Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars. - Gustave Flaubert
She watched his expression bloom and was reminded once more that Childe was not like the other Harbingers.
Which came first? It was a chicken-or-the-egg style of mystery—his features could not hide a single shred of deception, he looked glaringly suspicious even when he was merely omitting pertinent details, and he had no hope whatsoever of hiding his emotions… But was that because he abhorred lying and scheming? Or was his preference for directness the result of the fact that he had no poker face?
Did he lack subtlety by choice, or because he sucked at it?
In either case, it made things easier (and funnier) for Lumine. His reactions practically came with built-in subtitles, translating every microexpression and bit of body language into plain text.
'Wait, what does that mean? That's not the element she wanted… huh?' his eyebrows seemed to say as they knit together and hunkered down, pulling low over his eyes.
'Um, how do we respond?' said his mouth, dropping open – then snapping shut as he scolded himself. 'Zip it before you make her realize she caught us off-guard.'
His eyebrows rocketed back up and his eyes widened as her words actually finally registered and he started to understand what she was asking. 'Wait, not Hydro? So—so she—huh?—she wants—wait—so, if not Hydro, then… she wants help with… another element— the other… Electro?!'
She resisted the urge to give him a mocking round of applause upon figuring it out, but could not help but snicker a little at his expense. He wasn't dimwitted. And yet sometimes he really didn't make thinking look easy.
Childe finally arrived at the intentional stage of his outward response. "I'm not sure what you mean, Comrade," he said. And that was a good move, in the short term. It played to his strengths; he was being honest enough, because he genuinely did not know what she was asking for. However, he was pretending to not have a very good guess of what she wanted, and even playing dumb necessitates acting.
Lumine smiled and shifted her stance, putting one hand on her hip. She followed his eyeline and waited until his gaze was drawn to her movement, lingering around her waist, and landing briefly on her other hand—which was exactly when she allowed a little bit of purple energy to crackle between her fingertips. "Could we maybe discuss it more in private?"
He gulped. Lumine could definitely see his throat move with it and could damn near hear the nervous swallowing sound. "You… Yes, yeah, of course, we'll…" and he looked stunned by every aspect of the situation. Like he couldn't believe she was actually asking to be alone with him, and he was agreeing to it, and also that this opportunity was coming up yet he didn't have a suggestion of where they could go.
"Maybe in the Serenitea Pot?" She offered.
Paimon twirled towards the doors of Northland Bank. "Paimon will be at Liuli Pavillion with Xingqiu when you're done! …Unless you're gone for too long, in which case Paimon will have gone over to Xinyue Kiosk with Ganyu." Then, with a wink and a wave, the fairy flew off.
Leaving Childe and Lumine standing alone in the bank lobby.
(Or not exactly alone, as Ekaterina the receptionist would have liked to point out, but the atmosphere between them was too dense to interject.)
He certainly was acting strange, and as a distant afterthought, it occurred to Lumine that she really ought to be more curious about why, exactly, his reaction was so dramatically confused.
She thought she had considered all of the possibilities for how he might react but in every scenario she imagined, he was his usual self– grinning, laughing, devil-may-care. She was prepared for him to casually agree to train her like it was nothing, or casually refuse like he was declining an invitation for tea. She could easily see him chuckle to himself and figure out how to turn the situation to his benefit. Maybe he would ask questions, learn about how she gained different elements, then dismissively reject her and send all the information he had gathered back to the Tsaritsa.
But… what was this? Why was he being so… indescribable? This is the same man who could say, "Do you accept my proposal?" without blinking. Surely this wasn't… awkwardness?
When a guy who never shies away from a fight says that the sight of a certain monster chilled him to the bone, that tells you it was sincerely terrifying beyond rational explanation. So when the same guy, who is completely unhinged and shameless to the point of lecturing a whole crowd of new Fatui recruits like they're employees of a toy selling company, acts as embarrassed as a stereotypical teenager when a parent pulls out an album of baby photos… It's ominous.
…And a little bit endearing. Lumine took just a moment to memorize a snapshot of his self-conscious stance. Childe kept moving like he wanted to lean his back against the wall, then springing forward as though it had burned him. His hand would slowly move up towards his mouth, sometimes making it as far as chin-height, then jerk away and drop back by his side, clenching into a fist and releasing like a pulsing heart. He took a steadying breath and clearly meant to be trying to hide it, but he also didn't bother checking to see if she was looking before he pasted on a stiff smile and gestured towards the doors.
"So, ah… Lead the way, comrade."
Aww. What? He's been to the Serenitea Pot, he knows they don't have to go outside to access it. Silly. Must be too busy freaking out to remember little details like that.
Lumine smiled and reached one hand out to him. He caught her wrist and stared at her with as much doubt and reluctance as any person had ever poured into their posture and gestures. She put her other hand out in front of her and summoned the Teapot.
For a split second, she had the chance to enjoy his baffled face before her fingertips pressed against the ceramic and she dragged them both into her adeptal realm.
'Why am I acting like I'm brand new today?' He posed that question internally over and over but all he got as an answer was a repeating soundbite of wind whistling through trees. 'Please,' he begged himself, mentally getting down on hands and knees. 'Please take advantage of this. She doesn't even realize what she's asking for.'
That thought had an undesired chilling effect. She very literally did not know what she was asking for when she said she wanted 'help with learning Electro.' A wordless montage of images and sensations from when he first started using the element played out in the theatre of his mind, and more than a few of those memories wouldn't be suitable for general audiences.
And she was… innocent, in funny ways. He knew that she was an experienced Traveler, but she was also too young to be served drinks containing alcohol. She could go toe-to-toe with political giants and Archons alike but she blushed when he flirted with her.
How was he supposed to describe the process by which he adapted to his Delusion, much less turn around and guide her through it?
