Chapter Text
~oOo~
UNDER WATCHFUL GAZE OF THE ETERNAL EUTHYMIA
Chapter I, Act I – She Who Stands by the Wayward Cliff
Allison Illuminated
~oOo~
Lumine still hasn't gained entry to Tenshukaku, the forbidding residence of the Electro Archon. It's been weeks since her landing on Ritou (she's beginning to understand it – how Inazuma can hold so steadfast to its conviction of eternity), and her initial goal is starting to slip through her fingers. Anywhere in Inazuma, she can see the fortress of the Raiden Shogun, and yet Lumine remains tantalizingly far from her goal. She wants to get closer; close enough to taste the thrill of ambient power that comes through near proximity with another God, the metaphysical contact high of a gnosis. She's felt it twice now, and it's a little addictive. It reminds Lumine of the power she and Aether used to wield before they got trapped in this cursed dimension, before Aether-
She shakes off her dark thoughts. That gnawing blackness has eaten away at the corners of her consciousness ever since she's gotten stuck in Inazuma, where the pace of life moves slower than a slug, there's more bureaucratic red tape and backdoor dealing than anywhere she has ever visited, and the Archon seems perfectly content to rot away in her stormy corner of obscurity-
Relax, Lumine. He's gone and there's nothing you can do about it.
Focus.
Lumine doesn't even have a goal anymore. Did she have a goal in the first place? Or was that 'goal' nothing more than a power-hungry desire to regain what was stripped away from her, prettied up by visions of heroism and a childish desire to find her brother? Well, Lumine had found him, alright. She almost can't blame Aether for seizing control of the Abyss Order. She wouldn't have acted any differently if their roles were reversed. They're twins, after all.
But it's been weeks. Lumine is sick of waiting, sick of Inazumans and their damned customs, and sick to death of seeing the abodes of gods from afar and getting forced to wait her turn to visit them.
All Lumine wants is to meet Raiden Shogun.
Paimon knows that Lumine hasn't been quite right since Aether stepped back into the portal into the Abyss and Dainsleif jumped after him. Lumine has grown rather fond of her traveling companion even with her lingering suspicion that Paimon knows more about her situation than she lets on. For all her annoying faults, Paimon is sweet and charming and largely innocent. Lumine doesn't mind the company. They're similar, she often thinks. When the nights stretch long, Lumine will find herself laying awake to the gentle rhythm of Paimon's snores, contemplating how neither of them quite belong here: not on Teyvat, and certainly not in Inazuma.
Lumine hasn't slept through the night since the portal closed.
She's so tired.
"Well… I want a small favor from you," says Kujou Kamaji, because of course it wasn't enough that Lumine had smuggled him a letter from his forbidden lover.
Lumine smiles thinly and agrees to meet the man at a restaurant. If she's not speaking to an Archon, why should it matter what obscure corner of Teyvat she's shipped off to? Lumine helps because she has nothing better to do. She helps because she does not care. She's immortal. Time is hers for the wasting. What difference does it make to her if she helps a few mortals with their petty dilemmas?
Kujou Kamaji wants her to fetch some treats as a gift for his lover in exchange for the stupid travel permit that will finally legally allow Lumine to enter the country she is already in.
So be it.
She used to spend her time traveling between dimensions. She used to be able to fly.
When Kujou goes off to sign the travel permit, Lumine remains rooted to the spot, struggling to force her tired feet in the direction of the restaurant. She helps, and fights, and helps, and fights, and that rhythm used to be fun for her, because Lumine and Aether did it together.But Aether's gone, and she's holding a shitty sword made low-quality ore that Lumine mined for herself, and she honestly can't remember the last time that a menial job made her feel so much like crying. Deliver the letter, Lumine. Go to the restaurant, Lumine. We'll help you if you help us.
Lumine pours her blood, sweat, and tears into helping the people of Teyvat. All she's gotten in return is misdirection, newfound trauma, and an evil twin brother hellbent on destroying the world she's started to get used to.
