Chapter Text
“Does she do this often?”
The dying light of sunset sweeps over Wanderer’s lashes, dusting his vision in hazy red-orange. From beside him, the Traveller’s little companion watches wordlessly as Lumine succumbs to the insistent tugging of yet another woman—the third person this week, and certainly not the last.
A light smile dances across Lumine’s face, and the woman hanging onto her side says something animatedly. The words are too slurred for him to understand, but he does understand Lumine’s laugh: amusement. A little charmed, even.
Their dinner host giggles again, and then stumbles over the porch of her modest little house, face flushed from the wine she’d originally so graciously offered. Lumine, ever the courteous hero, catches her, a playful reprimand of “careful, there,” that has his hackles on rise. The woman is all but about to faint, staring up with lovestruck eyes.
Please, she mouths. Lumine smiles even wider—and nods. Assents.
Light is supposed to be pristine. Unattainable in its purity. The Traveller was supposed to be the same way, righteous, virtuous, good. Archons-anointed. Not so easily swayed, Wanderer sneers as his gaze snags on their interlaced hands. Not so easily caught.
He bites the inside of his cheek, trying to swallow his contempt. Of all the things that have surprised him at the beginning of their journey together, this may be the most infuriating.
And she has never smiled at him like that.
Not that it mattered. Not that anything was supposed to matter.
Paimon merely shrugs, unfazed at the sight. “Define often,” she says noncommittally.
“Define often,” Wanderer repeats flatly. As if aware of his gaze, Lumine's gaze flit to him, and her eyes are twinkling in mirth, her lips curved. “So it’s a ‘yes’.”
There had been reports on the Traveller while he’d been a Harbinger—and of course there would be, with Lumine being such a catalyst for change. None advantageous to the Fatui, so she had to be kept in check. He’d heard the rumours before, that the Traveller had supposedly been playing around, that she had amassed some kind of harem, that she had entered and left every home in Inazuma.
He’d scoffed at the time. Clearly, they were exaggerating. If the Traveller wanted to spend a night with some poor sap who had no idea of her true strength, to grace their bed with her presence, then that is her prerogative.
Rumours were always nasty little things, he’d thought, wildfire fanned out of proportion.
But it appears the past self has miscalculated. Scaramouche had forgotten the age-old adage: there is no smoke without fire. Signora had taught him better than this; would be cackling in her grave if she knew. If she could.
Paimon sighs, folding her hands together. The woman—he can’t even be bothered to remember her name, terribly boring human that she is—kisses Lumine’s cheek at the doorway and wraps her arms around Lumine’s neck. Lumine laughs again, letting herself be pulled inside. And when the tip of her scarf has flitted past the entrance, luminescence winked out of existence by the slam of the door, Paimon turns away from the spectacle.
“Lumine doesn’t ever refuse,” she explains, a small hint of defensiveness colouring her voice. “If they ask, she goes. That’s just how she is.”
“Some would say that’s worse,” he mutters. So not only does the Traveller accept the most inane, mundane requests, she also thinks nothing of offering up her body too. And come next morning, she will surely stumble out of that very door like she had the days before, sunlight caressing her mussed hair, a yawn as she greets them, Morning! Anything specific you want for breakfast? Casual and careless, as if the world is as it always is. "I’m merely surprised that the Traveller is so free with her affections.”
“Uh, she tried to explain it to Paimon once, why she does it,” Paimon says sheepishly. “Paimon completely forgot the details, though.”
Wanderer raises a brow. “She told you about what exactly happened to her behind shut doors? You’re closer with her than I’d imagined, if she’s sharing the details of her escapades with you.”
“What—Archons, no!” Paimon visibly recoils from him, her confused expression giving way to absolute horror. She covers her face and wails, “Ugh, no! That’s disgusting!”
“You’re the one that implied it,” he says, his gaze flickering to the door to the home again. Half-wondering what exactly was happening. Perhaps the Traveller merely tucked the woman to sleep. Perhaps nothing at all. A fool’s imagination, he thinks scaldingly. You know what’s happening. You know very well. “If that’s not it, then what did she say?”
“Hm…” Paimon scrunches her face up, deep in thought. Deep may be the wrong descriptor though, given the shallowness of her mind when it’s not focused on food and mora. “Something about how it didn’t matter? The essence that makes her who she is, is not her body… Not sure. I forgot.”
