初めまして、久しぶり。
Paimon gasps as her head resurfaces under the help of the blond girl at the shore, who had luckily saw her cry for help and dove in without a second thought. Her clothes clings to her body uncomfortably, and her hat lies uselessly on the sand as she bent over and gasped for sweet, sweet air.
"Thanks for helping Paimon out!" Having caught her breath, Paimon looks up at the young woman before her and beams with gratitude. "I was so tired from all the flying yesterday I couldn't 've saved myself back there, I might've drowned otherwise!"
The woman looks at her quizzically, and opens her mouth to speak in a language Paimon couldn't understand.
"You don't speak Teyvatese?" Paimon blinks, the language from the woman's mouth is something she'd never heard of before, and that is saying a lot, for one of the former primodials. It vaguely resembled old Khanri'an, but with more of a musical tone to the words. From what Paimon could gleam off that sentence, it appears to be a tonal language. She belatedly realise that there are no way for this particular girl to understand what she just asked, so Paimon shakes her head and began gesturing instead.
It took almost 10 minutes to complete a relatively short conversation, though the information from it is quite valuable. The girl came from another world, and was separated from her brother many years ago by one of the sustainers from Celestia. So they're the twins they spoke of. Paimon muses, but nonetheless gives the lost girl a cheerful smile and said.
"Well, no worries, I am sure I can be a good guide for you, you will find your brother in no time!"
初次相遇,好久没见。
How many loops ago was that? She doesn't remember. Yet Paimon could still recall the day she met the traveller, her Lumine, clear as day. Her form have long since reduced from the appearance of a young woman, to a teen, and now, that of a child. Each rewind takes more and more out of her, but yet Paimon still, would give anything, to support Lumine.
Aether doesn't deserve this. Sometimes, at night an on her own once those loud, fake snores have convinced Lumine to rest, she would think bitterly. Her sister is working so hard, so, so hard, and yet Aether still treats her as the enemy. Enjou's genuine care was a pleasant surprise, but Paimon still doesn't trust him all that much. They haven't met the Pyro Lector yet in this particular loop, and it's not like he haven't betrayed them once or twice in these many loops she have experienced.
Paimon holds onto Lumine's hand tightly as they weave through the crowd before the puppet of the Raiden Shougun, Thoma kneeling and guarded by two soldiers by his side. She watches as Lumine leaps into battle, snatching the vision out of the air before it reaches her hand, and with a swift swing of her sword, sends both guards tumbling to the ground.
There could've been over 10 guards today, but Paimon made sure there was only two, who knew adding lemon juice to the soldiers' rations' dairy products was that easy when you can teleport. It's a lot riskier than just making Lumine wake up later and letting Thoma's vision be taken, but Paimon had did that exactly one time and she will never do it again, Afterall, Lumine's friends are her friends, too. That, as she does NOT want to be brutally destroyed by Ayato again.
When the space opens and engulfs the Traveller, Paimon lets it. As she has tried and knows for sure there is no way she could help or even enter that domain. So the instant the Traveller vanishes, She, too, teleports away. She reappears in the Imperial Library of Tenshukaku, grabs one of the random bookshelves and pushes, sending it tumbling down, setting off a chin reaction. Next she appears in the archives, and does exactly the same thing.
Soldiers shout and the door slam open, distracting the backup headed for the statue outside, her work here is done, and Paimon vanishes before any of them even catches sight of her stars.
She reappears in the crowd so no one notices her, and rushes to Thoma's side to help him with the ropes. Her hands are tiny, much tinier than it was in the last loop where they had gone all the way to Fontain and she had to exert so much energy just to send herself back that she had lost more than just a few years in appearance. She fumbles with the knot, letting out a quiet Khanrian curse when the tail of it kept slipping away from her grasp and is just not cooperating, she had spent enough time with the shelves back there, and without Lumine by her side she can't stop time and simultaneously affect reality.
The crowd stirs once more, and Paimon looks up in a panic, her hands leaves the knot on Thoma's wrist and she lunges for the traveller.
Lumine.
Her Lumine, her friend, her sister. Her family.
The Puppet raises her blade, and the strike was true. Blood poured and splattered against Paimon's cheeks as the violet blade severs Lumine's neck, she can hear Thoma's scream, can feel the warmth of the crimson staining her sleeves, and barely avoided it when lightning finally bursts forth, burning and bright, stirking Lumine where she lies and vaporising her body untill there was nothing left of the girl.
Paimon collapses. She falls onto her knees in the form of a 7 year old child, barely looking any older than Klee, and stares up at the puppet.
This is Ei, this is the Raiden Shougun, who they once befriended, who laughed with them, cried with them. Who bantered over desserts with Paimon, and debated about the art of the sword with Lumine.
And simultaneously, she is not, and this Raiden Shougun will never be the one she used to know. This is the Raiden Shougun that she also knows, the one who ruthlessly killed Lumine many times over, over and over. And Paimon had to do so much, work so hard, just to make sure it doesn't come to pass.
And as the puppet gazes down at her with apathy in her eyes, Paimon knows what to do.
She raises her hand. And digs deep into her deserve of power. The puppet's eyes narrow as the stars at her fingertips began to glow, pulsing with the power she took from Celestia.
"In the name of the Goddess of Time, Paimon." She recites, and the Puppet- no, Ei's eyes widen with recognition, "rewind."
The world blurs, and Paimon feels it as her body shrinks down even further, untill she looks even younger than Klee, smaller, and smaller, and smaller. Scenery blur together into indiscernible blobs of colour, lantern rite, windblume, rite of parting, Dragonspine, freeing Davalin, fighting Davalin, Meeting Venti, the statue, and finally-
Paimon floats just barely inches away from the surface of the sea, off a very familiar shore. Now in the form of a pixie, her magic is almost completely depleted, and with each meter she makes closer to the beach where it all begins, Paimon feel as though she's going to fall.
In the end, she does, she tumbles in the air and falls into the water, too tired to even struggle as the waves take her away.
When she awakes, it is to a familiar face. When she speaks, it is in that language she had long since learned so many loops ago. And at the end of a conversation where Lumine draws two stars in the sand, she speaks the very same words she had repeated, too many time over.
"So... what you're trying to say is that you fell here, from another world?"
It's been a while; nice to meet you.
