Bright as Night [adopted book from 12ashlea]

Chapter 3 - There Is No Aether

'Thought'
"Speak"

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A sudden coldness forced you awake. You groggily opened your eyes to see that the sun was now beginning to rise, peeking over the horizon as its warm orange glow reflected on the leaves of the trees, giving it a golden tint. But the moon was still out and the majority of the sky was still dark, the stars were out and up in the sky. However, the stars seemed... transparent. The swirling blues and purples were faded and the stars were given the same effect. However, you could see the faint outline of a bright white line of stars that formed a constellation of sorts. It was strange looking at it. It looked like if the stars and the blues and purples were all merged into one layer on top of a pure black layer in an editing software, and then the layer of the stars had their opacity lowered with a new layer that consists of nothing but a line of white stars was placed on top with full opacity. Maybe this was just how sunrise looks like in teyvat? Who knows.

The line of stars seemed to shine brighter, as if urging you to do something, but what? Either way, you slowly stood up. You winced when you felt the aftermath of crash landing into way too many trees. Now you had one very sore body and plenty of muscle cramps to deal with. Either way, you dragged yourself in the direction of the white constellation. Your body was heavy, but that wasn't much of a problem. You real problem was how do you get home? And if you do, the fuck do you do about... this whole nightfury situation? Genshin was nice, until it wasn't and now you just want to wake up as if this were all just one very weird dream in your very soft and very comfy bed that seemed like luxury compared to the coarse and rough bed that is dirt. But the aching pain that pulls your body down, making you grow tired says otherwise, unless the whole you can't feel pain in a dream thing is a lie. You looked back up at the sky, up at the white constellation. The sun was rising up further, the dark black slowly being overtaken by soft light blue hues.

You had to admit, the sunrise looked beautiful. The light gold coming from the sun just over the horizon perfectly transitioned into the light blues, with tints of pink and even green here and there. But it was strange, by now most of the stars were gone and yet the white line stayed up high in the sky. You don't think thats normal. In fact, you were quite sure that this is very much not normal. You really want to go home, where you didn't have to worry about strange constellation in the sky during the middle of the day, and all you had to worry about is your family forcefully dragging you to family events to socialize.

Oh fuck, your family. You had completely forgotten about them.

There was a heavy feeling in your chest at that thought. What was currently happening back at home? Did your parents realize you were gone and file a missing person report? Or have they just not yet realize. You hope it was the former, but the latter was more realistic because you lived in a different house from them and thinking that hurt. Both outcomes hurt, because your family knowing about this didn't change that you were gone from home with possibly no way back to live out your life that was very much rudely taken away from you. You didn't have much of a life, but you still had one! You and your singular friend planned on going to a convention next week! And now you can't do that! It felt unfair, you literally just got your life snatched from you, which made you frustrated. Of course, unless the underlying hope that this is a dream and you would wake up is true. You hoped it is, but you know very well that its not.

~~~~~

"Luuumiiineeee, Paimon's getting tired!" Paimon said as she floated beside her blonde companion. "We haven't even been walking for that long though?" Lumine asked as she looked at her. "Well, we just took out a hilichurl camp-"

"I did."

"Ugh, either way Paimon's getting hungry. Why don't we go rest for now and have a snack? Ever since you made those chicken mushroom skewers for that adventurer lady Paimon's been waiting to try out even more of your cooking!" Paimon whined as she floated in the air. "Didn't you just eat a while ago? You ate almost all of those chicken mushroom skewers, how are you hungry already?" She asked as she looked at Paimon. "Well, Paimon needs a lot of foo- Ow!" Paimon clutched her head as a broken branch fell onto her. Lumine chuckled in amusement at her. "Hey! Don't laugh at Paimon, not only was Paimon hurt physically by a branch but now emotionally by you? Paimon feels so betrayed." She said as she crossed her arms. "Okay, okay, I'll stop... for now."