“Has anyone ever told you,” he says, “that you’re extremely unhelpful?”
Paimon puffs up her chest. “Nope! Lumine always tells Paimon that she’s an extremely helpful guide.”
“I didn’t know the Traveller was so adept at lying.”
“Right? She’s good at everything, isn’t she!” Paimon says cheerfully, her mind clearly having not processed his words wholly. “...Wait a minute! She wasn’t lying!”
“I never said she lied to you,” he says, shifting his expression into a smile, displaying his perfect, white teeth. “Only that she’s a good liar. How you interpret it is entirely up to you. Don’t blame me for your own insecurities, little thing.”
“You—!” She stamps her feet, the fury making her face purple-red. Interesting. “You’re insufferable. Paimon’s going to get you back for that, one of these days!”
“Get in line,” he drawls, tipping his hat below his eyes.
She’ll have to contend with the rest of them; there’s about a mile of ghosts crawling behind, faint fingers dragging on the ornamented ropes of his hat, waiting for him to trip. “I’ll be eagerly awaiting that day.”
Paimon throws up her hands, grumbling. “No wonder Lumine has given up on getting angry at your mouth,” Paimon mutters. “Paimon’s kind of glad she doesn’t have the same memories of the past that Lumine does. I don't know how she managed to deal with you before. It’s tiring just listening to you speak.”
“I just tell it like it is,” he says airily, picking at his nails. “If someone takes issue, that’s on them.”
Paimon regards him then, a strange line of her mouth. Darkness has already descended, cloaking in them in its cool embrace. “You know… you’re more like Lumine than Paimon originally thought.”
Wanderer lets out a snort. In what world would they ever resemble each other? The puppet and the Outlander—the roles in a comedy, more than anything else, the fool to the sage. But perhaps she’s right. In some ways, watching the Traveller flit from home to home feels like a repeat of his own Harbinger days; he’d had his fun as well. Albeit in a somewhat different way. “How so? Her fickleness with her bed partners?”
“Oh, never mind! You wouldn’t get it,” she says, shaking her head as if he was the idiotic one instead. “It’s no use questioning Lumine’s choices. Lumine does what Lumine wants,” she says. “And everyone already knows she never stays behind. So there’s no harm, is there?”
Ah, no harm, other than whoring herself around like a used doll, pleasure at the cost of her dignity. No harm at all.
“Okay, okay, enough talking about this,” Paimon whines, throwing a tiny kick to his back. He rolls his eyes, hating that he’s already too used to her temper tantrums to feel irritated. “Let’s go into the teapot already! Paimon's sleepy!"
“Not a bad idea from you,” he allows. “For once.” It’s not as if he wanted to wait outside the door and listen to the noises that the Traveller makes in the throes of passion—the idea stirs up something strange in his chest, and he doesn’t want to unravel the tangled mess of emotions she inspires in him.
Wanderer clenches his hand into a fist and waits for the rush of strange energy to pull them into the other realm. As always, the travel is a flood of quiet light through his body; even without Lumine around, she’s still making herself known.
And in the teapot, before they part, her to Lumine’s empty bedroom, him to his, Paimon pats his shoulder. “Don’t be difficult, hat boy,” she says. “Lumine will be back when it’s sunrise. She always does.”
Difficult? Him? Never.
He pushes her away, disgusted at the tone of her voice. “Just go to sleep, already,” he bites out. “Otherwise I’m going to string you up and hang you upside down from the ceiling. And maybe tape your mouth shut too, as a present for the Traveller.”
Paimon squawks, dodging the flick of his hand as she hurries to float away. “If that’s what Paimon gets for trying to be nice to you,” she says, miffed, “then I’m never going to do it again!”
“Not like I asked,” he mutters, looking at the palm of his hand.
A glowing sigil, from when she’d tapped it with her Realm Dispatch. A swell of energy had flooded him then, so bright-hot it almost burned, and he’d had to bite his tongue from yelping. Lumine had also made a noise of surprise at how the energy kept flowing from her fingers to his palm.
This isn’t supposed to happen, she had said, voice strained. Her other hand on her wrist, trying to tug herself away. It’s supposed to be only an energy signature.
Energy signature—except it’s less signing and more scrawling, a needle trying to thread its way through every vulnerable openings of his body. The only thing that had stopped the transfer had been Paimon snatching away the Realm Dispatch. What had been left imprinted on his palm had been a constellation: a circular pattern of her and her sword. It dimmed and vanished, but when he pooled Anemo in his palm, appeared again. Glowed like stars, warm like stippled sunlight.
