moment she felt more powerful, her chest lighter than it had been in months. Whatever Fontaine had in store for her, she felt prepared to handle it.
Not because it gave her any sort of extra ability.
But because he was here, and he’d see her again.
The Court of Fontaine had a way of picking people up and trapping them inside its fervor like the forceful downdraft of a whirlpool. Lumine was touted through the city like a celebrity– which she supposed she was– learning everything from names to recipes to decades-long-scandals, her head buzzing with the splendor of building and citizen alike.
There was Navia, the beautiful girl with the golden ringlets and an undeniable sadness in her piercing blue gaze. Neuvillette, the towering man whose baritone voice and knowing smiles reminded her of Zhongli. Charlotte, the energetic reporter who seemed to pop up everywhere, brimming with questions Lumine never quite had an eloquent answer to.
And then, of course, Lyney, Lynette, and their slip of a brother Freminet. Each with their own quirks but fiercely devoted to each other and their mysterious father, clearly hiding something but nonetheless welcoming Lumine with the most hospitality she’d been shown in a long time.
Childe never appeared to reclaim his vision, and so it lay at the bottom of Lumine’s pack, safely hidden beneath her mountain of supplies and still as dull as when he’d left it to her. But she seemed to feel it always, and at night– be it in the shadows of the Fleuve Cendre or the cushiony bed of the Hotel De Bord, she found herself reaching for it, wondering what trouble a Harbinger with no vision could get up to.
She got her answer a few days later. He was on trial for murder.
In some ways, this was no surprise– his hunger for battle didn’t necessarily lend itself to a particular sanctity for life, his or otherwise. Lumine was, in some ways, shocked it had taken this long for some higher power to seek an issue with it, and remarked wryly to Paimon that surely her time would come soon, too.
It was only when the Garde who’d approached them explained exactly what charge was levied against him– something to do with disappearing women– that Lumine knew he was in over his head. Murderer though he might be, Childe didn’t attack innocents.
Or at least, whoever the Fatui deemed to be innocent. And while Lumine had her doubts about the organization’s morals as a whole, she didn’t think their hit list extended to seemingly random Fontanian women over the course of multiple years.
Of course, when Lumine reached the court house, she quickly realized that the idiot did not understand the gravity of the situation. The promise of an all out duel with Clorinde seemed to be muddying his senses, and Lumine wanted to approach the podium and wring his neck for his glibness.
He didn’t seem to care that he was sullying his name, no matter how good it was, with the charges. He didn’t care that he didn’t have a vision to take on the champion duelist of the Court of Fontaine in a true duel– no pulling punches, a fight to the death. And if he knew Lumine was there, he didn’t care about that, either.
It was only thanks to Navia’s quick thinking and Neuvilette’s genuine sense of justice that Childe didn’t lose his head live in front of an audience that night. At that moment, as the true perpetrator was brought on stage, his guilty verdict ringing out true and strong, the knot in Lumine’s chest began to uncoil.
But then it was Childe’s turn. Standard protocol, said Neuvilette, who had been the picture of rationality even when his Archon wasn’t. And the Oratrice was never wrong.
Until it was.
Faced with being taken to prison, Childe had done what Childe did best– attacked.
She would later wonder about how easily the seemingly innocuous Iudex subdued a Fatui Harbinger. Even without his vision, Lumine knew just how much of a punch that Foul Legacy packed.
But there was no time for that when he was unconscious on the stage. Then carted off by guards. Then, out of her sight.
Lumine felt her heart break.
This was why we were going to leave it all behind, the voice in her head reminded her, thinking back to the moment when they’d left Sumeru. She didn’t have time to be worried about Childe– not when something bigger was going on, and, per usual, the Archon was caught in the middle of it. A strange Archon, no less, who seemed to have little idea of what was going on in her court.
But the knot in her chest seemed to just get tighter and tighter as the rest of Fontaine’s horrible story unfolded.
The Knave appeared only a short while later, another harbinger to add to Lumine’s growing list of acquaintances within the Fatui ranks. She wanted to know where Childe was. Neuvilette insisted he was safe inside the fortress of meropide, serving his sentence.
Lumine could tell he did not like to lie, good at it as he was. Only her own knowledge of the Eleventh Harbinger belied the inaccuracy to the Iudex’s words: there was no way Childe would ever go peacefully to a prison. He was either fighting, dead, or somewhere the Fontatnian justice system would never be able to find him.
The Knave– perhaps knowing Childe as well as Lumine did– did not appear to believe Neuvillette, but was powerless to press the issue further. And so she left, and quickly did the truth come out.
