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Teyvat sun beat heavily down on her, warming her skin to an almost unbearable degree as she trudged up the hillside, long grass brushing her calves. She was taking care of a few commissions for the traveler, a hefty reward promised for her troubles.
Hopefully part of this reward would include being treated to sticky honey roast. Mona’s stomach rumbled just at the thought.
She finally reached the summit, scanning the area, eyes sweeping under her wide-brimmed hat. Somewhere around here was a hilichurl camp in severe need of clearing out. Thankfully, the camp didn’t have a Hydro abyss-mage, so it was the little things, she supposed.
Sweat was seeping into her tights, leaving an uncomfortable feeling on her skin as she moved. Mona spun in a circle looking for it, before her eyes narrowed in on it.
A small camp, only consisting of four hilichurls, only one with a crossbow, and one mitachurl wielding a large ax. All five of them sat around a campfire, content for all the world. Mona almost felt a little bad that she would be killing them, but they were too close to the road and hilichurls were volatile.
Random travelers would not be able to hold their own against them properly.
She was about to go towards it, considering ambushing them instead of waltzing straight into the center, when something half-buried in the dry ground caught her eyes. It was a simple cracked stone tablet, but she couldn’t resist stopping.
Instinct and ever-hungry curiosity brought her to using her vision to wipe the dust and dirt away from it, somewhat unearthing it from the ground. Mona had just squatted down to take an actual look at the words etched on it when a shift behind her made the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight.
She spun around, catalyst raised, thinking a hilichurl from the camp must have spotted her and somehow snuck up on her, when a laugh made her pause.
“Sorry to startle you,” the unfamiliar man laughed lightly again. At least he wasn’t lying, the stars told her. His intentions seemed muddled though, unable to get a proper grasp on them, but certainly reeking of danger. “You’re one of the traveler's friends, aren’t you?”
So he knew the traveler? Interesting, she couldn’t recall them mentioning such a company.
She neither put her weapon away, nor answered him as she scanned him, mentally cataloging his looks.
Red hair, gray uniform, hydro vision…her eyes widened as they fell on abyss-stars like the ones adorned on her, as well as the Fatui symbols displayed on him, instantly flicking to the mask on his head.
“Fatui Harbinger,” Mona half-breathed half-hissed at him, raising her catalyst higher. The air felt tenser the longer the Harbinger smiled at her.
“Fantastic observational skills, what gave it away?” He said easily, looking for all the world as if he was looking for a fight. The stars told her he was. Always looking for one, that is.
“Don’t mock me,” she snapped back at him, preparing for a fight. She wasn’t sure she could win, but she would still try. The idea of it…nevermind, she didn’t want to dwell on the outcome. She didn’t even open her ears for the stars to tell her the outcome, it was obvious.
He eyed her catalyst almost excitedly, predatory. It was a stark contrast to his amicable posture and grin.
“Sorry,” he said again, not sounding particularly sorry at all. Even Kaeya sounded more sincere at times, even if he was lying. “The name’s Childe,” he continued on.
Mona wasn’t able to suppress the scoff that fell past her lips. “Child?”
Childe shook his head as if it was something he got quite a lot. “With an ‘e.’”
She gave him a critical look, a deserving one. He was partially lying–she would be surprised if someone truly named their son something like ‘Childe.’ A code-name then. Mona wanted to run, he was practically breathing hardly subdued danger, but she had an obligation to the traveler and he didn’t look like he was leaving anytime soon.
“...Mona,” she settled on saying.
“Mona, that’s a nice name. Fontainean, yes?” Childe remarked. Mona didn’t answer him, catalyst still raised. “Definitely a friend of the traveler.” His eyes dropped to the stars adorning her, but he didn’t comment on them.
What was that supposed to mean? The stars gave her radio silence.
“What do you want,” Mona demanded, uneasy how he seemed to be familiar with her, her origins even. Childe shrugged noncommittally.
