Lumine

vapour

Lumine walked importantly out the door of the cafe - a woman on a mission to go home, order some Liyue-style takeout and whittle away the late hours binging another romantic drama that would just leave her disgruntled and upset yet again. But she screeched to a halt a mere ten steps from her little yellow car, her hand rummaging through her pocket with increasing urgency, until the most exasperated sigh ever heard left her throat alongside a growl-like sound that seemed too aggressive to come from someone who couldn’t reach the top shelf. Nope. She wasn’t making it home yet: the keys in her pocket were for the cafe, not her car.

Fine, she admitted to herself. I’ll just go back in and get my keys and try again.

(How did she go from fighting Celestia and the Abyss to this?)

Rejected, she turned on her heel and huffed her way back inside. She remembered the days when only Sumeru had coffee houses like this, but over time, the spaces had grown so popular that you could hardly throw a stone without hitting one, even in Inazuma and Natlan.

She pulled the door back open, sounding the little welcome-bell that jingled cheerfully.

She hadn’t heard from some of the archons in decades. Mavuika and Furina had probably passed on at some point, being human. But the others — what happened to gods when people no longer believed, anyway? Nahida still contacted her fairly regularly. Ei had isolated herself once again, somewhere unreachable. Zhongli and Venti, she knew they had to manage the time they spent in public so no one caught on. And the Tsaritsa… well, that was more complicated.

Her keys were on the counter. She grabbed them and tried not to make eye-contact with anyone she had said goodbye to just a few minutes prior. Embarrassing.

But the archons weren’t the only people she missed. Along with her various friends whose sparks of life had long since burned out over the centuries, one person stood out in her mind most specifically - most painfully. She thought of him, of Ajax, every time she watched those stupid shows or when those stupidly in-love couples went on stupidly adorable dates at her stupid coffee house job. (Even the Adventurer’s Guild had gone out of business a century or so ago. Or rebranded itself as some historical society. Lumine supposed there wasn’t much left to find anymore.)

She bit back another sigh, pursing her lips. This was why she and her brother never stayed in any world for this long. And yet, she didn’t even see Aether much anymore…

Except when she tried to grumble her way through the front door again, she collided with something that was most definitely not a door. Too soft, didn’t push outward, and it grunted back.

“Sorry,” she said immediately, looking up to apologize. “I wasn’t paying atten—“

The blood went cold in her veins as she locked eyes with deep, deep blue.

“…tion.”