He’d disappeared. Of course he did. It was what he was good at.
When Lumine and Paimon found themselves in the fortress of Meropide themselves, she hunted after him like a dog on a scent. But he had left, just as he always did. Off without her, his Vision hid away with the rest of her belongings wherever the prison guards had thought to store them.
Paimon might have noticed the difference in Lumine’s demeanor, but she chalked it up to stress at their journey going awry for what felt like the thousandth time. “We’ll be out of here soon,” she’d remarked. Except Lumine didn’t want to leave– not without figuring out what happened to the eleventh harbinger.
She dreamed about him. Saw things through his eyes. Saw him encounter the massive– well, whatever it was. And begin to fight.
It was pathetic, she thought, for her subconscious to be conjuring such things, especially when it came time for them to leave and they had unearthed absolutely nothing about his escape. Though they’d spent weeks beneath the sea in the strange underworld of the Fortress of Meropide, all they’d learned about the harbinger’s disappearance seemed to suggest that he’d simply gone into the ocean and never came back.
The sun felt strange on her face when she was out. Selfishly, she’d envisioned her escape entwining with the recovery of her Harbinger. For once, it would have been nice to have problems resolve themselves.
But, of course, she was the Honorary Knight, savior of Liyue, etc., etc., and if she wanted something to be done, she had to do it herself.
Lumine had fought her fair share of massive, world-ending monsters in her time in Teyvat. She was beginning to grow sick of it, actually; why was it that the threats of nations always had to be so formidable? For once, could the people scheming to take down a centuries’ old tradition of godly hierarchies and elusive power be completely and utterly incompetent?
Especially now, when fighting seemed like the only thing she’d been doing for so long.
She was good at it. But she wasn’t Childe. She didn’t particularly like it. Her blood did not thrum in her veins when she crossed swords with a particularly strong opponent. When she closed her eyes at night, she did not envision near death experiences to soothe her to sleep. And she certainly would never accept charges of murder just for the chance to fight someone powerful.
When the All-Encompassing Narwhal or whatever stupid name Neuvilette had given it struck her as familiar, she chalked it up to the experience she’d gained during her travels in Teyvat. After all, how different could it be from the other elemental creatures she’d taken on in other nations? A monster was a monster was a monster. They had weaknesses, even if they were hard to spot. And if this one sang with Abyssal energy, well, so too did the silly little Abyss mages she fought on the regular for her adventurer’s guild commissions.
She readied her sword and eyed the portal it had appeared from in the corner of her eye, daring its cronies to appear. Big monsters like this always had a retinue of smaller ones to follow it.
The thing about Childe’s Foul Legacy form was that while it was distinctly some horrible beast, not quite Fatui, not quite Abyssal, not quite human, it was still Childe. His hair, though longer, still blazed that bright, beautiful orange. The curve of his massive blade, purple with electro power, was as familiar to Lumine’s eye as the very sword she carried on her back. And the power that radiated off of him– the simple effect he had on you with just a glance in his direction– was the same Lumine felt the first time she’d fought him, even when he was just that gangly boy with a wide smile..
Childe was reckless. He was a fool. He was– potentially– evil, or at the very least, a faithful soldier to an evil organization.
And yet, at the sight of him, Lumine could have cried.
He heaved one breath, then another, and then used the last of his energy to give Neuvillette a clawed thumbs-down.
When he fell, exhausted, back into the hole he’d emerged from, Lumine did begin to cry.
How many times would he briefly appear, only to be taken from her again? How many impossible scenarios would they have to worm their way through to get back to those sunny days in Liyue Harbor, when her biggest concern was not whether he lived or died, but rather if she should be giving a Fatui harbinger the time of day?
She should have relished in those moments, or insisted he come with her for the rest of her travels the second time they’d split– when she’d left Inazuma and wondered exactly when they’d cross paths again. It would have been easy enough to come up with an excuse; the Balladeer, after all, did wind up in Sumeru eventually.
She should have stuck to his side like a briar when they met back up in Fontaine. She could have ensured that he never stood trial, or at least talked him out of accepting the obviously fraudulent charges. Or she could have run, kicking and screaming, to the Fortress of Meropide at his side instead of watching his unconscious body get carted off.
Her grief faded to resolve at a simple touch from Neuvillette. Her initial assessment of his similarities to Zhongli proved to be truer and truer every day, and deep down, she thought that the Iudex, too, had begun to care for Childe in his own way, and perhaps even grieved his final disappearance. But they had a job to do, a nation to save, etc., and so there was no time for wallowing. She would cry with the hydro dragon another time.
They fought the narwhal again.
