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The comforting warmth from a flickering campfire filled the pair's contented gazes. Paimon and 'The Traveler', an odd pair of close friends who were on a journey around the world. Though they had the means to rest in greater comfort, the pocket dimension of the Serenitea Pot, sometimes they wanted to camp out like the good ol' days. Besides, Paimon insisted that their dinner tasted better with that 'all natural smokey flavour'. So they sat, food finished and cleaned up, under the stars. Lumine loved looking at the stars of Teyvat's sky. To know that all those lights are people's hopes and dreams, beyond the reach of the petty gods that roamed this land, filled her with a strange sense of... hope. As long as she had Paimon and the stars above, the pain of her brother's absence was more bearable.
Paimon floated up from her position laying against the soft grass, oddly silent and staring up and up into the twinkling beyond. Lumine thought nothing of it at first, but slowly came to worry about her floating companion. Then...
"It's time."
Lumine frowned, fixing her golden gaze on the fairy in front of her, surprised at the sheer melancholy in her voice.
"Time for what, Paimon?" The star-child rose from where she lay, to stand beside Paimon and look her in the eye. Her breath hitched for a moment. Paimon was... crying? Lumine reached a gentle hand out to the fairy's cheek, moving to wipe away the tears... until she felt her skin sizzle. It started on her hand and then rushed up her body, a quick glance at the ground told her more. The grass around them was dying, the earth growing stagnant, the wind slowing and the fire spluttering to nothing. Paimon's eyes shone gold for a moment, filled with dread and sorrow.
"Lumine..."
A deeper frown, hand cupping the crying fairy's blank face. "You never use my real name, Paimon. What's happening? Talk to me, come on partner." She forced a smile.
Paimon stared back, more tears falling.
"My journey ends here."
As starlight rushed through her.
The Traveler leapt back, staying away from the death that hung in the air, hung around Paimon. It was a natural response to danger, but she stepped forth regardless and thrust her hands out to the pillar of light that enveloped her best friend, voice breaking as she called out, skin peeling from her hand.
"Paimon!"
When her hand bore through the light, it found another hand. Larger than a fairy, a grown woman's soft hands. The hand weren't gloved, but the skin was a deep purple and shot through with golden runes and lines. The fairy's halo still hung above her head, but it was larger, golden, and malevolent. The skin of her hand healed as if by magic, as Lumine stared into the strange woman's golden eyes - symbols of similar gold hanging in the air around her head and arrayed behind her beautiful dress as wings. She Was beautiful, but also... awful. There was such cruelty in those eyes.
The sting of strange heat ran through Lumine once more, and now she understood. Radiation. She had seen in her celestial life the birth and death of stars, so distant to the eternal twins. But this wasn't born from a star or earth, but something far more malign.
Honkai. The rot that afflicted the Tree of Infinity, the inevitable purge of all life in the universe. Aether and Lumine had always fled to new worlds before their latest visit felt the touch of the Honkai. It... wasn't their problem. They were just travelers, outsiders. But a burning fear settled in her chest as she beheld a Herrscher. Anger bit through her voice, and she reached out into the Imaginary, for the powers needed to survive such a threat... but the path was blocked - the curse of the Unknown God. Mere elements borrowed from Teyvat wouldn't stand up to this creature, but she had no choice. A twisted sword burst from the Imaginary beyond in a spray of golden dust, the venomous tip of Festering Desire pointed at the throat of the silver woman before her.
"Herrscher... I thought this world would be free of you. Who are you! What have you done with Paimon!?"
Her voice cracked, fear of the thing before her, fear of standing against the impossible tides of fate without her twin at her side, and fear at where it had taken her friend.
Those cruel eyes glanced at the tip of the sword, to the hand behind held, and slowly released it.
"I am the Herrscher of the End. I am... Paimon, Lumine."
The blade hesitated before plunging into the goddess' neck. No blood came out of the wound, no change in her expression, the toxin sizzled into nothingness as it rotted away. The star-child's mind raced. The End was here already? Should there not be twelve or thirteen others? Perhaps the Archons were... Lumine spat words with as much venom as her blade. "Liar!"
Those cruel eyes grew sad, one hand reached out and open - an offer of a hand.
"Lumine." Paimon's sweet, loud voice, before clashing with the cold adult tone that followed. "Lumine, my precious friend. Teyvat isn't... my world. If I had my way, I would not do anything to this world. This... garden."
Hesitation followed, the sword withdrawn and the pointless wound in the Herrscher's neck closing. If this creature really was what she said she was, then Lumine would not have survived making the foolish attack. But Paimon being this...
"Explain, Herrscher." Cold, distant, came Lumine's tone. It made the sadness in the Herrscher's eyes grow.
"You know what I am, star-child. You know what my title means. You know the blood of countless iterations of my world coats my hands. You know I enjoy it. But... what happens between each iteration? Hibernation, for most of my horrid kind. When I turned my world... my home and everyone I loved into ash, I left. I found somewhere else. I was called back, of course, thousands of years later. But I found Teyvat. I kept coming back. Before the Dragons, before Celestia, I was here. I took all of the Honkai away from it, leaving this world pristine. My garden."
