Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires. - William Shakespeare
Paimon popped back up when Lumine was halfway to Wangshu Inn with the spoils of her battles. "Aren't you going to sleep?" the fairy asked.
"What?" the traveler replied, and realized abruptly that the sun had long since set. "Oh. I guess I didn't realize how late it was, I just kept going..."
"Can't outrun your own thoughts!" Paimon chirped, and looked on smugly when Lumine's head whipped in her direction so fast they both heard the joints in her neck popping.
"I know! I mean, I'm not," Lumine insisted, crossing her arms over her chest. "I have no thoughts to run from."
Paimon did not look convinced, but allowed Lumine to change the subject to food and finding a nice, dry spot to catch a few hours of rest.
The thoughts she definitely wasn't having caught up with Lumine shortly after she laid down.
She had initially labelled it 'suspicion', and that was fine. Even something like a mild obsession born of paranoia, an overabundance of caution, that was all acceptable. Especially when it was proven true, and he consigned Liyue Harbor to a narrowly averted destruction.
Then she considered that it might be resentment. He had the audacity to 'save her' from the Millelith, and then call her cutesy little nicknames as if she couldn't rend his wretched head from his miserable shoulders. It could be that she just passionately disliked him, with his stupid fake smiles and dumb wild hair. Irritation could be fervid.
But none of the names she'd tried to give to this preoccupation with Childe really seemed to fit properly. Whatever it was, it was a distraction, one she could only barely afford to indulge in when she was alone (not counting Paimon).
Sometimes it was just his name, rolling over in her mind, and the acceleration of her heart rate. Sometimes it was a rapidfire review of every memory of him being too close: him standing next to her, his scrutinizing eyes, his words striking a chord that thrummed through her. Sometimes it was a vivid trip down a branching path of not what was but what might have been, if they crossed the line, if they toed too close to that invisible boundary of what definitely should not be allowed to happen and gravity pulled them the rest of the way over-
(Assuming there was even a gravitational pull impacting him. For all she knew, he either merely enjoyed pushing her buttons or wasn't even fully aware of when and how much he affected her.)
-and, not being born of reason, these thoughts could not be destroyed by logic. No amount of firmly telling her own brain No and Shut up would stop the images from rising, unbidden, in her mind's eye. She just had to squeeze her eyes shut, try to make lists of resources she would need to collect the next day, and hope she bored herself to sleep running through her inventory internally.
Forty-one bits of Violetgrass, thirty-seven pieces of Cor Lapis, seventy Starconches
his awestruck expression the first time he held up a conch to his ear and heard the sea and laughed with delight and pressed the cold rim of the shell against the side of her face his fingers brushing her scalp cheeks burning blood rushing to the tips of her ears and what if instead of running down the beach to find another one he stepped closer andleaneddownandtouched
, twenty-two Glaze Lilies, sixteen Silk Flowers…
And eventually, she drifted off.
Beidou was able to get her into Inazuma, but Lumine had promised to keep the first trip short. They weren't even really dropping an anchor—just stalling, waiting for her to race back to the getaway boat.
And it had to be a getaway, a bugout, a great escape. She spent some time in Mondstadt and Liyue before leaving and kept hearing the same message.
"Don't be seen," Kaeya told her, an unusually serious look on his face. He stared at her over the rim of his goblet, one eye going back and forth between each of hers like he was trying to find a weak spot to attack and make sure his point landed. "I'm not kidding, Lumine, you need to avoid everyone you possibly can. Things are getting bad in Inazuma. Most Treasure Hoarders are trying to route around it entirely until they can figure out their own safe passage in and out. Ports are locked down. Don't let the Tenryou Commission lay a hand on you. Don't do anything to catch the attention of the Shogunate. Don't get stuck there."
"You're going to be running around in the countryside for what, a couple of days?" Venti winced. Worry didn't suit him. He sipped his wine and tried to play it off, but couldn't entirely wash away the concern that haunted the corners of his lips and eyes. "You're fast. If you end up having to run away from anyone… Just go even faster!"
"At this time, Adventurers from outside of Inazuma are discouraged from attempting to take commissions from that branch of the guild. However, should circumstances change, Inzauma Katheryne will be your point of contact there for all your adventuring needs. Take this letter and deliver it to her, if there is a reasonably safe opportunity to do so. Ad astra abyssosque!"
"You still have those collated international statutes I gave you, right?" Yanfei asked, barely looking up from the papers spread out before her. "Stay out of legal trouble and you'll be fine. Probably."
Conversations with Ningguang always felt like an intricate dance, and Lumine thanked the stars that made her light enough on her feet to learn the steps on the fly.
This time, Ningguang was surrounded by the children of Liyue Harbor, seemingly sitting at the head of a large make-believe banquet table – the sweet treats were real, the teacups were real, but the kids were sitting on the ground and imagining the Southern Wharf as the venue for a high-class garden party.