Neuvillette had told her before they got there that he imagined Childe had been facing off against it for the two months it had been since they’d last seen each other, and that confirmed, in Lumine’s mind, that she would never again be touched by that smile. His Foul Legacy was not meant to be kept up for long, and she imagined that without his vision, the effects would be even worse. Two months– two months of fighting the very creature Neuvilette had seemed powerless to stop– was two months too long.
She thought of him as they took the creature down, once and for all. It was strong, to be sure, but not a match for her and the Iudex– not to mention, seemingly already weakened.
Lumine couldn’t believe she’d ever thought of Childe as evil, when here he’d spent the very end of his life fighting to protect a nation of people he didn’t even know– a nation of people who would likely remember him just as she once did, as a conniving, battle-hungry idiot desperate for power and willing to do anything to achieve the Fatui’s ultimate goal.
At the end of the battle, he appeared again. Lumine, exhausted, fell to her knees.
He was unconscious, but back to the Childe she remembered: grey clothes, orange hair, pale skin. Sleeping, he looked younger, every bit the boy he truly was.
The woman– Skirk, she knew immediately– tossed him into another portal. Gone. She made some remarks about his weakness, and then about how Fontaine was doomed.
Lumine felt like her ears were filled with primordial sea water. Paimon and Neuvillette peppered the woman with questions, which she brushed off easily. Neither asked about Childe.
The Archons did as Archons did, saving the nation in the nick of time in exchange for the Gnosis despite it all. The Knave walked away victorious, Fontaine was saved, Lumine a hero.
She should have been angry– grieving took up much of her emotions, and here it was, misplaced. She should have been sad– he was, in fact, gone from her again, and could be dead. She should have even been happy– the fourth nation on her list was saved, their crisis averted, the citizens free to return to their lives.
In truth, Lumine felt none of those things. She simply felt numb.
Lyney was the one who let her know that he’d returned to Sneznahya to recover. She mumbled something incoherent into her tea, and nobody brought it up after that.
The next day, The Knave asked for his vision. Her gaze was colder than usual, and for a moment, Lumine wanted to ask her what Childe had told her. How did you spin giving a traveler such as herself something so precious as a Vision without giving away just how much they meant to each other?
Lumine clenched her jaw and handed it over. Knowing the fool, he’d probably told Arlechinno everything, unaware of how it sounded to a bystander.
“I’ll see this reaches him in Snezhnaya,” she’d said, emphasizing the final two words. “Don’t worry about him, Miss Lumine. He’s in good hands with the Fatui.”
It was as much of a warning as it was the perfect final line to the tragic relationship that Lumine and Childe shared. He was in good hands with the Fatui, wasn’t he? Hands that would kill him to serve their purpose, but bandage his wounds when he came crawling back. Hands perfectly befitting his own, in which nothing mattered but being the strongest he possibly could to best achieve the Tsaritsa’s wishes, whatever they were.
Lumine was sick of the Fatui. Sick of the Harbingers and their ever shifting allegiances, sick of the way that Teyvat had once seemed so simple and yet now appeared to grow more complex and confusing by the day. In all the turmoil, she’d even begun to forget about her brother, so all-encompassing was the drama that gripped the nation’s higher powers.
Shortly upon her arrival to Natlan, another Harbinger appeared. They never seemed to be far away when crises were near.
He was physically imposing, covered head-to-toe but for flowing black hair, and extremely popular. The Captain– First of the Harbingers, and in theory, the most powerful.
Lumine pushed aside the thoughts of what he reminded her of and got to work with another nation’s quest to save itself.
When it was revealed that his allegiance seemed to differ from that of the established Fatui hivemind, and instead lie somewhere in the best interests of the Natlanese people, Lumine was not surprised. Months ago, it certainly would have been a shock to see a Harbinger so selfless; not anymore, not when she’d watched a completely different one battle a creature for months in a debilitating form just to protect a nation he had no explicit ties to.
Lumine gained another title to add to her laundry list of epithets: an Ancient Name meaning ‘hope.’ Ironic, since she herself was beginning to run low on that very thing. The only thing she hoped for any more was that the final nation of her list, Sneznahya, would not wrap its conflicts in pretense and ancient lore. Lumine had traveled through more than enough ruins and read too many dusty tomes, skimmed through a history of a people she didn’t even belong to too many times. Though she was compassionate, and kind, and in some ways, even patient, she was, more than anything else, tired.
One more nation remained. One more Archon to speak to– perhaps the most enigmatic of them all. One more chance to figure out the secrets of this nation before things finally went bottom-up and damned her chances of ever returning to her brother, if he even still remembered her.
One more chance to see him again.