Archive of Our Own ^beta

Amber doesn’t have a home.

Just a room.

She pulls on her boots and ties her signature bow into her hair. Sighing, she takes one last look around her room before she leaves for the day. 

The curtains are drawn tightly against the harsh light of the sun. The faint outline of the brightness outside can be seen, the only source of light in an otherwise dark room. 

The room itself is simple, kept tidy, and relatively plain. 

Most of her belongings are carried with her at all times— she didn’t really need much and never felt the urge to put more in the rooms. It’s not that they aren’t allowed to decorate their personal quarters, but Amber never felt like it. She’s seen the other knights’ rooms, covered with traces of their life and their personality. Colourful linens, little knick-knacks, and trinkets, pictures hung in frames— all things that Amber’s room is devoid of.

Maybe it’s just the way that she feels like she doesn’t really have a home. For all of her life, Amber never really felt like she was ever at home. 

Sure, she had her own little place in the Knights of Favonius headquarters and her duties as the last Outrider in Mondstadt, but it never felt right . It always felt like something was missing. Something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. 

Something like the piece of her sky that was perpetually a dark hole against the glittering night sky. It was like someone had reached down into her life, her skies, and tore a piece of it away. She kept her room bare, like that missing piece of the sky because it didn’t feel right. She doesn’t see the point in decorating something that wasn’t hers. 

Perhaps never would be hers.

Supposedly, as all the stories that Amber had been told since she was a young child, that piece of the night sky would light up with her soulmate’s constellation when she found them. 

But for all the people that Amber had met and seen in her life, she had never been able to find that person. Not even the slightest glimmer, the slightest hint of a spark with anyone that she had met. It was disheartening but finding your soulmate wasn’t the only thing to do in life, Amber decided. There was still lots more to see and lots more to do beyond that. 

Besides, Amber preferred to find herself a home rather than a soulmate. 

She had been without one ever since her grandfather died and she drifts around Mondstadt, in search of a place where she belonged. Knowing that this was the last place that her grandfather had been, she feels obligated to stay here, to protect that city that he so loved. 

(There’s always the lingering hope that he would return for her and how could he return for her if she wasn’t here?)

Yes, the Knights of Favonius were nice, very nice, and warm, and accepting. Amber loved it there but she always felt like she wanted… something a little more.

Something else, somewhere else, someone else that she could return to at the end of the night. 

Her family. Her home.

Needless to say, Amber really missed her grandfather. 

As she had grown up, she had heard stories of people who despite not being soulmates, got together and still lived their lives happily ever after. There was no telling if such stories were actually true, but Amber liked to think that they could be. She liked to think that even if she could never find her one she could at least find someone.

Perhaps that would be enough for her. 

She sighs, and double-checks to make sure that her bow was fastened to her back— wouldn’t be the first time she has run off for morning patrols without a weapon. The light that she knows is outside beckons to her. There’s so much more to do in the outside world than in here.

The door swings shut behind her with a small creak, as if to say “finally”. Even her room has something to say about her existence here. She let it go, there was nothing much in the room for her anyway. 

It was just a room.

Not a home. 

Amber doesn’t have a home.

She is surprised to find herself a hallway though. 

That hallway has always been there. It’s worn and old and Amber has walked down it countless times. But Amber begins to see it as more than just the thirteen steps from her room to the stairs that would lead to the outside.

No, this hallway had many doors. Doors that led to other Knights of Favonius but in Amber’s heart, there is only one other door. 

It’s a recently inhabited room, but Amber finds her feet wandering the four and a half steps over to the room more often than not. She never has had a reason before to go right from her room instead of left down the hallway. The last room on the left of the hallway is Lumine’s.

Her room is also fairly empty. Having only recently arrived in Mondstadt, the traveler also doesn’t have much to her name, just the sword on her back and the strange floating fairy creature that follows her everywhere.

Perhaps that’s why Amber feels a strange kinship towards the newcomer— definitely had nothing to do with how pretty she looked or how her eyes looked like honey or how Amber’s cheeks warmed every time she laughed or smiled— Amber tries very hard not to think about any of that. 

It was probably because Lumine is also looking for someone, yes that’s right. That’s what it is. Amber understands that feeling of missing a person who had been so important in her life.

She makes it a point to make Lumine feel welcome.

Lumine seems to enjoy her presence though, entertaining Amber’s wild ideas and other random adventures when the Outrider wasn’t on patrol. Whenever Amber can, she goes searching for Lumine— easy to spot her among the familiar locals of Mondstadt that Amber’s eye seems to just glide over. 

They get lunch and dinner and snacks and sometimes just sit at the edge of the cliff outside the city’s main gates, staring out over Cider Lake. 

The hallway from Amber’s room to Lumine’s is just a few short paces away, but ever since the traveler moved into that once empty room, Amber finds that even these few short paces are an adventure every time. 

Who knew what would lay in wait at the other end of the hallway, at the other end oif the door?

Amber didn’t need to go venturing out into the wilds of Mondstadt, heck she didn’t even need to go venturing beyond the walls of the building to discover something new, to see something different. 

Spending time with Lumine gives Amber a newfound appreciation for the city that she has lived in for so long.

Not a home.

Amber doesn’t have a home.

Maybe that’s why she finds herself flitting from rooftop to rooftop even at night, letting the winds carry her wherever they pleased. Light footsteps across the roof tiles are the only thing that Amber leaves behind as she takes her nightly flight across Mondstadt. 

Her room is for sleeping mostly, and sometimes for paperwork. 

In lieu of those things, she spends her time outside instead. Mondstadt has a lot to offer. It’s the city and people that she protects, after all. 

It’s on one of these nights, not long after Lumine had arrived that she finds a new discovery. After living here for so long and patrolling, and helping, and knowing, Amber is very, very surprised to find something new. She had thought that she knew everything about the city. 

Maybe it’s the arrival of someone new and unexpected that is causing this shift in things.

She’s gliding down from one rooftop to another when she spots it. 

There up in the sky.

She hadn’t been paying much attention to the sky lately if she was going to be perfectly honest. Why look up at the unchanging sky when at least things were happening in front of her instead of way out there? The stars were going to do what the stars did regardless of what Amber wanted, so why would she pay them any mind?

But tonight, in the clear sky, with no moon, Amber notices that there’s a single star in the sky that didn’t exist there before.

The sight stops her in her tracks, nearly causing her to fall over the side of the roof that she’s currently on top of. Stunned, she sits down heavily on the roof that she’s on— sorry whoever was on the top floor of the Angel’s Share. 

There was a new star.

Amber’s mind reels. 

She races through the possibilities. There were many people that she had met over the last little while. Countless merchants and visitors to Mondstadt, some of whom Amber doesn’t even know their name, and of course— there’s Lumine. 

The issue was that she couldn’t be certain when this star appeared. What if it had been there for days and she hadn’t noticed?

She can’t remember all the other people that she had met in the days before this— what if it was that incredibly rude merchant from Fontaine? Now that would truly be horrifying. 

Still, the fact that this star had appeared, that she had encountered her soulmate at long last is enough to keep Amber sitting on this roof for the rest of the night until the sun, like a child checking to see if their parents were away before creeping downstairs to play, begins to peek over the horizon. 

This star gives her a single glimmer of hope.

Not a home.

Amber doesn’t have a home.

Surprised is a bit of an understatement when she finds herself a bathroom.

It’s the communal showers inside the Knights of Favonius building, but Amber is starting to see it in a light other than a brisk morning shower before she headed out for the day or a long hot shower after a rough day of work. Instead, she finds herself patching up a certain Honourary Knight. She would have preferred the privacy of one of their rooms, but the convenience of having sinks and showers nearby outweighs the need for privacy anyway. 

“Stop moving,” Amber grouses as Lumine wiggles away from the antiseptic she is currently trying to apply to the deep gashes on the Honourary Knight’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” Lumine mumbles, looking sufficiently sheepish. 

