The only times harbor was active were the hours of early afternoon, when the temperature was good enough for ships to sail without bigger issues, however, the fact that the cargo ships didn't have much time before the sun sets and the weather gets bad again made everyone working there always be in a hurry. Therefore as of the moment, I decided to observe the crowd the place was beaming with people that hurried to their ferries or work stations. I on the other hand stood calmly on one of the overlooking balconies, my gaze focused on the particular group of four people - or rather two deities, a fairy and an otherworldly traveler - that were getting ready to enter one of the ships headed towards Liyue.

"Sir, the time has come." I heard from behind me as one of the fatui soldiers entered the room, his head low.

"Give me five more minutes," I answered not bothering myself with turning around, my eyes still observing the group.

"But... Sir-"

"I said 'five minutes'. Now leave." I cut him off with a slightly angered tone. The man instantly left the room without another word. I would also follow once I was sure I can no longer see them... Although it would be more appropriate to say that I would do that once I couldn't see her. I wouldn't be able to see her for a while... I didn't know if I could ever see her in fact, what with how our parting moments looked like.

I sighed turning away from the window and grabbing my coat from the chair, quickly putting it on me and leaving. The soldier from before trembled a little after I looked over to him.

"Let's go," I said and he bowed quickly running up to me.

He didn't even come to say goodbye. Well, Zhongli did mention that he talked to him at the palace in the morning, so they probably bid their farewells there. Still, I somehow hoped he would at least bother to show up for two minutes.

"Paimon wonders if Childe is super busy that he can't even see us off or if he just bailed." Said the pixie raising her arms in a questioning gesture.

"Lumine, you were at his house yesterday, did something happen?" Asked Venti catching me off guard.

"WHAT?! You were at his house?!" Paimon seemed oddly panicked about the fact, but at this point, I knew that it didn't have any second meaning to it. She just liked to overreact apparently. "And how do you know about this anyway? Paimon was with you the whole time!" She asked looking back to the green laced bard whose only response was a standard 'ehe' making her even more annoyed and loud. It didn't take a genius to know that Venti had the power to follow people via the wind, and Sneznhaya was quite the windy place therefore he probably could tell where and when anyone was if he wanted to know. I ignored the bickering of the two as I approached Zhongli, who was sitting by the patio on the deck - sipping tea as usual. On the other hand, nothing about his overly warm clothing was usual and he surely didn't look like a deity from Liyue wearing these clothes and a puffy hat.

"Where did you get that thing anyway?" I asked playing with the jingling bell bobble on the side of his head.

"Childe gave it to me in the palace... Apparently, sea ventures can be quite cold." I couldn't help but think that the only reason Childe actually wanted the geo archon to wear this hat was so he could get something to laugh at. I had to restrain myself quite heavily when I was looking at the man but I doubted Childe had a lot of restraint when it came to laughing. He laughed almost too much, sometimes you could think that his laughter was a way for him to deal with his everyday reality, colored in blood-red that wouldn't let anyone even crack a smile. I sighed. "So... Do you have any history lesson in store? About this place?" I asked trying to break the awkward silence before the ringing of the bell of his hat would beat me to it because then I would definitely be unable to stop laughing.

"I'm afraid my knowledge is only limited to the culture of Liyue." He said setting the teacup down and I braced myself for some long speech he had for me. "However, seeing the harbor of this city is already enough to make you realize how technologically advanced Sneznhaya is. Truly a phenomenon seeing that the climate around these parts must be restricting them quite a lot. Thinking about the possibilities of growth that Liyue has when you compare the climate restrictions is absolutely fascinating. I wish to see the city progress like that someday, then again I can't help but feel anxious about how little to no traditions would probably be kept alive if it came to it." He picked up his teacup again and took a quick sip before starting yet another long speech, but I couldn't focus on whatever it was he was saying right now for right before the ship started moving away from the pier I could see a tall silhouette in a long cape. The red mask on his uncovered head betraying his identity as he talked to some fatui that stood in front of him. I wondered, hat order they were given since they bowed and left leaving him alone for a moment. I could see him look this way and - since he wasn't too far away to be seen, but still too far to be able what he was looking at - I felt like our gazes met somewhere along the way. And that was the last thing that could be considered any kind of contact between us since the moment we left Sneznhaya.

"This place is really driving me nuts." She said walking up to the dead body of another mage that we exterminated after squiring a bit of information from him.

