Chapter Text
Slowly, hesitantly, like the morning sun creeping slowly across the floorboards, the traveler opened her eyes.
Above her, the blue sky stretched endlessly in all directions, small clouds drifting lazily to and fro. Beneath her, golden sand warmed by the sun warmed her, in turn, and she found herself drawing some small amount of energy from it. It wasn’t nearly enough, not to restore what was lost, but it helped her concentrate, helped her draw the world into clearer focus.
Off to the side, she heard the calming ebb and flow of the waves, and small droplets of water occasionally splashed her face. This, too, was a miniscule source of energy for the traveler, and she drank greedily, the salt drying on her warm skin.
Birdsong greeted her from up above, and as she watched, a small family of birds perched upon a tree to her right. They gazed at her curiously, seemingly aware that she did not belong here. They rustled their feathers nervously, but did not flee.
The traveler stared at them, hunger the first clear feeling to return to her battered body. As a rule, she did her best to live and let live wherever she traveled, only taking what she needed for sustenance and no more.
A shame, though, that these beautiful creatures had to be consumed. But there were more birds. There was only one traveler, now.
With her mind, she reached out, hesitantly at first, blind to the intricacies of this world’s magic until she could get her bearings. Life, though, was the same everywhere she went, and she found the birds easily, shining dimly in comparison to the tree they were perched on.
It was an ordinary tree, but old, and connected to the rest of the life around it by an intricate weave of energies. The traveler looked, judged, and deemed it a shame.
There were more trees. There was only one traveler.
When she opened her eyes again, it was to the sound of a series of dull thuds. The birds had fallen from their perch, eyes open, staring. Empty husks, now.
The tree had fared no better. It had greyed, all its leaves decayed in a matter of seconds. As she watched, a rotten branch snapped and fell off.
She allowed herself a moment to grieve for the live she’d had to take, and then she got up.
The energy she’d taken from the life around her had rejuvenated her enough to at least stand and think more clearly.
She stood on a beach, tall cliffs surrounding her. The smell of saltwater was only broken up by the smell of ozone, and as she looked at the ground, she saw she was standing in a crater, stretching along the entire beach as if a meteor had struck it, molten sand turning to glass at the smoldering edges. The ground was blackened, ending where she stood. For a moment, she wondered how she had gotten here.
She remembered not. But she felt a deep, unexplainable grief.
She avoided it, for now. She had a feeling that was something she was good at.
She staggered over to the tree she had drained of its life, resting a wavering palm against the bark, and looked at the birds.
She grimaced. Her right hand, hanging by her side, shone with golden light, and then the familiar weight of her sword landed in it.
She stepped back and swung the blade low. It was not a long blade, but even as she swung it in front of the tree, it still buckled and fell, already burning at the edges.
She tightened her grip on her sword, and watched as the makeshift pyre she’d made burned, wishing she hadn’t had to take the lives.
She had a rule, wherever she went. Wait, and see. Return favors in kind, and transgressions with bloodshed. Take what you need, no more.
This she remembered. She did not remember with whom she had made that agreement.
She knew only her name. But it felt empty, like it didn’t belong here, said on its own instead of in conjunction with that other name, at the tip of her tongue and the edge of her awareness.
Here, she was the traveler, and she was alone for the first time in…
A very long time, indeed.
The makeshift pyre she had constructed felt like an omen, and she turned away from it, quietly shaking.
She felt exhausted, the action of manifesting her blade draining a good chunk of the energy she’d stolen. She let go of it, but before it could clatter to the ground, it dissolved into the same golden light it had come from.
If even holding her sword in this plane took this much of her energy, she was not safe here. She had to move.
To the west, she felt a large congregation of life, greater than anything else nearby. Trembling with exhaustion, she took her first step.
-
To get her bearings, the traveler slowly made her way to the tall cliff to the south. She had a distinct impression that this was not an ordinary cliff, or even a natural one, but apart from its size and shape, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Not that she was lucid enough to tell, either way. The energy she’d stolen was quickly draining from her, but she resolved herself to push through it. She didn’t want to take any more lives if she didn’t absolutely have to.
When she looked up, she realized she was already there, green grass surrounding her. She wondered how long it took her to get to the top of the jagged cliff. From up here, she could clearly see that this was the highest point in the nearby surroundings, the only thing taller being a snowy mountain in the Southwest.
