That night, the house on Feiyun Slope was a quiet sanctuary of borrowed peace. Ganyu, emotionally and spiritually exhausted from the day's catastrophic events, had retired early. Lumine and Paimon were given a comfortable guest room, a safe haven in a city that had, only hours before, viewed them with suspicion.
But sleep did not come easily to the Traveler. Her mind was a whirlwind of crashing gods, new, powerful friends, and the ever-present, aching mystery of her lost brother. Seeking a moment of quiet, she slipped out into the moonlit garden, the sweet, heavy scent of Glaze Lilies filling the cool night air.
She found Ren already there, sitting on the edge of the veranda, his small legs dangling, his gaze fixed on the brilliant, star-dusted canopy of the Teyvat sky. He looked small and solitary under the vast, silent expanse.
Lumine approached quietly and sat beside him, drawing her knees up to her chest. For a long time, they said nothing, simply sharing the silence, two small figures in a world that had suddenly become very large and very complicated.
"They're different from the stars I know," Lumine said finally, her voice a soft, wistful murmur. "But… they're beautiful."
Ren turned to look at her, his glowing azure eyes seeming to hold a reflection of the entire, vast cosmos. He had made his decision. He had helped her, shielded her, but now, he would offer her something more precious: a shared truth.
"They're different from the stars I know, too," he replied, his voice barely a whisper.
Lumine's head snapped towards him, her golden eyes widening in stunned, profound surprise.
"I'm… not from this world, either," Ren confessed, the words feeling both terrifying and liberating to finally say out loud to someone who could understand. "I don't know how I got here. The last thing I remember was falling asleep in my own bed, in my own world. And then… I woke up on Mt. Aocang."
The confession hung in the fragrant night air, a revelation of impossible, world-altering significance.
Lumine stared at him, and a thousand small, disparate pieces clicked into place in her mind. His strange, adult-like wisdom. The calm, knowing way he had looked at her from the very beginning. And the deep, unspoken, almost primal sense of kinship she had felt with him from the moment they met.
"So that's why," she breathed, a look of pure, dawning comprehension on her face. "That's why I felt like… like I knew you. We're the same."
She was not just a Traveler anymore. She was not alone. In this vast, strange, and often hostile new world, she had found another outlander, another soul who had fallen from the stars.
Ren then held out his hand, palm up. He thought of the cold, still presence within him, and a small, perfect, glowing ice lotus bloomed into existence above his palm, its crystalline petals shimmering in the moonlight.
"And this…" he said, his voice quiet. "I don't have a Vision either."
Lumine looked at the flawless Cryo construct, and then at him, a new, even deeper understanding in her golden eyes. "I know," she said softly. "I realized it back in Mondstadt, during the dragon's attack. The way you used your power… it was like how I use mine. It comes from within. It's not from a Vision."
The final piece of the puzzle slotted into place. They were both outlanders, both wielders of a strange, innate elemental power that defied the known laws of this world. They were two sides of the same impossible coin.
A slow, genuine smile spread across Lumine's face, the first truly relaxed, truly happy expression he had seen from her. The burdens of her quest, the shock of the day's events, all seemed to lift for a moment, replaced by the profound, simple joy of finding a kindred spirit in the most unlikely of places.
She reached out and gently placed her hand over his, her fingers brushing against the cold, smooth petals of the ice lotus. "So," she said, her voice full of a new, shared strength. "What do we do now?"
Ren looked at their hands, at the light of his Cryo lotus and the faint, golden glow that always seemed to emanate from her. He looked up at the false, beautiful sky of Teyvat. He didn't have all the answers. He didn't know what the future held. But for the first time since he had woken up in this world, he felt a flicker of something he hadn't felt before.
Hope.
"Well, I will, of coursem help you find your brother," he said, his voice full of a quiet, unshakeable certainty.