The giant round bird in her teapot had no clue, merely squinting at the mark before shaking her head. Perhaps it is because of his nature, she said, as a… storage of sorts.
He barked out a laugh then, unsurprised at her frank words. His almost-godhood had been just that, the gnosis slot inside his chest like a battery, the static of Electro dancing across his skin like crystalflies. But still a hole inside, always lapping up any energy given to him, always hungry for more.
Dottore had called it fascinating, how infinite the emptiness was; he would call it abhorrent, instead. He’s still an artificial vessel, meant to collect and hoard energy, something not quite natural. Still a tool.
Oh gods, Lumine had said, panicked. It’s permanent. We—we should go to Liyue. Maybe Granny Ping will know what to do about this.
No need, he’d said flippantly, regarding the sigil with a quiet interest. Like the Electro emblem at his nape, a cool jolt every time lightning flashes—like proof of her existence, cut onto his own skin. Everything the hero touches becomes hers, isn’t that how it was supposed to go? It hasn’t done any harm. Just a minor… aesthetic difference.
If… if you’re sure, she’d said, shaking her head. Paimon had grumbled in the background about how she wanted such a cool mark of Lumine’s crest too. He’d stuck his tongue out at her, just to make the little creature even more angry, oddly smug about the whole affair.
And it had been almost gratifying, in a way, how her gaze always caught on his palm whenever he’s fiddling with his Anemo powers, how the white light peered through the teal. Some days, he swears he could actually feel it within, flitting through his nerves as though she’d crawled under his very skin. Demanding every iota of his attention.
But now, in the silence of his room—sparsely decorated and not by his will, the Traveller insisting that he ought to have things of his own, a place to stay included—he forces energy through his palm and seethes at the mark of her ownership. At the memory of her being touched by another. He stirs himself into a frenzy, imagining the dip of her head, that pale pink of her lips, wondering if the woman she'd chosen will have pulled her close and kissed her.
And if he does the same thing, would she finally show an emotion other than hatred? Other than disinterest or pity? Or would she push him away?
Wanderer grits his teeth and closes his palm.
And what had that little companion of hers meant, patting his shoulder like that? He scowls at the implications of Paimon—of all the people—trying to console him. What for? What did he require consolation for, anyway? If the Traveller wanted to fuck everything that moved in Teyvat, what did it have to do with him?
He’s just a temporary fixture in her world. A wisp of wind, passing through.
That is to say, nothing at all.
So it doesn’t matter.
“It doesn’t,” he says aloud. The words are smothered by the silence of everlasting night, no tenderness afforded.
: : :
Dozing in and out of slumber, the red-hot feeling of irritation still swelling beneath his chest, Wanderer is startled out of sleep by cold fingers at his sternum.
“What—” the hell, but everything stutters to a stop when he realizes it’s the Traveller. Lumine. Her hand slips down his shirt at his collarbone, neatly parting clothing from skin.
“Wanderer,” she says.
“What are you doing here?” he murmurs, still dizzy from being ripped out of sleep. Confused at what to do when the woman you call your saviour has crawled into your bed, touching you with an intimacy you haven’t experienced in a long, long time.
“Wanderer.” She looks up at him with wide, dewy eyes. His breath hitches, a lump in his throat; he doesn’t move, scared of rippling the mirage. Her nails dig into his skin, and she shifts, one leg curled around him. Knee bumping lightly into his groin. “Can you help me?”
“...Help you with what, Lumine?” Every syllable is a little harder, the strain rising until it feels like he’s about to break apart. Her name a quiet hiss, the sound of limbs being detached from torso.
“Wanderer,” she sighs. The breath lands at the crook of his neck, humid and warm. Itches at him to move, do something. She’s too close. Too, too close for coherent decisions. Shifting against him again, careful movements—
And that’s when he realizes: she’s grinding against his thigh. Her core, rubbing against his tense muscles. A little casual hum, as though it was nothing to be surprised over. For her, just another night, another stranger. The world, as it always is.
He swallows. “Are you drunk?”
“No,” she says. “Perfectly aware, in fact.”
“How come I don’t believe you?”
