I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul. - Victor Hugo
They had a little unspoken ritual that played out whenever their eyes met across a street. He would lift his chin and raise an eyebrow; an invitation.
If she had time for a spar, she would cock her head to the side and put her hands on her hips, a sharp glint in her eyes and Paimon floating beside her. They could loosely be described as being posed in the same way, but while Paimon clearly and plainly seemed utterly unimpressed to see him, Lumine was amused, even pleased.
If she did not have time, she would nod politely and turn her gaze away, looking for all the world like she was focused on the task or person in front of her. Only slant of her shoulders and the slight draw of her brows would reveal how she really felt: disappointed.
Early on Childe had thought she was hard to read-but now when he looked at her, he could not remember why he had ever struggled. She was no porcelain doll. Expressions passed over her face like a strong breeze over tall grass, sure. As long as you knew what to look for, you could see the proof of her emotions flit across her features.
On this particular evening, he was walking away from Ivanovich's stall at the harbor when he spotted Lumine parting ways with Nervous An. Childe stopped and waited for her look his way, knowing she wouldn't miss him, even on the busy docks. He was taller than the average person from Liyue for one thing, and moreover, they had already proven to share an uncanny ability to pick one another out of a crowd.
And she didn't fail to notice him, but what she did next wasn't what he expected either.
Before he even had a chance to issue a challenge or call out a greeting, a series of thoughts played themselves out on her face in rapid succession, almost too quick and too subtle for Childe to really make heads or tails of what precisely crossed her mind.
First, he discerned that she had, in fact, spotted him as she straightened her spine, and for the barest fraction of a moment her movements seemed to hasten like she was going towards him with purpose, her whole body coiling as if to spring into an attack.
Then her eyeline tilted up, and she scanned the sky, and whatever she read in the clouds completely arrested her momentum. She froze for a beat and then stuttered back into motion with less energy than before, a bloaty floaty leaking air from an arrow in its side.
"Mora for your thoughts, comrade?" He crowed as she got closer. She arched a brow and oh that expression had so much suspicion and mockery and familiarity, that was a knowing look, it would almost be flirty if it weren't so informed by their sordid history. "Oh, come now. You know I'm good for it. I'm a man of my word, after all—"
"And a man with more mora than sense," Paimon deadpanned. "Paimon thinks we would be doing him a favor to take some off his hands."
Lumine shrugged. "Nothing particularly worth paying for," she said easily, and he reflexively doubted that she was the best judge of how much he would be willing to give to unravel her mysteries. "I was just going to ask for your help with something, and then I realized it's about to rain."
Childe waited for her explanation to continue for long enough that he started to wonder if he should begin counting the seconds, and the Traveler stared back with a placid expression, obviously not planning to elaborate. He fished a bag of coins out of his pocket and reached for her, pressed the gold into her hands. "Forgive me, but I fail to see the connection. If you need my assistance, I'm happy to render it, even if it's raining."
"Thank you, but that's okay," she said and didn't react when Paimon swooped between them, swiped the coin bag, and disappeared in a blink. "I'll go alone this time. It'll be wet anyway, with the rain."
"I'm sorry," (He wasn't) "but I must have misheard—" (He hadn't) "—did you say, 'it'll be wet anyway'?"
(She did.)
"Because of the rain, yes. When water falls from the sky, things get wet," Lumine managed to find the thin line between patronizing and conciliatory and straddled it perfectly. "Things also get wet if they fall into bodies of water, like a river or the ocean—"
"I understand that," he said. (You hag, he did not say, he just thought it very hard.) "What does that have to do with asking me for help?" At the first sign of something in her eyes that had damn well better not have been pity, he grit his teeth, smiled, and tacked on: "As you well know, there's far more to my capabilities than just my Vision."