There were more cliffs like this one, scattered around a landscape that was almost entirely green, with only a few scatterings of trees and a lake to break up the idyllic landscape. That lake, to the west, though…
She stretched out her senses, and felt the large congregation of life again, definitely to her west. She opened her eyes, and focused.
She had a sense she’d seen that place before, long ago, and for a second, she could see it as it had been, dead and burning. Now, though, the city in the lake was intact, and looking as inviting as a city could. Windmills spun calmly, both on the city walls and in the city itself. A large cathedral, with a giant statue in front of it, dominated the skyline, though from this far away, she couldn’t tell what it was.
She had a feeling that she should. That something was missing. A sense of powerlessness overcame her, and she turned around, taking in the rest of her surroundings.
To her north were more cliffs, and if she looked down and squinted, she could see the beach she’d woken up on. It was a really long way down from up here, and once again she wondered how long she’d been out of it if she’d made it all the way here in her delirious state.
To her south and her east, there was only ocean, the only thing breaking up the monotony of the endless waves being a small island to the east. It was nearing noon; the clouds were long gone, and the sun bore down on her mercilessly. Its glare reflected off the sea and into her eyes, intensifying the headache she was becoming increasingly aware of.
She closed her eyes and held her head in her hands, giving herself a moment to recover. She retreated into herself, focusing only on containing the headache. She stood there for several moments, blind and deaf to the world.
She didn’t hear the footsteps, or the guttural war cry that sounded before a club descended on her, knocking her to the ground.
Pain exploded across her shoulder and she slumped, hitting the ground like a puppet whose strings were cut. She opened her eyes, looking up at her attacker, and grimaced.
She had a distinct feeling that before she woke up on that beach, this creature would have been less than nothing to her. Pitch-black skin stretched thin over bones with hardly any muscle on it, sporting an ugly mask from behind which flowed a wild mane, with two large ears protruding from the top of its head. It was clothed in what looked like a leather skirt, with straps almost like bandages covering its arms and braces on its ankles.
It looked like a primitive creature, something that in the past, she would barely have paid any attention to. Now, though, she was in real, actual danger from it, because she was too weak to defend herself, or to summon her weapon.
She was unarmed, on the edge of a cliff, facing an armed opponent that was stronger than her. She took a moment to breathe and gather her bearings, ignoring the creature that was hollering in triumph. Grimacing, she forced herself to get up. She wouldn’t give it the satisfaction of going down without a fight.
If she could just get it to lunge at her, she could make it trip, fall over the edge of the cliff.
All she needed to do was anger it.
She looked it in the eye, or where she thought its eyes were, since the mask didn’t seem to any holes for eyes and made a rude gesture she remembered from long ago. The creature probably didn’t understand it, but it understood the intent behind it as it screeched in challenge and raised its club again.
One second passed, then two, and the traveler wondered if she’d somehow scared the creature into submission when it suddenly charged at her, swinging its club wildly. She’d been expecting a single strike, easy to dodge and giving her a chance to trip it and push it over the edge.
Instead, it barreled into her, swinging its club wildly, and launched her off the cliff.
As she fell, she flexed her shoulders, trying to use her wings (She had wings, didn’t she?) to break her fall.
No wings came.
As she fell, wind whipping around her and lashing her face with her hair, she looked up at the sky, calling out to the one person she could always count on.
“Aether!” she called out.
He appeared in her mind’s eye, blond hair and a boyish grin, extending his hand to help her.
In the real world, though, he did not appear. With a sickening crunch, she disappeared into a world of pain, and then darkness.
-
When she woke again, it was with a start and an ache deep in her bones. It was raining now, the sun hidden behind a thick sheet of dark clouds. The rain poured down mercilessly, soaking her to the bone, and she rolled over, trying to crawl away, trying to find shelter.
She realized she was in the same place she’d woken up in last time. She thought it odd. After all, the place she’d fallen from was further south. Surely, she hadn’t managed to fall perfectly into the same crater she’d woken up in the first time?
She’d survived, she realized, though she didn’t know how. That fall would have killed even the hardiest man, and she was too weak to even walk.
She crawled to the tree she’d drained earlier, seeking shade underneath one of its brothers, and passed out again.
-
The glare of the rising sun woke her from her slumber. The rain had stopped, leaving the smell of petrichor in the air, and she smiled. She loved that smell.
