Chapter Text
Despite having spent eon after eon alive and traversing the universe, it had never passed slower than after the twin stars had left Teyvat. Or well, at least for one of them. Aether had been able to cast off the mortal shell easily that he’d assumed in the 500 or so years on the planet while Lumine slept. But Lumine… Lumine had left her heart behind. The twins had succeeded in thwarting the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles and restored order to the realm before moving onto their next adventure.
300 years had passed since then.
And now it was time for them to return for they could sense an oncoming storm, one that threatened to drown the entire universe in darkness if left unchecked. Something had plunged the peaceful realm into disarray, alerting the two star deities that their services were needed once more. It wouldn’t be the first time the twins had had to return to somewhere they’d been before, but it usually was after much longer than a measly three centuries.
“Something’s wrong,” Aether had said as they drifted along the sea of stars. “Can you feel it?”
It took Lumine a moment to look at him, lost in a trance as she replayed old memories in her head. “...Hm?”
Her twin had sighed, moving to float in front of her, stopping their flight through the dark depths of space. “You can’t feel it calling to you? The Abyss ?”
Lumine had frozen then, a dozen expressions crossing her face in an instant, all of them ones that Aether could plainly read. “You mean… Teyvat is calling?” She hadn’t been able to feel the call, only Aether, who had spent centuries in the Abyss could feel its siren call.
He had just nodded once. “Yes. It feels like something is tugging me back there, like it’s threatening to engulf the entire realm. We must go to it, if only to just make sure nothing has happened, but… I understand if you want me to go alone. For them, it’s been centuries, so…” So your lover is long dead.
“I… want to go.” That was all it took for Lumine to change course, her scarf billowing behind her without wind as she began to glow, leaving streaks across space as she gathered speed behind her, much like a shooting star across the night sky, a golden glow cast around her. Aether followed closely behind, a worried look on his face.
Their travel back to the realm of Teyvat didn’t take too long, only a couple of rotations around the sun, quite quick for such a long distance they had come from. Still, a lot could happen when it took two planet rotations to reach their destination. When they got close, the twins slowed down to observe how it looked from space, seeing how different it looked. Gone were the lush, green, rolling hills of Mondstadt, replaced with what looked like dry, cracked ground, all of the water dried out.
It made both twins pale, looking at each other in alarm.
Lumine made her descent first, her wings extended to push her along, the barrier around her to protect her from the heat of reentry, burning white-hot across the sky of Teyvat. She aimed to make a landing near the beach where she had awoken all those years before. Aether followed a moment later. They could both feel it the moment they touched down: the sinister feeling of the Abyss covering everything under the sun.
The young-looking blondes knelt, and Lumine lightly brushed her hand over the ground, watching it crack under the slightest touch. It had small crystals embedded in the sand of the beach, large, jagged rocks spiking out where the water had once been.
“We need to look around and see if we can find anyone living nearby,” Aether said softly, placing his hand on Lumine’s shoulder to make sure she was alright.
She was staring out over the barren wasteland, her hands clenched at her side. It was so unlike what she’d left that it was hard to remember what it had been like. “Okay. Maybe the city is alright?”
It was not alright.
The once beautiful city of Mondstadt looked like it had been through a literal hell. The lake that was around the city had mostly dried up, and the water that remained was opaque and almost seemed to bubble ominously. It was stagnant and smelled like something had died within it while a hot, dry heat billowed across the barren fields leading to the city entrance. It seemed deserted until they were making their way over the bridge.
Suddenly, an arrow whizzed past Aether’s head, the blonde moving out of the way instinctively before both gods summoned their swords, facing where the arrow had come from: a parapet on the broken walls of the city. Realizing it was a human and not a hilichurl or something else , Lumine held up her hand, calling out.
“Wait, we mean no harm! What has happened to Mondstadt?” She didn’t know if the city was still even called that, and judging by the second arrow that was fired at her, it was not.
“State your business,” a gruff voice called ,at least signaling that the person trying to pierce them full of arrows was vaguely interested in speaking to them.
Aether held up his hand as well. “We’re just simple travelers looking for information.” Short, sweet, and to the point. “The last time we visited, it wasn’t like… this ”
There was a moment of hesitation before there was a sudden high-pitched screech, and something darted out from behind the parapet.
“Miss Honorary Knight!” Lumine was so surprised that all she could do was stagger backwards, her eyes wide.
“Klee?!”
Everything was chaotic. Lumine was tackled by a woman wearing red, and a dozen people wearing tattered armor ran after her, yelling in a panic. Aether held his sword out, pointed at the “attacker,” not recognizing what Lumine had said.
Lumine stared up at the woman who had just tackled her to the ground, her eyes wide. She was much older, an adult, but there was no mistaking that face. It was Klee, someone who had been a very young elf child when Lumine had last roamed Teyvat. It made sense that she was alive given the longevity of her species, but Lumine still hadn’t expected it, hugging onto her tightly at seeing the face of someone from all that time ago.
She looked back at the people who had forsaken the shielding of the walls to stare in confusion at the scene before them. “It’s okay! They’re good people, I promise!” Klee jumped up, pulling Lumine to her feet and shot Aether a warm smile. “Come on, let’s get out of the wilderness and into somewhere more comfortable!”
It took all of five minutes for Lumine and Aether to be escorted into the ruined city by Klee, her bubbly nature seemed to have not staled a bit in all of the years the twins had been gone. Everyone else was wary, as if wondering how the elf knew the two travelers.
“Okay, here we are.” Klee pulled up three chairs for them in what used to be the Angel’s Share, now just a barely functioning building. “I would offer you something to drink, but ah- we’re running kind of low on water at the moment. I’m sure you saw the state of the lake?”
That made Lumine sit up straighter, her protective nature over the city that took her in flaring up like a wildfire. “Yes, I did. What happened here, Klee?”
Aether was quiet, glancing around at the people who were clearly there to guard Klee and to listen to the story. Sighing, the elf pulled off her cap and wiped the sweat from her brow before putting it back on. “I should probably introduce you two to everyone. This is Miss Lumine and Mister Aether. They were in Teyvat before the first Abyssal Rise.”
Abyssal Rise?
There was a low murmur from the people around them, clearly skeptical. “Forgive me, Klee,” an elderly gentleman began. “What do you mean? That was almost three hundred years ago, and these young’uns couldn’t be more than in their early twenties…”
The elf didn’t seem bothered by that in the slightest. “They’re like gods or something.”
At the word “god,” several people gasped and stepped back as if they’d been bitten. There were many murmurs of “cast them out” and “they’re with him ” that the twins were worried about. But instead of listening, Klee glared at the ones who had spoken.
“They aren’t bad! They saved this world three centuries ago, and now they’re back to help us!” She turned back to the twins. “You are here to help us, aren’t you?”
Aether spoke first. “That’s what we’re going to try to do. Now, can you tell us about this ‘Abyssal Rise’ you mentioned?”
“Well, three hundred years ago, after you left, everything was very peaceful and nice! Well, at least for a few years, but then something began to eat at the border between the Abyss and the above ground, weakening it.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Slowly more abyssal creatures began appearing across Teyvat, and the land began to warp into the barren wasteland you see now. There was an increase of hilichurls and other monsters, too… so many things were destroyed.”
“Okay, so the barrier was weakening. Do you know what caused it?” Aether was the one speaking again while Lumine was quietly looking at her hands, almost like she was zoning out.
Klee was silent for a moment as well before she took a glance at Lumine and then back to Aether, almost as if she was afraid. “All I know is that it started… in Snezhnaya.”