hoyo-mix has blessed us all with the release of the stellar moment vol. 2 ! the way i RAN to spotify to listen to xiao's demo on repeat :') the whole playlist was absolutely beautiful my heart is content

"Hopefully, we'll be able to find Timmie before it gets too dark." I stepped over a fallen branch. "It's already getting harder to see now that the sun went down."

Childe and I had left the town center and went to the forest's edge that the blacksmith's wife led us to. She also gave us a small sack that was packed with cheese and bread. For my little Timmie, she had said. He'd been missing for a full day now, so the kid was probably hungry.

I slipped the sack into Timmie's jacket, which I had tied around my waist to keep my hands free.

"I'm an expert at tracking," Childe proclaimed. "How much do you want to bet I'll be the one to find him?"

I rolled my eyes. "This isn't a competition, Childe. It's a kid's life."

"Surely, you don't think he's in any real danger, do you?" Childe shrugged. "As I said, there are no monsters in this forest. Why, when I was six, I'd go hunting in the forest by myself all the time. I was successful, too."

"Yeah, well, not everyone can be like you. There may be no monsters here, but it wouldn't be impossible for a spooked boar to have run him down."

"You make a good point."

The forest on this island was much like any other forest I've seen. Tall trees, large bushes, and tiny wildlife chirping all around. With evening creeping in, I was reminded of the hide-and-seek games I would play with Aether when we were children. I never did manage to win as the seeker, but my hiding spots were always very clever. Looking to the tops of the trees, I contemplated if our search would benefit from higher ground. Better yet, perhaps Timmie himself was holed up in a tree.

"Hey," Childe pointed to a low-hanging branch. "Look here. A scrap of fabric."

I followed his direction and plucked the blue cloth entangled in the branch. Besides being a bit torn, it was otherwise clean. I suspect the branch had snagged on Timmie's clothing while he was running off into the woods. My gaze then landed on slight indentations in the dirt.

"Footprints," I bent down to touch the tracks. "Small enough to be a kid's. Timmie must have gone this way."

Childe nodded and we continued forward, going deeper into the forest. Occasionally, Childe would catch sight of another sign where Timmie passed through, but the evidence was less and less promising each time.

"These are apple cores. Could have been the kid."

I scrunched my nose. "Or an animal that also eats apples—which could be any of them."

"Oh, but what animal would be so picky as to leave behind the core?"

"Alright, let's follow the apple core trail."

The night was approaching, and a blanket of darkness began to creep in on the forest. The only sounds I could hear were of us trampling through the foliage and the occasional startled bird chirping in surprise. Everything was beginning to look the same, and I fought to keep a sharp focus on finding Timmie.

Because Timmie was so young, I kept an eye closer to the forest floor. Maybe I would be able to catch his head bobbing through the leaves or spot him collapsed underneath a bush. While I certainly hoped it wasn't the latter, I didn't want to ignore the possibilities. Sometimes the moon would peek out from the canopy of trees, casting shadows from the leaves rustling in the wind. An owl hooted in the distance.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught an unnatural shift to my left. "Did you see that?" I whipped my head around to catch the source, but there was nothing there.

"Just a moving shadow," Childe said. "We need to keep our attention sharp. I didn't think we'd waste so much time out here. Where is that kid?"

Another movement on my right. I quickly turned again, and I could swear there was a small, bright blue orb that faded behind the brush. "I saw something."

"Kid!" Childe shouted. "If you're out there, you can show yourself to us. We bring delicious snacks."

Silence.

"Whatever you saw must have been an animal of some kind."

"Maybe," I mumbled, not quite sure what to believe. My patience for finding Timmie was running thin, and now my interest has piqued after seeing that floating orb. What could it be? "Hey, what if we split up? I'm sure it would be faster to find Timmie that way."

I bet Childe, being as skilled as he is, would have no trouble finding Timmie on his own. As for myself, I wanted to further investigate the mysterious glowing orb—while also continuing my search for the kid, of course.

"No."

"Why not?" I frowned and an idea popped into my head. "It can be a contest. Whoever finds Timmie gets, uh, bragging rights. I know how much you love to brag."

"You said this wasn't a competition." He crossed his arms.

"Well," I sighed. "Time is getting away from us. If a competition means we find Timmie faster and bring him home, it's a win for everyone."

"No."

"Seriously?"

"I want to keep you by my side."

"I'm not going to get lost. I'm not a six-year-old kid."

He shook his head. "That's not what I meant."

"Then what do you—"

"Shh," Childe held up a finger to his lips and stilled. "Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"The wind is picking up." He darted his gaze in the direction where the wind was coming from. "There is conflict in the air."

My brows furrowed. "What is the correlation between wind and—"

The bushes on our left rustled loudly and both froze, looking at each other. It rustled once more before the leaves parted to reveal a hilichurl. It was alone, armed with a bow, and looked just as surprised as we were.

It stared at us. We stared at it.

Slowly, I reached to my waist for a sword, but then I realized I didn't bring a weapon with me. This forest was supposed to be harmless, after all.

"Ya!" The hilichurl took aim with its bow.

Childe quickly took action before the arrow could be let loose. He darted toward the hilichurl and knocked it square in the jaw with his fist. The hilichurl was launched backward and landed in the dirt, raging all the way down. Childe picked up the hilichurl's discarded bow with a grin and notched an arrow on the string, aiming the tip and striking the hilichurl's mask. It cracked and fell apart as the hilichurl died with one last growl before fading away.