Amber had been on patrol this morning, without Lumine unfortunately. Other business had called her somewhere else. By midday though, when Amber returns to Mondstadt, to her room to change into fresh clothes (her original ones had unfortunately been soaked through in an unplanned dip into Starfell Lake), she finds the door to Lumine’s room ajar.

Usually, the traveler keeps it closed at all times of the day, regardless of whether she’s in or not. Not one to be nosy, Amber was going to leave the other woman be, but the sound of a sharp intake of breath makes her pause.

Cautiously, Amber had poked her head in and found Lumine, first aid supplies strewn haphazardly everywhere, struggling to clean the wounds on her back. Amber holds back any comments about the practicality of wearing an outfit with an open back when carrying out any knightly duties because, as impractical it may be, Lumine looked damn good in it.

(Amber reminds herself to not ogle the traveler’s well-defined back, that would be rude.)

That’s how she ends up here.

“These are going to scar if you don’t let me finish,” Amber mumbles, trying her best to dab at the cuts gently as to not cause any additional pain to the already injured Lumine.

“Scars?” 

With the way that Lumine reacts, Amber isn’t sure if she’s upset at the idea of scars or not. These could be pretty significant scars if left untended. 

“I’m doing my best,” Amber huffs, “Although if you’re really worried, I’ve heard that girls like that kind of thing. Something about looking badass or something.” 

Amber isn’t sure what she’s saying anymore. The words are just tumbling out of her mouth without much thought. Honestly, she’s hoping that by continuing to talk to Lumine, it would be just distracting enough for Amber to finish cleaning these wounds without any further difficulties. 

“You think so?” Lumine asks softly.

“Yeah,” Amber replies absentmindedly.

Lumine lets out a small noise of interest. Amber isn’t sure how to respond to that, opting to change the topic instead.

“How did this happen anyway? I thought you had something to do in Springvale.” 

“I did! But that wrapped up pretty quickly. So I was headed back into the city and I remembered that you had told me about some Abyss mages that were skulking around Windrise. So I decided to go check it out.”

“You ran into the Abyss mages?” Amber gasps. 

There had been many sightings of different Abyss mages on the outskirts of the city. They usually kept to themselves, but Amber was always wary of their activities. She had been known to pick off the lone mage by herself if everything went her way and it wasn’t a Pyro Abyss mage she had been tracking, but that was with plenty of preparation at hand.

“Yeah, but I chased them off. They were up to no good around the tree and the Statue of the Seven there. So I decided it was better for me to deal with them now instead of having them do something terrible to Mondstadt later. I was climbing the tree and accidentally fell off it.”

“You should’ve called for backup,” Amber says slowly, carefully smoothing over some plasters over the wound. 

This would need a lot more than the few plasters that Amber currently is wielding. She smoothes over the perfectly taught plaster again, unable to help herself. Her fingertips brush over the edges of the material, grazing Lumine’s skin. 

The warmth that radiates across Amber’s body feels like she had just sunk down into a hot bath. It was like a deep warmth that emanate from the inside out.

“There was no time. They probably would’ve made it up to the city and done some serious damage. I couldn’t let that happen to your, you know— to Mondstadt.” Lumine fumbles through her words in a way that Amber finds incredibly amusing and adorable. 

“Well, thank you.” 

Amber isn’t sure what else to say in light of Lumine’s confession. The fact that Lumine had gone out of her way to check out something that Amber had mentioned to her once offhandedly is truly touching— especially because Amber hadn’t even been one-hundred percent certain in what she was seeing.

She hadn’t even filed her official Knights of Favonius report or done additional scouting there and Lumine had just gone off on her own.

“Still, you should be careful.” She adds as an afterthought. “Sometimes it isn’t worth it to get hurt like this especially when the intel I gave you was so…preliminary.”

“I think it’s worth it.”

The seriousness in Lumine’s voice makes Amber look up from the wounds that she had been tending to. Lumine had twisted around awkwardly so that she could peer at Amber over her shoulder. 

“I trust your intel. You know what you saw. And I think that as long as Mondstadt is important to someone, important to you— I think that it’s worth it.” 

Amber is taken aback by the genuine sincerity in Lumine’s eyes. Lumine really trusted in what Amber had told her, she really trusted in what had seen, she really trusted in what Amber thought.

Lumine really trusted in Amber.

A wave of embarrassment washes over Amber, and she finds herself unable to keep holding Lumine’s gaze like this. Her face begins to warm with the intensity of Lumine’s gaze.

She wouldn’t know it yet, but she finds herself here with  Lumine time and time again in the future. Every time, she vows to get more plasters and hopes there isn’t a next time. There’s always a next time.

Lumine gives Amber her trust.

Not a home. 

Amber doesn’t have a home. 

She finds herself eating most (if not all) of her meals at the Good Hunter. Sarah knows her order off by heart now. Fisherman’s toast and coffee for lunch, and sticky honey roast, and a glass of refreshing sunsettia juice for dinner. 

That hasn’t changed in years, ever since Amber’s grandpa went missing. These were the last two meals that she had with him the day before she lost her home, her family, everything.

It feels silly to keep eating the same things when Amber’s grandfather is clearly no longer here. What does she hope to accomplish by doing this? It’s not like he’s magically going to show up and join her for their last meal together again. 

Still, the habit persists.

She’s joined by Lumine most nights, sitting at one of the tables in the corner, overlooking the main gate of Mondstadt. The night is young, lanterns and lamps lighting up the city in a warm reflection of the cold silver light above them.

It’s here, Amber halfway through a plate of sticky honey roast, that Amber sees another star.

Another bright gleam in the pocket of darkness in the sky. 

It looks like two little eyes smiling down at her, bright and cheery, glad to see her. 

“Amber?” Lumine asks. 

“Y-Yeah?” Amber nearly jumps out of her seat in surprise.

“Is everything okay? Are you feeling alright?” Lumine looks concerned. 

She reaches across the table to feel Amber’s forehead with the back of her hand. Amber can immediately feel her cheeks heat up at their close proximity. 

“Y-Yeah? W-Why would I not be?” Amber stammers. 

Could Lumine tell that there was a new star in the sky? Was there something on Amber’s face that was giving this away? Questions ran through Amber’s mind at a thousand kilometers an hour. 

Lumine doesn’t appear to pay any attention to the turmoil raging inside Amber’s head. She touches the other side of Amber’s face too, trying to see what was wrong. 

“You just stopped eating all of a sudden. The Amber I know would never leave sticky honey roast uneaten on her plate.”

“No, no. I just got distracted. Everything is fine,” Amber brushes Lumine’s hand away. 

“You’re feeling a little warm,” Lumine hums thoughtfully. “Did you catch that bug that’s been going around the Knights of Favonius last week?”

“No!” Amber replies, a little too forcefully perhaps. 

Lumine gives her a skeptical look.

“I’m okay, really. Just got a little distracted is all.” And to prove her point, she reaches across the table and swipes one of Lumine’s leftover bites of teabreak pancakes. 

“Hey! You still have food left on your plate!” She protests, pouting. 

“Yeah, but I wanted to try some of yours.” Amber beams, chewing the pilfered morsel of food happily.

The sweet syrup of the pancake is sweeter than the glaze of the sticky honey roast, definitely different compared to what Amber is used to eating for dinner every night. Pancakes for dinner, what a thought.

“Next time, just ask. You just have a little bit of-” Lumine laughs, gesturing at the side of her face. 

“What?” 

Amber reaches up to touch the left side of her face, her hand comes away clean.

“No on the other side. Here, let me,” Lumine reaches across the table again.

Her touch is gentle, fingers skimming across the corner of Amber’s lip. Amber freezes, feeling like a little bunny rabbit caught in the sights of a predator.

Quick as it happened though, Lumine pulls back, a small crumb on her index. “Aha, got it!”

“Uhm… thanks,” Amber mumbles, feeling more heat flood into her face. 

“Here, I’m not going to finish this. Do you want half?” Lumine gestures to the stack of pancakes still remaining on her plate.

