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Aether's mission has failed. Lumine's service as abyss princess is over. She is not needed anymore. Her purpose has been fulfilled.
Celestia has demanded her execution the moment her duty was finished, knowing her knowledge can threaten her reign over Teyvat.
Lumine stands still, knowing it's the end. There will be no one to save her. Not this time. Dainsleif has been long gone.
She feels nothing. There is nothing to feel. Dain's dead. Aether's gone missing. The faces of her friends from faraway lands were long obscured. in her memory.
There is no one to live for. Nothing to live for. Accepting the end is better than trying in vain and failing, seeing the sadness on your loved one's faces as they slowly lose consciousness.
She thinks about Aether, unable to speak her mind, unable to do
anything as his friends fall one by one before his feet by her blade. Aether, who still has to go on without her. Aether, who still has to travel hopelessly amongst the stars for the rest of his life while she's destined to suffer the same pain, physically instead of emotionally.
He’s got the short end of the stick for sure, she thinks bitterly. Her suffering will end soon. Aether will have to live on, constantly burdened by the weight of his sister’s and friends’ deaths on his shoulders.
She stands at the summit of Celestia, where she stood so many years ago with Aether, right before everything went wrong. She closes her eyes and waits for Celestia to come. Maybe, she thinks, the lady whom I’ve served all this time will grant me just the slightest bit of mercy. I’ve suffered long enough, haven’t I? Must this world be so cruel?
As if her thoughts had been read, a flash of light appears before her. Celestia stands in all her blinding glory. If not for the fear coursing through her veins, Lumine would have commented on her beauty.
“Foolish girl. I’ve given you the opportunity at ultimate power. I give you the honor of being my right hand, being second-in-command of all the lands of Teyvat. The all-powerful deity that so kindly let you and your idiotic brother survive all that time. And you still choose those over me.”
She gestures to the fallen bodies of Aether’s comrades so drenched in blood Lumine can barely make out the shapes of humans.
Celestia sighs and snaps her fingers. The look of horror on Lumine’s face brings a smile to her lips.
Instantly, Lumine’s chained upside down, fear and terror in her eyes as she sees what’s coming at her. Mechanical vultures. Ones that will never grow tired, will eat and eat until there’s nothing left but bone. Lumine screams. It all happens so fast, she cannot even fully process it.
They gouge out her eyes, tear apart her skin. They gnaw at her organs and suck up her innards. The pain is freezing and scorching and numbing and intense all at the same time. She can’t even scream, for her throat is no longer there. Cannot think, for her head has ripped in two. Cannot do anything but sway lifelessly in the wind, unseeing, unhearing of anything and everything as her blood cascades downwards. It engulfs Teyvat with a sickening metallic odor. The air is suffocating, anyone who may have miraculously survived Celestia’s massacre would be dead in a matter of moments.
Celestia examines what’s left of Lumine, which isn’t much. The remains of what used to be the Princess of the Abyss Order are still hanging, the chains about to undo, for there’s barely anything to hold up anymore. The deity senses Lumine’s essence about to dissipate soon. Celestia lets out a small laugh. “Well? What do you have to say, Princess? I’m all ears.”
A last bit of her soul whispers a final message: “I want to go home.”
Then she falls, with not even a body left to bury.