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“Hold on one second.” Tighnari instructs as he climbs up a tree, grasping onto its branch when he’s high enough and swings himself onto the branch of another, much taller tree.
Tighnari thrusts a knife into the tree with a violet blue mushroom attached to the juncture between the branch and the bark. He begins aptly cuts off the mushroom with one hand whilst the other holds onto the knife embedded into the tree.
“Wow.” Lumine and Paimon clap in unison as they watch Tighnari press his foot against the mousy bark, effectively dislodging the knife whilst propelling himself into the air with a backflip and landing perfectly on his toes.
“That was impressive, teacher! As expected from the best forest ranger in the whole of Sumeru!” Collei gushes whilst the blonde Viatrix nods.
Scaramouche doesn’t miss the way the half-breed’s tail sways when he hears the standing ovation from the ever so kind Traveler and her easily impressed companion.
“Yeah, Paimon would’ve never been able to do that even if Paimon practiced really hard.” The silver, floating creature adds in affirmation.
“Oh, it was nothing. Paimon, if you really want to, you can train with Collei as a forest-ranger-in-training. You’ll be able to climb trees in no time.” Tighnari chuckles as he approaches them.
“Ah- Uh… P-Paimon’s sure Paimon should leave the forest rangering to the experts.”
“This is boring.” Scaramouche grumbles to himself.
He is the only one leaned up against a tree several feet away, arms crossed over his chest. His head hangs low, eyes closed as though he’s resting his eyes yet his mind is wide awake.
“Kicking it before trying it, Paimon?” Lumine teases as shoots her silver haired companion a playful smirk.
Well, if there’s one good thing that comes out of this pointless ‘101 Herbs and Shrooms for Dummies’ class, it’s Lumine’s high spirits and the luminescent cosmos in her eyes.
Just as she is eager to go up against an indestructible opponent, she is also eager to sip the essence of knowledge any kind soul is willing to offer.
Much to Scaramouche’s dismay, that kind soul who must look like an angel is this half-breed, humble-bragging pup.
“This is the Rukkhashava Mushroom. It grows in layers like a sea of clouds in isolation and on the highest point of a tree. That’s why it’s precious and Sumerians only take it if they absolutely need it for medical or research purposes. It has various uses if you cook it correctly, Tandoori Roast Chicken will boost your agility so you could fight better, a Potato Boat will help speed up your recovery if you get sick or hurt. Here, Traveler, it might come in handy on your journey.”
“Are you sure?” Lumine blinks, staring at the blue and violet hued fungus as though it’s a cherished gift.
“Mhm.” Tighnari nods.
The trace of rosiness on the half-breed’s cheeks is the final straw for Scaramouche. He pushes himself off the tree he’s been leaning on and treads further into the forest. He ends up taking on a group of fungi–he didn’t mean to, in fact, he couldn’t be bothered to care about some petty enemies. But he also wouldn’t stand and let them hit him with their Dendro bullets.
Scaramouche sighs, kneeling and gathering the spores and crystalline dusts that mark their trail in their haste to escape him. He doesn’t feel a strong inclination for them but Lumine always gathers them. ‘In case we need them’ she’d always say.
“It’s stupid.” Scaramouche grumbles under his breath.
This class. The green haired archer who looks at the half-breed like he’s some God. The easy-to-please floating creature.
And well, Lumine is brilliant but she too has her simple moments. But even in her foolishness, her starstruck expression is elegant, her mindful hesitance in accepting the half-breed’s simple gift is endearing and most of all–
“So this is where you’re hiding.” A sweet, honeyed voice speaks.
–her gentle attentiveness is beguiling.
Scaramouche can never win.
No, rather, he’s always been fighting a losing battle.
He knows and yet he tries so hard to resist the arcane fascination towards this golden Viatrix.
“What, did your survival class for dummies end early?”
“Nope, I’m playing hooky. It’s not fun when you’re not around.” Lumine sits on a boulder several feet away, crossing her left ankle over her right ankle.
Scaramouche only grunts in response as he finishes up collecting the fungal drops. He walks over to the blonde Traveler, the sunlight piercing through the gaps of the leaves casts a candescent glow on her pale skin and makes her luscious hair appear luminous.
He stops in front of her, their feet touching.
“Oh, are those for me?” She blinks, her aureate eyes glinting in surprise.
Unlike the hesitance that reigns over her actions with the half-breed’s gift, Lumine accepts Scaramouche’s offerings with a childlike contentment–a testament to her unyielding trust for him.
He wonders… what kind of face would she make if he was no longer there to join her on her journey?
He wonders if Lumine would cry for him in his absence or would she stand upon a cliff overlooking a vast plain for a short while, a silent farewell, then continue on in pursuit for her brother, her one true Viator, the one person she’s unable to say goodbye to.