Amber eyes the pile of food, it was tempting. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah!” Lumine exclaims, “You looked like you really enjoyed it.”

She begins cutting the stack into neat little slices. “You’re always eating the same thing every meal. Don’t you get bored of it?”

“No! I love sticky honey roast!” Amber also begins cutting slices of her sticky honey roast and putting them on Lumine’s plate. 

“Hey, you don’t have to give me your food,” Lumine protests.

“You’re giving me some of yours! It’s only fair.” 

“But you said you love it!”

Not as much as I love-

Now that’s a thought that Amber reels back in quickly. Where in Teyvat did that one come from?

“I-I also love uh sharing!” 

Yes, Amber, that was a stellar performance. Good recovery. 

“If neither of you are going to eat it, Paimon will eat it!” The gremlin fairy creature chimes in enthusiastically, reaching for the food on Lumine’s plate.

Lumine bats her away easily, “No, no. I’ll eat it! You eat your own food, Paimon.”

While Lumine remains somewhat unconvinced, she accepts the portion of sticky honey roast without much complaint. Amber watches on with much amusement. It’s strange how much Amber enjoys their company, their strange little dynamic. She finds herself seeking out their company, if not their company, Lumine’s company. 

A small smile graces Amber’s face as she watches Lumine’s happy expression as she pops the bit of meat into her mouth. She too eats a bite of the pancake that Lumine has cut for her, savouring the sweetness and the fluffy texture.

Maybe something new wasn’t so bad after all.

The stars have given Amber change.

Not a home.

Amber doesn’t have a home.

She finds herself a kitchen though.

The sun is low in the orangey-red sky when Amber returns to her room. To her surprise, she finds Lumine, sitting along the wall next to Amber’s door. The light filtering in through one of the hallway windows bathes her in a halo of gold. The blonde immediately perks up when she sees Amber come up the stairs. 

“Amber!” Lumine greets her enthusiastically.

There’s the audible sound of her joints creaking and popping as Lumine gets up to meet Amber halfway. 

“Lumine?” Amber is surprised to see the other woman there sitting in the hallway. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s alright. I was just waiting for you to return.” 

“Oh,” Amber is taken aback. “Did you need something?”

“I got some fancy steaks from Dragonspine and I was wondering if you wanted to eat dinner with me.”

“At the Good Hunter?” Amber asks, confused. 

They always got dinner at the Good Hunter together. What difference did fancy steaks from Dragonspine make?

“No, I mean. Like I thought maybe I could cook them and we could eat dinner here. In the kitchen downstairs.” 

Oh.

Amber hadn’t even considered that as an option.

“Are you sure? I don’t think that you should waste your fancy Dragonspine steaks on me. I wouldn’t know the difference. I’m used to eating regular old food.”

Lumine gives her a look of disbelief, “I’m not wasting them on you. I like spending time with you, and I’m going to make you dinner.”

“Isn’t that a lot of effort?” Amber asks, feeling a little overwhelmed.

She pushes down the excitement the leaps up in her chest at the thought that Lumine would go out of her way to cook for her.

“You’re totally worth it. Now come along. I’ve been waiting all day and I’m hungry,” Lumine states, putting her hands on her hips resolutely. 

A picture of absolute determination. Cute determination.

“But-”

“No buts! The only butts involved in this are yours and mine sitting down at the dining table and seeing what’s so fancy about these Dragonspine steaks.”

Whatever protests Amber has dies in her throat as Lumine grabs her by the hand and begins to lead her down the stairs towards the small kitchenette that the Knights of Favonius seldom used. Even as they come around the edge of the staircase, Lumine doesn’t let go of Amber’s hand, tugging her ever forwards. 

There’s a warmth, a spark, an ember, that travels down Amber’s arm. It burns in the way that a sip of hot tea might on a cold winter’s day. Amber’s mind races with the implications of Lumine’s words. Nobody has ever told her that she was worth it in such a flat-out, blunt manner before. Nobody has ever told Amber that they wanted to spend time with her, that they enjoyed spending time with her. Things of this nature always came implied, like little gifts or compliments, a good job at the end of a hard mission— and it wasn’t that Amber didn’t appreciate these, but to hear it so obviously….

Needless to say, Amber is taken aback.

She is grateful for Lumine. 

Lumine has given Amber her time and her appreciation.

Not a home. 

Amber doesn’t have a home. 

Not really. 

She doesn’t really stay in her room all that often, so much so that it’s become sort of a running joke with the other Knights of Favonius. Where’s Amber? Definitely not in her room. Amber does make it a point to let Lumine know where she would be for the day.

Lumine accompanies her on her nighttime flights almost every night now. Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s a lot more fun with another person.

The two of them glide effortlessly from roof to roof in what started as a leisurely flight but quickly turned into a childish game of tag. Giggling, Amber twists out of the way as Lumine lunges across the small gap between two buildings.

“Get back here!” Lumine half shouts, half whispers after Amber.

It is late at night, and neither of them wanted to be scolded by Jean for disrupting the peace of the night. 

“Come catch me then,” Amber teases, leaping easily through the air and gliding to the next building. 

She grabs one of the wooden beams jutting out the side of the house and uses it to lift herself onto the roof. The sky above her is bright and clear, the clouds in the sky finally having moved on. 

It’s a beautiful night. 

The black of this night is comforting to Amber. Something about it makes it look soft, close and Amber just wants to reach up into that velvet sky and pull it down over her shoulders. She’s just about to run across the roof and leap to the next one when something in the sky stops her in her tracks.

A third star.

It forms a little triangle, pointing to the right. Like the greater than sign that Amber remembers learning about in school. (Or was it the less than sign? She was never sure.)

Amber hadn’t been expecting this development.

No major events had occurred in the last while. Supposedly, according to all the stories that Amber had grown up hearing, a new star in the constellation when something major happened between you and your soulmate. Nothing of that sort had happened, not that Amber could think of. 

Unless… the events had happened meant nothing to Amber but a lot to her soulmate? Could that be possible? Amber frowns, she’s not sure that that would be what she would have wanted in a relationship, in a soulmate. What if the interaction was her buying a plate of sticky honey roast for Lumine?

Well, that would mean that Amber’s soulmate would be Sara, and as nice as Sara is, Amber feels weird about the idea of dating her.

She wants the interactions to mean something. 

The feeling of two strong arms wrapping around her waist and the force of a body slamming into her back surprises her out of her thoughts.

“Gotcha!” Lumine exclaims triumphantly. 

“Hey!” Amber laughs, twisting around in Lumine’s grip, trying to free herself.

“I win! I caught you so I am the Mondstadt tag champion,” Lumine declares, smiling brightly. 

“Alright, alright.” Amber relents, if only so that Lumine wouldn’t discover the giant gleaming secret in the sky that Amber is still trying to wrap her head around. 

“So what do I win as the champion of tag of Mondstadt?” Lumine asks.

She’s still holding onto Amber, her breath ghosting over the outer shell of Amber’s ear. Amber can feel the rise and fall of Lumine’s chest behind her, she may have caught Amber, but certainly not her breath. 

“I’ll buy you dinner?” That comes out more like a question than the statement that Amber had wanted. 

“You always buy me dinner. What about…” Lumine pauses, thinking hard. “What about you make me dinner?”

Amber pales.

“I’m not that good of a cook!” 

“Nonsense, I’m sure you’ll do great.” 

“You haven’t even tried my cooking,” Amber protests.

“Yes. And this is the perfect opportunity to do so. Dinner tomorrow?” 

“If you really want to…” 

What can she even make? Why does Lumine even want to eat her cooking so badly? Perhaps Lumine… no no no, Amber pushes that thought away. She is getting ahead of herself. There’s no sense in getting her hopes up like that. Lumine is just naturally friendly— Amber has seen her helping people around the city. 

Amber looks up at the stars, the three bright specks of light, and thinks… if only.

Perhaps the stars have given her a chance.

Not a home.

Amber doesn’t have a home.

She finds herself a living room though.

