In the warm haze of a drunken hot-air balloon ride, Lumine asked Citlali what she enjoyed. Lowering her eyes and pretending to be casual, she said, "So much of my life feels meaningless. All I have left is the drunken haze of drinking, the wishful fantasies of reading novels, and the drowsiness of sleep."
"You say one thing, but mean another. How could your life be meaningless?" Drunk and carefree, Lumine took her hand and laced their fingers together. "We've braved the Weave together. We've faced life and death side by side. Citlali, tell me, right now, at this very moment, is there anything you want to do, anywhere you want to go? I'll go with you..."
The pink-haired granny smiled it off. She thought it would fade away in the haze, like the countless promises she'd made with friends and forgotten, and eventually be buried beneath the river of memory.
Later, the little blond held her hand tight as they fled in disarray from the Iniquitous Baptist across Sumeru's barren, rocky desert. They rode an airship from the Court of Fontaine together, climbed to the highest point of the Palais Mermonia in the pouring rain, then leapt from the Opera Epiclese with their Wind Gliders. Working with Fontaine's magicians, they turned the sky into a shower of flowers.
Later still, she saw the great onion of Vanarana and heard the melodious singing of Aranara Lanqando. She drank herself silly with a bard in a Mondstadt tavern, then sipped fluffy tea at a storytelling stall in Liyue. And there was Yae Miko at the Grand Narukami Shrine. It turned out Inazuman shrine maidens weren't all so solemn and dignified.
A human life lasts barely a hundred years. All we see and hear is but a corner of the world, and she was so very lucky. Even if that unseen face was always there on the other side of the plain, so what? She could scoop up a handful of hot wind from a blazing afternoon, then step into a little puddle on a rainy day.
The meaning of travel has never been the destination, but the journey.
...Without the barriers of the mind, the human soul will sooner or later drown in a sea of consciousness and lose itself completely...
Citlali
Theme: Take me on a lovely trip