“Just running some recon.” He peered around her, and Mona moved to block his sight from the stone, but she was too late, his eyes falling on the stone tablet. “What’s that?” He stepped closer before she could get words out, easily stepping around her.
Almost as soon as he leaned down to peer at it, the ground underneath them shifted. Mona stumbled back as a crack appeared under her feet, swallowing down a noise of panic. She was sure Childe heard it.
Subsequently, the ground split further and swallowed her down too, leaving them tumbling into darkness.
Panic gripped her as she lost her footing in the darkness, the light already gone the moment she saw the dark.
“Fucking again?” She heard Childe mutter somewhere to her right, but she couldn’t even begin to understand what he meant as they plummeted.
She tried to summon an orb of water with her vision to slow her fall, something she had skimmed over in a book from Fontaine, tucked away in her master's personal library. To her rising panic, nothing happened. Her vision didn’t even glow with use.
A moment later she hit the ground. Hard. She hadn’t even seen it coming, it materialized in the darkness. Childe wasn’t in a better shape, judging by the quiet “oof.”
Mona sat in a daze for a moment, taking in her surroundings. It wasn’t dark anymore, leaving them in a dimly lit room with walls of graying stone, and a stone tablet in the middle of the room.
She raised her eyes to the ceiling, and to her sinking horror, it was very far away. To make matters worse, she was down here with a Fatui Harbinger.
One she couldn’t see in front of her.
She stood up quickly, hackles raised with a snarl, only to find Childe standing a bit away, moving his arms and wrists as if checking them, eyes roaming the room. He scanned his eyes across her too, as if looking for something.
Mona self-consciously folded her arms across her chest, arm aching as she moved. Whatever Childe was looking for was seemingly answered by that movement as he nodded and walked around her, towards the stone tablet with an expression she couldn’t quite place.
The stars weren’t any help either, frustratingly silent.
She was still without a working vision, something she wouldn’t voice in front of the likes of a Fatui member, a Harbinger no less.
Mona, still sore, didn’t move closer, instead watching Childe’s back as he kneeled down. He knelt there for a minute before speaking blankly, a contrast to his demeanor minutes prior.
“You didn’t get us sent down here on purpose, did you?”
Mona blanched at his sheer audacity, lips tugging into a scowl. Why in Barbatos name would she want to be sent down to this nasty place with him of all people? “Of course, what are you even saying?”
Childe sighed and tilted his head towards the stone, not saying anything else.
Curiosity got the better of her, as it always did, itching under her skin, so she forced herself over on aching legs, keenly aware of just who she was so close to.
The Harbinger turned slightly so she could get a better look.
Glittering gems and open skies
Solid below and solid above
A place the gods could never find
Two different and one combine
Embraces of passion reveal the ground
Mona stared dumbfounded at the tablet, heat rising to her face. She’d run into dozens of puzzles but this? This was ridiculous.
“We’re in the abyss, and we have to kiss,” Mona felt her stomach drop as the reality of the situation sunk in.
She was trapped underground, in the abyss which also meant her astronomy wouldn’t work properly, the traveler only had a vague idea of where she was, her vision wasn’t working, and she’s stuck with a Fatui Harbinger.
Barbatos was laughing at her, she was sure of it. All the Archons of Celestia, even.
Childe didn’t answer, instead brushing the tablet with his hand, dusting off a second section of the riddle Mona cursed herself for not noticing.
She paled as she read it over. In the simplest terms, they didn’t have working visions down here. No further explanation given. The heat felt even more unbearable.
Never in her travels had she seen anything like this. Childes furrowed brows might’ve said the same thing for him, but Mona was having trouble reading him at all really.
After a few more seconds, Childe stood up and glanced at the ceiling with a resigned expression painted on his face. “Alright, looks like there’s only one way out.”
Mona shook her head feverishly and took a step away from him. This was absolutely not how her day was supposed to go. It was just going to be a simple favor for the traveler, not… this .