It reminded her of him. Her brother.
Aether.
She remembered him as he was before. Always smiling, seeing the beauty in everything whereas she was more skeptical, always forging bonds with the inhabitants of the worlds they visited where she preferred to keep her distance.
Hands made for creation instead of destruction.
They were two sides of the same coin, twins ascended to godhood together, though neither of them considered themselves to be gods. They certainly didn’t have any followers, or if they did, they hadn’t encouraged it. In their eyes, gods were the enemy, and before they were travelers, they were warriors.
She had never really let go of that role, but Aether had happily left his sword behind to take up adventuring.
She remembered now, what had happened in that strange kingdom in the clouds. A god had appeared, stronger than any they had encountered before. She had defeated them with ease, trapping Aether and casting her down from the heavens, taking most of her power and her wings in the process.
She had fallen, she remembered now. For years, decades, centuries, she didn’t know. Eventually time had lost its meaning. But she remembered the city in the west, aflame and in ruins, where now, no trace of that devastation remained.
She had been gone for a long time. And all that time, Aether had been trapped, in the hands of that Unknown God who had called herself the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles.
She had to find him. She’d been floundering, trying to regain her strength, and had only lost more in the process.
Resurrection was a draining thing, after all.
She really had died. The fall from the cliff had killed her. Or, at least, her corporeal form. The only way to truly kill a god was to destroy its spirit, and so far, the only weapon she knew was capable of that was in her possession.
But reshaping a body out of nothing took a lot of energy. So much so, that she was honestly surprised she’d managed it. Now, though, she was back to square one.
At least the Unknown God hadn’t taken all her powers, merely the energy to manifest them. It was as if all of her divinity had been shoved into a vessel too small to contain it.
As if she was human again. But not quite. A demigod, perhaps. A good step above the average person, when she was at full power, but a long way from the power she’d had.
So, there were three things on her to-do list.
Get her powers back. Get her brother back.
And destroy the Unknown God so utterly that it would be as if she had never existed. So much power in one god… if she were to take that for herself, no-one would ever dare touch her or her brother ever again.
And if they did, they, too, would be destroyed.
-
It took embarrassingly long to get to the edge of the beach, and she left a trail of destruction behind as she tried to regain her strength. Frustrated and tired of the death around her, the traveler let herself slump against a rock, and she watched the sky once more.
The clouds in the sky filled her with hatred. She imagined the unknown god looking down at her, smirking triumphantly. With balled fists she looked away, instead focusing on the sea.
She had seen many seas in her travels, traveled them by ship, or by air, or, on one memorable occasion, on foot. She remembered that much, as she thought, more memories of journeys appeared. All of them featured Aether
This wasn’t the first time she was a stranger in a strange land. But now, for the first time ever, she was alone.
She watched as a crab scuttled into her line of vision, oblivious to the traveler that sat mere feet away. As her gaze landed on it, it dug itself into the sand. She wondered why it did so, but when a wave washed over the shore and retreated to join its brothers, the crab was gone.
She pondered this for a while, the effortless way the crab could use the currents of the sea to get where it needed to go, and wished such a thing could be done with air.
Off to the side, she felt more than she saw a presence in the water, white and gold and drowning, and before she knew she was waist deep in the water, gently cradling a creature that looked like a small child.
It wore a black star in its hair, just above her temple. Its clothes, or what she assumed were clothes, were unique. White, with golden details on it, a cape that looked and felt like the night sky, and a halo that floated above its head. The traveler had never seen anything like it before, she pondered, as she gently lowered it to the sand on the shore.
Its eyes were closed, its skin was pale, and for a moment the traveler feared that the creature had drowned, that she had been too late, but when she focused, she could feel a spark, wavering against the dark. In that place between worlds, where souls both alive and dead dwelled, the traveler cupped it in her hands and gently blew on it.
She opened her eyes at the same time as the creature, and she got a brief glimpse of purple before the creature doubled over and started coughing up water, oblivious to the dead tree that was now slowly decaying behind her.
When the coughing subsided, the traveler slowly reached out, petting the creature on its back and wondering if she had done a good thing. Those eyes…
The creature looked up at her, and for a brief moment, those purple eyes terrified her, filled her with an unexplained sense of fear, and then the feeling was gone, chased away by the exuberant cry of joy the creature let out.
