sweet as sugar.

(Or, the Traveler has a harrowing encounter which leaves her reeling.)

There is a shivering blob of white amongst the snow of Dragonspine, and as Lumine draws closer, jet black hair accented by hot pink stands out in sharp contrast.

Oh. That's a body.

“Hello?” the blonde called, kneeling down and ignoring how the cold bit into her legs. “Can you hear me?” No answer, so she shook the smaller person a little roughly, causing a pair of snow white wings to pop up and flitter rapidly as they jolted awake. Lumine screamed and leaned back, trying to avoid getting walloped in the face, and watched as the other person hissed and grabbed their right wing- now that the Traveler looked closer, it was moving oddly …was it broken? “Here, let me help you up. There's a church down in the city,” and strong hands lift the other person out of the snow - now that she can see the face, it seems to be another young lady, and her cheeks and nose are rosy from the chill.

“..thank you,” the girl manages, leaning all her weight on the Traveler. “You are too kind..”

It doesn't take too long to get to the church, taking the teleporters. The petite young lady is tucked into a bed and told to rest, and after ensuring she'll be alright, Lumine makes way to go.

“..it seems the rumors were true, you really will help just about anyone.. I wonder if one day, that will be your downfall..”

Lumine stopped in her tracks, looking to the inhabitant in the bed in her peripheral vision. She looked so small, the blankets covering her up about to her chin, but the room suddenly felt very, veryyyyy cold.

“..what do you mean by that,” she hears herself say, by some miracle.

“Oh…don't pay me any attention,” the raven haired girl placated, waving a hand weakly. “Simply thinking aloud..”.

“..who are you,” Lumine demanded, turning fully around to face the bed as her expression hardened.

“Does that matter..? Would you have left me alone on that mountain to die if you didn't like the answer?”

Silence.

“.. I don't mean you any harm, Traveler, or the people of Mondstadt, if that's what you're worried about," was the quiet reply after a long moment. "I swear it. But I'm aware you do not like the people I work with very much, and so I deemed it best to keep my mouth shut until you offered me assistance.”

“The folks you work with,” Lumine repeated almost dumbly, looking more and more rattled by the moment.

“You got one of my coworkers killed back in Inazuma. Does that ring any bells???”

Lumine can't breathe.

“You're a Harbinger?”

Rapidly, she goes down the list in her mind. Signora was dead, and she'd already met Arlecchino, so this had to be either Sandrone or Columbina.

“Which one?” she barely manages.

“The Damsel,” the girl replies easily, eyes finally opening - they're a beautiful magenta, almost mesmerizing. “Nice to meet you, Traveler. You don't have to be afraid. Like I said, I have no desire to harm you, or anyone here. It's a little disheartening to think you may have simply abandoned me if you knew who I was beforehand….. but at least that's not what happened, no? I don't know why you're so flustered, Master Childe speaks so highly of you -”

“He's NOT my friend!”

There go the wings again, slightly.

“.. we're not all horrible people, you know. Not all of us had a choice in this.”

Lumine thinks of the twins, and Freminet.

Columbina looks sad now, genuinely so.

“...Why can't you understand that?”

“Well, sorry for being a little on edge, considering some of your coworkers have tried to KILL me -”

“But I'm not them. I already said I have no interest in harming you. Do you think that I'm lying?”

Silence, painful.

“Perhaps if you stopped looking at us through your black and white lens, you'll see that we, and you, are much closer to grey than you'd like to admit -”

The door slams, the sound resounding. Lumine is gone.

Columbina closes her eyes, sighing.

“...well. You can't fault a girl for trying.”

She steeples her hands over her chest then, expression thoughtful. “The heart that forever bleeds will one day cease to beat. . I wonder if she will realize that before it's too late. I surely hope so.”

Ain't it funny (but not funny haha. Funny weird) how that goes. You told us to wait for Natlan, okay. We're here. It hasn't gotten any better, and now people are being told once again that they're overreacting when it's been shown time and time again that they're not cared about.

I should have her triple crowned and 90'd by the end of the week!

Me and my friends were grinding SO hard I was just praying and praying and praying and FINALLY. FINALLY. FURINA HOME...MY BELOVED...MY BABY GIRL AND DAUGHTER......

bro i almost passed out seeing the wish go gold... i was like ok. if i don't get her. tighnari. jean. mona. they're all fine...keqing too..and then furina popped up and i almost fainted

I LOVE YOU KIRARA MY BABY MY ANGEL MY DAUGHTER!!!!!!!

(ngl this could be a fun DnD design for her too I'd love to draw her with bard Furina and medic Lumine haha)

Free c1 for me and an awesome skin for my favorite Dendro it's a good day. Lots of the events this patch seem fun, too! I know the photo event is definitely like...no thoughts kinda event but I like those too, something to kinda wind down and get easy rewards.

As for the Natlan characters, well.

My expectations were already on the ground but let's just say I found a shovel and started digging. Suffice it to say unless there's reruns in 5.0 I want to go for, like maybe Zhongli or Yae, I will be saving the entirety of the patch. Maybe 5.1 will be better. But in my heart of hearts it's probably gonna be yet another Sumeru and god. Why.

I did it.....all 8 Stellas....

Lemme tell you I had to restart the Vishap duo boss so many times on this clear... I'd be super close to clearing with the Stella and then one of them would revive and I just:

Hu Tao was the big kicker, I was able to finally get the last Stella using her, Bennett, Fischl, and Kazuha against Coppelius, it was much easier (I think I am sadly not skilled enough yet to play Arlecchino. It doesn't help that I play on my phone, either, no doubt; and I tend to panic and when that happens, rotations suffer)