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Dearest Tonia,
Liyue is beautiful. I believe that I am grateful that the Harbingers elected to send me here for my newest assignment, though nothing is better than waking up and seeing the sunbeam that is your smile each morning.
He finds the relocation appalling.
His most recent development- a fight started and encouraged with his combative words on one of the Fatui training grounds between two recruits locked in rivalry- would not be reported to the Tsaritsa. It was a small matter that she would wave off with her hand before asking if they had anything substantial to report to her before ushering them out of the throne room. But fights lead to tension, tension leaves anger brewing in recruits who should only focus on seeing through the acts of the harbingers’ anger, not their own.
Scaramouche is quick to recommend due punishment for their youngest, as always. “We should send him to Dragonspine. Again.” His last mission was in Dragonspine— Pedrelino needed someone to lead their company through an expedition for undisclosed research reasons, and Childe never fails to draw the last and shortest straw. He remembers the sheer cold and the sheer embarrassment coloring his already-red face when he summoned his Hydro blades and they instantly froze, only making his hands colder in the process. If they were to ship him off to that birthplace of hypothermia again, he’s better off crying to the Tsaritsa like the baby they all think he is.
Yet Signora stops him— she has another idea, with an underlying reason for her suggestion besides Scaramouche’s pure want for Childe to freeze until the Eleven whittled away to become the Ten once more. “ I will be sending him off to Liyue,” she says, “The Tsaritsa approved of this weeks ago, so don’t bother whining to her about being sent off so far.”
Before you ask, Ekaterina is doing splendidly. She is warming up to Liyue faster than I am, and she loves my company here in a region foreign and exciting to us both.
“Ekaterina ahhh…” He sprawls over her desk- more commonly known as the receptionist counter of the Northland Bank- like a cat in need of attention, blocking her view from her papers and her pens and other boring monotonous things that come with being a bank teller. “Let’s go check out that restaurant… Third-Round Knockout or something. A little bird I passed by yesterday said it’s a little hole-in-the-wall.”
She flicks his forehead. If he truly was a cat, she supposes that his ears would jolt upwards instead of his bright locks of unruly hair. “I’m working.”
“You’re…” Rolling over on the wooden desk, he stares, squints, and blinks at a random paper he wiggles out from under him. “...Going through outstanding loan payments. I’ll ask Javert if I could take care of this one later— someone with the gall to take out a million mora without paying must have some fire to them.”
“If you ask Sir Javert, I’m sure he’ll protest and say that he can take care of it himself,” says Ekaterina as she yanks the form out of his grasp, then nudges Childe inch by inch until he rolls off the desk with little flair and multiple expletives. “But I am on my shift, Master Childe. After hours, that is a different story.” He frowns with the reminder of the barrier between Ekaterina at work and Ekaterina out of work; though serious at all hours, she’ll at the very least entertain his clinginess. Two lonely people are not so lonely when together, he explained to her once.
In the crate that should come along with this letter, there are snacks from the various stalls in Liyue Harbor. There are also three kites for you, Anthon, and Teucer. Ekaterina picked them out herself after long consideration, as I was too conflicted, and I trust her judgement.
“At least help me figure out which kites I should send home.” He flips open a booklet filled with colorful and intricately designed kites, a catalog put together by the lady who crafts them by hand down the harbor. After watching Childe stare at the many toys for so long she feared that he was petrified by the impending decision (he could not buy them all, as much as he wanted to, because he simply did not have a crate large enough), she handed him the pamphlet and encouraged him to come back the next day.
The next day, he’s circled almost every kite in the booklet’s many pages. Ekaterina thanks all seven Archons that Childe cannot watch her eyes roll from behind her mask when she lays eyes on a dozen of red circles. “Since Anthon loves the color green, you’ll probably want to pick out a green one for him.”
“But this one also has green in its color scheme.” Childe points to a dragon kite. There is a single scale on the dragon, painted green. Ekaterina wonders if the ink printed it incorrectly.
“Something mostly green, Master Childe.”