“Scaramouche.” The gleeful voice breaks his reverie.
Lumine smiles, pearly whites and crinkled corners in her eyes, “thanks.”
Alas, as much as Scaramouche wishes to know what his absence means for this golden Traveler, his wish for her to continue smiling in effervescent glee is greater.
“Let’s go,” he holds out his right hand.
“Hm?”
“You’re too much of a goody-two-shoes to cut class so it means you’re here to collect me.”
“You’re not some baggage for me to ‘collect’, Zephyr. I was just wondering where you were.” She says, placing her hand in his after storing his gift in her pouch.
The way her personal nickname for him rolls off her tongue makes him grip her hand a little tighter, as if his own heart, if he had one, is clenching in his chest. He runs his thumb over her knuckles as they begin to walk.
‘I don’t ever want to let go of this hand.’
“Still, it’s kind of you to look for me… like a sitter who lost the child she was looking after.” He chuckles to himself.
But before they can take another step down the path that leads to where Tighnari, Collei and Paimon are, Scaramouche feels a tug on his hand that stops him in his tracks. He turns on his heels to question the Traveler why she abruptly pauses.
Yet the words he wishes to say fades away from his mind as soon as his violet eyes meet Lumine’s crystalline golden gaze.
“Sometimes, you do act like a child.”
“ Hey .” He warns, deadpanned.
“You’re so clueless sometimes, it’s frustrating. But you do things you’d never do like pick up goods that you know I’d appreciate. You’d say yes to wherever I want to go even though it involves people you’re not too fond of interacting with. You’d be the first to look for food once we set camp even though you don’t need to eat.”
“That’s because-!” Scaramouche almost bites his tongue when he clamps his mouth shut at his own sudden outburst.
That’s because it’s you , it’s all for you, he’s about to blurt out.
“Because?” A small grin blooms on Lumine’s lips as she leans forward.
The sudden proximity grants him an unrestricted view of Lumine’s fair–almost translucent-skin. Scaramouche finds himself counting each individual lash on her eyelids, then when he meets her crystal clear eyes, he freezes completely as though struck by a cryo slime’s frost.
“Scaramouche?” And it is her lilting voice that melts the invisible frost that’s cast itself over his body.
The Wanderer clears his throat, turning his cheek to her as he throws his gaze somewhere–anywhere as long as it isn’t Lumine’s vivid, captivating gaze.
“It’s because I didn’t have anything better to do anyway! So what the hell? It’s fun to watch mortals go about their day doing simplistic mortal things and participate in it every once in a while when you’re a God with plenty of time on your hands.”
“Mortal, huh?” Lumine murmurs under her breath but the winds catch it and tells him so.
“Lumine, I–” He begins, realizing his fatal mistake a moment too late.
“I suppose it’s like a hobby to pass your time.” The golden Traveler releases his hand and Scaramouche reaches to grab it again only to stop mid-action.
Does he even have the right to hold her?
Scaramouche clenches his hands in futile resistance. If he didn’t do so, he fears he might apply too much force and end up bruising her soft, delicate skin.
And he wishes… he wishes he could gather her in his arms and confess to her of this grappling trepidation that claws at his hollowed chest. The unyielding desires to consume her whole because she’s inequitably endearing and lovely and beguiling–he wants her all to himself.
But he knows she would hate him if he stole her away from the world she loves so much, from the souls she’s met along the way, from the path she’s set to see the end of, from her brother whom she will never turn her back on even though he seems to have abandoned her.
He lets out the sound of resigned humor as he mentally laughs at himself.
“Right. Since it’s come to this, we should part ways here. It has been entertaining to watch you bend over backwards to fulfil commissions from lesser beings, interact with half-breeds of unknown origins under the guise of friendship and be the Archon’s errand girl in each nation but I’m getting bored.”
The winds around them begin to grow harsher as Scaramouche feels himself levitating above ground–a telltale sign of a curt and simple farewell.
Lumine thinks it’s very Scaramouche of him.
To dish out insults as a goodbye and to leave like the winds passing from city to city once he finds himself unable to seek the answer to his conundrum.
“You idiot.” She shakes her head, hand shooting out to grab onto the Wanderer’s wrist and pulling him back down to the ground and into her.
Her lips crash into him in an unceremonious kiss. The minuscule sting on her upper lip is a telltale sign of a very obvious cut that’ll get Paimon fussing over it once they reunite with the trio.
But Lumine decides it’s a bridge she’ll cross when she gets there.
At the present, she has a more pressing matter to deal with.
She’s the first to lean away, cheeks rosy yet her mind is made. There is only one objective for her and it’s to make him see that she’ll take him with all he calls his wayward intentions and monstrous perversions.