“No, absolutely not.” The ground felt like it was spinning and it was so oppressively hot. Her legs felt like they were about to give out. She suddenly felt much more vulnerable, not able to peer into the essence of life itself.
“...Are you alright?” Childe asked hesitantly, tilting his head.
His voice made Mona breathe. She wasn’t about to have a breakdown in front of Fatui scum. She took a deep breath. “I’m fine.”
“Great,” Childe said brightly. “I want to leave.”
Mona glared at him. “There has to be another way out.”
He stared at her for a second before smiling again. “I’m afraid there’s a puzzle like this in Snezhnaya that I’ve been lucky enough to see, and there most certainly is not.
She stuck her nose in the air, trying to quell the rising worry in her throat. “This isn’t your icy wasteland, I’m sure it’s different here.”
Childe gave her an affronted look. “Icy wasteland? That’s pretty harsh, I could call your nation a bunch of drunkards abandoned by your archon but I don’t. And besides,” he sent a critical (worried? Nervous? She couldn’t tell. She hated not being able to tell) look at the walls.
“I don’t want to stick around and see what abyssal creatures decide to show up.”
Mona didn’t answer him, only giving him a look that hopefully displayed her utter loathing for him and the situation. She was sure a Harbinger of all people would be able to hold their own.
He didn’t even flinch.
“Don’t you want to get out? Above ground?” Childe tried to reason, but Mona refused to have any of it.
“Yes,” Mona spat at him. “Why would I want to be stuck here with you?”
“Alright, then what’s the problem? It’s not like we have to have gratuitous sex on the rock.”
Mona cringed at the very idea. “Shut up! Must you be so crude!” She crossed her arms and pinched the edges of her bodysuit. “You Fatui don’t travel alone, when will your squads come looking for you?”
Childe looked back up at the ceiling in thought. “Two hours, give or take, probably four by the time they find this place and it tumbles in a handful of soldiers.” He slid his eyes over to her, and Mona realized with a start how blank they were.
Have they been like that the whole time?
“I don’t know if you could last that long.”
Mona’s blood went cold at the unsubtle threat.
“I’d like to see you try,” she spat at him, quelling the worry bubbling up. A Harbinger would be able to take on virtually anyone and win, but a scholar? It’d be like fighting a small slime for him.
“Maybe later, I don’t want this place to fall on me,” Childe responded. Mona wasn’t sure if she liked that look on him–a promise of a fight.
“Four hours is nothing,” Mona said primly, changing the topic. “I can wait.”
“Sure, it’s such a short amount of time,” Childe shook his head at her. “You’re just at peace being stuck underground? With Tsarista knows what waiting to appear?”
“That’s none of your business, Harbinger.”
“You know,” Childe shrugged at her, “we’d be out of here very fast if you sucked it up.”
Mona made a face, the very idea of what he was implying made her insides shift. In a bad way. “I would much rather eat my own arms, Harbinger,” she sniffed.
Maybe she shouldn’t have said that…She was rather hungry again.
“I have a name,” Childe, infuriatingly, rolled his eyes at her. “And suit yourself.”
She huffed at him and sank down to the floor, refusing to turn her back on a Harbinger. Her stomach rumbled again.
Mona tracked his movements as he made a steady lap around the room, tapping on the walls with a knife he pulled from his boot, peering at cracks in the walls, and eventually walking back to the stone tablet to read it again.
Perhaps she should have done the same thing too, but she didn’t want to be any closer to him, or risk losing sight of him. He said he’d seen something like this before, and even without the star's help, she was sure he wasn’t lying.
Finally he just shook his head and sat down on the other side of the room on the floor.
Mona leaned back against the wall a little, not exactly content but willing to wait for help. Unfortunately, that meant being alone with a Fatui harbinger. One that Mona learned very very quickly never stopped talking.