She bobbed her head-a motion that expressed a dubious, placating, 'I suppose' far too much to be considered an outright nod-and lifted one hand, let the pads of her fingertips brush along his forearm, and hey, since fucking when was he holding his bow? When had he gotten it out? "I know. And when I need you for something else, I'll ask, but I don't want to waste your time. For this job, you'd end up feeling redundant."
As they talked, they had wandered up the wooden walkways connecting the docks to Chihu Rock. He wasn't sure if he was letting her lead him around or if she was following him, but they had meandered to a point where the noise of the city seemed distant. They were well out of the Snezhnayan merchants' line of sight, and the muffled sounds suggested that none of the other denizens of Liyue Harbor were in earshot.
No one to see them alone together in this semi-public space. No one around to overhear them speaking privately. No one to run off and tell the nearest Millelith – or Fatui – about any impermissible fraternization.
He didn't have to touch her to back her into a corner, he just loomed and stepped forward until he had her crowded against a stone wall. Her golden gaze was a steady candle flame, flickering to uncertainty as he stared her down.
"So let me see if I understood: when you needed help getting things wet, you thought of me?" he spoke in a cheerful tone that only partially belied the double entendre. "But then you decided, 'not today, the clouds will do a good enough job'?"
Lumine didn't react except to blink, and then slowly turned red in the pursuant silence. He chuckled and conjured a hydro dagger, flipping it between his fingers before letting it dissipate in a burst of droplets. She flinched. His smile grew by a few degrees when he spotted the water that must have hit her cheek and was now sliding down to drip off her chin.
"Well girlie, if you change your mind, you know where to find me."
The door of his little spartan suite near Northland Bank closed softly and he leaned against it, maintaining the same unaffected air that had carried him through the streets and to his apartment.
And then he slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest and his face in his hands.
There was a line, there had to be a line, between 'less inclined towards plotting and scheming' and 'about as subtle as a slap in the face.' Fuck if Ajax knew where that line was, but he used to think he was a master of walking it like a tightrope.
That was before he caught fire. Every day since, any flash of gold he passed on the street reached out to him and reignited a burning desire. The flames consumed his thoughts, and in turn, he wanted to consume her, possess her, monopolize her.
Since the Abyss, Ajax had never been one to pursue anything half-heartedly. He didn't become a Harbinger casually. He never spoke in vague terms about his ambitions. He was able to do this, in part, because he tended to be single-minded about his goals; nothing stood in the way of getting stronger, nothing else he wanted conflicted with or contradicted that mission. Wanting Lumine might seem like an exception. Certainly, Lumine was opposed to the Tsaritsa's mission, and Tartaglia was more than just his majesty's loyal subject. He was a weapon she wielded to strike down her enemies and clear the path to her goals. Yet Ajax's mission was to become the strongest, and to do that, he needed worthy opponents.
So Lumine herself wasn't an obstacle. If anything, he might have thought he wished her into existence somehow: a principled adversary; an absolute demon with a sword; an enigma who could wield multiple elements without seeming to carry a Vision or a Delusion; and a beautiful woman, all at the same time? He didn't lend more credence to the theory that she was an answer to his subconscious prayers sheerly because he knew he wasn't that creative nor was the universe that generous.
But wanting her was, perhaps, not quite aligned with his goals. He wanted to be by her side. He wanted to be there at every battle and on every journey, exalt in every victory together, and that would get in the way of his mission. If he was honest with himself, he might admit that becoming the strongest would mean ultimately needing to defeat her, and there was a growing pile of evidence to suggest that he may not be able to do so.
Ajax had long since made peace with the fact that he was not the hero in his own story. He was, as he willingly admitted, one of the bad guys. The only problem with that was that when he met Lumine, he slowly came to the dawning realization that she probably was the hero in her story… and his ultimate role in it had yet to be determined.
No matter. The 11th Harbinger did not give up on things just because they were uncertain or inconvenient. He knew what he wanted, and he would have it. The details? The hows and whens? He'd cross those bridges when he came to them.