It’s not intentional, but Amber is often out flying around when some of the Knights of Favonius gather in the common area of the headquarters building to play cards and other games. So it surprises her when Lumine appears at her door, having just caught Amber as she’s preparing to head out for the night. 

“The others are going to play some games in the common room downstairs,” Lumine tells her, peeking into Amber’s room. 

Amber pauses, looking up from where she was tying her boots. “You should go play with them!” 

Lumine looks hesitant, swinging the door back and forth a little bit. “I was hoping that you would go with me. I don’t want to go by myself.” 

“But you won’t be by yourself?” Amber questions, confused. “The other Knights will be there and you know them all. And you have Paimon.”

“I know that.” Lumine huffs, clearly exasperated. “I wanted you to be there.” 

Oh.

Oh.

No, why was that second oh there. There is nothing to “oh” about here.

Just some friends wanting to hang out. Nothing wrong with that. 

“Y-Yeah, sure. I’ll go with you.” Amber stammers, feeling incredibly caught off guard and foolish. 

The smile that Lumine gives her is entirely worth it though. Still smiling, Lumine takes her by the hand and leads her down the stairs to the common area, where the other Knights gathered there let out a cheer upon seeing them. 

The couches that used to be placed neatly around the room have all been drawn into a little circle around a large coffee table. Pressed arm to arm, Amber and Lumine have to climb over the back of one of the sofas to actually get to the free seats on one end of the couch.

To her surprise and nobody else’s, Amber has a great time that night, playing various games of Natlan Hold ‘Em as taught by Swan, and more than a few rounds of ‘Une’, some strange Fontaine game with funny looking cards.

Perhaps what really made her night was Lumine plastered against her side. There was hardly any space on the couches as it was and the two of them were practically sharing a seat. But every time Lumine won or even laughed, Amber could feel the corners of her own lips ticking upwards in a smile. 

There was something just about spending time with Lumine, even playing silly games with the other knights that Amber really enjoyed.

Even though Amber loses every game that they played, she can’t help but feel like she’s won them all anyway. 

Lumine has given Amber joy.

Not a home.

Amber doesn’t have a home. 

On one of her odd overnight patrols out into the wilds of Mondstadt, she spends the night gazing out at the stars, legs swinging freely from the branch that she’s perched on.

The blanket of stars that dazzle so brightly above her is enough warmth for the night. 

There’s a fourth star now. It makes kind of a weird little zigzag in the night sky. The number of stars scares Amber. Four out of the supposed six. That was more than halfway there and Amber still had no solid confirmation on who her soulmate was. 

This worried her.

She wants to know. 

(Archons, it better not be that weird new merchant that’s been hanging around town as of late.)

More importantly, she wants to know if the things that she thinks that she is seeing, the little signs that she keeps letting raise her hopes are actually real or if she’s imagining things, reading too deep into what she hopes is actually true instead.

Her gaze unfocuses, letting all the specks of light blur into a sea of dancing fireflies. Her thoughts wander, weaving their way through the forest and trees, over the rivers and Cider lake, all the way back to Mondstadt, all the way through the city and up two flights of stairs and down the hall to where Lumine is sleeping. 

The traveler is in many of Amber’s thoughts lately. 

She can’t help it.

She wants to know more about the mysterious stranger who isn’t all that mysterious but smiles at corny jokes and eats about as much sticky honey roast as Amber does. She wants to spend time with her, go flying and running and jumping and laughing. She wants to go see new things with her, and uh, maybe hold her hand, maybe.

Maybe she wishes Lumine is her soulmate.

A worse thought occurs to her. 

What if Lumine is her soulmate but not her home? 

What if her soulmate isn’t her home?

What if this void that has opened in her chest can never be filled by her soulmate?

Would all things be meaningless then? Would all that Amber has strived for be for naught? What if she never has a home again? Just some strange wandering person drifting aimlessly through the world, through life. 

She doesn’t have any of the answers to these questions. All she has is the sinking feeling in her stomach and the creeping sense of hopelessness. Hesitantly, she looks back up at the stars. The four of them twinkle in the night, offering her no answers.

One of them flickers.

Amber’s heart feels like it’s hammering a hole into her chest. 

What does all of this mean?

The stars have only given her more questions.

Not a home.

Amber doesn’t have a home. 

Maybe that’s why she likes hanging around Eula so much.

The captain of the reconnaissance division of the Knights of Favonius is like Amber. The two of them wander around Mondstadt in a similar manner, though Eula wanders a lot more, further away from Mondstadt than Amber does. 

Amber doesn’t blame her, with the looks and scathing remarks that some of the citizens give her, she too would spend as much time away from these walls too. 

Both of them are searching and looking, never quite finding. 

Still, the two of them wander down the streets of Mondstadt, side by side. The citizens are clearly torn between giving the Spindrift Knight a wide berth and approaching their beloved Outrider. Amber greets all of them with a joyful smile, daring them— no, encouraging them to approach.

“I am starting to think this mysterious Honourary Knight of yours does not exist,” Eula states as the two of them make their way to the Good Hunter from the Knights of Favonius headquarters. 

Amber sighs, “She does exist, Eula! I just don’t know where she is today.”

“I will have my vengeance for this wild goose chase, Amber.” 

“I’ll just treat you to lunch instead, okay?” 

She really doesn’t know where Lumine has gone. She expected the Honourary Knight to be in her room or waiting for her at headquarters. As far as Amber knew, Lumine had something to take care of this morning over by Bright Crown Canyon and then would be free in the afternoon. 

Perhaps another matter came up in the meantime. The blond knight was a very popular candidate for people who needed help to go to. Maybe she got roped into searching for that darned missing cat or helping a merchant on the road or something. It isn’t in Lumine’s nature to turn down someone in need, as far as Amber knew. 

So instead, Amber has lunch with Eula, just Eula, instead.

“No Lumine today?” Sarah asks as they take a seat at the corner table— Amber and Lumine’s usual table.

“No, have you seen her around?” Amber accepts the two glasses of water from Sarah and slides one to Eula. 

The water in Eula’s glass immediately chills, condensation forming on the outside in the warm Mondstadt sun. 

“I have not. She’s usually around by this hour though,” Sarah hums thoughtfully. “Maybe she got roped into helping out some poor merchant or something. You know how Mondstadt can be.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Amber says, trying hard not to let disappointment creep into her tone. 

She had looked forward to introducing Lumine to Eula. 

“What do you want to eat? The usual?” Sarah is already pulling away from the table, a few steps back towards her counter. 

“Yes. The usual is fine.”

“Captain?” Sarah shoots Eula a look.

It’s kind of funny to watch the usually outgoing and cheery purveyor of the Good Hunter navigate an interaction with Eula. She knows better than to bring up Eula’s last name but isn’t quite on a first-name basis with the Cryo vision wielder.

“The same as Amber is fine,” is Eula’s cold and stoic reply. 

“Okay, two orders of Fisherman’s Toast, coming right up.” Sarah gives both of them an awkward finger gun.

“Oh,” Amber pipes up, “Can I also get an order of Teabreak Pancakes?”

Sarah gives Amber a knowing little smile that she doesn’t quite understand, “Of course.”

Amber watches Sarah return to her counter, confused over the last part of their interaction. 

“What is on your mind, Amber?” Eula takes a sip of her water, unfazed by the cold of the drink— Amber can feel the back of her teeth hurt just thinking about it.

This makes Amber turn to face the woman that she had grown up with. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you seem troubled.”

Amber frowns. Eula had always been very perceptive, much to Amber’s chagrin— she was the captain of the reconnaissance team after all.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Amber replies in what she thinks is her coolest manner, she certainly doesn’t feel it.

“Don’t lie to me, I will seek vengeance for this,” Eula’s glare is icy.

Amber sighs, there really is no hiding anything from Eula. She’d find out sooner or later. Instead, she sips at her water, trying to get her thoughts together. 

“If you will not speak, I will.” 

This catches Amber’s attention. Eula never liked to initiate a conversation.

