Work Text:
Three letters during Lumine's journey through Sumeru:
WHEN MORNING FINALLY CAME
The first letter found Lumine after she had lived the same day too many times.
Morning had finally come to Sumeru City.
A real morning.
Relief should have come all at once.
Instead, Lumine felt as though she had awakened from a dream her body had not yet understood was over. Every ordinary sound seemed too fragile. Every unfamiliar movement made something inside her loosen and brace at the same time. Sunlight lay warm across the stone terraces, merchants raised their awnings beneath an ordinary sky, and somewhere down the street a woman laughed as though yesterday had happened only once. Lumine stood beneath the shade of a broad-leafed tree and listened to the city breathe.
It should have felt simple.
They had broken the samsara, Dunyarzad was alive, the endless Sabzeruz Festival had released them at last. Still, some part of Lumine kept expecting the world to fold back upon itself.
A familiar voice, the same turn of a street, Paimon saying the same thing she had said before without knowing she had said it before.
"Lumine?"
Paimon floated in front of her and waved both hands.
"You're doing that thing again."
"What thing?"
"The staring-at-nothing thing."
"I'm thinking."
"You've been thinking all morning. Paimon thinks you should think about breakfast instead."
Lumine almost smiled. Then a courier passed near the Adventurers' Guild and called her name.
The envelope bore a Snezhnayan stamp.
Her exhaustion receded by one small step.
Paimon leaned over her shoulder.
"Is that from..."
"Teucer."
The handwriting confirmed it: large, determined letters that occasionally wandered uphill.
Lumine sat on the low stone wall nearby and opened it.
Dear Lumine,
Big Brother says Sumeru has mushrooms taller than people. Is that true? Tonia says he was exaggerating because he always exaggerates when he tells stories, but Big Brother says Tonia is only jealous because she has never seen them.
If they are really that big, can you climb one?
Do they bounce?
Are there Mr. Cyclopses in Sumeru? If there are, you have to tell me if they look different from the ones in Liyue. I think maybe Sumeru Mr. Cyclopses would have leaves on them so they can hide in the forest.
Tonia says that is not how machines work.
I think Tonia is wrong.
Anthon says hello. Tonia says hello too but she says I have to stop writing because I am using all the paper.
Please write back.
-Teucer
P.S. Big Brother said you are probably doing something dangerous again. I told him you always win.
Lumine read the postscript twice. Paimon made a delighted noise.
"Teucer still thinks Ruin Guards are toys!"
"Apparently."
"And he thinks they grow leaves in Sumeru."
"That would be useful."
She turned the page. There was writing on the back.
Different handwriting.
Sharper, smaller, confident enough to lean across the paper as though even ink could swagger.
Lumine knew it immediately.
He insisted I send this immediately but I know it will take a while to find you. Apparently saving mysterious forest nations is less important than answering his questions about mushrooms.
For the record, I did not exaggerate.
Much.
Try not to get yourself trapped in anything strange before I hear from you again, comrade.
-Childe
Lumine stared at the last line, then looked around at Sumeru City.
At the city that had, until very recently, been trapped in a repeating dream.
"Too late," she murmured.
Paimon peered at the page.
"Is that from Childe? What is he saying?"
Lumine folded it before Paimon could read over her shoulder. "Nothing important."
"Hey! Paimon wants to see!"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because it is nothing important."
"That doesn't make any sense! If it isn't important, then you can let Paimon read it."
Lumine tucked the letter safely into her bag.
Paimon planted both hands on her hips.
"You are being suspicious."
Lumine ignored her.
Her hand dropped to the strap of her travel pouch.
A little charm hung there, white and muted gold around a piece of blue glass. It had crossed the sea with her from Inazuma.
She turned it once between her fingers.
Try not to get yourself trapped in anything strange.
She could almost hear him saying it.
That infuriatingly easy voice and that smile which made every warning sound suspiciously like a challenge.
Lumine's thoughts settled somewhere uncomplicated. Far away, Childe is still Childe. Teucer is still arguing over which toy is the best in all of Teyvat.
Somewhere beyond Sumeru's forests and dreams, there were people living days that only happened once.
"Come on," she told Paimon.
"Breakfast?"
"Breakfast."
"Finally!"
That evening, Lumine wrote Teucer a reply.
She told him the mushrooms were real, that some were tall enough to climb, and that the springiest ones could send a person bouncing high into the air. She assured him that the Ruin Guards in Sumeru did not grow leaves, although a few had collected enough vines and moss to make his theory almost convincing.
She returned Tonia’s and Anthon’s greetings, described the view from the highest branches of Sumeru City, and warned him that Paimon had become very interested in the sweets sold at the Grand Bazaar. She even mentioned the strange songs sometimes heard deep in the forest, although she left out the small creatures who might not appreciate being discussed in a letter.