“Thank you!” it cried, throwing her arms up into the air, before the rest of her followed. Dumbfounded, the traveler watched as the creature floated up into the air until it was at eye level with her.
The creature floated closer to her face, inspecting her closely. “Mmm. You look strange.” It muttered, and the traveler looked at her, dumbfounded. She looked strange? Standing, or rather, floating upright, the creature looked even less like a child than it did before, hips and head disproportionately large, and those eyes…
They didn’t fill her with dread this time, only a deep sense of unease, and she wondered why such a small creature could make her feel so uncomfortable. Before the kingdom in the clouds, before the separation from her brother, this creature, too, would have been nothing to her. Even now, it didn’t look like it could do much to harm her.
The creature looked at her once more, and then disappeared into thin air, leaving a few particles behind that looked almost like constellations. Alarmed, the traveler spun around, looking for the creature, and found it behind her, inspecting her clothes.
“Paimon thinks you look like you’re not from around here.” She muttered, as she lifted the hem of the travelers’ white dress and was rewarded with a prompt slap on the wrist. “Ow!”
“Who are you?” The traveler demanded, straightening her dress and shooting the imp a dirty look. “Who’s Paimon?”
“My name is Paimon.” The imp said, high pitched and grating on the travelers’ ears. “Paimon would have drowned if you hadn’t helped! You need to be rewarded.”
The traveler looked at her, blankly. “With what? I don’t need anything that you can give me.”
The imp looked down for a moment, and then floated in front of her face, speaking more intensely than before. “Paimon knows! You need a guide! You’re new around here, aren’t you?”
Before, the thought of consuming the creature had briefly crossed the traveler’s mind. That cape alone looked like it contained a lot of energy, and if the creature, Paimon, could teleport, well, that pointed to magic, didn’t it?
But she did need a guide. Her encounter atop the cliff replayed in her mind. True, she was immortal, but dying still hurt, and it took a lot of time and energy to resurrect herself. Besides, she wanted to know more about this place she’d ended up in, if she ever wanted to find her brother.
Assuming, of course, he was even still in this world, or even alive.
Shaking those thoughts from her mind, she took a good long look at Paimon. Could this imp know enough about the world to be her guide? She knew nothing about her.
But if Paimon was from here, she already knew more than the traveler did.
“I could use a guide.” The traveler amended.
“Then it’s settled! Paimon will be your guide! What is your name, traveler?”
Saying her name on its own, without her brother’s with it, felt weird, felt wrong. She pushed it aside. She’d need to do it a lot more often, now.
“My name is Lumine.”
-
Paimon turned out to be a reasonably good guide. She was easily distracted by food and something she called mora, but she also had a lot to say about the world they were in.
They were in Teyvat. Lumine usually didn’t bother remembering the names of world’s she’d visited, leaving it to her brother and his better memory. She paid attention this time, though, because it looked like she’d be staying here for some time and she couldn’t just leave to another world with her powers diminished like this.
Paimon had shown her some fruits hanging from trees, finally giving her another means of sustaining herself other than draining the life out of whatever poor creature happened to be nearby. The fruit, aptly named a sunsettia, looked like a mix of an apple and a pear and tasted about the same, but its color reminded Lumine of the sunset that looked about the same everywhere she went, with a few notable exceptions.
Lumine ate more fruit than she wanted to admit, but she was so low on energy that she needed every boost she could get. After finishing her food, she was still hungry, but she could stand upright now, at least.
“Look, Lumine, that’s a boar! It’s hugely popular around here as food, but watch out! Its tusks can kill you if you’re not careful!” Paimon rattled off.
“Food, you say?” Lumine asked, dropping into a low crouch and summoning her sword to her hand.
“Yes? Lumine, what are you doing?” Paimon asked, floating lower to the ground. Lumine shushed her. “Quiet! You’ll scare it off.” She murmured, before holding her sword in a reverse grip.
In a flash she rose up, arm thrown backward, and then the sword sailed through the air, straight as an arrow, and lodged itself into the boar’s neck. Lumine calmly walked over to the boar, nodding in approval at the clean kill, and let her sword dissolve. The boar, that had been pinned to the ground in a standing position, slumped and rolled over.
“Paimon thinks that was terrifying.” The imp said in clear disapproval. “You just ate a whole tree’s worth of fruit, do you really need more?”
