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“I don’t like calling you Childe.”
Lumine and the ginger Harbinger in question walked side-by-side along Yaoguang Shoal. The sun met the sea in a gentle spectacle of pink and orange, and it was warm. Her muscles ached deliciously from the spar about an hour prior. She felt at peace—like she could fall into a dreamless sleep any moment she wished.
“Then call me Tartaglia,” He offered.
“I don’t like that either,” A short breeze rustled through the leaves and her hair. “It doesn’t feel real. I want you to give me something real.”
“There’s nothing to give,” Childe told her. He kept walking and did not meet her eyes, but she found herself engrossed in his features nonetheless. Cerulean eyes: beautiful, but soulless. She had gotten lost in their murky depths more times than she’d be willing to admit. A smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose and each of his cheeks. They’re faint, so faint you wouldn’t notice them unless you were looking for them.
“The Fatui feasted on whatever scraps of realness the Abyss had left to rot.” Childe finished. “I pledged what I had to the Tsaritsa.”
“You still have your name.”
“It isn’t mine anymore.”
“Then take it back,” Lumine halted her steps. The breeze picked up again, stronger this time, and it whistled gently around them. “It’s childish to say there’s nothing real left. If there was nothing, you wouldn’t be walking here with me. The man your name belongs to still exists. I want you to show him to me.”
Childe finally met her gaze. “What if he doesn’t want to?”
“Want to what?”
“Meet you,” Childe answered. “What if he wants to stay dormant, where he can’t be hurt or hunted anymore?”
“Then I suppose,” Lumine resumed her stroll along the beach. “There is nothing real left after all.”
A moment passes. A hand catches her arm, like a thorn to fur.
She turns, and she sees him. He is real this time. She can feel it through his fingers and see it in his eyes. This isn’t Childe, nor is it Tartaglia. This is…
“Ajax,” He says. “My name is Ajax.”
…Ajax.