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“Hey, wait up!”
A slash of wind dashed across the field, cutting through a charging Hilichurl. It sunk to the ground with a gurgling cry, another behind it quickly meeting the same fate.
“Scara!”
“Catch up if you’re gonna catch up, there’s no sense in waiting.”
Another felled, the grass tensing and fluttering against the resulting impact. It really wasn’t anything impressive, and certainly nothing that Lumine herself couldn’t achieve. The speed of it though… She almost felt bad for the bumbling creatures, each one shot down before they even had a chance to defend themselves. She knew it was necessary, but there was no sense in the excessive cruelty of it all.
She managed to grab him at last as he blew a whimpering slime back into a stone wall. He barely registered her hold on his shoulder, merely huffing in irritation when she tugged him back from his pursuit. “Yes? Was there something you need?”
Irritation prickled up Lumine’s spine, and she resisted the urge to shoot back something snarky of her own. She had originally invited him along on this mission out of grace; the idea of her ‘silly community tasks’ amused him and he had wanted to witness these errands she was so willing to put up with. Or at least, that’s what he had claimed, anyway. He seemed entirely bored of it now, if his break neck pace was anything to go by.
“Look,” she said, as calmly as she could. “I appreciate your help, but don’t you think I should be responsible for at least some of the kills I was assigned?”
Scaramouche scoffed, blithely shrugging her hand off as he tossed aside yet another slime. “Please. If I were to let you do it, we could be here all day—this is much easier. Is the next task more challenging? I was hoping for a fun afternoon; I didn’t realize you just ran around fighting the wildlife.”
“Hilichurls are hardly wildlife and you know that.” She grabbed his hand as he went to kill another, fixing him with a look. “If you hate it so much, why don’t you just go home? I can do this without you anyway.”
“Trying to get rid of me?”
“Are you offering?”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, giving a tight smile. “Charming. You know, maybe if you cut the attitude, less people would be after you all the time.”
“I have the attitude?”
Instead of answering, he took the higher, more ‘noble’ route of ignoring her to instead kneel down by the chest glimmering in the center of the room. As he fiddled with the lock, a task he clearly didn’t know how to do that he really should have left to her, Lumine sighed, watching him patiently in case he decided to make any wrong moves.
Wind tousled his cape, the fabric blowing gently in the breeze to reveal the thin clothing underneath it. He looked so small from this distance, a fragile thing just like her—human. It was strange to think that someone like him could have ever posed a threat to her, let alone Mondstadt.
The wind picked up as Scaramouche cursed in frustration, his shirt billowing up to reveal the small quiver of skin on his back. Goosebumps prickled at the small of his back, most likely due to the chill.
“The lock.”
The words were so sudden that she jumped, quickly diverting her attention back to the scene at hand and hoping that he hadn’t noticed the blatant staring.
“What about it?”
“It’s not opening.”
“That does happen to be the point of them,” Lumine agreed, biting back a smile. “Are you saying that after all that talk, you can’t open a simple lock?”
Scaramouche scoffed, but that was answer enough. She gestured for him to move aside, kneeling down besides him. The lock was bulky and convoluted to an outsider maybe, but fairly simple if you had done any of these sorts of missions before. Scaramouche watched her as she worked, clearly trying to hide his interest as he observed her techniques. It was interesting, the way his face softened in the moment—no longer the smug, narcissist from before, but a curious observor.
Before, when they had been enemies of sorts, Lumine had been able to comfortably settle into that role. It was easy to hate someone when they were trying to kill you all the time. Now they were… well. Something. Friends felt too broad and inaccurate of a term for her feelings towards him.
And now there were all these moments between them, such as now, that made her wonder if friends might be an understatement as opposed to the other way around. He had obstinately remained right beside her, and she could feel his presence over her shoulder, a constant force setting her on edge and making her miss the entrance to the lock with the pick.
“Are you saying that after all that talk, you can’t open a simple lock?” Scaramouche mimicked snidely, a childish grin twitching at his face. Lumine felt her stomach clench with irritation and slight embarrassment. “I thought you were supposed to be the expert on this, after all.”
“I am.” Lumine huffed, trying to focus her attention at the task at hand. But as Scaramouche had shifted back, the folds of his shirt had slid up once more to reveal that same sliver of skin. As her gaze was diverted to the exposed vulnerability, Lumine had an idea both to get him off her back and to preform a slight attitude adjustment.
“Hold on, I think there’s a bug,” she lied, forcing a casual nonchalance as she nodded over to him. “On your back. I can grab it for you if you want.”
“What?” he seemed distracted, hastily throwing a glance over to her before turning back to the lock. “Oh, sure, whatever. Just hurry up; if each of these errands is just as mind-numbingly boring, I would prefer to get through them as soon as possibleHE!”
His voice broke off into a sudden squeak as Lumine’s fingers scrabbled over his back in an attempt to rid him of the supposed ‘bug’. The squeak quickly transformed into a cough and a stuttered exhale as he reached back to slap her fingers away—only to find his hand quickly snatched up by her own.
“You’re ticklish,” Lumine noted, eyes sparkling with triumph. “I honestly didn’t think that was going to work—it seems too innocent a thing for someone as cynical and power hungry as you.”
“I’m not!” Scaramouche snapped back, but the words were less intimidating as usual, nerves getting the best of him. “Someone like me doesn’t possess such silly weaknesses. You only startled me, that’s all. Now if we could return back to the task at ha—Lumine!”
Not willing to give up this opportunity, Lumine quickly knocked him onto his back in a maneuver that possibly could have been gentler, but he deserved it after her treatment today. With one leg tossed securely around his waist, she dragged the trapped hand above his head. It was surprising how easy it was to pin him down—almost like he wanted to be caught.
