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I.
"Ah, what a kind young man.”
The elderly lady’s words echo in her voice as she stares at Childe, walking around the beach helping with picking up trash. She can’t even comprehend him doing it but it’s real, right before her eyes. He doesn’t even seem to mind much, humming some melody as he kneels down to reach for shards of bottles or discarded wrappers from food. That sight is too out of the ordinary for her personally. The lady beside her seems to be quite grateful though, so the traveler remains from commenting and continues to do her job. Maybe, just maybe, a part of her is grateful that he’s decided to offer her his aid when he stumbled upon her carrying that bag full of garbage. Otherwise, she’d probably really spend her day there until sunset passes.
It’s when she’s picking something up that he calls out to her, his voice possessing its usual cheerful lit.
She turns around and there he stands, a starconch his hand held up in the air to be embraced by the light of the sun. Its blue shell shimmers luminescent and she ponders if that’s why he’s picked it up. He waves it around lightly, grinning brightly at her in the process.
“Girlie! Come here for a moment!”
She walks up to him and raises an eyebrow, hoping to convey her confusion to him. The harbinger’s grin only seems to widen at that.
“A starconch,” he states, acting as if she wouldn’t know that. Realizing that she won’t respond to that he sighs and shakes her head.
“You’re no fun, girlie.” Then he blinks, seemingly troubled with something. “Except when you fight.”
Of course.
“And yet you are here,” the traveler responds before noticing something gleaming out of the corner of her eye. A rather large glass shared. She kneels down to gather it and throw it into her bag.
“You missed…. one....”
She tilts her head to stare up at Childe and blinks.
He’s gazing directly at her, something in his eyes that’s just… unusual? She’s never seen that gaze on him.
Then he breaks out of whatever stupor he was in and the familiar grin settles back on his face.
“Come on, let’s finish this, yeah?” Then he holds out a hand for her. “I’ll treat Paimon and you to dinner later.”
As they walk back she’s left unwise to the thoughts echoing in his mind.
“And yet you are here.”
Yes, here he is.
Why though?
II.
Tartaglia loves the thrill and rush of battle. He loves to test his strength on worthy opponents and to him, the traveler is one of the worthiest. The one who defeated him, the one who bears strength in masses. And owns potential for more of it.
He loves fighting the traveler, loves the feeling of their blades clashing and the way they dance around each other, undeniably lost in their own world, too gone for anyone else to reach and disturb them.
But he loves fighting alongside Lumine just as much as fighting her. In those times, where he doesn’t have to evade her attacks or try to slash her, he can observe her movements, seamlessly fitting with his own, can note every single detail about how she swings her weapon, commands her elements and moves with grace in the midst of chaos. Excitement always courses through his vines during these times—a worthy opponent but also a worthy ally. Sometimes he ponders what it would be like to travel alongside her.
In the midst of fighting a few hilichurls and two mitachurls, he hears her voice, resonating around the place. She’s giggling.
Dumbfounded, he dodges another ax and turns his gaze towards her, only to have his eyes widen and his heartbeat speed up.
A small smile on her face, she’s staring at a hilichurl flailing around the ground with weird movements. Usually, that would be enough to make him chuckle but at the moment he’s too mesmerized by the sound of her laughter, and her expression set in something else than her usual blank neutrality. Like that, she shines just as bright as her namesake suggests.
I want to see that sight for the rest of my life.
His world halts for a moment as he processes that single thought.
Oh.
III.
“You know I can pay myself…”
She stares at him, eyebrows furrowed. He only smiles in response.
“You’re a traveler,” he points out as he tries to change the way he holds the chopsticks, “you need all the mora you can get.”
It’s rather amusing to see him fail so much but slowly she’s feeling a little bit of pity towards him. He never eats much due to the chopsticks and he’s stopped asking for a fork and knife because Xiangling doesn’t listen to him anymore.
“You gotta figure it out. You’ve been here for months.”
That’s fine and all but he fights so much and she doesn’t know if he eats enough because technically that’s supposed to be his dinner as well.
“Plus really, if I pay for dinner, you might be inclined to finally rent a room at an inn instead of sleeping out in the wild next to hilichurls and geovishaps.”
Lumine scoffs at him but shakes her head. “Camping out has been working well for me so far.”
“Yeah,” he mutters, “so far—what when it doesn’t work out anymore?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “I’ll deal with it then.”
Tartaglia frowns at that. He may be reckless but even he knows that preplanning saves one a lot of trouble. He has his own, “I’ll deal with it then” moments but they are rare—he likes the thrill of fighting but he knows how to do his job correctly. Well, usually. The whole thing with the Gnosis still rests bittersweet in a corner of his mind.
She should be more careful.
Anything could happen out there—anyone could stumble upon her slumbering in the midst of nowhere.
“That doesn’t mean you should let it get to that point,” he mumbles, sighing dejectedly as he drops the piece of meat once again. Damn chopsticks. He hasn’t even started on his meal and Paimon’s consumed five plates already. He needs to up his game but—
“—Tartaglia.”
He looks up and is met with the piece of meat he’s been trying to get the half-past hour. Lumine is holding out to him, staring intently at him.
“You need to eat.”
He wants to scoff. To respond back and say, And you need to be more careful with your living situation.
But such gestures from her are few and far between coming from her. The traveler’s never been one for public displays of affection. Not because she’s shy. She’s just simply not used to that gnawing attention she receives whenever she’s a bit touchy or too kind or too lovely—
So, really, he’s not going to pass this up. She continues to feed him like that and he continues to let himself be fed by her.
