We sit in the mud, my friend, and reach for the stars. - Ivan Turgenev

He nodded easily and then sat in motionless silence for several minutes.

Lumine tried to be patient, but the longer they stewed there together in his awkwardness, the more intimidating it was. What could he possibly be hiding? She tried to review everything he had said so far but couldn't tie the disparate strings together… There were clues woven into his words, yes, but what did they add up to?

What was the threat? She could understand if he didn't want to train her in case the Tsaritsa found out, or if it otherwise compromised his position in the Fatui, but he hadn't alluded to that once. He mentioned trust, pain… She couldn't begin to predict what was making him act so nervous.

When he did finally start speaking, he chewed through every word. "The thing is… What you have to understand is…"

'Say it. Say the thing before I headbutt you and knock us both out.'

"It's… Look. Okay. Here it is." If he wasn't so adorably tortured about his word salad, she might have been more annoyed. He paused, sighed, crossed his arms over his chest, shifted in his seat, reached out and rotated his teacup about 30 degrees, looked out the window, visibly counted to ten while regulating his breathing, drilled his fingers on his knee, crossed his arms again, and finally, still grinding his teeth, spoke. "So… When I received my Delusion, I was told that the Fatui had already developed a process for non-Vision holders to learn to control 'foreign elements'- something other than what they had a natural affinity towards."

That was… Chilling, but it didn't hit all that hard. She wasn't truly surprised; she had already known that to be true, even if she had never consciously thought about it.

Of course they had figured out how to train people to use elemental energy without a Vision. Lumine had encountered their Delusions enough times. At least two of the Harbingers she had met so far had them. Sure. Of course. It just made sense that Snezhnaya would have developed a method for their elite, chosen people to adapt to using the power of a Delusion.

And it made sense that they would keep that knowledge away from the general public, in case a Delusion fell into the wrong hands. They could therefore ensure that anyone other than an approved holder of a Delusion would suffer considerably when they used it, possibly even die. She thought of what she had heard about Diluc's father and nodded.

But Childe wasn't done. "So, among the– the people who had learned to use elements this way, the process involved having, um, mentors? The first, uh… The original people studied as a group, and they worked out the method together, and so they, y'know, designed the… curriculum?... to involve working with others, not just studying on your own."

Lumine nodded again, and bit her lip when she saw hesitation resurface in Childe's eyes. "Okay. That makes sense. Everything you've said so far has been fine. Go on," she said, and smiled encouragingly. "If you feel like you can."

He narrowed his eyes. 'Ah, he took the bait.' Phrasing it as, 'keep going if you think you can,' made him sound like a coward, and he was getting defensive. Even though he had to know that her goal was to get a rise out of him and make him confess the rest, he went along with it.

"There were rumors of patterns among the students of the different elements. Learning Pyro was the most painful, supposedly. So by the time their training was complete, their pain tolerance was fully mastered as well," Childe explained.

He saw Lumine wince, and that made him finally relax for the first time since they sat down. He leaned back more heavily against the cushions of the couch she had directed him to sit on, and he even stretched one arm out along its back, until the tips of his fingers were within range of her bare shoulder.

'Good,' he thought, reaching over and picking up his abandoned cup of lukewarm tea. 'She finally looks a little rattled. She's been too confident this whole time.'

"And… The Electros?" she asked. "What was the pattern with them?"

The tea went down the wrong way and he choked, coughed, had to regain his breath before he could reply. "They would, uh," he rasped and paused to clear his throat. "The teachers and students… and the trainees amongst themselves… they were more likely than not to, at some point, develop deeply intimate, um, relationships."

She blinked slowly.

He blinked back.

"Uh, to clarify," he said, preemptively interjecting before she responded. "I don't mean emotionally intimate. Or, like, not only emotionally, but rather also–"

"You're saying they fucked?"

He choked again but this time on air, on nothing at all, on the bluntness of her words.

'Well, the seal is broken. We can say fuck now.'

"Yes, that's what I've been trying to say," he said stiffly. He slowly withdrew the arm that had gotten close to her, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. "A lot of the time, they end up in sexual – or, not end up, but find themselves in, I mean, as a result of – yes, okay? They fuck. Alright? Most of them. Almost all." 'Fucking hell, woman.'

Lumine pursed her lips. "Okay, but why? Pyro trainees learned to tolerate pain because their training was painful. What makes the Electro students more likely to have sex with their tutors? Or their 'study buddy' or whatever you call it?"

'The partners in their study groups,' he almost said. But that had to be too much information too soon, right? She didn't need to know that there were study groups and not just partnerships, right? He could leave some of the licentious details for future disclosure, surely?

"It's the training," he said solemnly. "In learning Pyro, you learn to generate heat but not get burned. It still hurts, but your flesh and nerves actually don't take damage. So you're trained to just ignore the pain. But when you use Electro, you can still seriously endanger yourself with it, so you actually have to become, well, more sensitive. You're taught to disperse the charge on your skin to, ah, places where it's… more pleasant to get shocked. And you have to learn to, y'know, embrace that, so you can always tell if you're putting yourself in danger or if the level of energy is safe."

