Chapter Text
To say that the days following the cave felt dreamlike was an understatement for Lumine.
She and Paimon sheltered in the woods that night, then set out early the next morning for Dornman Port. When they arrived, Lumine rented a room in the Devil's Cut, the town's interestingly-named sister tavern to the Angel's Share. The rooms were a little more simple than those in the city, but the bed was comfortable enough, and the window gave them a view of the sea and the various ships docking and setting sail throughout the day. The scene reminded her of the other, busier ports she'd spent her time in during her years travelling Teyvat—the reds and golds of Liyue Harbour, the vibrant, balmy tropics of Port Ormos. The thought calmed her mind somewhat.
That was until she turned away from the window and caught a glimpse of that cloak hanging from the back of the door.
Even now, Lumine was shocked at how calm she felt about it all. While scenes from the cave flitted non-stop through her head, she hadn't shed so much as a single tear. It wasn't like she was a particularly emotional person. The tragedies and injustices she'd witnessed in her journey had hardened her somewhat to the world.
And yet never in her life had she experienced anything like what Lohen had done to her in those mountains.
Maybe it was that she didn't know how to react. Or maybe bottling it all up was her subconscious way of processing what had happened before she inevitably broke down at some point in the future.
Either way, Lumine was determined not to waste this opportunity.
After taking a shower to clean up her leg (Paimon had screamed when she'd finally noticed the blood halfway down the mountainside in typical, delayed fashion) and throwing on a simple woollen tunic and trousers she found in the wardrobe of her room (a little big for her, but cosy nonetheless), Lumine headed out into the town. She found a tailor to mend her dress, then a healer for her wound, an old woman with a Hydro Vision who scolded her gently for being so reckless, even if she was the great and famous Traveller.
After that, she headed to the Knights' base.
It was a crisp, breezy morning—the kind that stood as a perfect reminder of why Mondstadt held the title Land of a Thousand Winds. As she approached the base, Lumine was greeted by a multitude of familiar sounds. The clink of swords. The crack of guns. The bark of officers directing their soldiers.
She'd always felt safe among the Knights of Favonius. They were the first faction in Teyvat who'd extended their hand to her over half a decade ago.
Ascending the stone steps to the training grounds, however, Lumine felt her stomach twist.
“Ms Honorary Knight! What a pleasure it is to see you again.”
The voice belonged to Herstal, who was perched on a crate, her musket resting on a bent knee as she lovingly polished it. Nearby, a pair of knights were lining up to fire at a set of training dummies. Lumine had heard their weapons as she'd been climbing up.
If Herstal noticed the way Lumine's eyes darted around the courtyard, she said nothing of it. Instead, she tilted her chin up. “Little one not with you today?”
“Paimon's at the tavern,” said Lumine. Probably already in some state of food-induced stupor. Lumine had left her the task of sampling as many tavern dishes as she could and picking her favourite so they could have it for dinner—a task neither she, nor the innkeeper, had objected to.
“And here I got the impression the two of you were nigh on inseparable,” said Herstal with a smirk. “Doing a little undercover work, are you?”
Lumine knew she was only joking, but the ironic timing of her words made Lumine's heart jump. She fought her grimace with a smile. “Actually, I—”
She was cut off by a pair of ear-splitting cracks, half a second apart. She turned to see the two knights lower their weapons. One of them swore as he noted that he'd hit the wall behind the dummy instead of the mark itself, a fact his comrade immediately leapt into snorts of amusement about.
“Sorry about that,” said Herstal with a shake of her head. “You were saying?”
“It's fine. I...”
Lumine's words trailed off, her thoughts dissipating like the smoke from the muskets behind her.
Had I really just been about to ask that?
She'd had a vague purpose in mind in coming to the Knights' base. Mostly, she'd wanted a distraction from the strange, empty space in her mind, and nothing was better at that than surrounding herself with the regimented hustle and bustle of the training grounds.
She'd also thought that she might find him here.
Just why that was, Lumine had no idea, and now, she realised just what a stupid one it was. What would she do if Herstal answered her with question with a cheery “Vice Captain Lohen? Why, he's right here!” and gestured as a figure clad in white and blue emerged from around the corner, all wide eyes and innocent smiles as he stalked towards her? Would she draw her sword and cut him down on the spot in front of her shocked onlookers, thus branding herself a violent criminal in the country she loved? Or would she stand there, quivering with rage, as he plucked up her hand in knightly fashion and kissed her on the knuckles with the same lips that had whispered filth into her ears as he'd violated her on that cave floor?
The confrontation would come. It was inevitable. But it wouldn't be this morning.
She needed some time to think first.
