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Tartaglia had drawn them a thousand times.
So many times that Mona paid him to stop going to her with new maps and diagrams of ways the two constellations- his and Lumine's -could connect. Hundreds, thousands of different angles, sizes, and fixed distances just to try and try, ultimately failing every one of those hundreds of thousands of times. Had Mona moved to Mondstadt, far away from the lovestruck harbinger, just to escape his pleas of longing? His answer was yes; it didn't matter to him. This was his challenge (one he'd studied quite a several books for) and there was no challenge that he couldn't beat the living daylight out of.
Except for goddamn Lumine. So stubborn, so strong, so perfect.
Yet so far away.
"I pity you," Mona had said to him on their last session, glancing over his countless attempts. It was an absolute miracle that he hadn't descended into insanity yet. "You know very well I have the power to lead you to your actual soulmate, and yet you chase after a mismatch."
She wasn't wrong, and it made Tartaglia's battle thirst become suddenly unsatiated. As an astrologist, Mona was quite popular with the locals of Liyue for one simple service- soulmate searching. Though she expressed boredom during every single session (though Tartaglia wondered if that was just for his), it brought a fair amount of mora, and so it was her most advertised service. That was how he found out that the freckles on his face weren't just there for show- they were half of the small water serpent constellation, Hydrus. As much as he bribed Mona- believe it or not -he had to find out Lumine's constellation for himself.
Mona knew they weren't meant to be from the beginning.
"I don't want to find the match," He snapped back, putting air quotes over the word 'match'. It was no wonder that Mona was drumming her fingers on the table like her patience was quickly eroding away. "Not if the match isn't her."
The matter wasn't negotiable to him. There was no reason for him to chase after the other half of the water serpent if utter perfection was right in front of him. Whatever the gods wanted for him was simply incorrect; if they were right, he would've found his actual half long, long ago.
He was glad he hadn't.
Mona rolled her eyes, nothing new to him. She always did after he said something so dedicated yet so stupid in her eyes. "She's not. I don't know in how many languages I have to tell you that. I've already tried Snezhnayan."
"Terrible pronunciation, by the way." His eyes narrowed, not at all compatible with his forced grin. She just scoffed. "So what if your predictions are wrong?"
He knew he'd crossed a line; it was far from the first, so he let his grin evolve into a smirk. The only reason she'd listened to him for so long was his bottomless bag of the land's currency, but there were only so many times she'd let herself be put down by a harbinger of all people. The emotion was obvious in her eyes.
She inhaled sharply and slammed the table when she stood up with her exhale, her eyes as narrow as his. "Your little lovesickness is no problem of mine."
Part of her job was shattering hearts.
The soulmate system was viewed to be as concrete as the contracts forged by Rex Lapis himself, but it didn't prevent the lamentable cases in which an established relationship wasn't written in the stars. Some took this well, others yelled and cried out to Celestia herself as they were ushered out of their session; Tartaglia didn't expect Mona to remember any of those cases- they were just business, after all.
He knew none of them had been as pressing and incredibly annoying as he was.
"She's not the wrong person," He emphasised every word, getting on his feet and towering over her- hat and all. "You have to be wrong."
A bag of mora jingled onto the table before she crossed her arms; it was the same bag of mora that he'd given her upon entry. "Leave. I've got a line waiting, and I don't have time for your useless insults."
"Fine."
Tartaglia didn't even pick up the stack of star maps he'd left her- all of them meaningless.
Hopeless.
Lumine had no reason to trust him.
Yet she did, like the painfully gentle soul that she was beneath the layers of toughness. He had proved to her, time and time again, that he didn't deserve to see behind those walls that she put up, that she didn't deserve her- but she trusted him regardless. His attempt to destroy Liyue Harbour destroyed this trust; he quickly regained it when they found out they shared the same love for their kin. After her countless lectures, they grew even closer; asking himself why was futile. It was already too late for his poor heart, who had swan dived into love for the traveller.
She had no reason to trust him, but he would never give that trust away.
Tartaglia- no, Ajax -was thrilled when he finally deciphered her constellation (this being the reason why he went to Mona a second time. Then a third, then a fourth...). Well, she'd just told him after he annoyed her to tears, but he still gave himself the credit for getting the truth out of her.
"It's the northern crown, apparently," She huffed as she showed him the mark on her left shoulder; it was beautiful in every way. "Though I'm not sure why I have one since I'm not from here...It doesn't matter to me either way."
