Dark Secret

Chapter 11: Happy Birthday, Lumine

"Lumine!!!! Come one, wake up, Paimon's hungry!!!" Paimon shouted at poor Lumine.

"Ugh, Paimon, five more minutes!" Lumine groaned from under the blankets. "Fine, but you better be up by the time Paimon's brushed her teeth!" Paimon shouted. She zipped away, confident that Lumine wasn't going to be overhearing what she planned. She glided over and flew into the library. "Zhongli!!! Today is Lumine's birthday!"

Zhongli looked up from the book he was reading. "Oh? Is it now?"

"YESSS! DID NO ONE KNOW BUT PAIMON?!!!" Paimon exclaimed. "You have to help Paimon make a party for Lumine because if Paimon disappears all of the sudden, she's going to be mad and suspicious of Paimon!!!"

"I understand, Ms. Paimon. I'll make some preparations, but I will need Lumine out of the Teapot for such a thing to happen."

"Huh? Teapot? What does a teapot have to do with this?"

"Weren't you with Ms. Lumine when she received her Serenity Teapot?"

"OHH! Paimon gets it now! Should we have Lumine go into the teapot at sunset or will you tell Paimon and Lumine when to go?"

"You can come into the teapot at sunset."

"Okay! Make sure you tell Childe though, Paimon has a feeling that Lumine is going to want him there."

"I understand Ms. Paimon. You can leave now."

Paimon zipped right back into Lumine's room to find her sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "There you are Lumine! Paimon's hungryyyyyyyy. Can you please hurry up??!!"

"Paimon, you'll be eating yourself if you don't stop complaining!" Lumine groaned.

Paimon squeaked. "Okay, just please don't make Paimon into emergency food!

- - -

Time skip cause I'm tired and About to Die

- - -

"Lumine, can we go into your teapot?"

"What, you're trying to trick me into making you dinner again?" Lumine replied snarkly. "You better not, otherwise you'll be turned into emergency food before you can even say Sticky Honey Roast, you can bet 10,000 mora on that!"

"Ehe?! Okay, okay, Paimon won't try anything!" Lumine set the teapot on the floor and entered. She was floored when she entered. All of her friends were there, all surrounding a cake, and grinning.

"Happy birthday Lumine!" they all shouted.

Lumine smiled, nearly speechless. "Who in Teyvat's name set this up?"

"Paimon had the idea then Zhongli reached out to all of us! Xiangling made the cake and food, and Zhongli, Ningguang, Ganyu, and Keqing put up all the decorations! I... well... I was just mora support. Haha, get the joke? Mora support, moral support?" Childe grinned.

"One horrible joke you can crack!" Lumine countered, and everyone laughed.

- - -

Another time skip, sorry-

- - -

"Lumine?" Lumine didn't respond as she continued to enjoy the view from her balcony window. "You okay?"

Lumine jumped, realizing Childe was standing right behind her. "Y-yeah! Why?"

"You're crying."

Lumine froze, and let her tears pour down her face. "Yeah. Seeing right through me like that. Looks like you've got a new low." She looked away from Childe.

"What's up?" Childe's voice was full of concern as he approached the crying blonde. "It's your birthday, isn't it? You shouldn't be crying on your birthday!"

"It's just... I haven't celebrated without my brother before. Not like this. I... he... we were like... a tree. I was the branches, he was the trunk. And now... there's no trunk to hold the branches. There's no roots to this branchs, nothing to hold it down."

"Your brother didn't want to celebrate with you, and that's not his fault. Of all the things you're good at, you have qualities that aren't tied down with your brother. You have to spread your wings sometime too, to experience the new."

"...Thank you, Ajax. Thank you." Lumine turned, her eyes still watered, but she was smiling. "Thank you." Lumine stepped away from the edge of the balcony, and into her bedroom.

"Happy birthday... dear brother."

- - -

"Happy birthday... dear sister."

Replied a certain blonde, who stood near the ridge of a cliff, looking out into the night sky, with several Abyss mages lowering there heads in greeting to there prince.

A/N: Sorry, it's 3:00 AM as I'm typing this, and I'm completely drained of energy. I'm sorry there are so many time skips, but at least I'm done with one more chapter!