Land! Sweet, sweet land!
Lumine almost feels as if she could cry in this moment. She shouldn’t have chosen that merchant vessel over Beidou’s Alcor and experienced crew. At the time, the merchant’s ship was leaving sooner –two entire weeks before Beidou was planning to set sail– and Lumine had only wanted to reach Inazuma as soon as possible in order to continue her search for her brother.
They’d been hit by a storm, and the ship had capsized. Fortunately, there were enough emergency rowboats for all members on board, even if the merchant’s goods had been a complete loss to the ruthless waves. Less fortunately… it had been several long days of drifting at sea, and their dwindling supplies weren’t about to last much longer.
“We’ve made it, Lumine!” Paimon cheers. Lumine nods firmly. “We’re alive!”
Alive, and in desperate need of aid. Lumine and a few of the other stronger sailors set out to explore a bit and get a better idea of their surroundings. Hopefully they’d come across some friendly locals who’d be able to extend a helping hand, or at least be willing to just tell them where they’d washed up on–
Someone’s there.
Another person! Lumine quickens her footsteps, even as waterlogged as she is.
“Excuse me–!”
Paimon flies ahead of her, chasing the figure that she’d glimpsed. “Wait! Wait, please, we’re just hapless travelers who –ack!”
“Paimon?” Urgency quickens her footsteps, and Lumine hurries to reach her companion. “You…”
Her voice dies in her throat.
There’s a young girl standing amidst the trees, with blue-white hair that appears almost silver beneath the sunlight. Her clothing is in the distinct fashion of Inazuman dress, a mix of soft blue and lilac colors flowing down her body. It’s almost enough to make Lumine acutely self-conscious of her own waterlogged state and haphazard appearance from days of floating out at sea–
But there’s a dark purple cloth tied over the girl’s face, covering her eyes. A blindfold. The girl is blind.
Blind, and yet she’d moved so smoothly and confidently over the rough terrain. Lumine had barely managed to glimpse her earlier, and if it hadn’t been for her coloring standing out so starkly against the verdant backdrop of the trees, she would’ve thought that she’d imagined it all in her head.
The girl raises her hand –the hand that’s holding onto the back of Paimon’s dress, “Is it yours?”
Paimon squirms. “I’m not an ‘it!’”
“Yes, Paimon is my friend,” Lumine nods firmly –and belatedly realizes that the girl probably can’t even see it. Wait. Is she really blind? The way she moved, the way she seemed aware of everything around her… didn’t really seem like the motions of a blind person…
The girl wordlessly releases her grip on Paimon; Paimon immediately returns to Lumine’s side, casting the girl an unsettled, suspicious look.
“Um…” Best to just get to the point, probably. “Could you possibly point us towards where the nearest settlement is, please?”
“Head south,” the girl raises a pale hand, the one that’s not holding the basket of strange purple grass as she points towards the direction to their left. “Watatsumi’s Bourou Village isn’t far from here. You’ll find it easily once you reach and follow the road.”
“Thank you!” That’s probably the best news that Lumine has heard ever since the shipwreck. “We really appreciate it, miss…?”
The girl remains silent. Lumine trails off awkwardly.
“… Erm, what should I call you?” Lumine ends up asking sheepishly. The girl is certainly strange, but she doesn’t sense any ill will from her. And she’d helped give directions easily enough; Lumine would like to have a name for the person who’d given them assistance.
“… Gojo," the girl says. "Call me Gojo.”
79 notes
·
View notes
when mcci first released my friedns and i were playing hole in the wall and we ended up in a lobby wiht martyn of little wood fame and it came down to the two of us and i lost an di have never felt more gamer rage then in that moment.
89 notes
·
View notes