It was easier to write about impossible mushrooms, overgrown machines, and hidden songs than mornings that had happened too many times.
At the bottom, she added one line in smaller handwriting.
Too late.
She stared at it.
Then, beneath it:
I'm fine.
Her pen hovered over the words.
They were not meant for Teucer. They were an answer to the sharper handwriting on the back of his letter. For one reckless moment, she imagined leaving them there.
Childe would know they were for him.
Her fingers remained against the paper.
I'm fine,
She almost wrote the name. Then Lumine drew a line through both sentences so heavily that the words disappeared, enough to tell herself they no longer counted. Instead, she folded her reply to Teucer.
ACROSS THE DESERT
The second letter arrived with sand in its folds.
Lumine had no idea how that had happened.
The letter had come from Snezhnaya, passed through several Fatui channels, crossed into Sumeru, and somehow reached Aaru Village looking as though it had personally trekked across the desert to find her.
By then, Lumine understood that Sumeru's problems were larger than a stolen dream. The Akademiya was moving pieces she could not yet see clearly. Nahida remained imprisoned. Answers waited somewhere beyond the rainforest, and the desert had greeted Lumine with heat that pressed against the skin like an open furnace.
She had spent the day beneath a sun that seemed personally offended by her existence. When the letter arrived, she was sitting outside with a cup of water pressed to her cheek.
Paimon collapsed dramatically beside her.
"Paimon is never complaining about Dragonspine again!" Lumine looked at her.
"You will."
"Okay, Paimon is not complaining about Dragonspine for at least three days."
The courier held out the envelope. This one was neater. Lumine did not recognize the handwriting.
She opened it.
Dear Lumine,
I hope you do not mind receiving a letter from someone you have never met.
My name is Tonia.
Lumine stopped.
Paimon shot upright.
"Tonia?!"
Lumine continued reading.
Teucer talks about you often, and Ajax writes about you enough that the rest of us hear about you too. I suspect you have already learned that Teucer is very difficult to stop once he decides someone is interesting.
Thank you for being patient with him in Liyue.
He came home with so many stories about you that I am still not certain which ones are true. He says you fought Mr.Cyclopses together. He says you travel with a floating fairy who likes food and he also says you are stronger than Ajax.
I asked Ajax about that last one. He said, "She's good."
For my brother, this is apparently an extraordinary compliment.
Lumine's eyes remained on the sentence.
She's good. She could hear that too.
Worse, she could imagine the expression he would wear while saying it.
Tonia's letter continued.
Ajax says you are travelling through Sumeru now. He says you travel more than anyone he knows.
Please make sure you are eating properly. I know this is strange advice from someone you have never met, but travelers and older brothers seem to share the same bad habit of believing food becomes optional when something important is happening.
I enclosed something small. It is not much, but it is a recipe our mother makes when the weather is especially cold. Ajax mentioned that you are in the desert, so perhaps it will be useful after sunset, or when your journey takes you back beneath the rainforest trees.
Teucer wanted to write again. I told him it was my turn. He is currently offended.
I hope we meet someday.
-Tonia
Lumine lowered the page.
Something warm and strangely fragile had settled beneath her breastbone.
I hope we meet someday.
She had never been to Snezhnaya.
She knew it waited somewhere ahead of her, another nation on the long road toward answers.
Until now it had been a destination.
Suddenly, impossibly, it contained a kitchen, a mother with a winter recipe, a sister she had never met, a little boy who believed machines were toys, and a home where her name had been spoken when she wasn't there.
Paimon had gone suspiciously quiet.
"That's... actually really sweet."
"It is."
"Paimon didn't know Childe talked about you that much."
Lumine looked down.
"Neither did I."
There was another sheet tucked behind Tonia's.
She knew before she unfolded it.
Before Tonia gives you the wrong idea, I do not write about you that often. Teucer does enough talking for all of us.
Lumine snorted.
Liar.
I did not read what her letter contains but If she told you anything about me, I'm sure at least half of it was slander.
And before you say anything about the desert, yes, I know you can take care of yourself.
But the desert isn't forgiving. Don't be reckless, comrade.
Lumine raised an eyebrow.
"Don't be reckless," she read aloud.
Paimon stared.
"Childe wrote that?"
"Childe wrote that."
"Hmmm… Maybe the heat got to him too."
Lumine smiled and looked back at the page.
There was one more line squeezed beneath the others, as though he had added it after deciding the letter was finished.
At least not when I'm too far away to do anything about it.
The desert wind moved through the village.
