Chapter Text
Lumine watched the papers flutter on the desk in front of her. The room was rather drafty. Lumine was still trying to work out where the draft was coming from. She couldn't see any windows in the small office, nor any fans plugged in. Huh.
She shuffled in the chair. Paimon helped her pick out today’s outfit. Paimon insisted that her old dress was too flashy, so instead dressed Lumine up in a pencil skirt and a white blazer. She had to ditch her usual boots for a pair of mundane flats, but Lumine drew the line at her floral hair clip. She didn’t care if it made her look out-of-place, since it was a gift from her dear brother. And so there she sat, dressed up in business casual with two large lilies sticking out of the side of her head, itching at the cheap tights that irritated her skin.
The office was flooded in bright teal. Model airplanes hung from the ceiling. Posters of various bands adorned the walls, and on display right behind the desk was an antique lyre. What a funny thing to put in an office...
"Hey there, you must be Lumine!"
A high pitched voice interrupted Lumine's train of thought. In the doorway stood a young man with braided hair sticking out from his slouched beanie. He wore a blue-green apron with the name "Barbados' Bargains'' stitched onto the front pocket.
"My name's Venti. I'm the owner of the building. Are you here about the apartment?"
----
“So you are looking into renting an apartment, ” Venti stated. He was slowly spinning around in his chair behind his desk. “Why do you want to live here?”
“I do not have a lot of mora.” Lumine winced as the clunky words left her mouth. Paimon had tried her best to teach her the local language but Aether was always better with linguistics. Her accent was heavy and her grammar was flawed, so Lumine was just hoping that she got her point across well enough. At least she was pretty good at listening comprehension.
Venti laughed, stopping his twirling with a sudden jolt. “Straight to the point! I like you.” He repositioned himself so that he was leaning on the desk with one elbow, the other resting on his bent knee. “By your accent I can guess you’re not from here. Are you new in town? What’s your deal?”
Lumine appreciated how Venti slowed down his speech when talking to her. It wasn’t patronizing, just even and clear. “I come from place far. I look for lost brother. I travel with Paimon.” Lumine blushed. “My Teyvatian not good, sorry.”
Venti blatantly ignored her apology. “Is Paimon that little kid who came in with you? How are you two related?”
“ Emergency food! ” Lumine chuckled in her native tongue before replying “Little sister.”
Venti looks suspicious of Lumine’s joke. His eyes grew a little darker. “Now that’s a language I’ve never heard before! Where are you from again?”
Shoot. Perhaps she should avoid speaking otherworldly languages to strangers in the future. “Uhhh...how you say...um…”
“Alright, I won’t press you.” Venti threw up his hands, the sudden shift twirling his chair once again. Despite his carefree posture, his eyes remained dark and stormy. “How about your job?”
“I still look, but I get job soon. I am good at work.”
Venti shrugged. “As long as you have enough mora to pay rent, I honestly could not care less how you got it. Do you have the down payment?”
Lumine almost checked her pockets before remembering her new outfit did not have any. She used to be able to fit all of her belongings in the pockets of her old dress, so she was understandably confused when Paimon’s new outfit had no pockets at all! Paimon just claimed that “wasn’t how they do things in Teyvat” and that Lumine “needs to blend in”, and who was Lumine to argue? She knew nothing of this strange world, so Paimon just shook her head and gave Lumine a faux leather purse she found in the clearance aisle.
It was out of that purse that Lumine grabbed her bag of mora. She and Paimon racked their brains for weeks trying to find ways to save up enough mora to start a life in Mondstadt. None of Lumine’s usual methods of making money were working - no one wanted to buy any of the game she hunted or fish she caught. And she came to Teyvat with nothing of value - at least, nothing that she was willing to sell. In the end, Lumine and Paimon performed as “travelling street magicians.” Lumine wasn’t quite sure it would work. After all, the most she could do now was make a few stars twinkle in the palm of her hand. It was nothing compared to her galactic powers from before. Paimon assured her that even the tiniest displays of magic would make people go nuts, and she was not kidding! Word got around, and by the end of the week they had all the mora needed to pay for a month’s rent.
“Huh.” Venti stared skeptically at the bag of coins. “Most people pay with a check, but this works.” He swiped the jingling bag off the desk and started counting out the fee.
After what felt like an eternity, Venti was satisfied by the amount in the bag. He dug through the desk drawers before pulling out a small stack of papers, a pen, and a key. It was a dingy bronze with a pale green tag that read “Appt. 302”. Lumine took the pen and signed the papers before trading them for her new keys.
“Your room is on the top floor, on the right. I’ll probably pop by later tonight to see how you’re doing, but otherwise you are good to go.”
“Thank you very much.” Lumine stood up and gave a quick bow before turning to leave.
“And Lumine?”
Lumine turned around.
“Be careful tonight. I hear that there is quite the storm headed our way.” Something thunderous flashed in Venti’s eyes, but it was gone before she could figure out what it was.
---
“Paimon is tired of walking! How do you keep doing it?”
Now behind the safety of a locked door and several closed curtains, Paimon gently floated above the ground. Lumine was in her new room unpacking her few belongings. Paimon decided that, since she was the one who picked everything out, she didn’t have to do any of the work.
“Now that we have an apartment, Paimon thinks we should start looking for a job. Paimon isn’t sure what kinds of jobs you would be any good at, but Paimon’s sure she will figure something out!” Paimon did a small backflip before getting back to doing absolutely nothing useful.
Lumine only grunted in response, lifting up a box of cookware. Whenever Paimon said that she would take care of something, it really meant that Lumine would take care of it. The sky outside had darkened to a lavender grey, slowly choking out the few remaining rays of sunlight. If she concentrated, Lumine could hear the building creak against the roaring winds.
Lumine listened closer. That roaring didn’t sound like any wind she has ever heard before. She gently opened the crack in the curtains just a little further.
Lumine was met face to face with a giant, slitted eye.
She quickly closed the curtains before opening them again with caution. The draconic eye and tumultuous winds were gone. The building gave a final shudder before settling down. If not for the silhouette soaring over the mauve horizon she might have thought she imagined the whole thing.
“Paimon? Are dragons here?” Lumine thought. She did not know the word for dragon in Teyvat. “How do you say, very big bird lizard? Magic, breathe fire?”
Paimon looked at her like she had grown an extra head. “There are no bird lizards here, silly! And Paimon told you, most magic disappeared from this land centuries ago. What are you even talking about? Paimon doesn’t get it.”
Lumine took one last glance out the window before shutting the curtains. She knew what she saw. And if Paimon claimed that dragons were not natural in this world, perhaps there were other things not of this world nearby. Even if the chances that these two things were related was abysmal, Lumine still had a glimmer of hope.
“I will find you, Aether. We will be reunited.”