Chapter Text
On the day when they first met, there was a convergence of lifetimes. Histories from all eras and tales from the future merging into one. Together, they gave birth to the present time, taking shape as the blue sky and white clouds, as the hot asphalt road and metallic vehicles, as buildings made of bricks and glass, as people, completely none-the-wiser.
There he was, standing before a painting of a goddess mourning the death of an angel who saved her life. He was clothed in the softest colors. Pastel green shirt meeting clean white pants. The teal strands of his braids brushed against the line of his shoulders. Emerald eyes appraising the piece of artwork before him in curiosity.
Lumine breathed in the sweetness of apples and her heart began to ache. He was everlasting. Devastating. All of her lives started the moment she met him and ended with him. And she kept all the memories in a jar that could never be full.
He sensed her gaze (as he always did) and he turned. Emerald meeting gold. A friendly smile curving on his pink lips.
“Sorry, do you want to see this painting, too? I could scoot over.” he already moved before she could answer.
The ache in her heart grew. “I do.” she answered anyway, because she had long since given up in trying to change the course of fate. Nothing good awaits anyone who tries to escape their punishment.
She joined him and silence fell over them as they studied the painting.
The goddess sat at the center of the painting, clothed in white, with the burning red sky behind her. On her lap was the fallen angel, his chest stained red, blood seeping to the ground, his eyes lifeless. There was a burst of black and gray on the canvas. The strokes were rough, she could see where the oil paint hardened.
Lumine sighed, ignoring the stinging pain in her chest.
Sometimes, the past would bleed into present times, manifesting into something more solid and real than flashes of memories in her mind.
But this painting, this echo from the past, was, to her opinion, quite a disappointment.
"I take it you're not a fan?" He asked, looking quite amused.
"I find myself preferring happier works, I suppose.” she answers. A lie.
He lets out a quiet chuckle. “That’s fair. The Death of Barbatos is a bleak tale, after all. I understand why his believers are waiting for his… resurrection.”
Somewhere far in the back of her mind, Lumine could hear a faint murmur. In this lifetime, Barbatos was a god and people worshiped him. He had a lover. A goddess named Ying. It was said that together, they built the land of Anemone and nurtured it to become a prosperous nation.
‘Barbatos and Ying,’ she thought, smiling bitterly when a familiar pain started to pulse within her heart, spreading into the tips of her fingers. No matter the lifetime, they’re always doomed with a sad fate.
“You’re one of his believers?”
“Me? No, I don’t really believe in gods,” he shook his head. “But out of all gods, you could say he’s my favorite! That aside, I am a historian and, to tell you a little secret, my next work has something to do with the tale of Barbatos and Ying. So I decided to go see this esteemed painting. Something like… a homage.”
“You went to see this specific painting instead of going to the church?”
A sheepish smile bloomed on his lips. “Well… to be honest The Tale of Barbatos and Ying and The Death of Barbatos are my favorite. There's just something about them that… really intrigued me."
Memories flashed in her mind, a tragedy that started lifetimes ago. A wound that always stayed fresh. Suddenly, Lumine felt exhausted.
“It was a very sad tale.” she said, more to herself than him.
He’s none the wiser, though. Smiling brightly as if she understood what he meant, as if he found a kinship with her. He stretched out his hand. Open and welcoming, as he always had been.
“I’m Venti.”
Lumine wanted to run. Wanted to shake the very foundation of this world until everything was destroyed past the point of resurrection and let the ruins take her with it. Wanted to beg and cry and plead to the god of moments to spare her from this everlasting pain.
Yet she could do nothing but take his hand. Lamenting the way her heart fluttered, as it always did. Loving the familiar callousness and warmth, despite everything. Letting the faint scent of cecilia and apples soothe her once again. She smiled.
“I’m Lumine.”
“Lumine,” Venti repeated her name, then smiled to himself, as if he loved the way it rolled off his tongue. “Luminescence. Cold light. You have a beautiful name.”
“Thank you,” She allowed herself to give his hand a gentle squeeze before letting go. “Yours is pretty, too.”