Most of what he said was completely irrelevant and mindless chatter, and utterly infuriating after 15 minutes. The heat wasn’t helping.
It almost felt hotter under (was the abyss under or above?) the ground. Maybe it was. The abyss worked strangely like that.
“-and the next twenty minutes I had to sit in a swamp, a depressing experience–I hate gathering intel you have no idea. They finally left to the ambush, can’t tell you about that, Fatui secrets and all, and I stood up, absolutely drenched. Thankfully I have a Hydro vision so I didn’t have to face the other harbingers with weeds in my hair and my clothing carrying three times my weight in water. Humbling.”
Mona sighed deeply and pulled her hat down so she wouldn’t have to even look at him. Unfortunately, he kept talking.
“-Signora almost froze me. I would never have guessed she’d team up with Dottore, the man she complains about at dinner, to get back at me for a petty prank. Terrifying team. Have you ever been chased by a bloodthirsty woman shooting spikes at you and a man who wants to dissect everything he sees? I still have the scars on my arms.”
“-all the time. Have you ever tried ice fishing? I guess you’d have to head up to Dragonspine to find ice. Anyways, I head up there from time to time when I miss Snezhnaya, but it’s not nearly as cold on that mountain.”
“-see and in Liyue, it was sweltering there. Thanks to the Tsaritsa I’m a harbinger so I get much more leeway than the general soldiers with what I wear. This heat almost reminds me of a particular day in my stay in Liyue, I think it was the day before the Lantern Rite.”
From under the brim of her hat, she saw Childe glance at her, eyes much more calculating and thoughtful than his carefree annoying personality. She looked away when he saw her watching.
“You’re into space stuff I’ve heard,” Childe continued breezily. “The traveler has mentioned your astrology column before.”
This caught her attention, and she snapped her head up quickly, eyes searching and curious. “They did?”
Childe tilted his head a little before responding, exposing his neck. “Sure did, very enthusiastic about it. It’s interesting stuff, you really should tell me about it.”
Mona felt her face going red at the idea of the traveler talking about her, belatedly wondering what all they’ve said about her. Pride overtook the thoughts though, but that was quickly replaced with suspicion.
“I thought you Fatui mongers didn’t believe in the stars,” she accused.
Childe blinked idly at her, before he split into a lazy grin. “Scaramouche didn’t mention he’s met you. He’s an odd one,” he nodded. “This place is oddly hot,” he tacked on, mindlessly unbuttoning the top of his shirt.
Mona averted her eyes. He was right though; her skin felt like it was broiling. If she lifted up her gloves, she was sure she’d be red.
“I’m not used to this heat, anything warmer than Snezhnayan summer makes me feel like I’m melting,” Childe kept talking, unlooping his scarf from around his neck and casually laying it on the ground.
Listening to him talk about the heat made her feel so much hotter. The lack of water wasn’t helping.
There wasn’t much of her outfit she could take off though, not that would leave her bare anyways. She decided to slip off her two piece gloves, peeling them away from her sticky skin.
Gross.
To her relief, they were not lobster-red like she was half-sure they were. But by the Archons were they sweaty.
Mona didn’t look up but she could feel Childes’ eyes on her. “Stop looking at me,” she snapped at him, and all she got was a hum in response before Childe opened his fucking mouth again.
“I really am melting in here, aren’t you hot?” He popped another button on his shirt and pulled his gloves off with his teeth. Mona wrinkled her nose at him. Absolutely no shame.
Did they not teach common decency in the Fatui den?
He was making her feel hotter though. After a moment's deliberation she took her hat off and dropped it next to her on the floor. Her hair still felt too hot though.
She cast another glance at Childe, curious about the blissful lull in his chatter. He was side-eyeing her as well, neck completely exposed, and head tilted down.
The disgusting thought that he looked a little, Barbatos forbid, pretty, crossed her mind. She forced her eyes down again. “See something you like,” Childe called at her.
