Author's Note
Hello there! There are actually way more visitors than I expected so hi guys! Glad I can see you now! I missed Friday, sorry! I totally thought I had but no apparently not. Here's the one I thought went up!
Lumine
Lumine was sitting back, leaning her head against the window, and gazing out towards Dragonspine. It was as misty here as the city of Mondstadt, but they were close to the end of the line and she could see the scale of the mountain. It climbed upwards very gradually in this area, but it was massive. The entire highland region curved to the northwest, and peak after peak rose in clusters from its ridges. The timberline was very low, so the snow-covered tops were in full view above the mist layer. In the foothills of the mountains, tucked at a high and flat plain just before a sharp slope, there was a walled campus. Many tower-like buildings and domed roofs extended above the stone, statue-bearing walls, but it was hard to get a sense of the scale of the Academy from this distance.
Lumine glanced across the train's small booth table to Aether. She considered waking him up so he could see this too, but it had been a long day. It was only the middle of the afternoon, but still. She looked back out the window, resting her head against it again and felt the cold glass.
Spreading down the hills at the base of this side of the mountains was Snowport, which looked a bit more industrial than the city of Mondstadt. The train was up on a ridge overlooking the town, and from this point, Lumine could see a number of other tracks and tunnels leading into stations and warehouses on the edges of Snowport. The town was set down beneath a number of higher plateaus, and the only side on which you could exit its borders without climbing was to the river directly south of the town. A number of ships and wide river barges were moored within the long port itself, and a few of them were actively being loaded or unloaded. Beidou had told Lumine earlier that this river, fed by Dragonspine itself, was the main method of exports and imports between Mondstadt and Liyue as it led through two major Liyuean ports before arriving into the sea very near to the actual harbor of Liyue.
That explained why there were so many routes leading into the town. What an odd place for a pseudo-military academy…
Shadows swept suddenly through the train. Their car had passed by a tall ridge, and the sun no longer reached the western windows. At that moment a flurry of impacts resounded from the roof, like a number of objects had just landed heavily on top of it. Aether jumped a bit and looked immediately at Lumine, abruptly awake. She didn't know what that was, it sounded like it was coming from directly above them. Beidou stood up, she had been seated across the aisle from them.
"You know, I've seen this one before. Pelyovina shit, I'm calling it right now," she grinned down the aisle at General Gunnhildr and plucked her azure trident from where it was laying across a small table.
"That would be rather frustrating, but it seems quite likely," the general responded. She carefully drew her sword and stretched a bit, pacing down the aisle to the opposite side of the car from Beidou, on the other side of Aether and Lumine.
The impacts repeated, in either direction down the roof of the train car. With shock and mild fear, Lumine realized they had the cadence of footsteps.
Aether beat her to it: "Are there Snezhnayans on the roof?" he asked, leaping out of his seat.
Beidou made a kind of noncommittal hum. "I mean I thought it might be Xiao, but there's two. So yes, probably, yes. Just stay put. We outnumber them four to two," she confirmed.
"We don't know how to fight! I don't even know if I can do that thing anymore!" Lumine cried. What did Beidou expect them to do? The women had backed up to them like a defensive herd with newborns, guarding either direction of the aisle. Last time there had been five defenders, and Lumine had still had to do something herself. But there were only two, and she thought she trusted them but she wasn't of any use anymore.
A heavy mist began to fill the bottom of the car, white and dense. Lumine could feel the moisture condensing on, and soaking through, her shoes. She was glad they had gotten sneakers before leaving; beads of water were now splattering the carpet of the car. Beidou laughed fully and looked over her shoulder at the siblings: "Nah, I know that. It's just that I count as three myself."
It was then that two windows on either end of the car shattered and a pair of figures in heavy black coats rolled into the train. Past Beidou, a Snezhnayan in uniform with long, auburn hair was now crouching in the aisle, armed with heavy steel gauntlets on either hand. On the opposite side, by the back of the car, a tall and broad-shouldered agent was tightening black leather gloves on their hands.
"Same shit as every other time. Textbook operatives, huh?" Beidou called out, walking towards the gauntleted agent in front of her.
Without warning, Beidou's opponent fired down the aisle and an orange fireball formed both of her loose fists. She left thin trails of sparks from the way she had come. As she rushed Beidou, the storm mage drove her trident for where the agent's feet were about to land. Lumine felt a rush of adrenaline and excitement, they would be fine! But then the fire mage jumped upwards, pouncing for Beidou. As she did this, Beidou had already driven her back foot behind her and shifted her weight onto it. She spun around quickly, whipping her polearm in a circle through the air. It swung a full 360-degree arc and blindsided the agent, who couldn't avoid it while airborne, immediately before she made contact with Beidou.