“You know, I've just remembered that I actually had someone to meet,” Lumine said.
“Oh. Right now?”
“Mm. I don't know Dornman Port that well, so I'd like to leave a little time for finding my way around.”
“I can help you with directions. Where do you need to go?” Herstal offered, but it was too late. Lumine was already hurrying away, waving her goodbye as she did so.
*
So, the Knights' base was a no-go zone. That was fine with Lumine.
Unfortunately, it didn't take her long to realise that the whole of Dornman Port held the potential for a disastrous rendezvous. Knights patrolled every corner. Each time she turned onto a new street, she steeled herself for the possibility that she would spot him up ahead, chatting idly with one of his men, or strolling in her direction.
Her only solace was that he certainly wouldn't try to harm her with so many people around. Not that Lumine was particularly worried about that. She'd played by the assumption that he would follow certain codes of chivalry in their last duel and abstained from using her elements for that reason. By the time she'd realised just how dirty he was willing to fight with her, it had been too late, and she'd ended up pinned.
It wouldn't happen a second time. After all, Lohen had been right about one thing: she was the almighty Traveller, and she had fought far, far worse than him.
The day lumbered along. With no Adventurer's Guild presence here, Lumine found herself drawn to notice boards for posted commissions. One woman had lost her cat overnight, a grey and brown mop of fur called Tobe who Lumine found stalking along the top of a nearby roof and whose owner was extremely grateful to receive back, even if Tobe himself was a little more indignant at having his grand adventure cut short. Elsewhere, a farmer wanted help with an outbreak of slimes in one of his flower fields, which Lumine prowled for over an hour before knocking on the farmer's door and receiving a curt “They've already been dealt with. You're too late. Good day” and having said door slammed in her face—an experience that reminded her precisely why she preferred to let Katheryne deal with these people instead.
Only once did she cave and ask a young, black-haired knight if he'd seen Vice Captain Lohen recently. The knight's reply that he hadn't today, but that this wasn't abnormal and the Vice Captain was probably around terrorising their latest group of recruits, didn't make Lumine feel much better.
Alas, evening rolled by without incident, and Lumine returned to the Devil's Cut to find Paimon waiting for her. They enjoyed a dinner called labskaus, a local speciality consisting of salty meat ground to a paste, beetroot, and potatoes that according to Groovy, the tavern owner, was popular with sailors. Lumine thought it an interesting choice on Paimon's behalf, then realised she'd spent the whole day gorging through the menu anyway, so probably wanted to treat Lumine to something different from the Mondstadt food she was used to.
“Did you manage to find the knight you're tracking down?” Paimon asked, wiping crimson beetroot juice off her bottom lip.
“Not yet,” said Lumine. “Maybe tomorrow, though.”
“Don't forget I'm here if you need any help. It gets lonely when you're not with me.”
Lumine apologised with a smile and assured her that she would only be another couple of days at most—with plenty more Mora for food as compensation for her absence.
That night as she lay in bed with Paimon snoring away beside her, Lumine considered that brief segment of conversation over dinner.
The knight you're tracking down. Was that really what Lumine was doing here? The thought of running into Lohen still haunted her, and yet she remained in Dornman Port. She'd always been stubborn like that, she supposed, choosing to stand her ground in the face of adversity instead of fleeing like she knew she should.
But there was something else too, this time. Some force that bound her here, like an invisible tether around her throat. Running away, she feared, would only tighten it.
Archons, how she hated being so directionless.
As her eyes started to close at last, she found memories start to flitter through her head, less definitive forms and more sensations. A prickling warmth on the back of her neck. A phantom pain cutting into her wrists. Unconsciously, her hand drifted down and stroked the pale line of a scar on her thigh, so faint that it might as well have been invisible.
The last thing she was aware of was a faint heat stirring in her core.
Then, she drifted away, lost to dreams.
*
After setting Paimon up the next morning, Lumine headed back out into the port.
She avoided the training grounds this time and went straight for the notice board, where she saw, to little surprise, that a new handful of commissions had been pinned up. The most promising one came from a dock worker who was seeking help after two of his men had called in sick this morning.
He looked Lumine over when she presented herself to him, visibly unimpressed. “I know you're supposed to be some big hero an' all, but don't you think this is a little taxing?”
Lumine opened her mouth, but it was a sailor passing by carrying a crate between thick, ropey arms who answered: “Let her give it a go, Strom. Nothing the Traveller can't do, right?”
The laughter that spread around the nearby workers made Lumine feel the comment was meant to be a little more sarcastic than it appeared.