Aether wants to topple the Archons.
Who else has the same goal? The fucking Fatui.
It's not until Paimon floats into her field of vision that Lumine realizes that she's shaking.
"Hey, Lumine…" Paimon says. "Are you alright? You don't look so good."
"Fine," says Lumine. "I'm fine."
Something catches her attention. It's not a physical alert, more a second sense that causes the hairs to raise on her arms. A foreign power brushes against the edge of her awareness. Lumine jumps and spins toward Tenshukaku, where she raises her gaze to the place where the gilded eaves catch the rising sun. And there – up at the highest levels, so far that Lumine has to sink into her enhanced vision to see – stands a lone woman, watching her. The woman is cast in shadows. Lumine can't make out the details. There's nothing to see save a hint of black hair and a seductive brush of power, the likes of which neither Zhongli nor Venti could have hoped to marshall. Yet Lumine finds herself staring into shrounded eyes nonetheless.
Raiden Shogun has seen her presence in her Kingdom. Lumine has been acknowledged. Vindicated.
The hot rush of satisfaction which follows is almost, almost, enough to placate the dark rot of self-doubt and insecurity that has been steadily brewing within her.
Just as quick as she appeared, the Shogun is gone again.
But Lumine knows how to find the Archon.
She can't see the Raiden Shogun, but she can feel the Raiden Shogun. That imprint of power, now sealed deep within her as a memory, gives Lumine the strength to hold her head high and turn away.
"Was that-" Paimon gasps.
Lumine resists her nastier impulse to crack a fishing joke at the way Paimon gapes. "Come on," she says, walking off without sparing Tenshukaku a second glance.
Inazuma lies before her. She will have her audience with Raiden Shogun. Now that the first contact has been made, Lumine knows that it's only a matter of time before the Archon's attention turns fully her way.
"We've got a letter to deliver."
"No."
"But-"
"I said no, Kamisato Ayaka," says Lumine.
The atmosphere in the Kamisato Estate grows tense. Thoma looks at Lumine like he's never seen her before – which of course he hasn't, not really. He doesn't understand what she's capable of, the things she's done. Paimon looks alarmed at the sudden turn of events. Standing before her privacy screen, her true features unveiled to the world, Kamisato Ayaka wears an expression as fragile as glass, the shocked disbelief of a child who has never had their favorite toy taken away from them before. Lumine keeps herself from scoffing. She might have developed a tender spot for Thoma, yes, but she's had one conversation with Kamisato, where it was blisteringly obvious how Kamisato was attempting to manipulate her to her side. She might be a do-gooder, but that doesn't mean she's going to roll over for the first faction that manages to snag her off the immigration boat.
"But…" Taking a step back, Ayaka brings her fan up to hide her distress, her eyes flickering between Lumine and Paimon. "I don't understand," she says. "You saw the horrors of the Vision Hunt Decree with your own eyes. You said that you would help us fight it. Does your word mean so little to you, that you would go back on it so abruptly?"
"Paimon doesn't understand either!" exclaims Paimon.
Inazumans and their honor, Lumine scoffs to herself. It takes more self-control than usual to keep her features schooled calm.
"I told you that I would oppose the Vision Hunt Decree. Not that I would allow myself to become embroiled in your nation's civil war, Kamisato. You promised me an audience with the Raiden Shogun." Lumine levels Kamisato an even glare. Why should she hide her true feelings? Aether has the Abyss in his heart. "How," Lumine says coldly, "am I supposed to receive that if I am wanted by your government for crimes against the Shogunate? Unless the audience you had in mind was an execution."
"I will protect you-"
"After I break a wanted criminal out of prison?" Lumine scoffs. "What protection can you afford me without jeopardizing your own position? You'll send me off to war?"