The agent was slammed forcefully into the train wall before she slid down onto the table of a booth two down from the one that Lumine and Aether were sitting at. The impact rocked the car slightly and threw Aether into the bench from which he was trying to get up.
At the same time, the larger agent had outstretched their fist, and a cluster of flower petals was shooting down the aisle. General Gunnhildr brought her sword upwards and leapt towards them. In one quick beat, she dispersed into a gaseous figure, letting the petals fly seamlessly through her, and then surged forwards before coalescing again. The flower petals disintegrated in midair as they lost momentum and fluttered downwards. Was that a spell? It must have been, the general didn't have a signature, right?. Lumine didn't feel anything though, and she had been looking right at it.
The general, having gotten within reach of the agent, slashed horizontally with her sword. The agent threw themselves backward, but the tip of the sword still caught their right shoulder and forced them back against the wall.
"Stop, nothing will come of this and it need not continue," General Gunnhildr asserted, with the wind still whipping around her and ripping her hair from its ponytail.
The agent in front of her let out a deep chuckle and burst into azure petals, identical to the ones they had thrown. The floating cluster lunged, low to the ground, down the train. The general lunged backward, trying to avoid them, but they were far too fast and they whipped between her legs. She appeared unscathed and seemed relieved, but now Lumine was the panicked one. The petals were shooting towards her and Aether with nobody in between them. The agent was big, but all they had to do was avoid getting too close right?
Aether leapt from his seat and was now facing down the stream, fists curled, and Lumine jumped in front of him, crouching in the building mist. As the petals began to hit the ground and transform from the ground up into a pair of boots, a gust of wind suddenly pulled them back towards the general. As the agent remerged from the petals, further from the siblings than they expected, they were thrown against a table by another heavy blast of air. Their neck hit the edge, their hood was knocked off, and their head was thrown sideways. It slammed onto the tabletop and the agent crumpled to the ground beneath it in a bundle of furs and perfume scents.
The general looked as surprised as Lumine felt, and Beidou crowed with laughter from behind her. So it wasn't the general's magic after all. Who's was whose? Lumine felt lost, she wished she could still read spells. She backed up slowly, away from the remaining agent.
Beidou banged her staff on the ground, and the other Snezhnayan was thrown bodily against a window. There was a sudden and sharp sound of glass breaking, and as her head made contact, the whole pane shattered outwards. The agent toppled, over the broken glass, out of the train.
Beidou fell back onto a bench, breathing heavily.
"Did you kill her?" Aether yelped. Lumine felt as alarmed by the sudden episode of violence as he was, what the hell was that? Why were they here? How? Were they okay?
"Wait were they- are you okay?" Lumine asked. She didn't know what she was trying to say, and she could feel her voice shaking a bit. This was a lot of emotion to deal with in an already stressful day.
Beidou waved a hand. "They'll both be fine. Someone can pick up that one from the hillside later, she fell unconscious I'm pretty sure. We were passing the ropemaking factory at the time, so she'll just be across from that."
Lumine felt a kind of strangled sound building in her throat, and instead of letting it out she just sat down in the aisle, running her hands up and down her arms in the cold mist.
"Don't worry, they can't get into the academy. We were foolish to take so much time in moving you there, I can't say I expected this much effort. I'm sorry you had to see this happen again. There's actually only one realistic way to travel this far so quickly without dealing with border patrols and checkpoints, and if he's working this case right now it only means we have to move a little quicker, alright? You'll be okay." The general smiled warmly, and despite the fact that she was actively cleaning blood off of her sword using the concussed agent's coat, it was a little comforting.
As if to punctuate the general's point, the sound of the train brakes softly engaging began to reach her ears.
"See, almost there!" Beidou clapped her hands. "I'm going to grab some water for that wound. Oh; nice hit by the way General. I'll be right back."
Beidou might not be very reassuring but she really did count for at least three people. Was any of the magic except the dash sort of lunge the generals? Lumine had seen her do way more than that earlier in the street. Were they really safe? Could they be protected at the academy? Would the Snezhnayans have killed them?
Aether knelt behind Lumine, and wrapped his arms around her. The mist was almost completely dispersed and she was starting to feel better, but she immediately dropped her head back onto his left shoulder. She could see that his eyes were closed, and she could feel that his breathing was slow and steady. His physical presence was an indescribable relief. It lifted so much off of Lumine's shoulders. Not just the fight's pressures, but every worry she had since waking up. He was here, he was holding her, he was warm. Above all else, he was familiar, and he alone held that quality for her right now.