“Seriously, will you two stop acting like a married couple?” Paimon huffs at them. “It’s ruining the taste of the food.
Lumine sighs before muttering something back at Paimon, clearly some kind of warning, because the little pixie gulps in obvious fear. Tartaglia doesn’t register that.
He’s too stuck at that moment, repeating the words of said pixie. They were meant as a jab.
“Seriously, will you two stop acting like a married couple?”
They were meant as a jab, he repeats to himself.
“... like a married couple?”
Married couple.
But Archons, do they feel right.
IV.
She’s injured—nothing too bad but it’s an ugly wound blighting her skin. He stares down at it as he cleans it out with water and an ointment. Then he wraps it with gauze, finally hiding it from his sight. She doesn’t flinch once as he takes care of the wound.
Didn’t flinch either when she got the damn laceration. It’s full of foul coloring like green mixed with purple and yellow undertones. He hates it. It’s not caused by him. He’d wound her for sure, but he’d make sure it’s not something that would mar her skin like that if he can avoid it.
(Peeking up the dress on her open back, he sees the faint markings of what’s definitely a scar, spreading further down, hidden by white. He wonders how the whole thing looks. He knows he’s—his anger is—the reason it’s there.)
So, with all his care, he makes sure not to cause such wounds. But each time she tells him they are equals—if he enjoys the scars given by her, she, too, in return, will cherish the ones given by him. He feels excitement build up in him each time she says those words.
But then he remembers the scar on her back that she’s never shown him. And she has shown him other scars of hers.
But to have someone else than him scar her?
Not acceptable.
The fool who tried is no nothing more but food for the ones living in the wilderness. Tartaglia smiles at that thought. How nice.
Then he recalls how she got into this situation in the first place.
“You,” he tells her, “I’ve warned you.”
She only stares at him, saying nothing else. She’s stubborn like that.
The harbinger sighs and then he makes a decision. He refrained from doing so out of respect for her independence. But that’s the last straw.
“I’m buying you an apartment,” he tells her.
Alarmed, she moves, jolting the leg where the wound resides, and then bites her lip for a moment to dull the pain. He narrows his eyes at her.
“I won’t listen to anything you have to say—I’ve warned you of exactly this situation countless times, Lumine. You’re not getting out of it now.”
Then he stares directly into her eyes.
“And I’ll make sure you use that damn apartment.”
She still tries to protest, but in the end, she loses. Paimon rejoices at the prospect of an apartment, a space to live in. Tartaglia stops by enough at random times for a check-up or to hang out, so she cannot even device him.
After a few weeks, he even drags her through the stalls, searching for stuff she could place in it.
“It’s still so empty, girlie. Come on, you live there. It gotta have personality!”
As she stares at different tableware, Tartaglia blinks at the comment of the store owner.
“Ah, young newlyweds. How adorable!”
Traveler does hear but doesn’t acknowledge the lady, continuing to look at the tableware.
Tartaglia?
He stares at the traveler’s back and then nods at the lady.
That’s how they must look like, in that very moment, to the rest of the world.
V.
He doesn’t remember when nor does know why. Their relationship naturally just progressed into this.
He holds her waist tightly, making sure she can’t escape from her seat on his lap. Not that she would, she’s barely moving, letting him hold and shift her around how he wants and as much as he wants to. They are sitting in a bathtub, warm filled with bubbles and foam. A very comfortable atmosphere.
By all means, such situations lead to sexual activity usually. Whilst he definitely appreciates and cherishes being able to see her body, bare and in all its glory for the first time, unable to refrain himself from simple acts like stroking her thighs or nipping at her ear a few times, right now something else occupies his attention.
Her back is turned towards him.
With the scar on full view. As if caught in a trance, he leans down and pays the scar all his attention, kissing it down its whole length, taking his time with every single peck on it. She shudders at the sensation. Once he’s done, he closes his eyes and rests his forehead against her back.
He can tell she’s caught in a daze by her slow reactions and scare replies.
That’s why he mutters it against her back.
“I’d like for you to be part of my family one day.”
Then he chuckles.
“What am I muttering?” He sighs against her back, “You already are, Lumine.”
VI.
They battle and battle and clash and taunt each other. He knows he’s smitten beyond help.
How could he not be?
As she dodges his attacks and then moves gracefully to try to cut him down, he feels more and more in love. She’s fierce. She’s strong.
And she seems so ethereal, colored in white and red.
Tartaglia loves her, wants to see her wear the traditional Snezhnayan wedding gown as she descends down to strike her with her sharp sword or kiss him with her soft lips.
(Granted, it might be a tiny bit difficult to fight in a Snezhnayan gown but she’d manage, the strong warrior she is.)
And one day he’ll properly tell her that but for now, he’s content to have her like that.
At the end of the battle, he lies once again defeated, the point of her sword at his neck. He’s grinning. Of course, he is, but then—
She summons her sword away and kneels down in front of him, reaching out to hold one of his hands, thumb gently brushing over his fingers. Then she looks directly at him, her eyes gleaming like molten gold.
“I’d like to be part of your family, Tartaglia.”
His eyes widen and he’s sure his cheeks are reddening at the moment.
Oh. She beat him to it.
Chuckling he interweaves their fingers and thugs her down into his lap before embracing her happily.
Ah. Really, he’s so glad she’s part of his life.
“You already are,” he mutters, “you’re family, Lumine.”