“Oh?”

“I have found my soulmate.”

These words, simple as they may be, send a jolt of surprise and shock down her spine. 

“Y-You have?” Amber stammers, trying her best not to leave her mouth hanging open.

It’s not that she believed that Eula would never find someone like that for herself, far from it— Eula was capable and talented and could be kind, and very not terrible to look at, and anyone who would be Eula’s soulmate would be lucky to have her, but Amber never thought that it would happen so suddenly.

So out of the blue.

“Yes. I have confirmed that she is my soulmate and she, in turn, has also concurred.” Eula nods seriously, taking a sip of her water.

Leave it to Eula to make something as romantic as finding her soulmate sound like a business transaction. 

“Is she from Mondstadt?”

Despite her initial surprise, Amber is eager to find out more about the person who is Eula’s soulmate. Eula may be older than her, but it doesn’t stop her from feeling a twinge of protectiveness all the same.

“No,” Eula tells her, “Liyue.”

Oh. 

“Are you going to move out there?” 

Eula makes a noncommittal noise in lieu of an answer. 

“Is she going to move here?” Amber tries again.

Another noncommittal noise.

Amber falls silent, mind running through all the possibilities. She couldn’t really see Eula leaving the Knights of Favonius— leaving Mondstadt, maybe, Eula could move to Liyue. 

Maybe.

“What about you?” 

This catches Amber off guard. 

“W-What do you mean, what about me?” 

“Something is clearly troubling you. I saw the way your face changed when I said that I had found my soulmate.” Eula’s eyes narrow at Amber, dissecting her every little facial movement.

“I am happy for you!” Amber argues. “Can’t I be happy?”

“I know when you are happy,” Eula tells her simply. 

Amber sighs heavily. There really was no escaping Eula’s insight. 

“How did you know that she was your soulmate?” Amber relents finally.

“We have constellations in our skin, Amber.” 

“No, before that!” Amber groans, for all of her insight, Eula could be so literal sometimes.

“I’m not sure that I am understanding what you are trying to get at here,” Eula says slowly mulling over Amber’s words.

“Remember how when we were younger, we were always looking for a home?” 

“We lived in the Knights of Favonius headquarters,” Eula points out. 

Okay, for all the similarities that Amber thought they had, Eula clearly hadn’t given this whole thing as much thought as Amber has.

“I understand that you have felt like you have not had a home ever since your grandfather left.”

Or maybe Eula has.

“But I do not think that a home is something that you just find, Amber.” 

Amber narrows her eyes at Eula. She has the sense that she isn’t going to like where this conversation is going. 

“It’s certainly something that you can lose,” Amber retorts, folding her arms stubbornly. 

“Yes, and I understand that. And perhaps you were too young, but I think you don’t remember how much work your grandfather put into making that home for you.”

This gives Amber pause. 

“What do you mean?” 

Amber’s memories of that time are hazy at best. It had been so long since then, once she had been old enough to join the Knights of Favonius, she had moved into the headquarters and her grandpa sold his little house that that looked out over the main street. 

(He would disappear shortly after, leaving her a tidy sum of money from the house sale. Back then, she had thought he had sold the place because Amber was growing up and had moved out, but looking back, he was the one who moved out. Moving out of the entire city in secret.)

“He’d go out of his way to pick flowers to liven the place up, bring you fresh fruits and vegetables every day, cook your favourite meals— all of those things took effort and work. It was a home for you because he made it so.” 

The conversation pauses as Sarah reappears with their food. Quietly, they thank her and draw their plates across the table, picking up the cutlery as they went. Thankfully, Sarah seems to sense the change in the mood at the table and retreats quickly to her counter, watching the two of them from afar instead of staying and chatting.

Eula begins cutting her fisherman’s toast into perfect little bite-sized squares. Amber stares, dazed, at her own food. All of Eula’s words ricochet around in her brain, pinging off of old memories and knocking over Amber’s own thoughts in their wake. 

“You think I’m overreacting about this whole home thing?” Amber asks.

Her own voice sounds distant in her own ears, muted like her voice is on the other side of a door. All of her thoughts are a mess.

“That is not what I said,” Eula says slowly. 

She sets down her knife and fork with a deep sigh. 

“I think that a home isn’t something that you just find .”

“You think I should just give up then?” Amber can hear her own voice get higher and higher, her throat feels tight, tense with emotion.

“That is not what I said,” Eula repeats exasperated. “A home is not just going to fall out of the sky and into your lap.”

“Nothing is going to fall out of the sky and into my lap except disaster, Eula,” Amber interjects. 

“Stop interrupting me. I am going to add this slight to my list of vengeance.”  

Amber wisely decides to stop talking at this moment. Eula is more serious than Amber has ever seen her. 

“You can build your own home. You don’t have to go searching for one that’s already fully made, ready for you to move in. Some people may find that and be perfectly happy but that is not something you need to do. Make something for yourself.”

“So I shouldn’t buy a house.”

“Amber…” Eula’s voice is low, a warning.

“Sorry, sorry. Right. Being serious now.” Amber smiles at the other woman sheepishly. 

Eula does not return the sentiment. “Listen, the home that you feel that you have lost, that you have lost with your grandfather isn’t one that you will find a replacement for anywhere. You just have to hold a little piece of it in your heart and rebuild something new for yourself.”

Amber finds herself sniffling, wiping her face with the back of her hand, and finding both her cheeks and hand are wet with tears. 

“Did I say something wrong?” Eula is immediately concerned, reaching out with a finely embroidered handkerchief. 

“No, no,” Amber rebuffs the handkerchief, afraid to get something so nice dirty. “You said everything right.” 

She dabs at her face with the napkin that came with their cutlery. “You’ve clearly given this some thought, in a different manner than I have.”

“Well,” Eula gives her a rare smile, albeit a sad one. “Your grandfather gave me home too.”

Amber thinks about all the things that she’s experienced with Lumine, all the new things that she’s got to see, and the times that she spent with Lumine. With all these pieces that Lumine’s walked her through, Amber had enough to build herself a house. 

Maybe a home.

She could have a home.

That night, five bright lights guide Amber out into the wilderness of Mondstadt. 

Lumine hasn’t been seen all day, and none of the other Knights who watch the gates have seen her return to the city either.

Amber isn’t sure where Lumine could have gone, only that she had left into the wild without leaving behind anything, leaving behind Paimon too— very uncharacteristic of her. Archons, Amber isn’t even sure what she’s doing, packing her usual patrol bag and heading out after Lumine. 

She just hopes that she can find Lumine. A storm is brewing, unseen, in the distance, biding his time.

Without Lumine, Mondstadt is not complete.

Without Lumine, she may not have a home.

She wants her home.

Amber doesn’t have a home.

Er, well. She does. It’s a work in progress.

She thinks about how disapproving Eula would be if she heard her say that, even in her head, and decides that she would work on that. 

Home or not, she’s currently in an unfortunate part of Mondstadt that very few sane people would call their home.

Dragonspine.

This isn’t really her usual stomping grounds, but she had been tracking some Abyss mages through the forests of Mondstadt and wound up tracking them right into Dragonspine. The biting winds and driving snow made her job quite difficult. 

If not for her Pyro vision, she surely would’ve succumbed to the freezing temperatures already. The Abyss mages have long disappeared, any traces of them hidden behind large piles of fluffy white snow. Amber should’ve turned around and headed for the camp at the base of the mountainous region instead, but she remembered how much Lumine enjoyed eating those fancy Dragonspine steaks that one time and resolved to pick up some for her.

After all, she did solve the Dvalin issue for all of Mondstadt, the least Amber could do is pick up the steaks that Lumine liked so much. She is in the area. 

What she thinks would be a quick trip to find said steaks (Lumine gave her no other explanation aside from the fact that she had gotten them from Dragonspine), is rapidly becoming a freezing nightmare. 