“I need a lot of energy to keep moving forward. Those little fruits were barely enough for me to summon my sword. But stuff like this? This will work just fine.” Lumine said, as she went about setting up a campfire.
She summoned a small knife, much the same way as she’d summoned her sword earlier, and set about skinning the boar. “Do people use the waste from these animals for anything? Tusks, hooves, skin? I want to see if I can earn some money from it, I’ll need that if I’m going to stick around.”
Paimon, visibly nervous, slowly got closer to look at what she was doing. “The tusks are sometimes used to craft stuff, and the hooves, maybe. But that skin is damaged, nobody is going to want to buy that from you.” She hedged. Lumine shrugged. “Then I’ll make a nice bag from it. I’m going to have to transport these things somehow.” She said, as she prepared a spit to roast the meat on.
She got up and left the meat to roast for a moment, looking around the trees they had set up camp in until she returned with a length of twine. Paimon watched as Lumine expertly tied the skin and twine together to make a small bag. Another length of twine made for a good shoulder strap.
“This’ll hold until we get to the city in the west.” Lumine mused, testing the strength of the strap. “What can you tell me about that place?”
Paimon brightened, obviously excited to talk about the city. “It’s called Mondstadt. So is the rest of this part of the world, but when people talk about Mondstadt they usually mean the city. It’s the biggest and most prosperous city for miles around. People there are under the protection from the Wind Archon, Barbatos.”
“Archon? So there are Gods here.” Lumine scowled. “This… Barbatos. What are they like?”
“Barbatos hasn’t been seen in centuries, but given the fact that Mondstadt is still standing and prosperous means that he probably hasn’t left.” Paimon said. “He’s very particular about freedom. This whole region is all about freedom. And wine.”
Lumine huffed. “Good. That means he won’t be in my way.”
Paimon’s confused look didn’t get a reply.
-
They made their way further west, past a waterfall and a pass between Starsnatch Cliff to the south and the Stormbearer Mountains to the north. A lush valley greeted them, with Mondstadt beckoning in the distance. There was still a long way to go, Lumine noted, mourning the loss of her wings as her feet started to get sore.
Lower down in the valley was a small lake, brimming with fish, and Lumine wondered how to best go about catching fish without a fishing rod, but she was distracted by the statue that stood on a small island in the middle of the lake.
“What is that thing, Paimon?” She asked, pointing at the statue. “It feels like it’s… calling to me, somehow. Is it a trap?”
“That is a Statue of the Seven. Every region in Teyvat has their own variant based on their own Archon. This one was erected in the honor of Barbatos.” Paimon explained. “People believe that bringing offerings to them brings good luck. Paimon’s never had any luck with it, though,” She sulked.
“Is the lake deep?” Lumine asked, wondering if expending the energy to swim to the island was worth it. But if that statue housed some sort of power she could take for herself, she might not have to worry about energy anymore.
In her experience, gods rarely listened to their people, certainly not for something as asinine as luck. More likely, the statue held some sort of dormant power, long left behind by the absentee Archon.
“It’s deep enough to swim. It’s manageable for most people, but most of them wait for the seasonal rains so the lake fills up further and they can take a boat.” Paimon said, pointing to a dock higher up in the valley with an old boat hanging awkwardly onto the dry ground, held up by a slowly fraying rope.
“I don’t have that kind of time.” Lumine muttered. “Looks like I’ll have to swim.”
“Wait!” Paimon exclaimed. “Paimon can’t swim!” Lumine rolled her eyes. “But you can float, can’t you?” She asked. “How did you end up nearly drowning, anyway?”
Paimon looked uneasy just remembering, folding her hands behind her back and looking down. “Paimon was out, flying aimlessly.” She admitted. “Paimon has been… homeless, for a while.” She looked embarrassed, so Lumine let it go and instead focused on what else the imp had to say.
“Paimon was flying near the bottom of Starsnatch cliff, near the beach, when Paimon saw something falling from the top of the cliff. Paimon went to investigate, but before Paimon could see what was going on, a wave of gold energy slammed into Paimon and pushed Paimon into the sea.”
Lumine thought about how unlikely it was that a random wave of energy would appear at the bottom of a cliff. There was nothing down there, after all, just some rocks, and…
“Did you get a good luck at what fell down?” Lumine asked, already feeling guilty. Paimon shook her head. “Just white. It was almost entirely white. A bit like you, actually.” She said thoughtfully.