We've been here for five months, which would mean that in the outside world - we were gone for five days and six days since I got a report from Ekaterina that the 'unusual four-person party reached Liyue safely'. "These guys really are loyal aren't they..." She sighed. I could understand her anger. Personally, I hoped that we would be here for a month, maybe two in the worst scenario. However it's been almost half a year and we barely managed to get some useful clues that sadly pointed to the fact that I didn't really want to come up, but I still had to make sure. I never worked only based on speculations. "Still, that 'prince' seems pretty overpowered seeing hew scared these guys are. It's not like they have much to lose - they're going to die anyway." She said falling down on her bum out of tiredness. We have been walking for quite a while now.

"I guess he has some worse methods than burning them to death." I looked at her crouching and she shrugged with a smile.

"Drowning them isn't any better." This time I smiled. One thing for sure, we were both pretty psychotic when it came to fights.

"Whatever the case, these measures did get us some useful intel. We should report this." She said as she wrote down another of the things that got uncovered.

"Yeah, we should be back pretty soon if we go the route we came. But..." I said falling down to my back and she looked over me with a bit of surprise. "Let me take a nap first." I laughed and she smiled at me, that typical smile of hers with closed eyes as if she tried desperately to hide the emptiness in her eyes. "Do you mind?' I asked as she shook her head.

"It's not like there's anyone else left to ask." She said. It was scary how little she thought of human life, but I could understand her reasons. We entered the abyss with fifteen men joining us, and yet we were the only two left alive by now. All the others were either swallowed by the abyss or ripped to shreds by monsters here.

"That's why I didn't want them to tag along," I thought to myself as I turned to the side closing my eyes. As fatui, they were prepared to face death but I still hoped they would die for something better than my selfish reasons to come down here. Because they were selfish, no matter how you looked at it, they didn't have much to do with fatui operations. It was only just that a big part of me wanted to help Lumine, even though I wasn't able to contact her myself... Or rather didn't want to. At this point, I probably wouldn't even tell her of my findings here because of the danger it would bring upon her. I'm honestly a pile of contradictions and the more time I spent thinking about it the more obvious it became to me - and I had whole five months to think about. Five months in which every night I would be meeting her in my dreams and feeling ultimate disappointment after waking up. Five months of being criticized for my actions by the only person that I actually would let criticize me and sometimes I hated the fact that she was here as well. Because of the fact that most of the time she was right about what I felt or thought - any intent I had of concealing these things to myself was futile.

We returned to Liyue safe and sound, despite being escorted by a fatui delegation. After that, I said my goodbyes with Zhongli and joined Venti on a trip to Mondstadt, where I stayed with the knights for a few days. Days turned to weeks and before I could realize, a month has passed. A month, where there wasn't a day that Childe wouldn't occupy my mind for at least a little while. I didn't know why, nor did I actually wanted to know. I had a lot of fun hanging out with Amber or visiting Diluc in the tavern at night - and yet whenever I saw any fatui officers I would focus my hearing on what they were talking about, hoping to hear at least a little mention of a certain harbinger. I managed to learn that he was outside of the abyss when Viktor accidentally mentioned the fact that all eleven had a gathering in Sneznhaya not long ago. Apparently, it was a big thing because they never did something like that and it made me wonder if they uncovered anything, but after I asked he realized he already told me too much and went away. Another time there was news saying that one of the harbingers visited Mond, but when I asked Kaeya he told me that it was some adult man that already had interests in Mondstadt before and his description of his appearance didn't match that of Childe's at all. Then again I wasn't sure, why I wanted to know about Childe's whereabouts so much.

I sighed.

"Something's wrong?" Asked Paimon floating next to me as we walked through Dadaupa Gorge looking for some hidden treasure chests left behind by some greater or lesser adventurers.

"No. It's nothing." I said forcing a smile, but she clearly didn't buy it.

"You've been quite out of it recently you know." She sighed. "Is it because of Childe?" She asked and my sudden twitch assured her of the answer, that otherwise, I wouldn't ever be able to admit it. I tried to hide the facts from her, but even though she wasn't the smartest - she still wasn't blind and could realize my spacing out whenever we passed by fatui delegates or the name was mentioned in a conversation.

Now it was her that sighed.

"Lumi..." She started floating closer to me and looking me in the eyes, which was unusual of her. She never put on a serious face like that. "I think that I should tell you something..." She added looking to a collapsed tree. "Let's sit there." Her voice was weird. It didn't have the usual Paimon-cheerfulness to it and it would be a lie to say that I wasn't interested, what untold truths about Childe she had to tell me about. I thought that she told me all about their venture to Sneznhaya together, but apparently, she managed to hide a certain detail.

A certain very important detail...