Thankfully, she does have the steaks, having found them in a weird ice block just off to the side of the road before the snowstorm hit. Those are tucked safely into her pack. The blue colour of the steaks is a little bit off-putting considering they are well, steaks, but Amber picks them up anyway.

Hopefully, they would still be good by the time she made it back to Mondstadt. If she ever made it back to Mondstadt.

Honestly, if she wasn’t so cold, she’d wonder who would just leave two random pieces of perfectly good meat sitting around in an ice block in the middle of the road though. That seems a little weird. 

Amber likes the think that she has a pretty good sense of direction, given her job as the Outrider and all, but in this snow, when everything and everywhere is just white, she is finding herself being turned around very quickly. 

“Archons, where am I going?” she grumbles to herself as she plods through the thick layer of snow, leaving behind a steaming trail of footprints behind her. 

She can hardly see three steps in front of her, never mind finding her way back to camp. The direction that she had thought would bring her back definitely is feeling more and more like she is heading in the wrong direction. 

The skies are beginning to darken, not with the storm clouds that had been plaguing Mondstadt over the last few weeks, months perhaps, (Amber can hardly remember, they had dealt with Dvalin’s reign for so long), but with the dark of night as the sun sets behind the snow and clouds.

The temperature drops even more now, to the point that even Amber can feel the chill beginning to seep through the warmth of her vision. 

Her pace slows to a crawl and it’s a battle to keep placing one foot in front of another. Amber has heard countless stories of ill-prepared adventurers and other folks perishing in the harsh environment of Dragonspine. She thinks about the clothes that she’s currently wearing, her usual attire, certainly not the right gear for this situation. 

Every breath that she draws in stings, little flecks of ice and frost forming on the edges of her clothes, drawing heat away from her body. Her hands are stuffed into the inside of her jacket, trying to keep them protected from the biting cold. She hunches over in the face of the wind, keeping her head down as she trudges out miserable step after miserable step.

Was this her end? Here lied Amber, she can imagine her gravestone saying, killed by Dragonspine, all because she was foolish and ill-prepared and trying to do something nice for a pretty girl that Amber didn’t even know if she was the one. 

She has to keep going though. She has to make it back to Mondstadt. She has to make it back to Lumine. With that thought in mind, she forces her stiff legs to move, if she were to stop moving now that would surely mean the death of her. All that she wants to do is drink a hot cup of coffee, curl up in her bed under a mountain of blankets, and just be home.

Home.

Home home home.

The word echoes in her head, reverberating across her body into her heart, into every fiber of her soul. 

She wanted to go home. 

What would her home even look like? 

Amber thinks about Lumine and her sunny smile, and how the warm sunlight of the afternoon plays against her hair. Amber thinks about the warmth of her skin, the way that she laughs at some of Amber’s jokes. Amber thinks about how much she would like to sink into one of Lumine’s hugs right now. 

It’s not what she would have imagined when she was younger, but yeah. Amber smiles to herself, to the smiling Lumine in her mind’s eye. She could live here, but first, she’d have to live.

In the distance, she can see faint beams of light, cutting softly through the snow, beckoning her forwards. 

Without much else to go on, she heads towards the little beams of light, five of them, a small chorus of hope in the far-off distance. 

This way, the lights say. 

“You better not let me down,” Amber thinks at the lights in what she hopes is her sternest voice.

Amber keeps her gaze fixed on those lights as best as she could. There’s nothing else that she can see in this blowing hellstorm, and that is all that she has.

It seems to take an eternity, the snow crunching under her boots could barely be heard of the din of the wind, but soon Amber takes two more steps towards those lights and blinks, suddenly standing at the edge of a bridge, skies clear above her. 

Just a little ways away, down the path, Amber can see the dark green tops of the Adventurer’s Guilds tents. 

She had made it back to camp.

Thankful, Amber looks over into the distance trying to figure out what those mysterious lights were that had guided her out of danger. 

Five little stars wink at her, glowing proudly in the night.

Oh.

That’s what had guided her out of Dragonspine— her stars, her soulmate’s stars to be more accurate. 

Amber has no time to think about what that could possibly mean though, a familiar voice rings out through the icy night air. 

“Amber!” 

She whirls around, looking for the source of the voice. 

Lumine is there, running up the path from camp, face slightly sweaty as she approaches. 

“Lumine?” 

For a moment, Amber wonders if she’s seeing things.

All of her doubts evaporate like snow in the face of her Vision when Lumine nearly bowls her over in a flying hug-tackle. 

“Where have you been?” Lumine asks, breathing heavily. 

Amber can feel the thin layer of sweat on Lumine’s skin— had she run all the way to Dragonspine?

“I was tracking an Abyss mage and ended up following it into Dragonspine,” Amber explains sheepishly. “But why are you here?” 

She doesn’t let Lumine go from the hug, secretly glad for the additional warmth that Lumine is giving off.

“I was getting worried when you didn’t return from your evening patrol, so I asked some of the other Knights along your route and they said that you were heading into Dragonspine. So I came over to check on you. Did you run into any trouble? Oh, Archons, are you injured?”

Lumine does pull back a little bit from the hug just to take a good look at Amber, to make sure that she really is okay. 

“No, no. I’m not injured.” Amber says. “I’m fine.”

Even in this kind of weather, her cheeks still warm at their close proximity. When Lumine does release her from the hug, Amber finds her heart is running at a thousand beats per minute and wonders briefly if Lumine could feel it thudding against her chest in that hug.

“You are freezing!” Lumine tells her, pulling her along down the path and into camp. 

“Oh, speaking of freezing. I got those fancy Dragonspine steaks that you got liked.” 

The way that Lumine whirls around to look at Amber, eyes wide in realization and surprise nearly startles Amber enough to make her trip on her own two feet. 

“You did not,” Lumine points a finger at her accusatorially.

Amber laughs nervously, “Did what?”

“You did not get stuck on Dragonspine because you were getting those steaks,” Lumine draws closer again. 

They are at the mouth of the camp, mere steps away from the sounds of conversation and fire crackling. 

“Uhm, I am not stuck on Dragonspine?” Amber offers helpfully.

Lumine groans, dragging the hand that wasn’t currently holding Amber’s hand down her face in exasperation. “Amber! I could’ve gotten them for you!” 

“But I wanted to get them for you!” Amber pouts swinging their joined hands back and forth a little bit.

“Next time, just ask me to go with you, okay?”

Amber smiles, gratefully for the concern and care in Lumine’s voice and the warmth in her hand. “Okay.”

Far above her head, a sixth star blinks to life, sleepily, as if finally awakening from a long rest. Amber doesn’t notice. She wouldn’t notice for a long time, too caught up in this moment with Lumine to realize.

Whether she knows it or not, the stars have guided her home.

She just has to reach out and open the front door to it herself. 

Amber doesn’t have a house.

She currently has a tent.

It’s a borrowed tent and has definitely seen better days but it’s home. Not because of the structure itself, but because of who she’s with.

 Lumine is asleep, snoring softly against the crook of Amber’s neck, hair tousled and sweaty strands clinging to her face. They had decided to zip together both their sleeping bags and curl up together for warmth.

For warmth, that’s the real reason why.

Aside from the stars in the sky, the only other source of light is the faint glow emanating from both of their constellations, shining through their skin. 

There’s a fullness in Amber’s heart as she lays here, with a gentle breeze whistling through the slightly open flaps of their tent and the faint song of crickets in the night and Lumine in her arms. 

They were soulmates. 

Everything that Amber had secretly and not so secretly hoped for is here in her arms, in this moment. 

She feels at peace. She feels at home.

And for that, Amber is content. 

She’s about to drift off to sleep when another question, another realization strikes her like a lightning bolt out of a storm. There’s no more Dvalin to worry about but Amber feels a foreboding storm on the horizon. 

Lumine would have to leave soon. 

Amber knows this. She’s still in search of her brother, who is clearly not in Mondstadt and there are six other nations for Lumine to look in. The fullness in Amber’s heart is contrasted with a sinking feeling in her gut. Lumine would go on and journey to all these other wonderful and fascinating lands and meet many other wonderful and fascinating people. 