“Do I seem drunk?” she whispers, and her hands are roving, skirting from one area to another, tracing the protrusion of his bones. Collar, ribs, hips. “Completely coherent, I promise.”
He stares at the ceiling, a little dazed, a little lost. So she isn’t drunk. Nor is she under any other influences. Not with her speech so articular, her eyes so clear. So then, why? Why, of all the places, is she here?
“Because you pulled me here, Wanderer,” she says, smiling as she turns his face toward her. The void of her pupil engulfs everything, leaving behind only a sliver of her iris, citrine clear. “Because I want you.”
I want you. The simple admission breaks him out of the stupor, because he’s not so naive as to think it’s true.
“What, your partner this time didn’t satisfy you enough?” And just the mention of the whole affair at dinner time is enough to make him angry again. The shy glances that woman had shot at her, the secretive smile playing at Lumine’s lips as she’d brought her soup spoon to her lips, the whispers that they’d exchanged right in front of him, like they were in their own little world. “Maybe think better about who you fuck next time,” he says. “And not just spread open your legs for anyone that asks.”
In response, Lumine reaches for his hand. Places it on her breast, above the cavity of her heart. Soft, supple flesh. Warm, like fire after frostbite. One, two, one, two, one two, he counts the thud of her heart beneath his palm, how hurried it feels—but why is he the one that feels like he’s being shaken instead?
“I want you,” she whispers. “Don’t you want me too?”
He does—not. Does not. “I’d sooner fling myself off a cliff.”
Lumine smiles. “We both know that’s not true,” she says sweetly.
“You don’t know me,” he scoffs.
“Oh, but I do. I know you very well.” She tugs his hand again, moving it down toward her legs. And what should he do? Resist? When it feels like she’s got him strung up, manipulating the placement of his limbs to her liking, an unpainted doll for her to trail her colours over?
And he does not resist, because even through fabric, he feels the dampness. The Traveller is wet. So wet, she’s dripping through her bloomers. The seam in the middle meets his fingertips, and she whines a little at the contact. Hips undulating in a poor attempt to ride the friction.
“I know that you want me—and that I want you,” she breathes, mouthing at his neck. The touch of her lips yet another brand, tingling as though he’d just been struck by lightning. “Please, Wanderer.”
He is tempted. So, very, tempted. Enough for the quiet to linger a minute longer than it should be, for Lumine to suck a bruise on his throat. Enough for him to finally inhale, and it’s all her in every sharp, slicing breath, bittersweet floral.
Gods above, he hates her. So, so much. And it’s this overwhelming hatred that finally has him twitching, regaining control of his limbs, before shoving her away from him. Flickers of blonde as her hair falls from his shoulder, scattering on the pillow.
“Enough. If you’re that desperate, go back to your other bedmate,” he snarls, pushing himself up to glare at her. Flexes his hand, and the joints are stiff, almost aching. Skin, slick with her. “I’m not here to be your backup fling, Traveller.”
Lumine blinks. “Would you like that? If I go back to another woman, another man, and lie there, taking their fingers, taking their tongue? Moaning their name, crying for more with each passing second?”
“Get the fuck out of my room—!”
“No.” She rolls herself over him, trapping his hips between her legs before he even has a chance to understand their change in position. “No, I don’t think I will,” she says breathlessly. “You owe a debt to me, and you said you’ll do everything to pay it back. Why not now, when I finally need you for once?”
His cock throbs, and he clenches his jaw. The energy from her, pulsing on his palm, urging him to spring forward, trap her beneath him. Everything at a standstill, an almost—almost hers, almost his.
As if she knew exactly what he’s thinking, Lumine laughs, cruel in its carelessness. Loops her fingers through her scarf, unwinding it gently. A flick, and it’s gone, fluttering through air before landing.
“Wouldn’t you like to mark me, too?” Lumine says, tilting her head. Bare neck, blank canvas. Unbruised. “Wouldn’t you like to hurt me, break me, watch me beg for you?”
“I…” He would like to tear himself apart, is what he would like to do. Redirect the pain in his chest, panging uselessly in empty space.
“While I she was touching me, while I was touching her,” Lumine says, and she’s working at the belt of his shorts with a clever familiarity, like she’d been doing it for centuries, “I was thinking about you. Thought about your fingers instead of hers. Thought about your mouth at my neck. I saw the way you looked at me. That quiet jealousy, suppressed in the bite of your tongue. You wanted so badly, didn’t you?”