The room falls silent. There is a certain beauty to the Inazuman décor around them – the vivid and expensive colors on the painted screen, the gentle scent of incense in the air, the stillness of a high estate in perfect order. Each element perfected to appear as though they have always been as such, and will always remain so. Even in their homes, Inazumans strives for eternity. And because they think in eternally stagnant ways, Lumine has learned to expect a lack of reverence for the permanence of consequence. Kamisato Ayaka truly believes that Lumine can both fight in her rebellion and receive a fair audience with the Shogun. Lumine has no such compunctions. She knows perfectly well what the Shogun is capable of. And she can ascertain, even from her fleeting interactions with the people of Inazuma, that the only reason Kamisato Ayaka and her rebellion haven't been squashed like a bug under Raiden Shogun's heel is because the Shogun knows that their mortal whims are fleeting, easily extinguished, while the reign of the Electro Archon will carry on as it always has, long after these mortals have all passed away.
As an immortal, Lumine has no need for hasty action either. But having all the time in the world never did give her an overabundance of patience.
"I'm sure that wasn't milady's intent," Thoma says genially in an effort to diffuse the situation, though his eyes betray his worry.
"No, she's right."
Kamisato Ayaka swallows and holds her ground. The fan drops to her side.
"Wait," Paimon says, her little face scrunching up in suspicion. "You mean that you wanted to get Lumine involved in a war? And you weren't even going to tell her?!"
"I had a guest over while you were stuck in Ritou," Kamisato Ayaka says flatly. "Beidou told me of all your exploits in Mondstadt and Liyue. I believed you to be a woman of exemplary character, one who would refuse to stand idly by in the face of injustice – and make no mistake, the Raiden Shogun's Vision Hunt Decree is not only foolish and destructive to Inazuma, but tantamount to genocide!" Taking an impassioned step forward, Ayaka discards her fan and takes Lumine's hands in her own. "Please, Traveler. We need change to break through the tyranny of the Shogun's eternal decree. Change that I truly believe only you are capable of bringing to Inazuma."
Kamisato Ayaka has cool hands to match her regal facade and her Cryo vision. Lumine swallows, at war with her own instincts. She's always been a sucker for a pretty woman asking for help.
She draws her hands away.
Ayaka's gaze tumbles.
"I'm sorry," Lumine says thickly. She knows full well that she would never have made this choice had Aether not abandoned her for the Abyss Order. "I support the justice and necessity of your fight. But I won't burn my bridges with the Shogunate unless you secure me the audience that you have promised me first, Lady Kamisato. I must make my own judgments before I wade my way into a foreign war."
From the moment the words leave her mouth, Lumine can tell that she's sealed off whatever tentative friendship she has started to develop with Kamisato. She watches the other woman's walls go up. Regret, what little she feels after making so many friends across the nations of Teyvat, flutters in her gut like a crystalfly. Delicate wings, hard edges.
"I cannot grant you an audience if I cannot trust you to support my cause," Kamisato Ayaka says. Her voice no longer betrays that brief glimpse of vulnerability. Lumine can only imagine that Kamisato now regrets emerging from behind the screen.
Lumine gives her a steady nod – conveying, she hopes, her respect. "I understand, milady."
Kamisato's jaw tightens. Her eyes grow cold.
"I could have your travel permit revoked."
"Ayaka!" Thoma exclaims.
"You can do that?!" Paimon shouts.
So that's how it is.
The Kanjou Comission on Ritou wanted exorbitant sums and impossible tasks for foreigners to leave their tiny enclave. Lumine knows now that it was foolish to expect the Yashiro Comission to be any different. Their impossible task merely took on a different flavor.
Lumine crosses her arms over her chest and curls her lip. "The travel permit with this personal seal of Kujou Kamaji of the Tenryou Commission? I imagine, Lady Kamisato, that it would not do to bring undue attention on the Yashiro Commission, given that you are actively conspiring against the will of your Archon. I shall be remaining in Inazuma. I have not traveled across the ocean to get turned away by a group of rebels with a moralizing cause."
"Was that a threat?" Kamisato sneers.
"Only if you wish it to be."
