The remainder of the voyage was a period of serene, peaceful tranquility. The Alcor sailed under clear skies and a gentle, favorable wind, a stark, welcome contrast to the storms, both literal and political, that had defined their time in Inazuma.
With no urgent missions to run, no gods to debate, and no Harbingers to evade, Ren finally found the time for a quiet, personal, and deeply important task: updating his photo album.
He would spend hours in the quiet of their cabin, the gentle, rhythmic creak of the ship's timbers a soothing backdrop. He had brought with him a small, portable kit of adhesives and fine paper, and he worked with the meticulous, focused care of a master archivist, compiling the chronicle of his Inazuman adventure.
He carefully pasted in the new photographs, each one a captured, frozen moment of a world-altering journey. There was the beautiful, serene shot of Kokomi and Gorou on the coral shores of Watatsumi Island, surrounded by a magical swarm of water-fishes. And, of course, the treasured group photo, the picture of him, Lumine, Paimon, and a beaming, healthy Teppei, a photograph that was a quiet, personal testament to a tragedy averted.
He glanced at the pages with the memories of his time in the city. There was the shot of him with the flustered, blushing Ayaka, a picture that always made him smile. There was the chaotic, joyous, and slightly blurry selfie with Yoimiya, her explosive happiness practically radiating from the paper. And there was the quiet, beautiful, and surprisingly serene, candid photo of Yae Miko, lost in a rare, unguarded moment of peaceful prayer.
Each picture was a story, a connection, a piece of the new, incredible life he was building.
When the last of the new photos was finally, carefully, placed in the album, he leaned back, a profound sense of satisfaction washing over him. He slowly, reverently, flipped through the entire book, starting from the last page to the first.
And then, he came to the very first photograph he had ever taken in this new world, the picture that had started it all.
It was the selfie from the Plane of Euthymia.
He looked at the image, at the serene, beautiful, and impossibly lonely, god in the background, and at his own, bright, defiant, and joyful, smile in the foreground. He thought of all the incredible, wonderful, and terrifying things he had seen and done. And he knew, with a quiet, unshakeable certainty, that while he loved all of his photos, all of his friends, this one… this one would always be his favorite. It was not just a picture; it was a symbol, a captured moment of a quiet, impossible friendship that had, in its own small way, saved a nation.
Ganyu, who had been watching him with a soft, gentle smile, came and sat beside him. She looked at the album, at the incredible, almost unbelievable, story it told. "This is a wonderful thing you have created, Ren," she said, her voice a soft, proud murmur. "A chronicle. When we are old and gray… well, when I am old and gray…" she corrected herself with a small, adeptal laugh, "this album will help us to tell our story, in a much better way than any words ever could."
Ren nodded, carefully closing the precious book. "And it's not finished yet," he said, a new, bright, and adventurous, light in his eyes. "I still have to take pictures in Liyue. Of our house, of the harbor, of all of our friends there."
He then looked out the porthole, at the distant, familiar, and fast-approaching, coastline of his home. "And I'm going to go back to Mondstadt, too," he declared, a firm, happy resolve in his voice. "I have to. I didn't get to take any photos last time. And," he added, with a small, fond smile, "I have a lot of friends there who are still waiting for their picture."
The journey was not over. It was just beginning. He was no longer just a participant in a grand, unfolding story. He was now its chronicler, its photographer, its quiet, gentle, and joyful, historian, determined to capture every precious, wonderful, and impossible, moment of the incredible, new life he had been given.