✦✧

"those are not the same at all. have you not had a normal conversation with someone you're getting to know? no one asks how old another is. they do exchange other information though." he's amazed she even managed to get this far speaking to anyone brought here. it may simply be first impression, but he's certainly not having much luck and he doesn't intend to spend hours arguing with her over it.

if anything, she was starting to wonder what his deal was. so blunt and condescending — who did he think he was? it was like mixing Kaeya's refusal to be honest and Alhaitham's sarcastic delivery even when it wasn't necessary. hmph!

—wait, he was leaving? what the heck?! hey!

✦yeah... pretty much. we got stuck in a building on the outskirts of the city with copies of ourselves hunting us down. it wasn't that we got locked inside, there were others too. wait— don't say you were there, Flins?✦

He unfolded his arms and took a few steps closer to the facility, leaving the two behind until he stopped and turned to look at them.

"I like to think of it as a casual leg day. it'd probably look more like she's playing Twister if she tried".

deciding to limit her acknowledgment to puffed cheeks and a sharp look, Paimon instead focused on the more important matter at hand. the prize! a tiny finger extending out towards the glass cabinet filled with plush toys.

But it weren’t her words that caught his attention, no, it was her companion that shifted his focus elsewhere. The corners of his lips tucked upwards into a pleased, curious smirk as he dared to take an inquisitive step forward. “Now, look at this. It can talk after all.” Her floating companion had always been by her side, but he couldn’t remember a time when it actually spoke to him, usually anxiously seeking shelter behind the Traveler, quiet as a lab mouse. And what courageous words she chose indeed. The Doctor chuckled low, quite flattered by the implications of that statement. “I have the better whole of all of Teyvat paint their targets on my back, you don’t seriously think that a few more along the way would faze me? Gods, stars, those unbound by fate should not concern themselves with such drivel.” But it weren’t all enemies, no, the Doctor was sure to count some possible collaborators among them.

his attention shifting to Paimon had the companion's hair stand on-end, her body rigid under his masked gaze. a hand rose up, actively placing a barricade between the two rather than allowing her body to be used as a shield like the last time. an unworded warning to Dottore that she would prohibit any sinister intentions he had for the other.

Paimon herself fought to maintain a brave face, not to give him the satisfaction of sending her retreating the instant she became the focus. although the instinct was there — stupid Stars imposing a limit on her flight! she intended to protest about the chasm between his current state and those who could become enemies, extending to the Stars themselves but, well, that didn't matter to him in Teyvat, so it wouldn't be any different here. it wouldn't change anything, just tell him what he already knew. seriously, what did they think bringing him here?

the line of the Traveler's lips twitched into a shallow frown, she hadn't been along in feeling something was off, but weren't about to draw The Doctor's attention to Wanderer if they'd not already been pulled towards one another. he'd suspected that one glimpse might be enough for Dottore to piece together the mystery, and given his role in Scaramouche's legacy, that was not a can Lumine wanted pried open, with or without being a participant of the process.

Abruptly, flames gather in his hands before he blasts it at the crystals. Some shatter upon touch, but the rest persist as a second skin crawling slowly up his leg.

"My understanding is that these rooms aren't infinite," Aurelius continues while gathering fresh first. This time, he's shaping the flames themselves into the shape of a blade. "You and your companion should hurry ahead and try to find an exit, perhaps?"

a limb lost was one so easily regained, and he shrugged it off as if no differently than breaking a fingernail... what on earth was he? just what level of power would be necessary to truly challenge him baffled the Traveler, her thoughts straying back to the unknown god and what a bout between the two might look like.

in any case, it solidified that she couldn't expect to jump him and expect to survive. she'd have to keep up the act for as long as he were anywhere nearby.

"we'll give you some privacy," she remarked. curious as it might be to witness, no stranger to gruesome scenes, Paimon would kick up a fuss were there even a hint of joking to stay. "I suppose the regrowth process won't take long enough that more crystals will grow across you in the mean time, so we'll head back and wait".

so, when she speaks of being here in his hour of need, the twist of her lips to withhold whatever other torrent wishes to pour forth from her mouth, he simply smiles. it is not one of sorrow but, rather, of his usual cadence he carries, albeit tinged with an uncertainty on if he should. ❝ Oh? ❞ how often has he told this wayward traveler that if he was ever needed to let him know? that they shouldn't make the friendship between them merely transactional.

yet surely it was a vastly different tale when it became him who was the one to rely on her, was it not? something in his heart quivers, a reminder that she knew more than so many of his past 一 his origins 一 and still did not shun him as he had once been before upon another's learning of that selfsame secret.