Like this, his imagination helpfully supplied, and he flinched at the sudden bombardment of mental pictures. Some of the details were plainly stolen from dreams, because his memories of reality had no basis from which to recall how that expression would look on her, or what exactly she might look like wearing much less than her usual dress—
"So, what do you think?" She said, and he blinked at her slowly. He felt like he was coming up from having been submerged in mud at the bottom of an ice-cold lake, and shook his head as if to dispel water from his ears. Had she been talking, and he was too far gone from his senses to have registered her words? "...About the Teapot. I've put a lot of work into it."
"Oh!– of course, I can tell," he said. And he truly could. The manor's layout reminded him of the Mystic Omnyou Chamber, so clearly an Inazuma-inspired structure, but the traveler had led him up a set of stairs and behind a sliding paper door, and this room seemed to be filled with furnishings from Liyue and Mondstadt. From what he had seen of the exterior before they went inside, the main house was surrounded by lush gardens. He could still detect the faint scent of fragrant flowers, blending with the wood-burning fireplace they had passed on the floor below. "It's well designed and laid out. Very cozy, relaxing, and overall quite beautiful. Not unlike yourself, girlie."
Lumine cocked her head to one side. "I'm cozy and relaxing?"
'Not in the slightest, especially on the rare occasions when you ask for favors.' "You're beautiful." He said, turning to face her fully, not leaving any space for uncertainty about the meaning of his words. "But I can come up with more flattering terms, if that one doesn't please you."
"You're not supposed to admit it's all flattery, I think." Her voice was still coy but her mannerisms were less so: one hand grasping around the elbow of her opposite arm; the red flush on her cheeks; the lack of eye contact.
He shrugged. "Honeyed words or not, I only speak the truth."
"Hmm." The blush extended from her cheeks to the rest of her face, radiating up her ears and across the bridge of her nose. Lumine kept her gaze firmly off of him until her skin started to cool down. "Then in the spirit of honesty: can you teach me how to use Electro? Would you be willing to?"
Childe sighed. "Thank you for phrasing that as two separate questions at least." He scratched the back of his neck and shifted uncomfortably. "Are you sure you're asking the right person? I would lend you the mora to hire another tutor, if, ah…"
"If there was anyone else I could ask, maybe," she said.
And that stung just a little. If there was anyone else, she would be asking them, not him.
The thought of some other person being her guide through Electro training was, to put it mildly, infuriating. Unacceptable. She's mine. If anyone was going to teach her, it would be Childe and no one else.
He met her gaze and knew at a glance that she was studying his face. He couldn't keep secrets. Other Harbingers had previously criticized him for 'thinking too loud.' Even his subordinates readily admitted that he could be predictable. Somehow, he didn't need evidence to know how insightful Lumine was; surely she could more or less read his mind.
The wild thing was, she didn't look disgusted or scared. If she had seen inside his thoughts, wouldn't the logical thing be to run away?
If there was any emotional response visible on her face… And of course, it was much harder to tell with her features than his own… but wasn't it amusement? She hadn't made a sound but she looked like she had just stopped laughing. Like… a noblewoman, enjoying some pleasant gossip over a light luncheon, giggling with just her eyes because to do more would be uncouth.
He sighed. "This has been fun, but I… I really shouldn't be considering it. Just entertaining the idea is– it's a bad idea as a baseline, and even worse for a variety of other reasons."
"So you can teach me."
"That's what you took from that?" He sputtered. "I'm supposed to be saying 'no' right about now."
"But you aren't," she said. He frowned at her but she plowed on, unshaken by his irritation. "You 'shouldn't' and you aren't 'supposed to', but you haven't actually said no yet."
He nearly literally growled in frustration. No, he had not actually refused her yet, because some primal and selfish part of him really, really wanted to just agree to do it.
"I don't say this to insult you, but could you please think a little harder about what you're asking?" He tried to say it kindly but the traveler still looked offended. "I haven't agreed to train you–" he hesitated for a fraction of a second then decided to leave out the parenthetical yet, but Lumine seemed to hear it anyway and one corner of her mouth twitched up into a smirk.
"But," he continued. "Consider this: I will have to shock you and see you shock yourself many, many times before you master it. Let's say we start, and you practice for as long as you can, until you're ready to drop dead from the accumulated electricity. We could take it slow and easy, but I assume you want to get better at this sooner rather than later, so it doesn't cause a delay on your way to the ultimate goal of finding your brother. So we work until your muscles can't take any more Electro. You might be writhing on the ground, crying from pain… Do you really trust me enough to appear that way in front of me? You trust me to take care of you, when you're as weak and helpless as a newborn?"
She was silent for a while, but not as long as he would have guessed. He thought she would have had to deliberate longer. In fact, on some level he assumed she wouldn't be able to answer that at all– or at least not be able to verbalize her decision out loud. When she spoke, it sounded like she was quoting something. "'In the heat of battle, I know you'd have my back,'" she said, pitching her voice soft, sweet, and low. "'This is the level of trust I place in you.'"
His eyes widened.
Not fair… using his own words against him. He could feel his blood rushing in his veins, his pulse in his ears like a drum. And all she had to do was say a couple of words. She was literally making fun of him, and it made his heart race.
"You…" Childe shook his head. "...You really never cease to surprise me."
"I want to learn," she said firmly. Lumine leaned forward, staring him down intensely. Her hands were balled into fists, pressed palm-side down on her knees. "I need to learn how to use Electro. You are the only person I can ask. I want you to teach me. Please, Childe. I don't know why you're hesitant, and I don't know what to say to assuage your fears unless you tell me. But whatever it is, I can work with you to fix it. So… Please, explain it so that I can understand."
And when she put it like that, how could he deny her?