He closes his eyes, afraid of her light. Her cold hands find the bare skin of his throbbing cock, sliding into slow and careful strokes.
“What use is there in saying anything? You still left,” he says, and it sounds so petulant, so pathetic. Like a whining child, starved for attention.
“Oh, my poor Wanderer,” she croons. “You’ve been so deprived.” She leans forward then, voice dipping low. A palm on his chest, cool through thin fabric. Tracing the dimmed patterns etched onto his skin, so much tenderness given to the design that marked him as someone inhuman. “Touch me, then. Undress me with your hands for once—instead of with just your eyes.”
And he is only so strong. He is only so dishonest. Against an irresistible force, something must give. Something must break—and through the break, he’s reaching for—not for a gnosis, not a heart—but the laced strings of her corset, fumbling. Cursing her name.
Lumine, for her part, doesn’t even bother to help. Only laughs mockingly at his desperation as he almost tears the dress off of her, ruining his focus with every rock of her hips, folds rubbing against the length of him. Seeped fabric, sticky with fluids; wet, unsatisfying friction. Unbearably hot.
And she makes it so easy, no protest at all as he surges up to balance the scale, to have her submit to him, for once—her smile has always crushed him underfoot, he thinks bitterly as he stares down at her, so it’s only fair.
“Please,” Lumine says, arching her back. “Here.”
He dips his head down, mouth finding the peak of one breast. Swirls his tongue around the areola, lapping at skin as though he’d been left without desire for a thousand years, only for the dam to overflow at this exact moment. His hand finds her waist, the elastic of her underwear, and he shoves it down.
Lumine’s breath hitches above him, a little pleased whine as he teases the tip of her nipple, a hint of teeth, a slight scrape—a shimmy of her hips as he drags the bloomers past her ankles, leaving behind a trail of wetness on her skin. Discarded, too.
He grunts as she wraps her legs around him, grinding herself against him. The press of her heels, digging into the small of his back, grounding him to her. “You’re still wearing your clothes,” Lumine says halfheartedly. “This doesn’t feel very fair.”
“Oh, trust me,” he sneers, grabbing one of her legs and slinging it over his shoulder like a sash. Fingers still kept against her thigh, a warning. He slides his cock against her, smearing precum all over her folds, enjoying her tremor. The sight of her, every inch exposed. Vulnerable, spread open for his perusal. And why did she come to you, anyway—brushes aside the thought—there was no need to worry, not while time is slipping away, keep it close to you, Wanderer, before everything disappears—and says, “You won’t be worrying about fairness when I finally fuck you.”
“So get to it, already—”
Cut off, as he rams himself inside. Perhaps he should be more careful, more tender, but everything about her is so infuriating, so fake, so unbreakable. A reflection, undisturbed, no matter how many pebbles he flings. Not that it even mattered—what did it all matter, anyway—because she only lets out a broken whimper, clenching around him. Hot enough to burn.
“Just that’s enough to get you going? Is this how you are everyday, dripping wet beneath your skirts?” he grunts as he pulls out, her calves twitching in protest against his back, before giving another nasty thrust. Right up to the hilt, his pubic bone pressed right up against her swollen clit. “Is this why you’re always taking anyone that comes?”
“And what would you do if I said yes—” Lumine moans, words temporarily lost as he grabs for her hair. Tilts her head back, forces her to stare directly at him, her golden irises glowing in the dark. And in her eyes, his own violet, staring right back.
“You’d accept anyone? Even me?”
“I came to you.”
“No,” he says harshly, tightening his fingers. The draw of his hand pulling her body taut, as though unsheathing a blade. “You didn’t.”
Lumine closes her eyes. Smiles. “Then enjoy it while you still can, hm? Pretend it’s something real. Try your hand, Wanderer, and see if you can affect me.”
“Oh, I will,” he promises, palming her breast in his other hand. How it weighs in his hand, heavy and warm. A cruel pinch of the skin, between his nails. Lumine writhes against him, and he does it again, just to see her squirm even more. “I’ll break you someday, Traveller.”
“Then why not start now?”
How could I? How could I when this isn’t—his lips twist, and his eyes shutter. In lieu of an honest answer, he slams into her, not stopping this time. Lumine hiccups at the force of his ire, her body shaking like paper. “Like that,” she pleads. “More.”