She’s known them all.
Perhaps not from the beginning but she comes to learn of Scaramouche’s subtle leniency when it comes to anything and everything that concerns her. The compromises he makes with himself as he fulfils her unspoken wishes. The hand he offers in aiding the people she chooses to help just so she wouldn’t overburden herself. The devout acceptance for her reckless abandon in battles and the silent care he gives her after the fights are over.
How could she not notice it?
And above all, how could she not find him wonderfully charming?
“Do you get it now?”
It takes Scaramouche several heartbeats for his eyes to flutter into recognition. Another heartbeat for the screws in his head begins to move. And another for his fingers to brush Lumine’s and twine their hands together.
“Traveler, I didn’t think you were capable of such indecency.” He smirks.
Her rosy cheeks turn crimson as she recoils as though physically struck by his words.
“I-I was trying to make you see-!”
“See what?”
“T-that I…”
Lumine trails off, cheeks puffed in indignation once she realizes that Scaramouche very well sees what she’s trying to show him and he’s enjoying every ticking second of it. But Lumine is also aware of the mental anguish he’s wrought over during all the times she’d opted not to tell him, to assure him, to relieve him from his self-made misery.
So she gathers her composure.
“That I like–”
And before she even manages to finish her sentence, he swallows her words with his lips and slips his soft pink tongue into her mouth. He tastes the sweetness of her struggling sincerity and she’s fighting to keep her heart from leaping to her throat.
Lumine presses a hand on the Wanderer’s firm chest in an attempt to break away from his assault on her tongue but instead, he covers the back of her hand with his and holds it there, as though to say ‘ if I had a heart, this is where it would beat and it would beat for you and only you ’.
The electrifying spark shooting down her spine where their skin touches is almost dizzying–or perhaps it’s the breaths stolen by the Wanderer that she’ll never get back?
She finds herself losing strength in her legs.
And before she faints altogether, she balls her fists and uses all her might to smack the Wanderer on his chest.
He finally pulls away and Lumine lets herself fall to the ground.
“Haa…” She sighs, finally feeling her head clearing from the deliriousness that the kiss brings.
She expects the hard ground to scrape her knee but it never does. Instead, she notices a sturdy arm around her waist pulling her flushed to a firm, perfectly sculpted chest belonging to none other than the chuckling Wanderer.
“You’re so childish.” She complains but rests her cheek against his chest anyway, a small smile gracing her swollen lips.
“But you like me anyway.” He counters.
And Lumine simply wraps her own arms around his waist in response, as though saying ‘ I do .’
***
Later that evening, the two return to the village where Tighnari is occupied while speaking with another fellow forest ranger. Paimon and Collei who are standing a few feet from him are the first to notice the golden Traveler and the violet Wanderer.
“Hey, what took you two so long?! Paimon had to float there and listen to Tighnari babble–uh, Paimon means teach until Paimon got dizzy from all that knowledge crammed in Paimon’s head!”
“Sorry, Paimon, I went looking for Scaramouche but got lost. It’s a relief we met each other somewhere along the way. The trees were starting to look the same after a while.” Lumine explains and shoots Scaramouche a ‘don’t say anything’ look when he lifts an eyebrow at her elaborate lie.
“That’s understandable, even the best of our rangers get lost. It’s a relief you returned before Sundown. Teacher was about to gather a few rangers to look for you two.” Collei interjects.
“Thankfully, there’s no need for that. It’s very kind of Tighari though–if we couldn’t make it to the village by the time the sun sets, we would probably camp for the night and try again the next day. Getting lost comes with the daily life of an adventurer!” Lumine chuckles and scratches the back of her non-itchy head.
“We should’ve done that.” Scaramouche thinks aloud.
‘I could have had Lumine all to myself,’ is what he keeps to himself.
The air stills for a moment as neither person present knows how to interpret his passing comment let alone respond to it.
“A-anyway, is there a place we could get dinner? A restaurant maybe? I’m starving!” Lumine forces out a laugh.
“There’s one! I always go there when I don’t feel like cooking.” Collei snaps her fingers and just like that they begin to walk down the village path as Collei gushes over the sweet juiciness of the restaurant’s Tandoori Roast Chicken.
“Oh, Paimon’s been meaning to ask… Traveler, did you get into a fight with an enemy? You have a cut on your lip.”
At the mention of the very obvious thin red line on her lip, Lumine freezes.
“O-Oh yeah, we got jumped by a group of fungi on our way here,”
“Hmm, that’s odd, you usually take care of them in seconds. Oh well, Paimon suppose even the best fighter gets hurt every once in a while.”
“Yeah, that’s right…” Lumine willfully agrees.
“Heh.” And Scaramouche smirks.