“No,” Mona responded primly, heat crawling up her neck at the feeling of Childes eyes still on her. “Put your clothes back on.”
She heard him scoff. “That’s like asking for me to die. At least tell me that properly.” Mona didn’t deem him worthy of a response, instead closing her eyes and praying to whatever Archon in the area that was listening to either let her out or sew his mouth shut.
The gods couldn’t hear you in the abyss, so perhaps that was why he wasn’t able to refrain from his chatter.
Childe decided to drop it and went on to a different topic. He must have a lot of experience talking to walls, Mona thought bitterly as he carried on a one sided conversation.
“-that was in Inazuma. I don’t think the women there had seen a foreigner in ages with the way they were throwing themselves at me. Anyways, as I was saying, fifteen of those little geovishap things are coming at me.”
Mona set her head on her knees, intent on tuning him out for once and for all. It hadn’t worked the past two times, but the third time's hopefully a charm.
Another thirty minutes had to have passed, and it wasn’t working in the slightest. She had half a mind to physically fight him into silence, but with the way he spoke, he might actually enjoy it.
Absolutely revolting.
“Your eyes are really pretty,” Childe said suddenly. “They remind me of glittering ice,” he hummed casually, as if what he was saying wasn’t absolutely mortifying. He continued on with the same amount of shame he’d exhibited earlier, that being none.
“Your hair too, it looks so smooth and shiny. You wouldn’t happen to be part Inazuman, would you? Doesn’t matter actually. Mind giving me some tips? I love my country but that blistering wind is not good for your hair, Tsarista forbid.”
Childe had seemed to change his line of blabbering, instead showering her with a string of compliments, both direct and offhanded. Mona couldn’t decide if she liked it or not, and the rolling in her stomach ranged anywhere from giddy excitement to hatred.
Deciding on naming it the latter, she narrowed her eyes at him. She had absolutely had enough of his prattle. “Are you incapable of keeping your mouth shut?” Mona hissed at him, turning to face him with a glare, her face tinged slightly pink.
She blamed that on the heat.
Childe raised an eyebrow at her, still maintaining his stupid cocky smirk. “What, can't you take a compliment?” He stretched his arms above his head, his shirt raising with the movement. “Of course I can,” he continued on, “but if you want me to shut up so badly, you should shut me up yourself or figure out a way to leave.”
Mona blinked at him before the implications of what he was saying and how he was acting hit her.
He was trying to get her to kiss him.
Of course, he could also be looking for a fight, but that wouldn’t help him leave.
She blanched and turned her face away.
Mona didn’t pin him as the strategist type, although she should have guessed that a Fatui harbinger would have brains. He didn’t act like he did though, so it was an honest mistake. His actions could have easily passed as an annoying personality than someone deliberating his next words.
“Absolutely not,” Mona repeated her words from earlier, voice embarrassingly a little off-kilter. “Have you no shame, none at all?”
Childe didn’t drop his smile, but now that Mona knew what she was looking for, it looked a little fake. His eyes still looked dead though, so maybe he wasn’t the best at acting. But maybe he was, he’d been leading her along after all.
Dead eyes were something one could miss and only think something was just slightly off.
“Don’t look at me like that, I know what you’re doing,” she said much more confidently than she felt. It was just dawning on her that Childe was trying to make her make the move, and he was starting to get annoyed.
A harbinger, with or without a working vision, had much much more power over her.
She felt so stupid.
“Doing what?” Childe frowned confusedly at her, pushing his hair out of his eyes.
Was she wrong? Was he not actually trying to manipulate her? No, no she wasn’t wrong. It was impossible. Mona tilted her chin up and narrowed her eyes at him again.
“You know exactly what you’re doing.”
Childe just sighed deeply at her, clicking his tongue, dropping the act. Mona felt a combined rush of relief and worry. “Come on, don’t you want to get out of here? It’s just a kiss. Like I said, it’s not fucking on the floor.”