“Paimon, I’m going to say something that sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. Promise not to freak out?” Lumine asked, pleading. Paimon nodded. “Paimon is ready!” She said happily.
“I died.” Lumine said. Paimon opened her mouth to reply, but Lumine shut her up with a raised finger. “And then I came back to life. It’s why I’ve been so hungry lately; reconstructing a body out of nothing takes a lot of energy.”
Paimon remained silent for a while, until it was clear to her that Lumine wasn’t going to stop her again. “Are you some kind of god?” She asked, timidly. Lumine’s eyes hardened.
“Sort of.” She said. “I’m more, and less at the same time. Me and my brother, we…” She stopped. “Maybe that’s a story for another time. Let’s cross this lake.”
She wasn’t ready to tell this random imp about her past yet. Or her brother. And they were wasting daylight standing around, yapping. Lumine preferred action over words.
She thought for a moment to take off her dress to keep it from getting wet, but she really didn’t care. Her dress had been with her for millennia, through wars, natural disasters, the birth and death of stars…
It could take a little water.
She dove gracefully, immediately speeding off faster than Paimon could follow, deaf to the imp’s complaints. The power in the statue called to her like a beacon, and she followed it, a deep hunger in her rearing its ugly head for the first time since well before the kingdom in the clouds.
She climbed out of the water with the same amount of grace she’d gotten in, that grace somehow not diminished in the slightest by the fact she was dripping water everywhere. She was already standing by the statue when Paimon caught up to her, looking at the details.
The statue was a large pillar, damaged over the many years it had spent exposed to the elements. On top of the pillar stood a winged figure, clothed in a hooded robe with hands outstretched, cradling an orb of some kind. Its facial features were indistinguishable, perhaps weathered away, but more likely just never included in the design. The only defining features Lumine could see were a set of braids poking out from underneath the hood.
On the outside the statue, while pretty, looked as cold and dead as any hunk of stone would. With her mind’s eye, though, Lumine could see a swirling nexus of pure power. It looked different from the kinds of power she’d come across over the many centuries of her existence, but she could feel its pull nonetheless.
Lumine didn’t want to be pulled in, though, and slaved to whatever god had left behind this remnant of his power. Instead, she reached in and heaved, teeth gritted in concentration, and with the sound of a tolling bell the power ripped away from the statue and into her.
Energy filled her immediately, and she felt like she could climb Starsnatch cliff twenty times over, hurl a mountain at the gods, stretch her wings and fly.
It was a fraction of how she’d felt before the kingdom in the clouds.
She had a new feeling in her palms, she noticed. It felt as though there was a small breeze playing in between her fingers. Curious, she lifted her hand from where it had been resting on the statue, and saw small wisps of wind darting around her hands.
She turned around, smiling, and pointed at a nearby tree. Mentally, she pushed, and with a might roar a gust of wind slammed into the tree, ripping its roots free from the earth and sending it to the ground with a loud thud.
“Whoa.” Paimon sounded amazed. “You have Anemo powers without a vision?”
“What’s a vision?” Lumine asked, experimenting more with the breeze between her fingers, seeing how precisely she could control the flow of wind.
“A vision is a sign that the gods favor you, and it enables you to use elemental powers.” Paimon explained. Lumine’s face soured. “I don’t need the favor of the gods to wield their power. I’ve been stealing power from gods since before you were born.”
Lumine let go of her newfound power, leaving it dormant but still bristling somewhere deep in her core. She’d missed this, this feeling of strength and potential, even if she’d only had to go without since the kingdom in the clouds.
“Paimon thinks you’re a little scary sometimes, Lumine.” Paimon said timidly. Lumine schooled her expression, compartmentalizing the lust for divine blood she felt and shoving it back in the dark corner of her mind where she kept it until she had to fight another god. Stealing the power from the statue, even if it was only a sliver of the true might of a god, reminded her of the many wars she’d fought over the course of her existence.
She’d made Aether a promise, and he, her. Only return whatever courtesy has been extended to them, never take more than you need, and, a later amendment; try not to get involved in any wars.
They were notoriously bad at that last one.
“Forgive me, Paimon. Just reminiscing about the good old days.” Lumine turned to look at Paimon again. “Shall we? I believe there’s a city calling our name.”