To Have a Heart

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/40131336.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Gen
Fandom: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game)
Relationship: Kong | Aether & Ying | Lumine (Genshin Impact)
Character: Ying | Lumine (Genshin Impact), Kong | Aether (Genshin Impact)
Additional Tags: Character Study, Ying | Lumine is the Traveler (Genshin Impact),
Lumine is not human, Transition of it/its to she/her pronouns, Ying |
Lumine is Bad at Feelings (Genshin Impact), but she learns, No
Dialogue, Immortal Ying | Lumine (Genshin Impact), Abyss Kong |
Aether (Genshin Impact)
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2022-07-07 Words: 1276

To Have a Heart
by Beria1021

Summary

Lumine cannot feel emotion as the humans do.

Notes

See the end of the work for notes

Lumine could feel. The salty breeze, as it blew her hair past her shoulders. Her own body, coarse
and sensitive and symmetrical. The sand between her ten toes, the millions of granules that lay as a
testament to the world itself. That the world was, despite millions of worlds that never came to be.

Lumine carried its existence. It . . . lived. As it had, and unlike as it had not. For example, it had not
been living until it awoke on strange, winded shores. For example, it had lived from meeting
Aether to failing to escape this ruined world. Lumine took up its shape, the feel of its mind, and the
mastery of its body. It would look for Aether.

Lumine can feel. This, alone, is not cause for alarm as it has almost always experienced touch
while living. No, its nerves and pain receptors are simple and familiar structures. Rather, it is the
concept of time that Lumine finds itself confused about. Aether and Lumine have never been
subject to the whims of time so drastically that they could feel each moment passing, lost and
unable to be returned to.

Lumine walks the lands of Mondstadt and wonders. The boundaries between Traveler, as it is
titled, and human, as most of this world is (now. the history of the world has left faint but bloody
scars on the lands governed by gods.) are undefinable. The blurred edges of other and an-us-that-
does-not include-it help, but do not clarify. It does not think it toes the space between the two. It
travels, and it does so in an evidently remarkable way, so it is a Traveler. There can be no
argument.

Time, however, is an issue. (And what a novelty, to have so many collections of moments and
consequences that can be categorized as such. The outcomes matter because Aether (presumably)
and Lumine cannot reverse them so easily anymore.) Time is an issue because Lumine can feel it
passing, can feel it slipping between its fingers like the crystal sand on the beach, like falling. Like
Aether from between its grasp. Lumine does not know how the currency of time should be spent
when Aether is not hiding where it can reach, when no one knows where Aether is.

Lumine does not feel the terror of the humans . . . she . . . helps. Lumine does not feel their loyalty
to their city or their love for each other. A human blinded since birth has never and will never see
as their species does. She is not human, anyway.

Lumine helps regardless. Time is ever-moving, more akin to bubbles on a river than grains of sand.
Each bubble of time-pockets moves at a different pace, but all are swept along something, and
Lumine is swept along with them. Within the bubble assigned, Lumine can only move forward
until it is suddenly, in a burst of iridescent droplets, destroyed. Or so Lumine worries will happen,
with the both of them inside, should Aether not be found.

(To die would be a first and a last. It would be different from not living.)

Lumine listens, helps, and thinks all the while.

Time passes, and Lumine does not find Aether. Unfamiliar as she is with it, she cannot say how
long it is before Aether finds her.

In the bowels of Liyue battling an Abyss-tainted being, Aether’s arrival is unanticipated, but
Lumine’s body grows warm and light regardless. The heart in her chest beats fast, tripping from
one moment to another as the world finally, finally , comes into focus once more. Aether glows
with the pure white of their power, exactly as she remembers, the pressure of authority still
blanketed around . . . him. A weight is lifted. Relief? He is still the sun to her moon and has not
been broken throughout their separation. When Aether speaks, however, his words are frigid and
distanced in a way Lumine does not recognize. She cannot remember if she should.

She has spent too long in this world, so she is familiar with the distraction behind his senseless
advice. Anger. Passion. He has lost something when they have never needed possessions.
Something he was perhaps attached to, as much as the humans are attached to their visions. No. As
the humans are attached to each other.

Lumine’s eyes have always reflected Aether’s, a mirror to an endless, blinding light, but Aether’s
eyes are darkened now with foreign emotion. No longer is he divinely aloof. He has not lost a
possession, not even a nation of possessions. He has lost people he cared about and the homeland
they (he?) lived in. Aether can feel as the humans do, can care and love and lose more than just . . .
her.

Lumine would leave everything for Aether, for her better half. He found her, so they can finally
escape from this world’s binds on her body and mind and heart and return to their existence of
duality-

Aether’s eyes reflect nothing. They are shadowed with disdain and darkened with vengeance, a
void as complete as the one they were born from. Aether feels as the humans do, but the light of his
power is mocking, cold, and empty.

Her heart constricts painfully. Confused, she brushes stiff fingers over her chest, but it does not
fade.

Lumine is feeling a human emotion, one she cannot identify. It clings to her insides and fills her
throat. It poisons her memories and scrambles her thoughts.

Lumine can feel.

It hardly matters with Aether in front of her. Aether who she lived for, fought for, designed her
existence for. Aether blazed a trail of light, and Lumine became his tailwind. Aether battled gods,
and Lumine executed them. Aether grew bored, and Lumine found another world, all of it for him.

He turns and does not want her to follow. She tries, fails, and does not think of anything at all.

The answer finds her anyway. She feels betrayed.

Lumine can feel. She can feel the wind brushing against her as it dances; she can feel the ground
supporting her every footfall. Now, she can also feel emotion, everpresent, everchanging, and
overwhelming.

She is unsure what to do with it. At first, the bitterness and sorrow over Aether’s choice nearly
consumes her, as surely as the light of a dying star. Beyond the discomfort of her body’s physical
reactions is the shifting of her desires. She still must find Aether, but the experiences that lead her
to that goal are no longer monotonous obstacles. She finds herself wanting to help Teyvat’s people,
where time allows.

She wants to build relationships with them, no matter how fleeting, so she learns. She learns how
kindness turns politeness genuine. She learns that comforting others is more important than
uncovering their secrets. She also learns, very gradually, how to let others do the same to her.

Lumine has never been weak, but accepting kindness and comfort is not a sign of weakness, but of
love, she learns.

She creates bonds, and she begins to understand her brother. She feels strengthened by her friends
and warmth in their presence. She feels the need to protect them, even if she lacks most of her
power to do so. If she were to lose them . . . her newfound joy would fester into bitterness.

She feels pity for Aether.

She feels more than that. She feels happy. She is happy traveling in Teyvat, just a step to the left of
being human. She is happy creating bonds with the people of this land.

She cares for these people, her people, and she will defend them, even from the will of her other
half. (Lumine is also terrified.)
End Notes

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

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