And she sat very, very still while she took that in. Childe watched every minute twitch of her reaction and felt his heart sink. Even if she said she still wanted to move forward, he had already catalogued every bit of body language that spelled out uncertainty or discomfort.

'See?' He thought, waiting for her to finish processing what he had said and eject him from the Teapot. 'You didn't really want me to train you. Not if it meant I would see you like that–'

"Okay," she said, so nonchalantly he would have assumed he was hearing things, except he wasn't optimistic enough to ever imagine her agreeing readily. "Is that it? That's all you're worried about?"

It was his turn to stare blankly, blinking like he was trying to use morse code to ask what language she was speaking.

"Because it sounds like we just… what? Agree in advance that we don't have to be part of that statistic, and we keep it in mind as a potential risk, right?"

Childe was glad he wasn't holding his teacup at that moment because he definitely would have shattered it. "You make it sound so simple," he said sardonically. "Duh, we just take vows of mutually exclusive celibacy and proceed without a hitch. I've been overreacting, obviously."

She arched an eyebrow and sniffed. "You don't have to be rude about it. You are overreacting. I thought you were going to tell me I could die learning Electro, and then I really might have had to give up." She rolled her eyes and even yawned, stretching one arm above her head, covering her mouth with her other hand, arching her back, thrusting her chest forward.

(Intentionally! He could not be convinced otherwise. Everything she did was intentional!)

"We really can just agree that we're not going to fuck and then respect our own wishes, and each others', and not fuck," she said. "Worst case scenario, something unexpected happens, and, like, 'oh no! We did it. Darn.' Is that so– I mean, can you live with that outcome? Would that be unacceptable?"

'Ask yourself that first!' He wanted to shake her, and it wasn't the first time he'd felt that. He wanted to shock her right here and now and force her to listen to her own words.

"I couldn't have agreed to it without warning you first," he said. "So please, say it clearly: even knowing what I've told you; hearing me say we can try to avoid it; being aware that it might happen anyway; do you rescind your proposal to have me train you?"

Her golden eyes roved all across his face. He felt like he was under a microscope– or stage lights. Her gaze was so intense, he almost had to stop making eye contact… But he held out, staring her down even as he felt his face overheat.

"No," she said. She crossed one leg over the other and folded her hands in her lap. Somehow, she looked like a panther, or a dragon, or some other large and languorous predator. "My offer stands. I want you to teach me."

He shivered and closed his eyes. She was willing. She wanted it. Wanted him. His pulse hammered in his ears. 'She wants me to teach her.'

"Okay… Then, in that case, let's make a contract."

Lumine wrinkled her nose and subconsciously shrank back into the couch. "You want to get Zhongli involved?"

"No!" Childe's eyes widened comically, even as his attention appeared to be divided between easing her concern and staring at her chest. He squeezed his eyes shut tight for a beat, and when he opened them again, his resolve seemed clearer. He waved his hands to ward off the very idea of the Geo Archon. "You don't need him or a lawyer to make a contract. As long as we both agree to all of the terms, it's binding on us. He doesn't– he's not related to this and we don't have to– he doesn't need to know anything about what we're doing."

The Harbinger seemed to run out of steam and deflate. "You really must have a terrible impression of me," he pouted. "You thought I would say, 'hey girlie, Electro training involves intimate physical contact, that okay?' and then right after that, go, 'oh, by the way, let's do a threesome'? Honestly, how much of a scoundrel do you think I am?"

"I don't, that's not what I think," Lumine said, a bit too quickly. He didn't appear to be convinced. She pressed on regardless. "That's not what I meant, I wasn't trying to say that you were suggesting that. Have a little more faith in me."

That made him look a bit more repentant, if not fully reassured. "Then, let's– can we take a day or two to think up terms for our contract, then meet up again once we're ready? I know you're in a hurry but I want you to have a chance to sleep on this and be sure it's what you want."

She had to learn Electro. There was no way around it. She would need command of all of the elements if she was going to keep getting roped into this world's problems, and especially if Aether was linked to those problems' root.

And if there was no other choice, as far as the method went… Then of any possible partner she might have to have, she would pick Childe. There was no one she would rather learn from. Even if things escalated beyond what was 'according to plan.'

For a second she glimpsed a possible future where she spent the next two days agonizing about his reluctance, assuming that he was somehow revolted by the thought of anything happening sexual between them. But even just imagining having that particular insecurity felt dishonest; there was no way for her to reconcile the way he looked at her, the heat in his eyes and the hunger in his expression, with the idea of him finding her unattractive.

He wasn't afraid that they might end up having sex. He was afraid that she didn't want them to wind up doing it, or something along those lines.

So she had two days to figure out how to convince him to get over that fear, so he wouldn't hold back during her training.

"Fine. Come back here the day after tomorrow, and we can sort out the details and get started."