“Do you beg like this in everyone’s bed? Is this what you’re thinking about everyday? How to get fucked until you can’t breathe?” Lumine pushes herself against his movements, in and out, seeking for more. He obliges, working himself into a frenzy. Nerve endings scrubbed raw, every inch of skin tingling. Sweat beading at his jaw. “And that’s why everyone uses you so easily,” he spits. “All they do is take from you. You just lie there and take it, I bet.”
“Harder,” Lumine cries out. “More, Wanderer.”
He takes advantage of the opening to slant his mouth over hers, biting at her tongue—a shivering amusement at the yelp she makes, the nip of her nails at his shoulders.
“I understand,” he whispers darkly. “The people you fucked never cared about your pleasure. Just used you to satisfy themselves, leaving you wishing for more. You’re always left unsatisfied, empty. They can’t fuck you like this, can they? They can’t fuck you like me.”
“Oh, if only,” Lumine says, breathlessly. “If only that’s what I thought, you must be wishing.”
“No,” he says, furious at how easily she’s turned it all around. He bites at her chest in punishment, right above the line where her dress would begin—just to make sure she can’t cover it up, this purple bruise that would verify his existence in her life. “That’s not it, at all.”
“You must have wanted so badly,” she says. “Looked and desired until the inside of your mouth was sore with the worrying—”
“—shut the fuck up—”
“—so much longing, but you still couldn’t do anything except watch. Even now, still wanting. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” he snarls. “Yes, I wanted you! Is this what you’re here for?” And then he thrusts even harder in her, the slaps of their skin ringing in his ears. She clamps around him, wringing as if begging for more, and it’s too much, her demands. How much he longed to meet them, to see her pleased. He hisses and angles himself, searching—a graze at the soft spot that’s her weakness.
“That’s it,” Lumine gasps, scrambling for the sheets, anything to hold her steady as he drives his cock even deeper inside her. Twists her body, as though trying to escape. He claws her right back by the thighs, imagines snapping her femur neatly in half, rendering her immobile. Moving only at his will. “That’s it,” she babbles, eyes hazing over as he brings her flush against him, bringing her up and down his cock, a sleeve meant to be used only by him, for him. “Please, please, inside—”
“You say this to everyone, don’t you,” he spits, trying to keep his breathing even, to regain what little control he had left. A stutter at his hips, anyway, as she pulses around him. On the edge, about to take him with her. “Always begging to be filled.”
“ ███ , please—!” And that name, the name that she’d offered with a soft voice, a tentative truce between them, fragile and newborn; it is the last thing she gasps before she comes, the rest of the words lost in the chaos, her walls squeezing him tight. He shudders, almost there, and her hand finds his, intertwining fingers. The gentle effusion of her energy into his palm, Anemo and Geo and Electro and Dendro roiling under his skin. He bites back a moan, feeling as though he’s about to shatter from trying to contain her.
“You’re mine,” she whispers. “I've only ever wanted you, Wanderer. You're the only one—”
: : :
And that’s when he bursts out of the surface of the dream, eyes flung open to view no light, no gold. Not even stardust. Between his legs, the length of him, hot and throbbing. Sore. Everything is sore, his tongue included.
Sumeru, once a nation without dreams. And now, it now demands that everyone dream—including him.
You’re the only one, I’ve only ever wanted you. Of course he could never believe it, even from his own mind. How could she ever say such a thing? How could it ever be true?
And he wonders, if he were to go to her now, wake her up from her slumber, and demand that she help him, would she refuse him?
Lumine doesn’t ever refuse.
No, he decides. She wouldn’t. If he asked, she’d perhaps be amused. And then she would smile and nod—as she always does.
But the thought only serves to make him more miserable; lumped together with all the other pathetic people trying to cling onto her, only for her to gently shake them off like flakes of dust that’s been collecting for too long on her skin.
“Fuck,” he hisses. And then, shoves his hand down his shorts and pulls out his cock, not gentle at all in his grip. He tugs it so hard he may as well have torn it off. “Fuck!”
He’s already so built up, it takes nothing at all to find release. He comes with a miserable whine, spilling into his palm. Her emblem engraved on his skin, gently glowing. A shutter of his eyes, but still the world blanks, darkness tipped into light.
And after that, just the lonely dark pooling in his vision, gently drowning him.
: : :
At the beginning of their journey together, Nahida had asked: “Are you sure?”