He grinned. He even had the decency to allow the faintest hint of blush to creep up his cheeks. How cruel.
“Hehe, thank you.” he let out the most adorable giggle. She couldn’t help but to smile at that.
A soft ‘ting’ reverberated from somewhere nearby, stealing their attention. Venti shuffled through his belongings and pulled out a phone. Eyebrows rising at what he saw on his screen.
“Oh, I need to go. Work’s calling.”
“Sure.”
His smile faltered a little. “It was… nice to meet you…”
“It was nice to meet you, too,” Lumine nodded, then added, “I’ll see you around?”
Venti’s entire face lit up and he laughed. “Yes! I’ll see you around, Lumine!”
He gave her an excited wave before turning on his heels and left. Lumine watched his frame disappear from her line of sight. She sighed, the ever present emptiness continued to pulse painfully in her heart.
Glancing at the painting of Barbatos and Ying, she wondered then… what awaits them in this lifetime?
*
When she exited the museum, she found her feet taking her towards a road that felt both familiar and unfamiliar. Lumine didn't question it, having learned that it was best to just go along with the flow of things.
Sighing, she wrapped her coat tighter around her body and picked up her pace. The rest of her journey went in a blur. Lumine thought she took something that was called a 'bus', but she wasn't really sure.
It took her twenty minutes to reach the place she called home. It's a little house painted beige and a little lawn with patches of snapdragons and windwheel asters growing over the grasses.
She opened the door and saw a man with long, honey blond hair and sunny gold eyes staring back at her.
"Aether." She closed the door behind her and greeted her brother.
Aether's eyes were as weary as hers. Sometimes, Lumine didn't know who felt the most guilt between them. Her, or him. But then again, it didn’t matter. Both of them were sinners anyway.
"You've met him?"
"Of course." Lumine shifted her gaze towards the burning red sky outside the window, counting the death of the sun.
Aether hummed and got up from the sofa. He picked up an electronic tablet from the coffee table and handed it to her.
"We are archaeologists now. Everything you need to know is in the email there."
She took the device wordlessly and studied the email.
They had become many things in the past. In the previous lifetime, she and Aether were spies and Venti was a soldier from the enemy's nation. Lumine thought it was one of the most painful lifetimes she had experienced.
One time, she was a princess and Venti was her knight. He saved her and her kingdom from the clutches of the dark… before another cataclysm tore them apart. In another lifetime, he was a sickly boy and she's his childhood friend. It was sweet, even though death still tore them apart in the end.
This time, she and Aether were archaeologists, tasked to help investigate a very ancient artifact that had just been found in the far corner of their nation: A cecilia. Preserved and protected, found under the ruins of an ancient, nameless temple.
In this world, there was no such flower called a cecilia. None that existed, at least. The only cecilia everyone knew was the flower that the god Barbatos wore in his hair. A flower everyone thought was a myth, just like the god itself, because surely, there were no such things as gods, were there?
And yet… archaeologists found one, which led to the question: is it possible that Barbatos truly existed in the past? Does this mean Ying was real, too?
'That is for me and Aether to find out, apparently.' Lumine thought to herself as she checked the list of people that will go with her to research this new artifact.
There, at the bottom of the list, was a name that made her heart beat:
Venti Dei, Male, Historian.
Taking a deep breath, Lumine handed the tablet over to Aether. "I'm all caught up."
Aether gazed at her, sympathy and determination swimming in his eyes. "Maybe this really is it, Lumine. This could be it."
She remembered the painting. Barbatos and Ying. Fragments of the past bleeding into the present. Her heart ached with something she didn’t quite understand. The sensation reminded her of hope, but it had been… a long, long time ago since she had abandoned it. Even to dream of hope seemed like a luxury.
"Maybe… No. I’ll believe it is."
Aether took her hand and squeezed it. "We can do it, sister, we can fix this."
A ghost of a smile crept up to her lips, even when she felt like dying on the inside.
"Yeah," Lumine answered anyway. "Yeah, we can."