Amber had only just found her home, and now she would be leaving her again. The similarities to how she lost her first home with her grandfather is not lost on Amber. If that is the only issue plaguing Amber tonight, that would be far too simple.

Amber is aware that her home and her soulmate did not have to be the same person. Her grandfather was her home long before she had met Lumine. Now that Lumine is hers… Amber bites her lip, mulling over the thought. What if Lumine finds a home somewhere else out there?

Teyvat is vast. Surely, it would be possible that there is somewhere else out there?

Her duties as an Outrider here in Mondstadt would mean that she wouldn’t be able to accompany Lumine on her journeys across Teyvat. The idea that she could leave her Outrider role behind just to join Lumine is… tempting. 

However, Amber’s grandfather’s legacy and all that it means to her roots her to her role as an Outrider, she could never give it up. At least not while she was the only one who existed.  Perhaps if there was a fully formed Outrider corp in place, Amber would consider it.

The idea is haunting, Amber thinks. What if she isn’t Lumine’s home?

What if her soulmate found a home elsewhere? 

Amber frowns.

Would this be enough for her? 

There’s no satisfactory answer or answer at all. 

The six stars in the sky simply shine in their silence. They were not here to give Amber a home, just a soulmate. 

She holds Lumine a little tighter, draws her a little closer.  Lumine slumbers on, blissfully unaware of the worries that plague her the human pillow that she lies on. 

Amber has found her home. 

Has Lumine?

Amber has a home. 

Her home is traveling somewhere out in Inazuma.

She carefully arranges a myriad of trinkets and little knickknacks on her shelf. The once empty piece of furniture is slowly filling up. 

Every now and then, Amber would receive a package at the Adventurer’s Guild here in Mondstadt. Katheryne would happily hand over the carefully wrapped box— the paper and ribbon are different every time but the writing on the top always remains the same. 

It’s a new souvenir from Lumine, just a little something that she’s picked up on her travels around Teyvat.

Amber has received a cool-looking bunny-shaped rock, and a fancy teapot from Liyue with only one teacup (Lumine writes that she has the other teacup so that when Amber drank tea from hers she could imaging Lumine drinking from the other one wherever she was in the Teyvat). There are also bright red flowers from Inazuma along with a bottle of somehow still cold dango milk. 

The rock has found its way into a display case that Amber managed to get Marjorie to part with, which now sits on Amber’s bookshelf (along with some fancy mint tea from one of Eula’s reconnaissance missions). 

The teapot is currently sitting upside down on Amber’s desk, drying after being washed. Amber had made some of that mint tea in it last night. The hot drink only very vaguely reminded her of the warmth of holding Lumine, but picturing the other woman drinking from the matching cup does bring a small smile to Amber’s face.

The dango milk had long been consumed and now the empty bottle acts as a vase for the red flowers— dendrobium, Lisa identified. 

Amber’s room is feeling more and more like her own, little piece by little piece, trinket by trinket, experience by experience, memory by memory, package by package.

Still, she misses Lumine terribly. As much as she decorates and lives in this room, the starlight that illuminates the space is only a reminder of the most important part that isn’t here.

The part that would make this place really Amber’s home.

Lumine.

With a sigh, Amber flops backward onto the bed.

She wonders how Lumine is doing right now. Where she is right now. From her last letter, it sounded like things in Inazuma had smoothed over fairly quickly now. Lumine would be moving on soon, to the next nation, even further away from Amber.

(Amber really isn’t good with geography so whether or not Sumeru is actually geographically farther from Mondstadt than Inazuma, it’s hard to say. But Lumine feels further.)

There’s a small knock on her door that makes Amber sit bolt upright, startled out of her thoughts. She isn’t expecting anyone today. Perhaps it's one of the other knights, looking for her for one thing or another.

With a heavy sigh, Amber pulls herself off the bed and opens the door. 

Her heart leaps into her throat.

There standing in the hallway is Lumine.

Amber’s heart sinks immediately after, upon seeing the very upset expression on her face and the battered state that her soulmate is in. Little cuts and bruises mar her arms, criss crossing over each other, Amber can see scrapes on her knees as well. 

“Lumine? Is everything okay?” 

She isn’t aware that Lumine was back in Mondstadt. She hadn’t said anything in her letters at all. Paimon who is hanging around just slightly down the hall gives Amber a worried shake of her head and then slowly retreats down the hall to give them space. 

That bad, huh?

Quickly, Amber ushers the bedraggled looking woman into her room. 

Lumine doesn’t say anything but instead flings herself into Amber’s arms the instant that the door swings closed. Strong arms circle around Amber’s midsection, squeezing almost uncomfortably tight. Amber inhales the scent of Lumine, a scent that she has missed so dearly over the last little while, of windwheel aster, something citrusy, and of the wind— there’s something else mixed in this time too like burnt ozone and blood. 

Something is wrong. Amber’s concern only grows.

“Lumine?” Amber repeats softly.

“Just hold me for a second?” 

Amber nods against the top of Lumine’s head as the blonde buries her face into the side of Amber’s neck. They stay there for some long moments, in the middle of the room, just holding each other. In what she hopes is her most soothing manner, Amber rubs circles into Lumine’s back, trying to ease some of the tension that has built up there. 

Lumine’s shoulders tremble as she fights to regain control over her emotions and Amber can feel her chest heave with silent sobs. 

Whatever had happened was clearly something big.

Long moments pass as Amber continues to just give Lumine the space and time that she needs to return to herself, whatever Lumine needed, Amber is more than happy to give. Not to mention that being able to just hold Lumine again after so long apart, fills Amber with a welcome sense of joy— a worried sense of joy.

Eventually Lumine comes back from whatever dark place she’s been in, and the sobs reside into hiccups. She slowly pulls away from Amber, wiping at her cheeks with dirty hands. 

“Sorry for just dropping in on you unannounced,” Lumine sniffles.

Amber catches her hands before she can streak any more dirt across her tear stained cheeks. 

“Don’t be, I’ll always be here for you no matter what you need.”

Gently, Amber sits Lumine on her bed and then pulls an absurdly large first aid kit from under her bed. 

“Oh, you don’t have to-” Lumine starts, trying to get up.

Amber sits her back down on the bed and fixes her a stern look. “You are hurt. I am going to patch you up and then make you something to eat.”

Any other objections that Lumine may have is silenced as she meekly agrees with Amber with a nod.

Clearly something is wrong, There’s none of Lumine’s usual bubbly nature or sass here. She doesn’t even flinch when Amber begins to clean her cuts with a bit of cotton dipped in antiseptic. 

Lumine is silent the entire time that Amber wraps up the larger of the gashes with bandages and cleans the dirt from her hands and face. She’s  silent again when Amber makes her one of her infamous steaks for dinner (She’s not technically supposed to cook in her room but she figures that Lumine doesn’t want to run into the other knights right now and the shared kitchen space is pretty open. Thankfully, she’s got one of the new portable stoves that the Adventurer’s Guild had been giving to people headed up to Dragonspine.)

Even then, it’s rather perturbing to be accompanied only by the sound of cutlery and chewing while they eat, Amber is used to much more talking, some kind of lively conversation to engage in in between bites. 

The silence continues until Amber clears the dishes, setting them onto her desk with gentle clanks that sound ridiculously loud in the silence that has settled over them like a thin layer of dust in a room that has long been unused. 

She winces at the sound.

Lumine blinks. Like the sound is some kind of bell that has woken her from her slumber, she looks appropriately exhausted.

“Oh, it’s late,” she rasps.

Amber pours out one cup of chamomile tea from the teapot that had been steeping while they ate. She only has the one cup, but they could share for now. A few extra cups is probably a good future purchase. 

The steam curls around Amber’s face as she pours. The tea is probably a little too strong, but herbal teas shouldn’t be too bad oversteeped, right?

“Oh, you’re using the teapot,” the way that she says it makes Amber think that she ought to have tossed the teapot or something.