Not to the Traveller, but to him.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” he scoffs. Jabs a thumb at Lumine, who only rolls her eyes. “Shouldn’t you be asking her that?”
Nahida hums. Her small hands steepled together as she considered him. A barely born god, the same age as him—and somehow, seeming as if she’s already experienced the entire existence of the world. “Very well,” she says, nodding to herself. “It is enough.”
And then the Dendro Archon looks at him. He stares back, feeling as though he should—kneel at her feet in supplication. To beg for mercy, at the judgement she will pass on him.
How ridiculous. Hadn’t he already told himself that he would accept all that was, all that is, all that will come to pass?
“To live is to suffer, Wanderer,” Nahida says. “Do you understand this?”
“Lesser Lord Kusanali,” he says wryly, “with all due respect, do you truly think that I’m so ignorant?”
Nahida shakes her head. “You say you do not have a heart,” she says, “but I think you already understand: a heart is not defined by its physicality.”
He tips his hat, to hide the quiver of his lips. “Hm.”
“Some days,” Nahida says softly, “you will feel like dying. Some days, you will feel like erasing yourself again—and to bear it, to live despite it, that is your repentance. The way out of hell is not easy, but you must claw your way out, past every excruciating inch of earth. Are you prepared?”
“...Well,” he says, “I’ve nothing better to do, anyway.”
“Then you will leave with my blessing,” Nahida says. “Trust in the Traveller—” She turns to Lumine, who’d been gazing at their interaction with an odd look in her eyes. “—and you, Traveller. Trust in Wanderer, as well.”
“I…” Lumine swallows, looking away. “I’ll try,” she promises.
“Good.” Nahida glances at him, and he stares back, fearless. She smiles and nods, before turning to Lumine again. “May I speak to you privately for a second, Traveller?”
Paimon crosses her arms. “Without Paimon?”
“Just a quick conversation,” Nahida soothes, leading Lumine away by the hand. “Wanderer will keep you company, until then.”
Paimon casts a suspicious look at him, her mouth twisted downward. “You better not try anything funny, okay? Otherwise, Paimon’s going to tell on you when they get back. ”
“I assure you,” he drawls, “I have no interest at all in tormenting you.”
“Lumine too?”
“Perhaps,” he allows. She’d given him a name, after all. And it still sits heavy on his tongue, from when she’d offered it.
The Traveller had stared at the Vision strung on his side for what felt like hours, before finally saying, Would you like to share a name with me?
Share a name?
Yes. There is more than one way to speak light into existence.
How amusing. I would not mind. But is that what you truly want, Traveller?
She’d glanced at the Anemo Vision, one last time, before meeting his gaze. Yes.
: : :
He opens his eyes the next morning, too exhausted to breathe. Nahida’s words echo in his mind: to bear it, to live despite it, that is your repentance.
Ah. So that’s what she’d meant.
: : :
“Good morning,” Lumine says when he pulls himself out of the teapot. Paimon is at her side, practically slurping up the toast and eggs. The only emptiness to rival the hole in his chest must be her stomach. “Slept okay?”
“I don’t need sleep,” he says.
“But it’s still nice, isn’t it?” Lumine says with a hum as she hands him a plate of the Fisherman’s Toast. “To have your mind rest once in a while.”
“If that’s what you think, fine by me,” he says, and takes the teacup she offers too. The scent of green tea tickles his nose, steeped well.
Wanderer glances at her, and the fury that had been quelled by despair suddenly reignites. “Tie your scarf more carefully,” he says flatly.
Lumine scrunches her brows, and then realizes. “Oh,” she says sheepishly, reaching up to adjust the white fabric, tugging it so it better covers the smattering of bruises at her throat. “It was surprising. She really didn’t give off the impression of being a biter—”
“No need to grace me with the details,” he snaps.
Lumine tilts her head; scarf, out of place again. “Are you alright, Wanderer?”
“Fine,” he says. Smiles, knowing it won’t reach his eyes.
“...Okay,” she says. “We’ve had our differences, but I’m here if you need anything. You know that, right?”
Her words are meant to soothe, but he can’t help but despise them anyway. A reminder that the best he will ever receive will be a dream.
“Crystal clear,” he says coolly. Wanderer takes a sip of the tea, and the taste is bitter enough to comfort. The whole time, acutely aware that if he were to touch a hand to his own neck, there would be no pain, no bruise.