"look around, isn't it obvious?"

maybe she shouldn't breach the subject, Teyvatians typically avoided it — Paimon had mentioned how Citlali recognised the strain after... last time. nobody in Nod-Krai probed after a figment led her astray. maybe all to spare reopening wounds or because there were more pressing matters, likely a mixture of both. it might be more sensitive to say nothing and continue as normal, as they both had grown accustomed to, however... the pain accompanied her every step, and now he was burdened with the same.

a knot twisted in her stomach... all in a world where she had been granted her wish — as if someone had to be without and Diluc had been the price. not that anyone had any bearing on who was brought here and who was returned.

did Kaeya blame her? of course not. was he jealous? if he knew... perhaps he might. he'd also been robbed of so much, a stranger within the nation he'd come to call home. a family he loved, beyond its fractures, stolen away now entirely. carrying a soul engraved with the scars of 500 years ago.

if she closed her eyes, the memory of that Sumerian shack might populate the darkness... "O' Prince of Khaenri'ah".

He can't blame Paimon for her hesitation. His double might have been acting under some artificial hostility, but they were still him, and there were times when he absolutely would have been willing to trick someone in that way.

"sounds good. taking some time to clear your head is a trait that benefits someone here more than you'd expect. I don't want to jinx anything, but we'll be around if there's something you want to talk about". amber flickered between Octavo and Paimon, repeating the pattern a few times before anchored on the latter and her perplexed expression. "...what?"

the other sighed, the signal of resignation in familiarity with the sturdiness of the Traveler's resolve. ✦you really need to lower the bar on who to be suspicious about. but... we've dealt with much worse people, who don't have any remorse.✦ she rotated back to Octavo, half-lidded eyes demonstrating her apprehension to trust him falling short of outright bad feelings.

and were anyone to inquire, surely they would be surprised to hear her speaking so abrasively of her second eldest brother who had the audacity to meddle with her works. or, perhaps if they knew her well enough, it would be nothing to bat an eye at.

returning her attention to lumine, she can only wonder why she might not have thought of such things much in her journeys, if at all. surely there must be something, the proxy hardly believing she was bereft of any want, materialistic or otherwise. ❝ There must be something. Anything. No? You say there isn't? Then think more on it! Once you do, it will come to you soon enough. And then if someone asks, you tell them like so一 ❞ she starts, taking in a breath before her, frankly put, poor example tumbles freely.

the pair listened, mildly entertained and surprised of the woman's act as demonstration. "are you saying you're looking to get out of here?" she quipped, honing in on the inclusion of their situation in lieu of anything another could grant. and it would be fine for the scene to remain light-hearted, but Lumine knew well there was an answer. a primal want that might sound bemusing to others, and the story behind it grim.

"...my brother".

And was he not simply the result of such violence?

Her words were spoken in warning, not in compassion. That was acceptable since after all, the Doctor did not fully blame her for the animosity. Yet he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that after everything, she wanted to check if he was still here. Apparently one’s death in their homeworld did not warrant death in Spirale. To kill him truly seemed to be fruitless, either here or there.

The Harbinger shook his head and shrugged, a little too nonchalant. Getting his artificial moon marrow back had been a little more prosaic than he had hoped for. “If you are interested in my research regarding that, I must disappoint you. The moon here works differently than the one, or rather the ones, in Teyvat. I am effectively starting at square one.” There was no harm in divulging this to her, she could neither use this knowledge for nor against him, and he had no intention of threatening her meaninglessly.

“The moon marrows in Teyvat work because kuuvahki exists.” No need to spell out the rest, the Traveler was smart enough to connect the dots, surely.

it should be a relief that the differences between this moon and those of Teyvat's rendered it unviable to exploit, though the mysteries around it were disconcerting enough. with their importance, that accelerated eclipse cycle could be sign of something similar. likewise, Dottore being backed to square one might delay any scheme through the need for research and adjusting. it offered time to prepare for whatever came to mind — she could only hope it didn't attract anyone likeminded who could bring power their own to the table and complicate the situation.

✦already scheming, huh? can't say we didn't see that coming. even when you know there'll be a lot more people whose bad books you'll get in if you disrupt this place. and the Stars are paying attention — you aren't getting anything past them.✦