"That was a hilichurl," I breathed.

Childe chuckled. "And it wasn't the only one. Hilichurls are social monsters, so the rest of the mob should be nearby. How exciting."

"You said there were no monsters in this forest."

"I did, didn't I?" he paused. "There shouldn't be."

Realization dawned on me. "Timmie."

We'd been searching for him this whole time thinking he couldn't possibly be in any real danger. His mother was worried over him against slippery rocks, but the reality could be much, much worse. If Timmie had a run-in with the hilichurls, and if the hilichurls took any interest in Timmie…

Without a word, Childe and I pressed on further in the direction where the hilichurl had come from. Luckily, the monster was fairly clumsy in its travel, leaving a clear path that led us directly to a hilichurl cap set up in the middle of the forest. We hunched in the bushes, careful not to be seen, and surveyed the area.

Two sentry towers, three watchtowers, an outpost hut, and horned pots next to a roaring fire pit. There was one shooter hilichurl stationed at each tower, and three hilichurl grenadiers by the firepit. A mitachurl was resting by the outpost hut, with its blazing axe sitting off to the side. And to top it all off, a Dendro samachurl was standing on guard.

"Where's Timmie?" I whispered.

Childe touched the side of my cheek and turned my head in the direction of the mitachurl, pointing to a cage I hadn't noticed close to the outpost hut. Sure enough, the figure of a passed-out kid was lying at the bottom of the cage. My stomach dropped.

"Okay," I gulped. "Rescue mission."

"I'll take care of the monsters." Childe adjusted his stolen bow. "You free the kid."

"Can you handle them all by yourself?"

He scoffed. "Of course, I can. I'm Tartaglia. Just make sure you don't draw their attention away from me. Get in and get out."

I nodded in confirmation and stealthily walked around the perimeter of the hilichurl camp. Careful to stay hidden in the shadows, I approached the cage just as one of the shooter hilichurls fell from a sentry tower with a howl. A Hydro arrow came from the shadows, smacking into the same hilichurl and triggering three additional Hydro attacks that slashed into its body.

Childe came out of the shadows and laughed with a manic glint in his eye. "Who's next?"

The rest of the hilichurls jumped to attention and simultaneously let out a battle cry, "Ya ika!" before lunging at their target.

Trusting that Childe would be fine, I hurried over to the caged Timmie and hoped he was just asleep and not forever asleep. It was strange for the hilichurls to capture an unarmed child, so I was hoping the oddities didn't end there and that they kept him alive. Though the cage was old and rusty, the bars were secured by a padlock, and I uselessly yanked at the door. It wouldn't budge.

"Timmie," I whisper-yelled. "Timmie, wake up! Can you hear me?"

No reaction.

Damnit, I bit the inside of my cheek as I studied Timmie's body. Once I was able to catch the subtle rise and fall of his chest, I let out a sigh of relief before facing the issue of getting him out of that cage. I needed a key.

Key…Key…there wasn't anything helpful in the immediate area. If I were a captor, I would keep the cage's key close to me. On my person, even. One of those hilichurls couldn't possibly have the key on them…could they?

I turned to face the battle in the hilichurl camp. The remaining shooter hilichurls were aiming at Childe from different directions. One was shooting Pyro and the other Electro. If he wasn't careful, he could become the victim of an overload reaction. Childe lithely hopped out of the range of fire, and he switched from his ranged bow to a melee style with weaponry made purely of Hydro.

My jaw dropped. I didn't know he could do that. In Physical Combat, Xiao forbade the use of Visions, so Childe's full abilities were unknown to me until now. He was even better in melee than he was with a bow. The hilichurls didn't stand a chance. Maybe I could steal the key off from a dead hilichurl once he was done with them.

Childe sliced through a hilichurl grenadier before it could launch a Pyro slime at him, and it dissipated into nothing as it perished. Including all of its belongings. That settles that—I would need to grab the key before Childe kills its possessor.

Keeping a close eye on the remaining enemies, I noticed the mitachurl had a sizable belt with miscellaneous charms hanging from it. Not just charms, but a rusty key. That had to be it.

Quickly, I darted away from the cage and towards the mitachurl. It was swinging its blazing axe at Childe, who effortlessly dodged. The mitachurl's attention was so focused on Childe that it didn't notice my approach. Good.

Suddenly, thorny vines sprouted up from the ground and blocked my path—the Dendro samachurl. Not good.

Swiftly avoiding the vines before I could cut myself on them, I attempted to reroute myself. The Dendro samachurl waved its staff in the air with a cackle and summoned more thorny vines to encircle me.

"Lumi, what are you doing? You were supposed to be saving the kid!"

"The cage is locked!" I yelled back. "I need the key. It's on the mitachurl."

He nodded. "I'll grab the key. Can you handle the samachurl?"

Without Pyro to burn the vines? "Yeah!"

I'm sure I could figure something out.

the other day i learned that "if an action/complete sentence follows a piece of dialogue, use a period. you only use a comma if it's followed by a said/replied/etc (speech verbs)" so i will be trying to fix my habit of being grammatically incorrect! i might go back and fix previous chapters, but i also might not bc that is a LOT of dialogue to edit