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“You’ve really got to meet him though!”
“Ah! Lumine, slow down a little— ow, ow, ow arm—my arm.”
Lumine slowed down her pace, smiling apologetically to her brother, who couldn’t help but sigh, letting his face settle into a warm smile.
He was still limping heavy on his right foot; and his arms wrapped in bandages still ached and shook whenever he held even the lightest of objects. Lumine had been kind enough to sit by him during every meal of the day to feed him, and even though he protested that it was embarrassing and that he could surely feed himself, Lumine would give him the stare—the one that she had given him every time since he had accidentally dropped an entire plate of Xiangling’s food on the floor. Aether would then laugh guiltily upon seeing it and eat the rest of his food through spoon fed mouthfuls complacently.
Now, his sister continues to draw him to the edge of the hallway and to the outskirts of the inn until they stop before the wooden bridge. She begins waving over to someone in the distance. He sees the figure wave back, and they begin rushing over to the two of them. Aether looks him up and down.
Ruly, auburn hair and ocean blue eyes. He was tall too, muscular, but still lean, and if Aether were to lend his two cents he’d even call him attractive.
“Aether,” Lumine introduces, “this is Ajax. He’s a… good friend who’s helped me here in Teyvat.”
Aether sees her face light up as she speaks. A little flustered, but excited more than anything. It reminded him of when she had found those flowers on their journey from world to world, the ones she now wears in her hair. He remembered how excited she looked to find it, and how she flustered after realising it would die after having plucked it. They had spent the next three hours figuring out how to freeze flower wilting permanently, and in the end Lumine was very happy with her new accessory, so he didn’t mind the used time whatsoever.
“Probably financially more than anything.” Ajax laughed.
Lumine playfully nudges Ajax in his side with a glimmer of a grin. “I was doing just fine with my money,” she says haughtily.
“If you insist, princess.”
Princess.
Aether tilts his head in confusion, and can’t help but furrow his brows ever so slightly at that last, unexpected pair of syllables. Sirens and red flags spring up in his mind.
He looks over to his sister, who did not flinch in the slightest, merely replying by rolling her eyes amiably.
This wasn’t the first time he had heard people call her sister cloying pet names - she often caught the eyes of locals in different worlds, but with this… Ajax person, his sister did not immediately shoot him down with all the wording grace of a practiced poet.
He thought, then nodded to himself. It seems the difference between the flowers in Lumine’s hair and Ajax was that Ajax spoke—which was already presenting as a flaw in itself.
Said man turned to him, holding out a hand for Aether to shake. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said happily, “Lumine’s told me quite a bit about you.”
Aether glanced down at his own bandage coated arms, which Ajax seemed to have missed, somehow. He compromises his reciprocation instead, giving him an awkward smile. “Likewise,” Aether says. “She’s told me you’re very… thoughtful.”
He watches the friendly look on his face shift slightly into internal misery as he recedes his outstretched hand - though he quickly washes it off and chuckles, “right, my bad.”
It’d be horrible if he treated Lumine like that,
“Don’t worry about it,” Aether says breezily, fitting in a short laugh to sell it a little further.
He sees Lumine shoot him a glance in his peripheral. The twins were no clairvoyants, but they could read each other crystal clear most of the time. Judging by her expression, he was guessing his sister figured he was beginning to play at something.
Behind them, the tap of wooden sandals on the pathway brought their attention to a member of the Inn’s staff. “Miss Lumine!” they exclaimed, “The writers are here!”
Lumine quirked a brow. “For that report? Right now?”
“Precisely.”
Lumine sighs, “I’ll get this done with as soon as I can. You can both talk to each other for a bit.”
Aether watches her gaze hesitantly slip from his face, a cautionary look if anything. He understood his sister’s concern to the upmost ability, but he didn’t know this boy. No “good friend” would just call Lumine “princess” and get away with it - Aether’s never seen it in his life.