Thoma drops his face into his hands. Paimon looks uncomfortable floating between them – Lumine knows that she has transgressed Paimon's ethics today, and though Paimon will not voice her discontent, Lumine will have to work extra hard to get back in Paimon's good books. So be it. Lumine will not embroil herself in another unknown situation just to soothe her companion's unrest.
She's sick of fighting for other people's causes.
"Well," Thoma mutters, "this backfired spectacularly."
Lumine wants to roll her eyes and make some snarky comment about how the non-commitment of a neutral third party is hardly a failure on Thoma's part, but she suspects such measured pragmatism will land upon deaf ears. Instead, Lumine bows to Kamisato Ayaka and flashes Thoma a strained smile. She hopes their friendship can survive this meeting.
"I have not disavowed your cause," Lumine says to Ayaka. "I hope that you are wise enough to recognize that, milady."
Ayaka scoffs. "But I cannot trust you. You come from lands where words mean little, and I have no guarantee of your honor or your clan. Forgive me, Traveler, but the fact that you believe as much only belies your true ignorance of this land. There is a reason that we maintain Inazuma for the Inazumans alone."
Such flagrant xenophobia. Lumine shakes her head.
"So be it."
They leave the Kamisato Estate, and the door swings heavily shut behind them. Lumine is so incensed by the whole encounter that she barely regrets the bridge that she's burnt in her wake.
Even as Lumine grows disillusioned with the people of Inazuma, she carries out a quiet love affair with the natural beauty of the islands.
They set up camp in Chinju Forest for the night, not because they need to, but because Lumine wants to lay on her back amid the Naku Weeds and meditate to the luminescence of the cherry blossoms, to breathe in fresh air without the stench of an antiquary city or the bustle of a human populace that will constantly make demands of her. Petals and sparks drift through the open air. In the distance, there's the reassuring burble of a creek, rippling down from the waterfalls, and somewhere high above them, the Grand Narukami Shrine rests atop its peak. Lumine wants to visit the holy sight. She needs a break from Teyvat; from her life; from this world.
They could have made it back to Inazuma City today, but Lumine isn't in any rush to return to square zero.
"Hey, Lumine?" Paimon asks as she drifts over to her bedroll with a concerned expression.
Lumine lets out a long breath. The pure taste of the forest buoys her. Her elemental powers like this spot. She doesn't answer Paimon immediately, rather searching for the stars beyond the canopy, the vast swathe of Celestia and an unknown Goddess' domain towering above her. She cannot conceptualize the Abyss as the people of Teyvat do, stretching deep into the gloom beneath her. No, her abyss lays above, and part of her soul is still lost in those constellations, stripped away by the malice of a brother-stealing deity.
"Ad Astra Abyssosque," Lumine whispers to herself, raising her hand to catch the pearlescent moonlight.
Paimon laughs uncomfortably, and Lumine just doesn't care. Her travel companion flits around her. "Are you… alright?" Paimon asks, swooping in to poke her cheek like an exotic brand of slime. They all want the same thing – to consume her. She sees Paimon in her dreams sometimes. The Unknown God is devouring her. Paimon swallows her whole.
Lumine lets out a soft laugh.
"No," she whispers.
It's a long, restless night. But the glowing forest thrums with ambient Electro energies, and the reign of an Eternal Goddess is enough to keep Lumine's fears at bay.
Several more weeks pass before Lumine reaches the end of her rope.
The Yashiro Commission won't help her unless she sides against the Shogun to fight the Vision Hunt Decree, The Tenryou Commission doesn't have any interest in her or her affairs, and the Kanjou Commission would sooner see her deported back to Liyue than give her the time of day.
Lumine has spoken to Thoma once, but she can tell his allegiances lay with Kamisato. It becomes quickly apparent that the only reason that Inazuma opened to her was because she held Thoma's support, and Kamisato's support by implicit extension. Rank and status is everything to these people, and frankly? Lumine doesn't have it. She's an outsider. A foreigner. They don't want her. Thoma backs off and Kamisato withdraws her acceptance, and suddenly all of Inazuma's doors have closed just as fast.