The goddess looked tearfully at the grass that rotted into ash beneath her feet, at the remains of flowers that sat nearby.
"Paimon is... my innocence. I let grief overtake me, consume me, too many times. So I locked it all away. Until I was called again. When I return, I will lock it away again. Be the sweet innocent, stupid Paimon."
Lumine stared, unsure to believe this creature to be her best friend, unsure whether to trust her instincts and her fear. Finally, the sword was lowered, returning into Imaginary dust. It would be useless anyway. But still, the End needn't lie or trick like her lesser kin. She sighed, crossing her arms and looking at...
"What should I call you?"
Golden eyes matching her own flicked up to meet, surprise glimmering for a moment, followed by hope, before being drowned by cruelty and despair.
"I... I used to be... I used to be called Kiana Kaslana. It's always her, always 'me', that becomes the End. But I prefer the name. It lets me remember who I was, before I choked the life out of the woman I loved for the first time."
Lumine gave a slight nod, noting that the stinging had gone. Her flesh had healed. Pai-... Kiana's doing. Kiana didn't want to hurt her. So she stepped closer, suspicion flowing away. She sat on the dead earth, beckoning for the goddess to sit next to her. A slow moment of surprise before Kiana sat.
"Paimon... er, Kiana. Why travel with me?" She couldn't look Kiana in the eyes. The golden-eyed Herrscher had so much blood on her hands, it couldn't be forgiven. It... would make them going back to normal impossible.
Beautiful laughter came from Kiana before she spoke.
"Because you fished me out of a river, silly. Paimon is me without any power, without any of my memories. I didn't pick you because of your nature, 'I' followed you because as far as I was aware, you saved me from drowning and gave me tasty food."
Lumine almost flinched when Kiana rested her head on her shoulder, a shuddering breath being released.
"Lumine, you are my bestest, bestest friend. I love you oh so much. I wish I truly was that silly fairy, so we could travel together forever."
Her eyes closed, Lumine looking at her with a conflicted expression before she put an arm around her shoulder. Her... nature wasn't her fault. It was like blaming someone for getting sick. The star-child understood that, even if she could feel the death Kiana radiated being kept at bay. After a silence that felt like minutes, Lumine spoke.
"You said you come back each time. It might be different this time but... You are my guide. My friend. I can't forget this, but you said you do as Paimon. I wouldn't mind continuing."
Kiana's own arm wrapped around Lumine, squeezing with a desperate touch.
"Last time... they actually hurt me. It only bought them half a day, but they did it. They hurt me and hid away, pretending I didn't notice. I... can sense my Authority being used, drained. They survived, somehow, and this time they might do better. I hope they do better, I hope they succeed where I failed and finally put an end to me."
Sad eyes opened, searching for a response in Lumine's.
"I might not come back. I might die, Lumine, finally. I will never have to hurt my beloved Mei ever again. But... it means losing you."
Another silence, this one lasting longer as the Traveler looked up at the skies above. The stars were calling for Kiana. Calling for her to snuff one of them out. They called for her too, for her to leave and jump and galavant through them once more. 'Return', they said, 'return, our beloved daughter, and dance among us again'.
But she couldn't, not without Aether. She... didn't truly care about Teyvat. She was a good person, yes, and had empathy. But as soon as her stupid brother was back with her, that was it. Goodbye. The friendships were hollow, and the concerns of the people akin to nothing but dust. Lumine was older than each of those stars above her head, so she didn't form true bonds with the people she met on her travels. They would be gone in a blink, the time almost meaningless.
Paimon was different. Paimon... Kiana was precious. Paimon saw the sorrow in her eyes when she spoke of her brother and smiled, 'I'll help you!' she said.
And now she was saying goodbye.
"It's... strange. I want you to come back, Kiana. I want to be with you again, to travel with you, to hear your stories and be your friend. But that would mean the death of a world. I don't... really care, I don't think. I don't know those people, and I know you. My... bestest friend. Please, then, fail. And still come back."
She could feel her own tears now. The biting loneliness of the past 500 years suddenly coming back, the idea of saying goodbye to someone and actually caring afterwards hurt and stung. It bit her heart. Kiana's hand grasped hers, and the woman pressed their foreheads together. A moment of closeness, of companionship.
"Lumine," whispered the goddess of death, the fairy guide, the grief-stricken soul, "As long as you are on Teyvat, you are never alone. The stars will be with you. Make a wish..."
"Don't go..."
And she was gone, like stardust. The only evidence of her existence was a pair of dinner plates and the dead earth.
One day, a star fell from the sky.
Some say they saw a beautiful woman emerge from it, terrible and cruel and covered in the blood of billions.
Some say they saw a corpse, the broken remains of a goddess returning to her best friend, her lifeless eyes shining with her contented smile.
Some say they saw a fairy, clueless and blank, dancing around and complaining about hunger.
No one said that the Traveler was there, and that she caught the star.
No one heard what she said.