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They called it stellar parallax: The illusion that a star had moved, when in reality, it is only the observer who has shifted.
That’s how it feels like to Lumine, her relationship with Aether in this world. Closer and closer, yet, farther, and farther more.
POV: Lumine
Lumine remembers, that once, Aether was much like her in terms of personalities and the relationships they formed with each world.
When had he started to change?
Why had she never noticed?
Why did he join the Abyss Order?
If the people of the worlds they have been to were to describe them, then they would say pretty much the same thing about the twins.
.
.
.
Lumine is the cold twin. She knows this.
She cannot afford to get attached to people who’ll burn out like stars eventually do. She cares too much for them. And thus, she detaches herself from them, after the first few worlds.
Teyvat is strange though. No matter how hard she tries to not get attached, she gets attached.
Attached to long and flowing dark brown hair.
Attached to warm golden eyes.
Attached to the bright laughter and big heart of a girl with a red ribbon headband, the kindest smile, and the person who gave her her wings back.
She falls for Lumine. Lumine falls even faster.
I fell in love with Teyvat before I could remember to stop myself.
But back to Aether, Aether has always been the warm twin. She knows this too.
Her brother, at the beginning of their travels, was much like her.
Warm and deeply invested in them, he cared immensely for those mortal souls too.
He danced with them at bars. He laughed with them, bickered with them. Lived with them.
Eventually though, he too, starts wearing a mask: One that differs from hers. His is golden, charismatic, almost like he was not wearing one. But he is, and his does not allow more people to slip into his heart.
Lumine’s mask is more like a mask that people can easily see through, she thinks, akin to thin paper than to Aether’s metal.
By their fifth world, she had learned to steel her heart.
Don’t let them in.
Don’t learn their names.
Don’t speak to them much.
Be distant. We are just passing through.
If she was ice on the outside, then nothing could penetrate it to realize that her heart was like a furnace.
.
.
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But what their observers don’t know is that Lumine falls in love with every world. Aether, well, Aether is Aether. Warm and kind, until he isn’t.
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POV: Aether
Somedays, Aether does not understand why he is so intent on getting revenge for Khaenri'ah.
Aether does not accept the impermanence of the world.
Lumine despises impermanence.
They are the same in that way.
But she accepts it nonetheless.
Aether….Aether cannot.
The tragedy is in the fact that he does care.
Far more than he realized. Far more than he tried to pretend, after the first few worlds.
He has spent centuries suppressing grief instead of processing it all healthily whereas Lumine grieves heavily, with visible tears and gasping sobs and so much emotion. He comforts her each time.
He did care, he muses, once upon a time. Eventually though, he stopped. He was simply too tired of it. Coming. Leaving. Grieving. He tried to stop caring. Not that it really worked out, anyway.
But because of these centuries upon centuries of suppressed grief, Aether regrets it, for a second, as it all comes crashing down around him, hardening into his current resolve, the day he vowed to avenge the tragedy of Khaenri'ah.
The beauty in impermanence is that nothing lasts forever, dear brother. Because nothing stays the same, every moment is a one-time gift to you. And so, it should be cherished. That is why, I keep letting them in.
His sister’s voice whispered in his ear.
He shakes his head, agitated, golden braid swaying at the motion. A hand runs through his hair, his own. It’s a habit that’s never really disappeared.
The hallucinations of Lumine her have been getting worse. Where is she? Where is his sister? Where is Lumine?
POV: Lumine
She wrote so many letters. Inks of various colours from all over Teyvat. Softer parchment, thicker parchment, smoother parchment. Tear stained pages. Dry pages. Smeared ink too, until she finally figured out how to write with a quill again after so long.
But all of them were addressed to her brother, hidden among the various letters she had received from her friends.
They kept stacking up.
One became ten.
Ten became fifty.
Fifty became hundreds.
Don’t get her wrong, she loves the people of Teyvat. She tried not to at first, but she loves these star-like individuals who have become part of her life and wiggled their ways into her heart.
But Aether is her twin. The other half of her soul.
He is irreplaceable, no matter how many people she collects into her heart.
She couldn’t replace him if she tried.
Don’t make me choose, please.
She just wants everyone to be happy. She hates the Abyss Order.
She hates how she failed to bring Aether back.
And so she writes…
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.
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Dear Aether…
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The first letter is borne of hurt and anger. She never sends it.
The tenth is denial.
The twentieth contains a list of bargains.
The fiftieth is grief.
And the hundredth?
The hundredth is acceptance.
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.
.
I hate you
I love you
Why why why why WHY!??!!?!
Your sister,
Lumine
She never sends them. The very moment she is alone after gaining the power of Pyro, she burns them.
And as she watches the wind carry away the last embers among the ashes of the papers, she mourns the fact that Aether will never read them, will never know of her anger, her hurt, the sting of betrayal she has felt on her journey to find him and to lose him again. Again, and again, and again.
Because at this point in time. She can understand why. She hates it. But she does.
Wait for me, Aether.
I will reach the end of my journey. I am almost there. I will see the true nature of this world. And when I do, can’t we just make peace and stay?
If Lumine is the observer along the path of her travels, then Aether is the star, high in the horizon, elusive.
His position is always warping, changing, slipping away from her grasp.
Each time she gets closer, he seems to get farther. It is an impossible chase, and Lumine is so, so exhausted.
She keeps moving though.
And perhaps one day? She’ll finally catch up to him.
Until then, Lumine will keep waiting.