Restaurants refuse to serve her. Hotels refuse to house her. The blacksmith won't even give her a second glance. In fact, if Lumine is being honest with herself, the only person who has actually treated her with kindness and respect since she walked out of the Kamisato Estate is Katheryne – and Lumine is 99% sure that Katheryne is an android, and a Schneznayan one at that. It would be the height of stupidity to trust her as a friend. Nonetheless, Lumine falls into a daily routine. Each day, she goes to Katheryne, takes her commissions, and toils thanklessly to make the people of Inazuma trust her and earn Mora she cannot spend. Lumine literally cannot spend her Mora in the marketplace. She may as well be trying to pawn off rocks. So each day, Lumine is forced to go out into the plains beyond Inazuma City to fish and forage, because making her own food is the only way she can survive. There's no sympathy or quarter. She sleeps in the woods.
The woods were nice for a one-day camping trip. When Lumine is effectively homeless and blacklisted from the city, which is close enough to taunt her, they're a miserable and humiliating burden.
Even Paimon is getting sick of Inazuma.
"Are you sure we shouldn't go back to the Kamisato Estate and at least try to convince Lady Kamisato to let us, I don't know, eat in restaurants?" Paimon asks in exasperation one morning as Lumine wades her way through a Hydro slime den, gritting her teeth as she gets coated in slime.
"No," Lumine snaps, slashing a slime in half. She's disgusting. She feels disgusting. The way the people on the street look at her makes her feel grimier than an actual coating of slime guts.
"Oh, I know!" Paimon exclaims sarcastically. "Maybe if we grovel, she'll let us clean their toilets next!"
"I said no!"
Preparing an elemental burst, Lumine electrocutes the shit out of the rest of the slime. She takes a vicious satisfaction out of the way they writhe. She's standing waist deep in the middle of a river delta, the island sky massive around her, and for one blessed day there hasn't been a thunderstorm. The heavens are a broad, deep blue. Lumine gasps for breath as the last of the slimes die and sinks back in the water, knowing that even if she hadn't ran out of soap last week, her body would still feel slick for days afterwards. Maybe she should cut her losses and go to Fontaine. She imagines that with the power of Hydro, she could at the least swim away from the island hell.
"Lumine…" Paimon whines.
"We offended one of the most powerful people in Inazuma," says Lumine, who has graduated to floating on her back. She closes her eyes and lets the river carry her. "It's a fucking caste system. I don't know what you expected. Welcome to rock bottom, I guess."
Paimon scowls at Lumine. "We didn't do anything. You're the one who ruined our chances to help these people. Isn't that why we're here?"
"We're here for the Raiden Shogun."
"We're here on a journey! How is this journeying? We can't even eat in the fancy Inazuman restaurants, and Paimon was promised Inazuman food!"
"I didn't say we were doing a good job at getting to Shogun," Lumine snaps.
The river is carrying her out to sea. On the open ocean, either she'll drown, or she'll be right back where she started. If Lumine is honest with herself, she doesn't know which option sounds preferable at the moment.
"So that's it?" Paimon demands. "You're giving up? Now? After everything we've done?"
Lumine drifts into something of a dreamy haze, dissociating into the blueness of her surroundings, the gentle embrace of Teyvat's endless oceans. "I want Aether," she says distantly, tears sliding off her slime-stained face like oil. "I want to go home."
Paimon's gaze grows sad.
"Oh, Lumine…"
They float there together, Paimon by air, Lumine by sea, for a long time after that. Paimon doesn't abandon her like Aether has.
Ironically, Lumine only manages to stumble upon a way out of her situation after she's completely given up on her hope of finding any semblance of belonging in Inazuma.
She doesn't break evenly. When her resolve fails her, it comes in jagged shards and pieces, like the broken scraps of a pottery bowl, just rounded enough to still catch the falling rain. One day, Lumine enters Inazuma City and walks straight past the Adventurer's Guild. She knows she's not welcome in the upper districts. Simply put, she doesn't care anymore. Lumine walks straight through Tenryou, straight past the Statue of the Omnipresent God, and right up to the gates of Tenshukaku, just far enough away so that the guard won't harass her.
