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An intake of air, a gentle breeze, and the scent of fresh morning dew upon the grass. The overbearing silence of Jueyun Karst would intimidate any mortal unaccustomed to a life outside a bustling city like Liyue. For one such as Xiao, it is a calming and familiar state of being.
Today, his karmic debt had dulled to a dissonant thrum beneath the skin of his human guise. A guise he's maintained for more than a millennia. It is alien to him in every way, and yet, more natural to him now than his previous Adeptal form had ever been. Like most days Xiao finds himself overlooking the pass, his eyes are always a dangerous mix of sharp and attentive, seeking any sign of peril. As his eyes survey each hill and vale, his thoughts start to wander, an unusual but recent development. Just as the moon chases the sun across the skies, he finds himself thinking of the traveler.
'Lumine'
Truly, it is only in his mind that he allows himself to stain her so. For a creature as wretched as him to speak her name would be heresy. These thoughts of Lumine had become common a common occurrence as of late. It had all started with a mild musing, something a long the lines of:
"that traveler is a peculiar one," an utterance during their run-in with Starsnatcher. It was a simple thing, and yet, it had left him reeling. While an innocuous thought, one might assume, the connotation behind it was obvious.
He did not dislike being near to her.
A most unwelcome and startling realization that left him doused in ice. To find the company of a fragile mortal pleasant enough to let them occupy a space in his thoughts was surely an impossibility...but it was true. The traveler is everything he is not. She's not fragile by any means, but next to his karmic debt, she is just as every mortal she fights to protect. Even just standing beside her proves to be too perilous. But Xiao is a selfish and twisted creature. To want her to endure the madness of his karmic debt merely for her company is truly a heinous thing.
He made a pledge to her. Despite his diabolical nature, he found he could not stop himself from binding himself by contract to her. Xiao's life is not his own to give, but he told himself it was for Liyue's sake that he dared be so bold. It was a selfish thing, his first choice since before he can remember. Perhaps it was a distant echo of the creature that once called itself 'Alatus'. The name is too heavy a burden for a creature drenched in it's sins. And yet...and yet... this mangled being wished for his name to pass her lips.
Truly horrendous.
"Lumine," an articulation of a handful of sounds. Meaningless without her to fill the idea of what 'Lumine' signifies. It's almost sinful how the name slips past his own lips for the first time. It's a weakness that reveals his own depravity. A Yaksha is bound by their duty, not by their desires.
"Xiao!"
As sure as speaking her name aloud meant he was damned, here she now stands condemning him further.
Lumine had chirped his name with an attentiveness he could only ever associate with her. To be so lost in the machinations of his own destruction that he would disregard her radiant presence is another sin to add to his growing list.
"Hehehe, Paimon had a feeling we'd find you sulking up here! But did you have to make us climb these giant cliff?!"
Ah, an admonishment from the eccentric fairy. Truly, how far the last Yaksha has fallen to be scolded by a floating child.
"I don't recall summoning you here. If you would please, I would ask that you leave. You're interrupting my duties."
Yes, his duties is what he should be focused on, not on some mortal that makes him feel as though he exists outside of his purpose. A blade has no use outside of combat. And with that, his turbulent thoughts were doused. The traveler cannot be anything to him, because he is nothing more than a tool to be used and discarded.
"Paimon and I were visiting Cloud Retainer when we saw you standing up here alone. We thought you might like some company?"
She says that with what sounds like hope in her voice, and yet what could she possibly be hoping for?
Xiao is a selfish creature, a disgusting monster masquerading as a mortal.
Xiao doesn't want to drag someone as pure as Lumine into his den of depravity.
"Yes, I would like that."
Xiao says yes anyway.