"In my capacity as Tianquan, I cannot encourage you to violate the Sakoku Decree," she said.
Ningguang did not have to wink or smile to imply the meaning created by what she didn't say; outside of her role in the Qixing, she was glad that Lumine was going, even if she couldn't express her support openly.
When Lumine mentioned that Beidou would be the one to deliver her to Inazuma's shores, Ningguang's expression became altogether unreadable. "Is that so?" She murmured, but otherwise kept her commentary to herself.
She found Zhongli drinking with Childe, of all people, in Liuli Pavilion. Half-empty glasses littered the table but there was a clear slant to their distribution. And that slant extended to the Harbinger's posture.
When Lumine approached their table, he tried to crane his neck all the way back to look at her, before twisting around, nearly unseating himself.
"Wait a second, girlie, where did y-" he interrupted himself with a hiccup that made him sway in his chair, blink slowly, and nearly lose his train of thought. "Where did you say you were going? Inna-tsuma?"
The vowels sounded a little twinged with that Snezhnayan accent, like he had dragged the 'I' sound into an 'ee,' and put the emphasis on the wrong syllable. Cute, she thought, and was quite unable to muster the energy to scold herself for thinking so.
"None of your business, Fatui," Paimon answered for her.
Childe furrowed his brows but, based on how glazed over his eyes were, he was in no position to give a rebuttal.
The last time he'd been this vulnerable in front of her, he said he was assuming she wouldn't kill him while his little brother was watching. Teucer was nowhere in sight now, so what was his excuse this time? Did he really think she couldn't find him, having drinks at a very public place in Liyue?
Lumine thought to test his inebriated reflexes, but he caught her the moment she started moving her hand towards his chair. He was warm even through the gloves, with an iron grip, clearly strong even through the intoxication. She stared at the point of contact with a sort of stupor that nearly matched his drunken speechlessness. His fingers were curled around her wrist, the black leather contrasting with her pale skin, his thumb shifting, brushing, pressing into her pulse point.
"Hey, pretty girl," he said, and she met his gaze. That was worse. Firewater had burned away all of his subtlety. He was, as the poem goes, naked of reticence and shorn of pride. She could see every droplet of his feelings towards her splattered across his face like freckles. Some were shaped like curiosity, some were put there by his competitive streak, some were plainly and obviously interest. She wondered what kind of expression she was making, what he could see in it. "S'not safe. The agents who've been there… They say all the... ronin or whatever they call'em... might try ta, try an' fight you, but… you can take 'em. Can take anybody. So you just gotta look out for the ones that don't fight, they report ya, make someb'dy else do it. Don't let yourself get ambushed, okay? I'm the only one's'allowed to defeat you, got it?"
He spent most of his little speech sliding his hand down to grasp hers and shake it as though they were sealing a contract, then fumbled with her fingers, and ultimately wound up in a pinkie promise. Hopefully, it didn't count without invoking the words, because she did not agree to any part of him being allowed to defeat her.
Zhongli, for his part, had few words of wisdom for her. He watched Childe's drunken display with an arched eyebrow and crossed arms, then sighed and said, "Please be careful. In comparison to what you have encountered in Tevyat thus far, the Electro Archon takes a far more hands-on approach in her country. That difference is reflected in how the people of Inazuma think of their leader. It would be wise not to underestimate either her or them."
When she left the restaurant, Ajax straightened up and ran a hand through his hair, dropping the drunkard act. Zhongli cast a stern look at him. "You don't get to lecture me about honesty," Ajax said, picking one partially-drank cocktail from the dozen or so arranged in front of him. "Mr. Funeral Parlor Consultant."
Zhongli didn't acknowledge the jab. "You should know that I have told the traveler to inform me if you cause any real trouble, and said that I would deal with you, should the need arise," he said. "At the time I was not aware that you posed any specific threat."
And then he fell silent, implying by omission that now he was aware of what kind of threat Childe posed.
"I'm trouble," Ajax said with a smile and a shrug. "That's not going to be news to her."
"And you are content like this? Only expressing that you care for her through the guise of inebriation?" Zhongli held up a hand to ward off Childe's complaint. "This is not a lecture about honesty, but rather one about time. It is a finite resource. Is this how you wish to spend what little you have?"
Ajax had no answer to that. He drank instead.
When he was almost as pissed as he had pretended to be, he propositioned the Geo Archon. "Pity sex?" He nudged the other man's leg with the tip of his boot.
"Not when you're drunk," Zhongli dismissed him easily, and Childe pretended to pout over it. They both knew that aspect of their relationship was behind them, but it had ended without much discussion, and sometimes Childe liked to act like he was unsatisfied with that.
It was fun while it lasted. He had gone into it thinking he was fooling around with an overly stuffy and pretentious but otherwise normal person. Childe had imagined he was the one using Zhongli, and when it turned out that the shoe was on the other foot, that killed the vibe for him.
A blowjob would have been nice, though.