Still, she held her own well enough. By the time she'd heaved her fifth crate from the pier to the deck of the cargo ship, Strom had stopped smirking at her with crossed arms and left her to get on with it. By crate number ten, there wasn't a part of her that wasn't drenched in sweat.
“You're stronger than you look,” remarked a muscular woman with a scar on her cheek as Lumine staggered past her.
“All in... the legs,” Lumine huffed. She slid her crate on top of the waiting pile with a sigh of relief, then turned back to address the woman, finally able to breathe now that she wasn't lugging around her body weight in cargo. “What's in these, anyway?”
“Wine, mostly. The ship is bound for Snezhnaya.”
Lumine almost smiled. As if she'd expected anything less.
Come midday, the ship had been fully loaded up. Lumine enjoyed a lunch of warm potato cakes and fish soup while she chatted with the workers. The man who'd convinced Strom to let her work was an ex-baker who'd switched careers because he'd wanted more of the sea air, and the woman with the scar was originally from Natlan, but had come to Mondstadt ten years ago to marry her sweetheart, a woman she'd met on a family holiday and had been exchanging letters with since. Lumine was used to talking to strangers, but it felt nice to share such carefree conversations without the weight of the Traveller mantle upon her shoulders, just as it felt good to move her body around and break into a sweat without her sword in her hand.
A few times, she even caught herself thinking about something other than Lohen.
After lunch, the pair of them asked Lumine if she'd like to help them with a second ship. She said yes, and once the vessel had docked, she found herself straining beneath the weight of wooden crates once again. Thankfully, their contents—an assortment of fine silks from Liyue Harbour—were a little lighter than the wine.
The sun was starting to edge towards the horizon by the time Lumine and her temporary colleagues had heaved the last crate onto the Liyuen ship, which was now bound for Inazuma.
Strom placed a handful of coins into her palm. “You've earnt it. I'm impressed.”
Lumine pocketed the Mora and thanked him, then thought, I should go and see how Paimon is.
It was as she was walking back through the town, aching but strangely content after her day of strenuous labour, that a figure suddenly burst out from the side of the road before her. Lumine recognised him as the black-haired knight she'd spoken to the day before.
“You wanted to know where Vice Captain Lohen was, right?” he blurted out.
Lumine's shoulders stiffened. Her heart came to a standstill.
“I... Yes, I did.”
“Apparently, he set off to Nod-Krai yesterday morning on urgent business. I only just heard the news and thought I'd let you know.”
Lumine blinked, took a moment to let the words sink in.
All this time, she'd been drifting around Dornman Port, vaguely anticipating the moment she'd run into the man who'd violated her. To think that he hadn't even been here in the first place...
A wave of relief swept the stiffness from her shoulders.
“We're leaving,” she said to Paimon over dinner that night.
“Huh? Leaving for where?”
“Anywhere you like.”
Paimon's eyes glistened excitably as she swallowed down her mouthful of chicken. “We haven't seen our friends in the Akademiya for a while. And there was that cake shop in the Court of Fontaine we were going to go back to... Wait, does this mean you sorted out your business with the knight?”
Lumine was glad her heart only performed a twitch instead of a full-on lurch at the mention of Lohen. “Let's just say that the problem resolved itself.”
Temporarily, of course. Lohen was still an irritant that she would have to deal with at some point, whether by way of words or blade.
At least now, for a little while, she could breathe.
She'd hoped she'd be able to sleep better tonight, what with her mind a little less addled and her muscles aching from her dock work. Alas, Lumine found herself once again staring at the ceiling until long after Paimon had fallen still next to her. Her mind flitted between the events of the day and flashbacks of the cave, to the point where both had started to merge into one undulating, dreamlike sequence.
Urgent business. That was what the young knight had called Lohen's reason for leaving. Lumine knew that the region was still unsettled, and that groups of Knights still occasionally travelled over on Varka's command to assist the Lightkeepers in controlling the Wild Hunt. And yet it just felt so... abrupt. All this time, she'd been in the port, and not once had he tried to look for her.
Lumine froze at that thought.
Was that really what she wanted? For Lohen to have come looking for her?
Slowly so as not to wake Paimon, she reached into her travelling bag and pulled out her journal. There, sandwiched between the cover and first page, was a small piece of paper, wrinkled from where it had been scrunched up and laid flat multiple times, but still very much intact. Lumine ran her thumb over the words, scrawled in her own blood.
See you soon!
Lo x
A strange feeling came across her then, like she was being watched. Her eyes snapped to the window, but it was as empty as usual. She slid her gaze over to the cloak hanging on the back of the door. For a moment in the darkness, it looked as if someone were standing in its place.
But of course, it was just the shadows.
Lumine gritted her teeth in frustration, her heart racing.
She needed to clear her head.