Lumine stops there and gazes up at the palace.
Why has this place taunted me so? she wonders.
There's no way inside. Trying to fight past the guards or demand an audience would only alienate herself further. Raiden Shogun doesn't hold audiences – from Lumine's limited understanding, only a small political circle even has contact with the Shogun. So there's no point in trying. It would be suicide, and though she knows she's depressed, Lumine would never sink to such levels, not so long as she knows Aether is still alive.
But she wants to be near Tenshukaku.
She wants to pretend, even if it's only for a morning, that her quest to Inazuma hasn't amounted to nothing.
Lumine hasn't taken complete leave of her skill. She's noticed that Tenshukaku is surrounded by some undeveloped meadows which stretch around the fortress, far closer to Shogun's abode than the heavily guarded gates. Moreover, Lumine knows that the entrance to that meadow is guarded, but she's never seen a patrol around the exterior. Evidently the Inazuma government doesn't want civilians having picnics on the compound bluff, but don't care if anyone is suicidal enough to break into Tenshukaku. That style of idiocy serves a one-way ticket to Musou Isshin's blade. But Lumine doesn't give a shit anymore, and she's stupid enough to convince herself that she could go blade to blade with a Goddess and walk away standing. That's how her stupidest plan since arriving on Teyvat comes to fruition.
The guards are pathetically easy to sneak past. Once she's out of sight of the guard towers, she relaxes and takes her leisurely time, strolling around Tenshukaku with her boots in hand, enjoying the feeling of soft grass beneath her feet. The best thing about this plan is that the views are beautiful – sweeping vistas of Narukami Island and the ocean beyond it. Lumine keeps her head held high as she breathes in the ocean breeze, that scent of salt brine and seaweed that she's come to associate with Inazuma. Archons, if there were a different nation on these accursed islands… Lumine could see herself here forever.
But her thoughts stray too close to Eternity again. Lumine does her best to entertain herself with lesser things.
Lumine finds a slope to sit at the southernmost edge of the peninsula, where she takes her rest. She leans back on her palms and stares out at the distant blue. What lies in Teyvat's southern hemisphere? Nobody she's asked has an answer, and astonishingly few believe that anything lays to the South at all. Teyvat still hasn't moved past its belief in a flat earth. Perhaps she will explore. Perhaps she will captain a ship and sail to the end of the world and beyond it. Will she tumble into the Abyss, then? Or is there humanity, is there life, waiting for her on the other side?
Paimon floats up by her side and silently keeps her company.
It starts as a spark.
A little flare of purple, dancing across her fingers. Lumine lays back and lets the grass cushion her blonde hair, raising her hand to let her Electro resonance flicker to life. It's not her strongest power – Lumine found her time with Geo more useful, and Anemo more deadly – but it may very well be her favorite. There's something so playful about the way Electro feels: inside of her body, on her skin. When Lumine lets her elements dance around her knuckles like promise rings, they settle deep within her, as though she has become an endless reservoir, a battery which contains the very essence of the Gods. She lets it snake up her arms and flexes her magic. A low pulse of energy escapes her, pulsing like a beacon, and Lumine can't help the low moan of satisfaction she feels from the release. She wants her powers back. Feeling that elemental energy spill out from her core feels good in ways she scarcely knows how to articulate. She needs that ecstasy. It feels right.
There is a presence on the edge of her awareness, the hum of an Archon, though the gnosis feels further away somehow. Clever, Lumine thinks, tracing the subtle thrum away from Tenshukaku to the Great Narukami Shrine in the distant north. The idea of the Fatui stealing away another gnosis fills her with rage; she's profoundly glad that Raiden Shogun's is well-hidden. Lumine wonders who else can taste the gnoses like she can. Aether, presumably. Perhaps the other Gods. Lumine knows her ability is otherworldly, though she cannot help but suspect that Tsaritsa has some method of extending it to her Harbringers. Though given that Childe remained ignorant of Zhongli's true nature, perhaps not.