“Of course! You gave it to me,” Amber tells her proudly. “I’ve kept everything that you’ve sent me.”

“Oh,” Lumine blinks, looking around the room like she’s truly seeing it for the first time. “I see that you’ve started decorating.”

“Yeah, I figured that I should make the place more cozy, you know.” Amber presses the cup of chamomile into Lumine’s hands as they fall into another moment of silence. “Make it somewhere that I would actually enjoy staying in.”

Making it a home.

“I’m sorry for bothering you,” Lumine speaks up, all of a sudden, cutting through the silence.

The tremble in her hands as she holds the cup does not go unnoticed by Amber.

 “And I told you not to worry about it.”

Lumine bites her lip, thinking— if not for their current predicament, Amber would find this expression very cute.

“Can I stay the night?” Lumine finally asks, sounding shy and hesitant in a way that Amber has never known her to be.

“Of course,” Amber tells her brightly, trying to inject some levity into this situation. “Do you wanna share the bed? Otherwise, I don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

“We can share,” Lumine says, casting her eyes down on the floor as if she’s too afraid of meeting Amber’s eyes and seeing rejection there.

“Okay,” Amber begins digging through the chest of drawers for some kind of sleepwear. 

She tosses Lumine an old shirt and shorts to change into. There’s some extra blankets and pillows that she pulls out too and immediately drops on the floor in surprise when she turns around to find a half naked Lumine already changing in the middle of the room. 

“Lumine!” Amber shrieks, covering her eyes with her hands.

While the brief glimpse of Lumine that Amber saw is tempting, Amber resists every urge to stare. 

Lumine lets out a bright peal of laughter. 

The sound is refreshing, music to Amber’s ears. She hears the sound of Lumine’s feet pad across the worn wooden floors and right up to her and then she feels Lumine’s hands, soft in the spots not calloused by gripping a sword, close around her wrists.

Amber finds Lumine standing right in front of her, dressed in the clothes that Amber had given her. The shirt that Amber had given Lumine is the largest that she owns but the white fabric is still stretched tightly across Lumine’s chest. 

She squeaks in surprise, Lumine is mere centimeters away, close enough so that Amber can smell the herbal scent of the tea on her breath, feel the sensation of her breath ghost across her cheeks. Cheekily, Lumine presses a quick kiss against Amber’s lips before Amber can do anything else. 

Instinctively, Amber puts her hands up to cover her eyes again.

“I’m dressed, I’m dressed.” Lumine laughs, pulling Amber’s hands away from her face again. 

This time, she holds Amber’s hands in hers, not letting her cover her eyes again. 

“I’m glad uhm that you are dressed,” Amber says in return. 

“I’ll get in bed while you change,” Lumine teases,  pressing a kiss against the inside of Amber’s wrist before slipping away, heading back to the bed.

The spot on the inside of Amber’s wrist tingles like sparks are running up her arm. It’s rather pleasant, Amber decides. Lumine makes a dramatic show of putting the blanket over her head for Amber. Fondly, Amber rolls her eyes at her antics and turns around to change. 

The sound of rustling fabric prompts a “You better not be peeking!” 

“I’m not!” Lumine shoots back, indignant.

By the time that Amber blows out the lanterns and climbs into bed, Lumine is cozy and curled up on her side. She opens the blanket to welcome Amber in, pulling her into a warm embrace as Amber settles in.

“This is nice,” Amber mumbles, pressing her nose against the top of Lumine’s head. 

She inhales deeply, trying to commit the familiar smell to memory for the next time that Lumine would leave. 

Lumine makes a small noise of agreement. 

For a moment, Amber wonders if she should ask Lumine what had happened. Would it be rude for her to do so? Would it be considered prying? Amber doesn’t want to pry.

Fortunately, Lumine speaks up.

“I… found Aether.”

“You did?” Amber gasps in surprise. “That’s great!”

The words spill out of her mouth without thinking. Lumine had been looking for her brother for so long that it felt only natural to be happy about this news. But upon recalling the state that Lumine had been in when she arrived at Amber's room, perhaps it isn’t good news.

“Sorry, I got too excited. Didn’t mean to jump to conclusions,” Amber apologizes hastily.

“It’s okay,” Lumine says softly. “I was excited to see him too.” 

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to…” 

“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind talking about it, not if it's with you,” Lumine tells her seriously. 

“Okay, but I want you to know that you are allowed to stop talking about it at any time and I won’t push,” Amber replies, just as seriously.

Lumine nods, looking grateful for Amber’s understanding. She takes a deep breath as if steeling herself for what she  is about to say next.

“So I was investigating some things, following the tracks of an Abyss Herald and it led me to a hidden cave in Liyue where there was a corrupted Statue of the Seven.” 

Amber can’t help the gasp that escapes her mouth. A Statue of the Seven already held great power and importance, to find one that is corrupted and associated with an Abyss Herald?  Well that was big and bad news. 

Lumine continues, unfazed by Amber’s reaction. She takes a deep breath, more absorbed in the story that she’s telling than and reliving the memories of that moment. “And there, I found my brother— I found Aether, working with the Abyss Herald.”

Whatever Amber had been expecting Lumine to say, it certainly isn’t that. Her mouth drops open in shock. 

“I know, I know what you are thinking.” Lumine says, words spilling out of her mouth. “I know that even if my brother is with the Abyss, I’m not going to betray you or Mondstadt for him.”

“Betrayal?” Amber echoes, dumbfounded. “That’s not what I’m thinking at all. Lumine I would never think that you would betray me for the Abyss.”

“I just wanted to reassure you that I know where my loyalties lie—” Lumine continues, clearly having prepared this whole spiel beforehand. “—wait, you don’t think that I would betray you?”

The surprise in Lumine’s voice is enough to make a giggle escape from Amber’s lips in spite of the severity of the moment. 

“I would never think that!” Amber insists, “I know who you are. I don’t think you would betray me, and certainly not for the Abyss.” 

“Oh,” Lumine seems to deflate at this revelation. It’s like she expected a long battle to convince Amber of her intentions. 

“Is this what you’re worried about?” Amber asks, brushing a strand of Lumine’s hair back out of place. 

“...Yes,” Lumine mumbles. 

“Oh, Lumie…” Amber whispers. “You never have to doubt whether or not I believe you or in you.” 

Another thought occurs to her.

“Wait a second here, how do you feel about all this?”

“What do you mean?”                   

Amber frowns. “Lumie, you just told me that your brother is working with the very forces that have been plotting against Mondstadt— and actively have tried to kill us both.”

“Oh. I had a long cry on the way here to Mondstadt. Thought about it a lot, cried a lot. There was nothing that I could do about Aether, he had made his decision. And the only thing that I thought would make me feel better about it all was to come home to you.”

“Come… home… to me?” Amber repeats slowly.

The words feel foreign in her mouth. 

“Yes?” Lumine replies timidly. “I know we haven’t said anything or decided on anything but I really do think that you are my home.” 

The elation that Amber feels in that moment is not one that she can describe appropriately. A wave of joy just crashes over her, dragging her out into an ocean of emotion— one that Amber is more than happy to drown in. 

“Amber? Did I say something wrong? Oh, Archons, you’re crying.” 

And she is. There are tears running down her face freely, she can feel it soak into the pillowcase beneath her head but she can’t bring herself to care about such trivial matters right now. 

“I knew I shouldn’t have said that,” Lumine replies, apologetic. “If things are moving too fast you can let me know I won’t be offended or anything. We can go back to how things were before and pretend this never happened.”

She’s frantic now, rambling.

Without thinking, Amber leans forward, cupping Lumine’s face with one hand and pressing their lips together. It’s clumsy and a little awkward in the dim lighting. Their noses bump together and Amber can’t help but laugh as their teeth click against each other’s as well. 

“Amber?” Lumine whispers, breathless.

“It’s okay,” Amber reassures her with a bright smile. “I think that you’re my home too.”

Amber has Lumine. 

Amber has a home.