Somewhere nearby, fabric snapped softly against a line. A merchant called to a customer. The world continued with complete indifference to the sentence in Lumine's hands.
She read it again.
Not when I'm too far away.
She remembered the Ruin Guards waking around Teucer, Childe forcing his exhausted body into Foul Legacy, then bleeding beneath his shirt in a quiet room at Northland Bank.
Childe had never been content to care from a safe distance. When someone mattered to him, he needed to be close enough to do something.
He had hidden that instinct behind an easy smile then, just as he had hidden his worry inside a playful warning now.
Only now did Lumine understand what had been there beneath both.
He could not be with her and somewhere along the way, that had begun to bother him.
"Lumine?"
"Hm?"
"You're doing the staring thing again."
"I'm thinking."
Paimon floated closer.
"About Childe?"
"No."
"Okay, that was really fast."
Lumine began folding the letter while still staring at it.
"And you're being very careful with something you're not thinking about."
"Paimon..."
"Fine! Paimon won't say anything."
A pause.
"But if you keep reading that last line, the words aren't going to change."
Lumine gave her a look.
"Okay! Okay! Jeez."
The next day, Lumine wrote to Tonia.
The reply took longer than Teucer's had.
She thanked her for the recipe and promised that she was eating properly and on time, although Paimon insisted on underlining that part twice.
"Underline that twice."
"Why?"
"Because Paimon watched you forget lunch yesterday. So you would remember what you promised."
"I was busy."
"And breakfast."
Lumine underlined it once. Paimon accepted the compromise.
At the bottom, she hesitated.
Then wrote:
Tell your brother the desert hasn't killed me yet.
She considered it, and added:
And tell him yes, I know how to take care of myself.
Another pause. Then, smaller:
But I heard him.
She folded the letter before she could change her mind.
WRITE BACK THIS TIME
The third letter found Lumine after she had walked through a life that was not hers. By then, Sumeru City belonged to itself again.
Nahida was free and the Akademiya's great plan had collapsed
Lumine had thought the worst of Sumeru's secrets were behind her. Then an old house near Gandharva Ville had shown her one more.
She had walked where he had walked, heard the voices he had heard, looked down at unfamiliar hands, and understood that the memory belonged to her brother.
He had been closer than he had been in years, but she still had not truly found him.
The memory had released her. Lumine had returned to her own body, her own time, and a world in which Aether was still nowhere beside her.
That evening, she sat on the balcony of her room in Sumeru City while Paimon slept inside, one arm flung across a pillow. The city below glowed green and gold. The letter lay unopened in Lumine's lap. It had been following her for weeks, collecting forwarding marks while she followed Dainsleif and the traces Aether had left behind.
For several hours she had been too tired to read it.
Or perhaps too afraid of finding another familiar name she could not reach.
Now she broke the seal.
Teucer's handwriting greeted her.
Dear Lumine,
It started snowing!
Not a lot yet, but enough that Anthon and I made a snowman. Tonia says it looks nothing like a person. I told her it is not supposed to be a person. It is a Mr. Cyclops.
She said that makes it worse.
When you come to Snezhnaya I will show you how to make one properly.
Lumine stopped.
When you come to Snezhnaya.
Not if, when.
She continued.
Tonia made the honey cakes I told you about. I tried to save one for you but Anthon said it would be bad before you got here, so I ate it. I will ask her to make more when you visit.
Big Brother hasn't been home in a while because he is working. He promised he will come when he can. I asked him when you are coming.
He said he doesn't know because you still have a lot of places to go first. But he said you will get here someday so, I told Mama we need to have enough blankets because you come from somewhere warm.
Is your floating fairy coming too? Tonia says her name is Paimon but I think floating fairy sounds better.
Write back soon!
-Teucer
P.S. Big Brother says I am not allowed to ask you to bring me a Sumeru Mr. Cyclops because they are dangerous machines and not toys. I don't know why he keeps changing his story.
Lumine laughed. It came out softer than she expected. Then her eyes returned to one sentence.
But he said you will get here someday.
She imagined the conversation.
Teucer asking and Childe answering without thinking much of it.
She still had a long road ahead of her yet somewhere along it, Childe apparently believed she would reach Snezhnaya.
That their paths would cross again.
That one day Teucer might drag her through the snow toward a badly shaped Mr. Cyclops.
Lumine touched the blue-glass charm at her bag.
She turned the page.
Childe's note was there.
Longer this time. The first line came easily enough.
I heard things got bad.
No joke followed. No complaint about Teucer or any sibling either.
Lumine read on.
Information travels. Not always accurately, but enough of it reaches me eventually.
Something happened in Sumeru City. Something big. I heard the Akademiya was involved, and a god was involved. I've heard three different versions of what happened, and somehow in every one of them you're standing in the middle of it.