Her mind briefly flashed to the actual idea of kissing the man across from her, eyebrows pinched. He was rather attractive if she thought about it, soft looking hair and–she cut off that line of thought before it could get too far.
He was right, as much as she didn’t want to admit, it was just a kiss. It’s not like the stupid stone tablet specified they had to use tongue for five minutes.
“You know what, fine.” Mona snapped at him, resolve crumbling. She wanted out so badly and she was so so hot. Being without her Vision made her uneasy too.
Another ten minutes of this might end in murder, either hers or his. “It’s just a peck on the lips,” she said more to herself than Childe.
“Exactly, glad you’re coming around,” Childe flashed her a smile, his teeth truly. “I really cannot stand being this far underground any longer.”
Mona paused. “You don’t like being underground?”
“Do you?” Childe reflected easily with an airy wave of his hand. He didn’t make any move towards her though, instead just watching her curiously.
Her mind involuntarily flicked back to her previous train of thought, pestering her with his looks. Shaking it out of her head, she looked back at him.
They were locked in a weird standstill and the air felt hot and sticky and something else Mona couldn’t properly put into words.
“Are you not going to move?” Childe spoke first, pulling his scarf back on as he spoke.
“You’re not,” Mona pointed out.
Childe shrugged in his infuriating way and stood up languidly, every move he was making towards her filled her with an uncomfortable mix of excitement and loathing.
Eventually he stopped in front of her, looking down at her with arms crossed. She could feel the heat burning around her ears, and it wasn’t just the heat of the air.
She stood up, leaving her hat and gloves on the ground, praying that this would go by as quickly as possible so she wouldn’t have to look at his fucking face or hear his grating voice.
Mona looked up at him with an overconfident look, one she liked to put on when she was feeling the opposite.
Before she could get another proper thought in, lips slotted against hers. Mona froze before realizing this was actually nice, annoying Fatui Harbinger be damned, he knew how to kiss.
Childe moved slowly, lips careful over hers. The caution made her feel a little uneasy, it was so much different than how she thought he should be. Not that she wanted the man she met a few hours ago to be overly rough with her–she’d break his hands.
Deciding that if she ignored how awful he was, this wasn’t too bad, Mona raised a hand to grasp at Childes military lapels (if she briefly wondered who else had kissed him like this, and how much blood had drenched this uniform, that was between her and her alone).
He made a surprise noise into her mouth, and she hummed back at him.
The sound of gears shifting and crunching filled the room, but Mona didn’t look and Childe, oddly, didn’t pull away either.
After another moment, Mona pulled away, lips flushed. She stared up at Childe, wiping the saliva connecting them away from her mouth. He had an awful lot of freckles now that she thought about it. Her stomach flipped again.
She flashed her eyes at the now open ceiling and new staircase, and back. “Looks like we can leave now.”
Childe followed her gaze, eyes blown slightly and face almost matching his hair. “Looks like you’re right,” he said, and Mona was almost sure he sounded a little disappointed. He stepped away from her and flashed a grin. “See you later Megistus, my squads are probably looking for me.”
He was gone in seconds, disappearing into the grass, and leaving Mona with a sick feeling as he breathed out her last name. Childe knowing it should have rang more danger bells.
She cast a glance at his abandoned gloves left on the floor and scooped them up, tucking them into her bag, slipping her own gloves back on and dropping her hat on.
She could still feel the curve of his mouth against hers as she stepped into the light of the evening sun. The air was cooler now, but still nowhere near comfortable.
Reality hit her all at once. She kissed a Fatui Harbinger, an annoying cocky manipulative battle freak. How much lower could she go?
Mona pulled her hat down in embarrassment, eyes trailing the freshly walked grass where Childe had left.
Maybe he wasn’t all that bad, as horrifying a thought it was. He practically ran away.
She’d have to ask the traveler to give his gloves back.