It was well past midnight, and the port was silent as Lumine stepped out of the doors of the Devil's Cut. The smell of sea brine wrapped around her like mist, the air crisp but not chilly. As she started to walk towards the fountain at the centre of the port, she focused her thoughts on her surroundings. The glow of the moonlight on the cobblestones. The faint floral scent of Windrest flowers from the nearby fields cutting through the salt on a breeze.
Perhaps predictably, considering her state of mind, it didn't take long for this level of forced awareness to turn into a kind of paranoia. For every charming moonlit shopfront, there was a shadowy alley by its side. Every time she concentrated on the click of her heels on the road, a nearby rustle or whisper would have her spinning towards the phantom source, her hackles raised like a cornered cat, only to find nothing there. At one point, she spotted a figure milling about up ahead. She approached slowly, her fingers twitching, ready to summon one of her elements if need be. The figure turned out to be a drunk, who ignored her entirely as she passed.
Focus, she told herself. You're the Traveller. You can look after yourself.
The affirmation gave her some comfort as she made her way along the final road towards the fountain. That was until she saw something shift in her peripheral vision. Her body snapped towards it, and she found herself staring down a dark, narrow alley cloaked in shadow.
“Hello?” she called out without thinking.
For a few moments, all was still. Then, something peeled itself away from the side of the alley wall, as if a piece of the darkness had broken away and taken shape. That shape was one of a man. A man Lumine knew intimately, dreadfully well.
She'd promised herself she'd be stronger when she saw him again. She'd imagined herself rage-filled, sword in hand, spitting curses and promises of revenge.
Except her sword was back in her room with Paimon. And as she stared wide-eyed at the figure stalking towards her now, she didn't feel rage. Just a slow, nauseous terror that seeped through her veins and rooted her to the ground.
Lohen emerged from the mouth of the alley. The moonlight illuminated his sickly-sweet expression as he raised his hand. “My darling Honorary Knight. Are you trembling?”
His gloved hand brushed against her cheek. Lumine flinched, but found she couldn't pull away.
Don't fucking touch me.
The words that left her took the form of a stiff whisper. “Why aren't you in Nod-Krai?”
“Am I supposed to be?” He feigned a moment of ignorance, then drew in a breath as if just having remembered something. “Oh, yes. There was a rumour, wasn't there? Something about me having left Dornman Port on urgent business, or the like.”
The realisation hit Lumine like a brick. “You made it up so that I would let my guard down.”
“Indeed, I did. You didn't really think I'd forgotten about you, did you?”
The feeling of his thumb brushing against Lumine's cheekbone snapped her into motion. She stepped away from him, back into the road, while he loomed in the alley mouth. “I'm not scared of you, Lohen.”
“Oh, I'm sure you're not. In fact, I bet you're thinking about all the ways you could get rid of me right now, aren't you?” he said with a chuckle. “I so did enjoy our duel up in the mountains, although I admit my ice trick was a little underhanded. No traps now, though.” He raised his hands by his sides in a show of mock innocence. “Come on, wipe the floor with me. I'm completely unarmed.”
Bullshit, Lumine thought. While she couldn't see his polearm anywhere, she knew that his knife would be tucked away somewhere on his person. He also had his Cryo Vision. She glanced up at the houses around them, the windows still black as their occupants slept. The pair of them had managed to evade detection for now, but that would change the moment they started throwing elements at one another, and Lumine didn't exactly relish the thought of having to explain to the public why the noble Traveller was fighting one of their beloved officers.
Then again, she'd never been one to miss an opportunity.
The blade of wind hit Lohen square in the chest, lighting up the street with a flash of fluorescent blue and knocking him back into the alley. Lumine rushed him before he had a chance to find his footing. There wasn't much room in the alley, but she managed to pull back her fist and drive it deep into his gut, and Archons, was the rush of air from his mouth satisfying.
“You want me to wipe the floor with you?” she hissed. “How about I fucking grind you into it?”
Lohen laughed breathlessly, his voice a wheeze. “I like the sound of that.”
He made a blind grab for her, but Lumine was quicker again, seizing a handful of her hair and flinging him towards the opposite wall. The crack of his head hitting the bricks was a satisfying parallel to the head wound he'd inflicted on her back in the cave.
Alas, either the collision wasn't as hard, or Lohen had found a way to cushion the blow, but he quickly recovered. Lumine spotted the flash of moonlight on a blade as he spun to face her. He swung it once, twice, forcing her to jump back towards the alley mouth each time. The third swing came from below and almost caught her on the chin, but Lumine threw her head back just in time to feel the blade split the air a hair's breadth from her skin.