“Would you care to sit somewhere? I brought food from Liyue,” Ajax says.
“No, I’m good,” insists Aether.
“Suit yourself.”
Aether does not waste anytime to get to interrogating.
“So,” he begins hastily, “where did you and my sister meet?”
Ajax’s eyes widen, a little taken aback by the tone of the question. He answers regardless. “I met her in Liyue,” He says. “I saved her from some guards this one time. She was being pursued, so I gave her a bit of a hand.” he shrugged slightly at the end, a crooked grin on his face.
She probably could’ve handled it herself, he thought offhandedly.
“That’s interesting!” Aether exclaimed. “I appreciate that you helped her - it’s nice to know she’s had you as a.. good friend for a while.”
Aether focused on the slide of Ajax’s eyes to the side with an almost aloof expression to go along with it. “You could say that.”
“Could? Ah— sorry, does girlfriend work better?”
Ajax’s entire body stiffened like stone in the span of a split second; his cheeks dusting with pink. Carefully, his eyes slowly slid back to meet Aether’s innocent golden eyes, though it took no scientist to observe the smugness hidden in them. To his own surprise, Ajax’s body eased up just as quick and he scoffed, then laughed.
“What makes you think that?” He replied smoothly.
Oh.
Oh.
“The ‘princess’ calling sort of gave it away,” Aether said matter-of-factly. “Not necessarily you calling her princess but more Lumine not kicking you down to the ground as the words left your lips.”
“Strange, she never told me there was a problem with it in the first place.”
There’s a hollow smile on his lips, one Aether knows he’s wearing too.
“That’s interesting!” Aether replies.
“Haha, isn’t it?”
Silence hangs deathly in the air as the two stare at each other. Aether redirects his attention to the mask resting on the side of his head.
“I like your mask. Do you use it for anything? Crimes? Oh, did someone in particular give it to you?
“I’d never disobey the law with job property. Though, I’m actually planning to give it back tomorrow.”
“Oh.. It was borrowed?”
Ajax nods. “From work, yeah. It’s been inconvenient for a lot of different things, so I’m quitting pretty soon.”
His fingers trace over the grooves of the crimson mask as he speaks.
“What’s your job?” Aether asks.
“I’m a bounty hunter,” Ajax says.
Aether squints his eyes in suspicion. That wasn’t right at all.
He remembers the morning a few weeks back when Lumine sat by the windowsill, watching a pair of pigeons chase each other across the sky when she spoke very briefly of Ajax and his hectic life. He noticed the hesitation in her voice (curse himself for not pointing it out then and there) when he had asked if he had a job that caused it. Her reply was simply: “Yes, I think being a travelling merchant would be tiring, don’t you think?”
“Ohh..” Aether says, nodding slowly. “mind repeating that honestly?”
“Oh, sure! It’s not a problem. Ill say it again: I’m a bounty hunter.”
Aether had never called anyone a bitch, but he could say for certain this was the closest he had ever been to doing so.
“You’re not a bounty hunter.”
“I am.”
“You’re not.”
“What do you have to prove otherwise?”
Aether folds his arms over his chest, tiliting his head down darkly. “Lumine said you weren’t.”
“I’m a man of many jobs. Bounty hunter is one of them.”
He feels his eye twitch in annoyance, quickly followed with a heavy exhale of disbelief and a weak smile. “You might as well just tell me you’re a wanted criminal at this point.”
And then he smiles, so sweetly it comes across fox-like. “Why would I?” Ajax replies. “I never was one, so there’s not really any point in saying it.”
Aether stares at him, visible distress on his face as he sighs. “I can’t believe my sister is dating a wanted criminal.”
“I never said I was wanted criminal or that I was dating your sister.”
Aether ignores him. “You never hurt her did you? You better have not laid a single hand of yours on her or I’ll use my one good limb to kick you to the next world over.”