That part, at least, I believe.
Lumine smiled faintly. Then:
You have a remarkable talent for finding disasters other people spend centuries preparing. I would say I'm impressed if I weren't too busy being annoyed that none of the reports say whether you walked away from them.
Still
There was an empty line after the word.
As though his pen had stopped there.
As though somewhere far away Childe had sat with the paper beneath his hand and discovered that the next sentence was harder than it should have been. Then:
Write back to me this time, comrade.
Lumine did not move. The city below blurred.
She blinked once and it sharpened again.
Write back to me this time, comrade.
He had not written tell me you're safe or that he was worried. He certainly had not written I miss you.
He didn't need to.
Lumine understood him anyway.
For a long while she sat beneath Sumeru's night sky with Teucer's letter in one hand and Childe's in the other. Then she went inside and found paper.
Her first letter was for Teucer.
She told him Paimon objected strongly to being called a floating fairy. Lumine promised she would see his Mr. Cyclops snowman someday. Then she signed her name and placed that letter aside.
She took out another sheet.
For several minutes, she stared at the blank paper.
This was different.
The first time, she had not answered him at all. The second, she had answered sideways through a letter addressed to Tonia rather than to him, hiding her words beneath someone else's correspondence. This time, there was no Teucer or Tonia at the top of the page.
Only him.
Lumine lowered her pen.
Childe,
I'm all right.
There are things I couldn't tell you even if I tried, and things I'm still trying to grasp.
She stopped. The next words felt different from telling him she had survived.
I saw one of Aether's memories. For a little while, I walked where he had walked and saw the world through his eyes. I learned things I cannot put in a letter. I am not sure I understand all of them yet.
But he was there.
Close enough for me to follow, still too far for me to reach.
Lumine's pen remained against the paper.
She had written Aether's name to archons, scholars, knights, and strangers who might have known where he had gone. This was the first time she had written it simply because missing him hurt.
Too much time had passed for either of them to waste more of it circling safer truths. She could not tell him everything that had happened in Sumeru, but she could tell him enough.
The charm survived Sumeru.
Then, after a moment:
I assume the ribbon survived Inazuma?
Her heartbeat became suddenly, absurdly noticeable. She could cross that out too.
She didn't.
Instead she signed:
-Lumine
She folded the letter. Then reopened it.
Added one last line.
Don't make me wait too long for an answer.
This time, when she folded it, she did not open it again.
Snow fell against the window when Childe received her reply.
He is in another Fatui outpost, another assignment, another room that belonged to him only for as long as orders kept him there. He recognized Lumine's handwriting on the envelope.
For a moment he simply looked at it. Then he laughed under his breath.
"So you can follow instructions."
He opened it. The amusement lasted through the first line.
By the time he reached Aether's name, Childe was no longer smiling.
He read the passage once. Then again.
The room was quiet except for the wind against the glass.
Childe knew better than to mistake silence for weakness. Lumine had crossed nations with that silence beside her. She had fought gods, armies, and anyone foolish enough to stand between her and the brother she was searching for.
This was not a battle he could offer to fight for her.
There were no opponents to challenge or distance he could cross to help her.
Only a memory that had brought Aether close enough to hurt.
Childe lowered the page, then read the last lines.
The charm survived Sumeru.
I assume the ribbon survived Inazuma?
His right hand turned almost unconsciously.
Beneath the edge of his glove, hidden where most people would never notice it, a sliver of violet showed against his wrist.
The ribbon had faded slightly.
The little sakura bead had acquired a tiny scratch during an assignment several weeks ago, which had irritated him far more than the knife wound he had received during the same fight.
He had considered taking it off after that.
He hadn't.
Childe smiled. Then he reached for a clean sheet of paper.
Comrade,
I don't know what you saw, and you don't have to explain the parts you cannot safely put on paper.
But seeing him through a memory sounds like a cruel way to find him and lose him again.
I won't pretend I know what to say to that.
But if you want to write about him again, then write. It doesn't have to make sense. I'll read every word.
Besides, I already have several complaints for your brother when we finally meet. Keeping you waiting this long is excessive, even by my standards.
As for the ribbon, it survived. So did I.
Both remain in excellent condition, although one of us has acquired considerably more knife wounds.
He looked at the sentence. Added:
The knife lost.
His mouth curved. Then, after a pause, he signed:
-Ajax
His pen stopped. He stared at the name.
Not Childe,
Not Tartaglia,
Ajax.
He could have changed it but didn't.
Outside, snow continued falling over a country Lumine had not yet reached.
Childe folded the letter carefully.
Beneath his glove, her ribbon remained wrapped around his wrist.