Playful instincts rise to the surface as the power begins to swell. Lumine laughs a little manically, thrilling in the energy around her, and brings her second hand up to join her first. She molds her electricity as she has seen from the beautiful woodblock prints of Shogun's exploits: Shogun's great naginata, ready to split both Gods and earth asunder. She takes electricity into the form of a fruit and swallows it, letting the current dazzle her throat and dance in her stomach. She embodies it. Anemo and Geo were powerful, but they held none such affection for her physical form. Electro wants to live inside of her. It is a felt resonance – less powerful, perhaps, but breathlessly alluring in the hands of a bored extradimensional.
Lumine hasn't felt this way since she allowed Lisa to seduce her into her bed, back before she learned what a terrible idea it was to actually sleep with the flirtatious librarian. She feels fucking sexy. It strikes her that she did not intend to put on an exhibitionist show in Raiden Shogun's backyard to get her attention, but hey, at this point? Lumine will take whatever works.
Paimon is blushing so deeply that she looks red. She turns away to hide behind a grass tuft. "This is embarrassing!" she shouts in a shrill voice from a safe distance. "Embarrassing, Lumine!"
Throwing her head back in a euphoric trace, Lumine just laughs.
She feels the exact moment that Raiden Shogun stops watching her in bemusement through Inazuma's electrical undercurrent and decides to invervene. Letting out a shaky breath, Lumine does her best to relax and feign indifference, though she knows that her true emotions will be just as easy to read. She wants it to be over. Lumine has accepted her fate.
Paimon's frightened gasp heralds the presence of a Goddess
"Do you have a death wish?"
Lumine sits up, though she doesn't turn around. "Perhaps."
"And I suppose you wish for me to carry it out. How… presumptuous."
Shivering at the poorly concealed malice in the Shogun's tone, Lumine realizes that she must speak well if she wishes to walk away from the conversation alive.
"I do not presume death," Lumine says softly, letting the spark in her palm go out. "For death is eternal, but I am alive now."
There is a devastating silence.
Nobody moves.
Lumine stares out over the ocean – to Serai Island in the distance, then nothing.
"Am I not?"
Of all the things she expects of the Raiden Shogun, the last of them is for the Shogun to walk to her side and, with a critical glance downward, settle elegantly next to her on the bluff. Lumine takes a sharp breath. Raiden Shogun has long dark hair and impossibly distant eyes, the same luminous purple as the elemental energy she wields, and Lumine is obliterated by the suddenness of an Archon appearing at her side – not a hidden Archon, not a strange bard who takes far too long to reveal himself, an Archon. It seems impossible to believe that such a Goddess would deign to sit. But there is assuredly a woman beside her too, a woman who wears the finest Inazuman garb she has ever seen and stares out at the ocean with the same impossible distance and thought as she. Lumine suddenly feels the weight of every formality she has flouted, seized by a desperate desire to do something to acknowledge the Shogun's holy stature. But she's already violated every social more in Inazuma. It's clearly too late.
Raiden Shogun gazes upon Lumine with stormy purple eyes, and Lumine feels small.
"You are not of this world," Raiden intones.
"No."
"And yet you come here."
"Yes, my Lady," Lumine manages, falling back on some ancient formality from another realm.
"For what purpose, outlander?"
"I- I don't know.
The Shogun's apathy turns to a scowl. "You don't know."
"I… I…" Lumine finds herself at a sudden loss for words, and her situation has never felt more helpless. It's all she can do not to tear up before the Goddess. Archons be damned, why couldn't she have seen the damn woman before her crisis of faith. "I was searching for my brother," she says. "But I found him. In Liyue. Working for the Abyss Order, and now I- I can't-" Lumine grits her teeth in self-directed fury, wiping at her traitorous eyes with the back of her hand. "Now I have no purpose in this world. I was searching for the Goddess who has trapped me here. I sought out the Archons in the hopes that they would know of her. But now it seems futile, for even if I sought to leave this accursed realm, Aether would not come with me. I am stranded, and frankly- Frankly!" Lumine let out a hollow laugh. "I do not care anymore."
