Work Text:
When you fall from as close to Celestia as you could get, there’s absolutely no expectation anything will cushion your descent. Archon and traveler both stare at you, a blur in your eyes as the ground approaches, deadly to anyone but you, false being that you are.
It is not tears that bother your vision. You’re a puppet, equipped with no tear ducts, but the liquid that falls from your robot of godhood might as well be it, seeping into your eyes. The places where they’d drilled you with holes - further imperfections of your already imperfect shell - hurt, an ache that’s foreign to you.
You hadn’t thought yourself capable of pain. That emotion seemed almost foreign in a physical sense. Oh, emotional pain wasn’t an unknown possibility; you’re awfully familiar with all the fun emotions, the way they gnawed at your edges, eating at you like mice ate at grain stores, except for you they left no visible damage, no proof of its existence.
Then, when the ground threatened to swallow you - a womb-like crater for the being with no mother, what a joke -, movement at the edge of his vision. There was noise from the creature the traveler had as a pet, a yell, a protest with closed fists; the archon, for its part, said and did nothing, merely stared at him with wide, green eyes.
The traveler (Lumine, the creature yells, so this must be the name you’ve never bothered to learn, always the traveler in your eyes), rose to meet you, kicked her way upwards from the scrambled remains of apotheosis, arms around you, maneuvering herself for a moment in similarity to an upside-down hug, before once more propelling herself - and you, you belatedly realized - into an actual hug, into landing in a soft, careful manner, feet on the floor first instead of your head.
Pause. No one has ever treated you like this, with gentleness, kindness, her hands in your arms, looking at you curiously.
“Lumine!” The creature yells, the archon approaching behind. “Lumine, he’s going to hurt you!”
“If you think that lowly of me, you should separate her from me yourself.” You spit, and Lumine keeps staring at you. One hand leaves your arm, and you almost beg her to not go, to keep her warm hands in your cold skin.
Instead, her hand pats your hair, cleans the ashes of ascension from your face.
“Okay. I suppose we can’t take him?” She asks the archon, who shakes her head. The Gnosis is so close, yet so far. “Sorry. Can you wait?”
No. You were going to take off as soon as possible.
But to where?
“Yes.” You can barely believe what the fuck your stupid puppet brain just said, but fine. You sit down amongst the broken pieces, and watch Lumine, her pet and the Archon disappear.
When she comes back, she smiles at you, grabs your hand and holds it.
You don’t know why that’s comforting. You loathe the idea of it, but your fingers intertwine with hers, and suddenly being yourself does not seem too bad.
You know she is not of this world. That means, then, she can’t be like the others and leave you to things like death and betrayal; you two, after all, might be the only two of their kinds in the whole of Teyvat. Maybe, if you stuck with her, loneliness won’t find you again.
You make a decision at the same time a small noise knocks you out; the last thing you feel is the warmth of her hand, before both of you crash down.