And it’s then that he falters. There’s no quick-fire response from Ajax to split through the silence, rather, Aether feels it grow denser and denser by the second. Ajax’s eyes blank and his hands tighten around each other uncomfortably. He clicks his tongue with a bitter smile.
“I might as well just say it at this point. I have.”
Aether blanks. “What.”
“I’ll admit it. I have. We were enemies once.”
Enemies.
Enemies?!
No.
Aether’s eyes widen in disbelief. “You’re a Fatui agent?!”
Ajax laughs awkwardly. “Fatui Harbinger, actually.”
The gears turn in Aether’s head. Harbinger. Lumine’s said she met a couple, most all of them. She mentioned a couple guys, one about a short boy with a smug attitude, another about some quick-witted Snezheyan guy who had a thrown a whole water whale on her.
His eyes snap to the man sitting across from him and his sheepish face.
“The unforgivable bastard who threw a whale on my sister was YOU?!”
“That… was an accident..? It wasn’t an actual whale either, just a water—”
“Liar!”
Aether stands up abruptly, staring at Ajax. “When I said I’d kick you the next world over you should know that I always keep my word.”
“I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but you might have a bit of trouble chasing after me on one good leg,” Ajax says, pointing to his other foot tightly wrapped in bandages.
A pair of glowing golden wings shoot out from Aether’s back. Ajax seemed to have forgotten about the twins getting those back.
“Run.”
The table knocks over as Ajax dashes past, and Aether takes off after him.
______
When Lumine finished her interview and peaked over the railing of the inn’s balcony, she could say with a heavy heart that this wasn’t entirely unexpected.
She can hear them yell to each other from below:
“You didn’t even apologise properly!!”
“I did later on! I did!”
“If your apology didn’t include a billion mora and half the estate in Liyue then it wasn’t good enough!”
She sees her brother fling his one good leg at Ajax’s chest, the victim barely managing to dodge each time. She sighs. Of course it would end up like this.
“Aether!” she cries.
Her brother whips around to face her, expression shocked at first, quickly changing into distress. “You didn’t tell me he threw a whale on you!!”
“I forgave him!”
“Wh—Oh,” said Aether, glancing to his side, then to Ajax, and back to his sister on the balcony.
“So he really gave you a billion mora?”
She rolls her eyes. “No!”
Scrambling off the edge, her golden wings fly out, gliding down to her brother to gently hold onto him. Her eyes sternly tell him to surrender as she helps settle him softly on the ground, to Aether’s dismay.
As his feet meet the ground again, he shifts his weight back down onto his better leg, leaning into her shoulder. Quietly, he begins to whisper to his sister.
“Why didn’t you tell me that he was a Harbinger?”
“Because I knew you’d react like this, Aether. He’s a friend, I promise you!”
Aether sees Ajax’s expression shift in his periphery. He frowns at that.
“He hurt you.”
“That was a long time ago. He said sorry and bought me dinner at a nice restaurant after a lot of things settled down, if that helps.”
Aether stares indifferently.
“I liked the food a lot,” she adds on.
Aether sighs. “I guess that’s good.”
Lumine’s voice lilts up, calm and encouraging. “Thank you for being concerned for me. You can trust me when I say that I’m safe, and you can trust Ajax in keeping it that way.”
Aether nods gently, a little hesitant, but the information was still registering to him. Lumine smiles in return.
She wanders over to Ajax, neglected over to the side, and asks him if he brought food. He did, and upon saying so she invites Aether and him over to a table to eat. The smell of the food uplifted Aether’s spirits by a bit.
Halfway through it and it happens.
“Can you pass me the Tiger Fish Skewers, Ajax?” Lumine asks.
“Not a problem, princess.”
Like a magnet, Aether’s stare snaps to Ajax’s.
“..Mind repeating that?”
Insidiously, Ajax’s lips morph into a sadistic smile. “Repeating what? Sorry, I think I forgot,” he says, so smug it tore Aether to pieces listening,
There was no denying it.
He may just lose his mind sitting with this boy.