She caught his wrist on the way down, then twisted and jerked his arm forward. Lohen's front slammed into her back. She tried to shove him backwards with the intention of driving him into the wall again—hopefully hard enough to shock him into letting go of the knife he now gripped in front of her. Instead, Lohen kicked off the wall behind him and sent the pair of them hurtling forwards. Lumine barely had time to brace herself against the wall with her hand before she slammed into it front-first.
“Very good,” Lohen rasped by her ear. He was pushing against her with all his strength, hips pressed against the back of hers and boots planted either side of her ankles. “I can tell you're having as much fun as I am.”
“You think I'm fighting... to entertain you?” Lumine huffed. She tried to push back against him, but one arm folded against her chest and the other scrabbling against the bricks at her side, she found she lacked the strength to push off. Meanwhile, Lohen only ground himself more tightly against her.
“Everything you do is entertaining to me,” he whispered. A wisp of his hair brushed Lumine's cheek, and she recognised the smell of him from the cloak he'd left her. “Like how you stayed behind in the port when you had every opportunity to run.”
“I'm not running... from you,” Lumine growled.
“Such a brave little knight,” he cooed. “Could it be that you wanted me to find you in the end?”
His words so closely echoed the traitorous thoughts that had been keeping Lumine awake over the past two nights that it had her cheeks flushing red. With a rush of strength, she pushed against the wall with her shoulders and threw Lohen off her. He stumbled back a step. All through their struggle, he'd managed to keep a hold on his knife despite not being able to move his hand. He flipped it around his finger now and held it before his chest, but didn't attack.
Lumine turned to him, knees bent and shoulders stiff. She didn't summon her elements—Archons knew they'd already made enough noise to wake up the entire street—but she kept them there, tingling at the edge of her senses in case she needed them in a split second. The mouth of the alley was at her back, the other end blocked off with a high wall. If Lohen wanted to escape, he'd have to go through her.
“I wanted to find you so that I could kill you,” she hissed at him.
“Kill me? That's a little forward of you, isn't it, Honorary Knight?” Lohen said. “Not that I'm opposed to that kind of foreplay.”
Lumine rippled with rage. Even now, this was all a joke to him.
“If you wanted revenge, you could have spoken to Grand Master Varka and told him what a horrible, vicious brute he has among his ranks. I'd be forced out of the Knights for sure. My reputation would be destroyed.
“You act like I didn't think of that.”
“Oh, I'm sure you did. But that would be too easy, wouldn't it? Not to mention...” Lohen's voice dropped to a sultry, teasing whisper. “It would make you look weak.”
Lumine's nerves flashed with anger again. She lunged for Lohen, Pyro blazing in her hand. He caught her wrist and held it, trembling, an inch from his face. Cryo scalded her wrist through his glove, such a violent contrast to her Pyro that it almost made her scream.
“I am not weak,” she snarled at him.
Lohen laughed softly under his breath. “How right you are.”
For someone who'd come so close to being burnt (and Lumine had been so blinded with rage that she would have gone through with it), Lohen looked every inch the picture of calm. They were almost close enough for their chests to touch, and though Lohen was only an inch or two taller than her at most, she found herself staring up into his dark eyes like he was towering over her.
She wanted to pull away. She had to.
But once again, she found that her body had frozen.
At the corner of her eye, she noted the flash of Lohen's knife. When he spoke again, his voice took on that soft whisper that had strange, pleasurable shivers travelling down Lumine's spine. “I have no interest in weak things. You know this by now.” The flat of the blade touched the underside of her jaw, as gentle and adoring as a lover's hand. “So why don't you show me just how strong you really are?”
“What do you think I've been doing?”
“You know that's not what I mean,” Lohen whispered. A sheen of sweat had appeared on his brow. Clearly, he was in as much discomfort at the proximity of her flames as Lumine was at the burn of his ice on her wrist.“You're hiding your emotions. Keeping them locked away, just like a good—ah—a good little hero should.” He gasped with exertion, teeth bared. “Let the honesty flow. I want to see it.”
Lumine found herself leaning closer to him, more aware than ever of the knife pressing against her throat. “You want to know the truth, Lohen?”
He nodded.
“I hate you. I hate you more than anything in this world.”
She did. She truly did.
She hated that he'd reduced her to a creature of pure lust. Hated that every moment since the cave, he'd remained at the forefront of her mind—like a thorn lodged below her skin, evading her attempts to extricate it no matter how much she tore at herself with her nails.
Most of all, she hated the way her skin prickled with warmth as he smirked and whispered, “I know.”
Then, he leant in and kissed her.
And Lumine, the sick, foolish, hatedrunk idiot that she was, kissed him back.