“Lumine,” he repeated indignantly, body tensed in anticipation of whatever she had in store for him. “I demand that you let me up now. This is hardly conducive to the mission.”
“Ah, contraire, my easily angered fellow, I would argue it is very conducive to the mission.” She placed a hand over his stomach, gently twitching her fingers under the folds of his shirt. He shifted underneath her, a flush evident on his face; it was unclear whether it was due to anger or embarrassment. “I let you come with me because I thought you could be useful, but thus far all you’ve done is complain. So, maybe if I show you what happens to those who complain, the rest of these commissions will go a lot smoother. What do you say?”
Scaramouche simply glared at her, refusing to give an answer. “I will end you if you do this.”
“No, you won’t.”
“And what makes you so sure?”
“Because you could have easily gotten out of this if you wanted to, and yet, you’ve hardly lifted a finger to stop me despite that free hand of yours.”
His flush, if possible, burned brighter, but before he had a chance to defend himself, Lumine set her fingers into motion, carefully tapping about his sides and stomach in a devastating spider crawl. Scaramouche’s mouth snapped shut and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out these new sensations. She twitched her hand directly over his stomach and he stifled a startled noise, his leg jerking up just slightly.
“Tickle?”
“F-Fuck you,” he managed, gripping the grass with his free hand in a chokehold.
“So crass, Scara.” That same hand dragged lower, casually drawing a finger along his waistline. He inhaled sharply, his lips twisting into something that almost resembled a grin. “If I had known you were ticklish back when we were still fighting, defeating you would have been much easier. I’m hardly even touching you and yet you’re this tense. Calm down, it’s only a bit of tickling.”
She accentuated the sentence with a scribble of her fingers that prompted a stutter of a giggle from the trapped man as his leg slammed up into her back. She clucked her tongue lightly, continuing the ticklish path over to his hips. “Ah, ah, ah, Scara, fighting is not going to make this any easier for you—I recommend just lying back and taking it.”
“You—y-yohouu—gehEHA!” He arched back with a shriek as she grabbed his hip suddenly, both legs kicking up dirt as he flailed. All pretenses of holding in his reactions faltered as he quickly succumbed to a round of breathless giggles. His free hand had torn up quite a bit of grass in his attempts to distract himself, and now he brought it up to his face to try to hide at least some of his embarrassing reactions. “Luhuhuhumine! T-Thihis ihihis huhuhumiliatihiHIHING!”
“Hardly.” Another squeeze, each one climbing higher and higher and forcing him to scrabble anxiously on the ground to try to back away from her. “It’s cute. If anything, this is an improvement to your normal behavior. You don’t look half as irritating when you’re giggling.”
Though she was only teasing, it was true. Pinned and cackling on the ground as he was, he looked… well. Cute. Annoyingly cute, actually, for how much of a nuisance he had been earlier.
She felt a blush of her own rising to the tips of her ears, and she shoved down those thoughts for a later date. Now was not the time to be having those thoughts.
She gently climbed up his ribs and he squeaked as she reached the top, muffled protests slipping out from behind his hand.
Jackpot.
“How about this,” Lumine offered, teasing at the very edge of his ribs while she talked. He twitched and squirmed underneath her, unable to hold still even under such gentle treatment. “I’ll stop if you promise not to make any more comments for the rest of the mission. No snide remarks, no sarcastic monologues, and no insults. Think you can manage that?”
Scaramouche struggled to arrange his face into something obstinate, a difficult task when her fingers never stopped moving. “I-I’m not agreeing to ahanything. N-now lehet me up.”
Lumine shrugged, crawling her fingers under his arm at last. “Oh well. It’s your funeral.”
Scaramouche threw his head back in frantic laughter, his hand finally flying down from his face to try to tug at her own. But no matter how hard he pulled, it did nothing to dissuade Lumine. His energy was quickly being sapped by the tickling, and he couldn’t focus enough to try to blow her off of him. His world had become a constant stream of it tickles it tickles it tickles and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop this.
Yet, despite his rising desperation, five minutes passed by without him stopping her. Five minutes of nails dragging devastatingly under his arms, five minutes of unbearable sensations lighting his nerves on fire, five minutes of shrieky, babbling laughter that he had zero hope of reigning in. Briefly, Lumine considered pointing out the suspicious resistance to him, but she eventually decided against it; he was already embarrassed enough as is, and despite what she had said earlier, she wanted him to stick around.
It wasn’t until Lumine reached behind her mostly out of curiosity to squeeze his knee that Scaramouche finally jerked his hand free, scrambling up to tug at her arm.
“OKAY ohokay, juhust stop ahahalready! He fell back on the ground in defeat, tired giggles shaking his frame. “I’ll shuhut u-uhuhp just stop tihiHIHIHIckling!”
At last, she released him with a satisfied smirk, clambering off of as she allowed him to regain some of his composure. He breathed heavily on the ground, his whole face flushed pink from the endeavor.
“You okay down there?” she asked, unable to help the light amusement in her voice. He directed a glare at her in response that seemed slightly less venomous than it could have been under the circumstances.
“Don’t think I’ll forget about this,” he said, the threat not as intimidating when interspersed with residual giggles. “I’ll get you back. It’ll be when you least expect it, when you think this whole thing has finally blown over—that will be when I strike. I hope for your sake that you prepare for the day, as I promise I won’t be merciful.”
The thought sent a shiver down Lumine’s back, but she ignored it, turning her attention back to the locked box as she talked. “Right, well, none of that matters right now, does it? And if you try anything, I’ll just pin you right back down and we can repeat this afternoon.”
“Sadist.”
“Brat.”
She bit back a small smile as she finally unlocked the box to reveal several pouches of moira.
Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.