And that was incredibly lucky because it meant that she wouldn't go looking for anyone else.
She would only find him.
"What's yours?" She suddenly asked, not catching the heat rising to his face.
"I haven't thought much of it," He shrugged, ignoring the number of beats his heart skipped when she pouted. "But you'll be the first to know."
"I better be!"
Even in Snezhnaya, where the starry sky is glazed over with snow-white clouds which reflect the ground, they were raised on the tales of lovers written in the stars. Countless children's stories were composed with this ideal, and so every child in Teyvat would follow it. Lumine, however, was not from Teyvat, and so the mark was as much of a mystery as her mastery over the land's elements. Even so, she became accustomed to it immediately, though there was one detail that she and the children were blissfully unaware of—this was no red string of fate, no arrow leading straight towards your soulmate. It's a lifelong search; an endless journey; an infinite feeling of wonder. It's something so amazing for many—the fortunate few who find their rightful star. Then there were those like Tartaglia.
Those who were blinded by an otherworldly star.
Nobody ever warns you of your heart's misalignment with your mark; the heart follows what it wants even if the archons and Celestia have written otherwise. Nobody ever warns you that you may step out of your predetermined script, forgetting your lines and falling headfirst for the wrong stars.
Nobody shields your fragile heart from shattering into pieces under the weight of the contractual soulmate connection.
But he was fine with it.
He was never one to follow stated customs and things that were just 'a given' either way. So what if the love of his life didn't complete his stars?
(Yes, he may have been exaggerating, but it made no difference. Lumine was Lumine; nobody out there was better. Of course, the best for him was from another world entirely. Their paths weren't supposed to cross, and yet he was infatuated. Go figure.)
With countless hours spent studying and mapping the twinkling glitter of the sky, he almost knew the celestial map better than Teyvat's, and almost as well as Snezhnaya's. Very often, he found himself on the peak of one of the tall rock formations dangerously close to the sacred soils of Juyeun Karst. Tartaglia, unmasked and with the company of a lonely Seelie court, studied the stars every night since he fell into the amber of her eyes. It had now solidified around him, and there was no way out.
He wouldn't have it any other way.
On a night like those, he traversed the forest of mountains through the bridges between them, soon high above the sea of clouds and below the ocean of stars. As always, after resting on his back at his usual peak, he immediately identified the water serpent, oh-so far away from the beautiful northern crown that Lumine was. He'd swim across the worlds between them just to reach her, to hold her just once-
A blue light gently covered the peak.
"Oh! Hey, buddy." He'd almost forgotten about the empty Seelie court right behind him—he had contemplated finding its homeowner, but he never found himself with enough time. "Who brought you here?"
"I swear, this thing better give me something good-" A sweet, sweet voice grunted as they collapsed on the peak, panting when they finally lay on their stomach. When the blue spirit's treasure appeared, they sighed in relief. "Thanks, little guy."
"Hey, pretty girl." Lumine squealed in response to his words, immediately jumping to her feet and wiping the dirt off her dress. "What're you doing out here so late? It's dangerous, you know."
She scoffed as she sat beside him, prompting him to support himself on his palms. Her legs dangled off the edge with ease, and he couldn't quite ignore the sudden protectiveness he felt. "I can handle myself!"
"I know," He chuckled, his eyes on the stars again. If he looked at the way the Seelie's turquoise light painted her eyes a lagoon green, the urge to kiss her again might've won. Yes, again. "You should still have someone to protect you. Not even your little floating buddy is here!"
She raised her eyebrows at him. "Do I need to beat your ass again?"
"I wouldn't mind, girlie."
Yes, he'd kissed her before, in one of Liyue's many bridges in the dead of night, where they were sure there'd be no witnesses and weren't ashamed to let their hearts out to play. Yes, he missed the feeling of their lips colliding in perfect harmony. Yes, they agreed to never speak about it again and that it had meant nothing. It was a promise that he kept with ease (save for the latter point; he could convince her otherwise), and he thought that Lumine would have no difficulty with it either. Thought.
But the walls have ears.
"So you felt something?!" Paimon whisper-yelled at her travel partner, arms wailing around audibly. "For the harbinger ?!"
"Yes!" He could overhear her facepalm at Paimon's desperation. "But be quiet! There's nothing else to discuss, okay?"
"Okay!" Tartaglia had to hold back a chuckle, wanting anything but to be overheard. "...but Paimon thinks you should get a better taste in guys."
"Paimon!"