He spends the next ten minutes talking her ear off- despite the fact that she was in the middle of her shift and Childe, as her boss, knows this better than anyone- about green scales and how Tonia’s favorite color changed lately and how there’s no orange whale kites though the old lady from yesterday assured him that she takes custom orders. He opens his mouth to ramble about how he’ll likely have to order a multi-colored kite for Tonia when Ekaterina tugs the magazine out of Childe’s hands.
She circles three at random.
“They’ll be happy with whatever you give them. I swear. Now get out of my office.”
Childe blinks.
“Your office… is the foyer of the Northland Bank?”
Vlad asks him how exactly Childe seemed to fly out of the bank’s doors and onto his definitely bruised ass. He elects to not talk about it.
Oh, and Tonia, I met the most interesting man in Liyue.
He finds him wandering the stalls in the harbor, minutes after being kicked out of the Northland Bank. He turns to face him even though Childe did not call his name, nor did he wave to him as he approached from behind— he turns to face him as if he’s been waiting for Childe like a man who waits for his opponent chess player to take his turn, or maybe in their short time as friends he’s memorized the sound of Childe’s boots clicking against the boardwalk wood.
“Childe,” Zhongli waves to him exactly once. “I am happy to see you.”
He must look so silly, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt. He wants to believe that Zhongli is happy to see him, unlike the Harbingers or Ekaterina or Ivankovich who glares at him from over the stall counter. But he supposes that Zhongli, unlike all others, does not know how irritating Childe is simply because he has not been around long enough for him to see through the cracks.
“I am happy to see you too.” (Why does his chest tense, saying that? Was he so used to not hearing it that he can’t bring himself to say it?) Childe nods towards Ivankovich, who gives no response— more than he expected, as the presence of a Harbinger in any place of business brings more trouble to Snezhnayan merchants than it does any good. “You were buying something?”
“Ah, yes,” Zhongli opens a previously-enclosed palm, revealing two identical pieces of Cor Lapis. “I was just talking to Mr. Ivankovich about these beautiful shards of Cor Lapis. It is unlikely that you find a pair as identical as these, especially with how troublesome it is to mine… and rare enough that it would be a shame to not pay him the mora he deserves for his hard work. I was about to buy them, but—”
“—You forgot your wallet,” Childe finishes the sentence for him.
Zhongli nods.
Childe is lucky that he did not leave his wallet in the Northland Bank but in his front pocket instead, because he fears that Ekaterina would not let him in until after working hours.
He is like Liyue personified— he knows things that even the history books I’ve read don’t talk about. I wonder how a person comes to be that way.
“Third-Round Knockout is a delightful hole-in-the-wall; it is rather inexpensive, but they could more than double their prices with the quality of their food.”
Childe nods along, nods while stumbling with his chopsticks, nods while chewing on his food as if he has never heard of Third-Round Knockout before. “So you’re saying we— I— should pay extra as part of the tip, then.”
Zhongli chuckles from behind his cup of tea. “You catch on quickly.”
Zhongli laughs, but without malicious intent— he chuckles to himself as he watches Childe struggle even with training chopsticks designed for children, then helps him with his own pair. He does the same when Childe asks him how exactly the Jade Chamber hovers so high up above the ground despite the weight, or when Childe tells him that he planned on going here later with Ekaterina and she promptly kicked him out because he was getting too annoying.
Childe does not tell him about his plans to steal the Geo Gnosis in a week’s time following the upcoming Rite of Descension, or how the Harbingers kicked him out of Snezhnaya and onto the mission because he was getting too rowdy. He does not tell him that he is so horrible with chopsticks because his first instinct is to stab.
Zhongli chuckles at his faults, his flaws, and helps him all the same— but these can be fixed by mere mortals. Childe is bad with chopsticks? Zhongli will give him training chopsticks and some pointers. Childe does not know a lot about Liyue? Luckily for him, he is a walking encyclopedia for reasons Childe would not dare to guess. There is no remedy for his position as a Harbinger (which Zhongli is aware of) or his irritating personality and drive (which Zhongli is undoubtably also aware of).
He wonders when Zhongli will realize the inevitable turn, and promptly leave Childe in the dust.
But he stays. Not because Childe asks him to, but on his own accord.
It’s funny, Tonia. How is Mr. Zhongli able to make Liyue feel like home when I’ve lived in Snezhnaya all my life?