"I see," Raiden says in a distant voice.
If Lumine cries a little, Raiden Shogun doesn't seem to notice. The sun rises higher over Inazuma. A ship passes in the distance.
"You're filthy."
Lumine sniffles. "Gee, thanks."
Once again, there's a little flicker of something that could almost be an emotion in the Shogun's eyes – irritation, maybe, or perhaps care. "Why are you filthy?" Raiden demands. "You come to my palace, crusted over with the scum of the earth, and prostrate yourself on my lawn for my judgment. Explain yourself."
"Your shitty merchants won't sell me soap," Lumine says, scowling through her shame. "I got fucking blacklisted by Kamisato Ayaka, and I've got too much pride to go back to Ritou and beg for scraps."
Raiden narrows her eyes. "Ayaka…"
"She wanted things from me that I wasn't prepared to give. It's hardly my fault that your spoiled upper class doesn't know how to take no for an answer."
"Such disrespect," Raiden murmurs, almost to herself. "Such pride."
"I don't care anymore," Lumine says, and pretends like she doesn't notice when her voice breaks. She bunches up her hands in tufts of grass. Looks away from the Archon to the endless east.
"Yes. I can see that."
Somewhere deep in the back of her mind, Lumine is aware that she's having something of a mental breakdown. It's not like this is how she would choose to present herself to a Goddess. Or maybe it is – she likes her outfit, it's the one thing that's truly hers – but that doesn't mean that she's thought this through, or thought at all. She's so disconnected from her own body that she barely cares about Raiden's presence. She doesn't register the way the Shogun gives her body an assessing gaze. The Shogun's magic probes into her spirit, and she submits with barely a struggle.
As Raiden sorts through her insides, the magic stultifying her, filling Lumine's body with brilliant sparks, she murmurs, "You bring tidings from the others."
"Yes," Lumine whispers, prone against the grass, paralyzed by the electricity in her veins. "Tsaritsa is collecting gnoses, Shogun. To what end, I have no idea. Her Harbringer, Signora, she ripped the gnosis right out of Barbatos' chest and struck a contract with Morax over the governance of Liyue. I was there for both. Zhongli is mortal now, my Lady. And Venti… I have no idea how Venti fares. I have not seen him since last I was in Mondstadt, months ago. But it was hardly his choice to surrender his power to the Fatui. They ambushed us on the steps of the cathedral, and I was then much weaker than I am now. I have gathered much strength since Signora took it. Enough that I might be able to kill her, though I have not yet faced her in combat."
Raiden huffs. "You have been busy. How foolish are my people, to treat one so distinguished as you so lowly."
"They don't know who I am." She's barely able to speak. "They don't know what I am."
Idle fingers stroke through her hair. Lumine doesn't know when the Shogun started touching her, and she can barely muster enough of a coherent thought to comprehend it. "You are an enigma," Raiden murmurs, drawing her head into her lap. "In truth, I don't know what you are either. Nor your peculiar traveling companion."
Lumine stares vacantly up at the Archon's perfect face. Raiden has sharp cheekbones and porcelain smooth skin. She looks like a statue of a person, which befits a Goddess, Lumine supposes. How one achieves such perfection in immortality is beyond her.
"Where is… Paimon…"
"Stunned." The fingers still, then resume their stroking. "Paralyzed, I suppose. She protested after I began my… inspection of your powers, and I did not care to see how she might respond to my ministrations. So I silenced her."
In spite of herself, Lumine giggles in a hazy sort of way.
"I wish I could do that."
"Perhaps you will learn," Raiden says thoughtfully.
Like heavenly bodies, they lift from the earth. Her ascension to the heavenly palace of Tenshukaku, cradled in the arms of a deity, is the last thing Lumine registers before the Archon's power overwhelms her and the world turns black.