He smiled for no reason that day without stopping. She would be his northern crown, ruling the world at his side. His princess, the one he'd hold loyalty to forever. Even right then, as they laughed together at his compliance to fight her, the stars crowned her locks of hair perfectly, as though it was meant to be—in some other, scrapped script.
"So…" She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, looking at him with shimmering eyes. "You never did make me the 'first to know' about your constellation. It's only fair that you tell me."
When he hesitated—for good reason—she huffed and began to poke his shoulder, getting more and more fierce the longer he stayed silent (aside from his complaints).
Archons damn her cute obliviousness.
"It's uh- hey, I'm telling you, so you can stop poking now!" Lumine beamed at him with such innocence that he couldn't stay mad, even if her poking didn't cease. "Fine- it's half of the water serpent."
Her face stopped glowing and her hand froze, her eyes suddenly wide. He bit his tongue for ever making her smile disappear. "Half?" She asked after a moment of silence, as though she was waiting for…something.
"Half."
"Oh."
The world had put them on opposite sides from the moment they met, and neither party had a problem with it. Even if there was clearly something between them, neither of them had gone to Liyue to look for love or anything of the sort- Lumine just stole his heart, piece by piece, until she'd taken enough for him to notice. Whether it was love or fear of solitude, some force pulled the two together- at least Ajax felt that way.
(Ajax, not Tartaglia. Tartaglia only concerned himself with conquering the challenge of bending the stars to his will. Ajax was the one that felt the longing for Lumine.)
"Not like it even matters, right?" His grin remained on his face as if the matter of destiny was nothing but an inconvenience to him. And to him, Tartaglia, inconveniences were but a spec of dust on the perfectly clear image of his desired future
Lumine shrugged, placing her chin on her knees. She neither agreed nor disagreed. "I didn't start a journey across Teyvat to find a soulmate."
He needed an answer so that they could write themselves into the sky. "Right, but it would help to have someone."
"Would it?" Lumine was still indifferent, though something was hidden deep in her eyes. "I can't exactly spend energy looking for one more person."
Something in his head clicked, and his care for their different sides completely dissipated. "I'm right here, pretty girl."
She only froze momentarily before snorting and giggling, unable to stop once he joined in half-heartedly. His eyes found the stars again, and Lumine looked at him curiously.
His northern star.
"I'm not kidding." He only looked back at her when he nudged her, but she didn't budge. It was as though she'd become as solid as Mountain Shaper's amber.
She blinked before responding. "You're- you're not?" She stuttered, the Seelie's light making her blush barely visible. Archons damn her cute obliviousness, again. "But-"
"I'm not." Though her response caused nervousness to flow through his veins, his grin never faltered.
She was silent for some time, letting the river of stars glimmer in her eyes. If she wasn't literally from another world, that would be the most beautifully metaphorical way to describe her. Lumine was reflecting; he could almost see the thoughts and memories flicking through her eyes like a photobook. After a long silence, she finally speaks "Even the celestial map places us far apart."
Her hand found his. Neither of them complained. "I know."
"So we're not supposed to feel anything for each other." Her hand tightened and betrayed her words. The warmth between the two of them was anything but void of feelings; Tartaglia couldn't help but smirk ever so slightly.
He shuffled closer, careful not to let the urge to hold her win. "I know. But who cares about what we're supposed to do?"
She rolled her eyes, getting closer to him. They were shoulder to shoulder now. "Of course you'd say that."
"You know me so well."
Despite how far away the gods placed them, the two of them subconsciously fought their way back to the other. Even now, as their arms found their way around each other (Lumine blamed it on the cold as if Tartaglia would believe her), they had swum across worlds to hold the other even just once. Just once, and this was it.
Ajax would fight for more.
"This isn't supposed to happen," Lumine muttered into his chest, snuggling up to him as if she could get any closer.
He held her like he'd hold the most fragile, invaluable thing in all the worlds. "And you're not stopping it."
She scoffed, knowing he was absolutely right. "Neither are you."
"I never said I wanted to."
So they leave off where they started, nothing having advanced or gone back any steps. His feelings grew, and he was aware that hers did too, but perhaps he could wait until some other time to show it. After all, they'd be fighting on opposite sides for quite some time- he wasn't complaining. Any opportunity to fight the only person that had bested him in battle was one that would never be rejected. If it pushed them further apart, he wouldn't care- he'd just swim to her all over again. Through the sea of clouds or stars, he'd swim forever just to reach his northern crown.
Tartaglia would redraw their stars a thousand times.