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Childe wheezed.
He stared up at the fake sky – the one the Traveler had fashioned from her own will – and tried to catch his breath. They’d taken to sparring in her abode since it drew less attention, and every time she laid him out, he couldn’t help but stare awestruck at her creation. Clouds drifted past towering peaks, scattering sunlight and casting shadows. Too-real grass itched at the back of his neck. It was a perfect facsimile of reality if not for the unsettling quiet. She refused to develop the land, do something with the barren, endless mountaintops, but it wasn’t for lack of power or time. It was because she hated this place.
“It’s so lonely,” she’d said once in a rare moment of exhaustion. “What’s the point of a world with nobody to share it with?”
He’d tried to get her to talk about it more. He used to think the quiet was peaceful, a welcome respite from the chaos of life. She’d replied with something ominous.
“The universe started and will end in silence. Life is loud. Death is quiet, and I hate it.”
He didn’t completely understand, but he didn’t need to. She taught him a new fear that day – the fear of seconds slipping away, the fear of being alone, forever, but this place didn’t affect him the same way it did her. She couldn’t feel her own intoxicating presence.
He never felt lonely here. Everything here thrummed with her: the starsong on the breeze, the incandescence within every blade of grass, the warmth of her imitation sun. This was only a shadow of her old power and it was already more than he could comprehend.
And yet, despite her abilities, she spared him any real injury every time they sparred.
She won this time, just like she did every time. He never expected anything different. Her starfire had been snuffed to a pitiful smolder when they first met, but now? Now it had rekindled itself. Now he knew that he was but a match in the face of an inferno that would only burn hotter and brighter with time.
He wouldn’t even kid himself that the Foul Legacy would give him an advantage. (She refused to fight him if he used it. She said she wouldn’t watch him hurt himself. How kind of her, imposing limits where he wouldn’t.)
That’s how they ended up like this – Childe gasping for breath, on his back in an empty world, and the Traveler approaching with the quietest crunch of gravel.
Soon her head blocked out her own sun, one eyebrow raised and half of a smile on her lips. “Are you satisfied?”
He gave her a weak thumbs-up. She chuckled, a warm, low sound, and sat next to his head. He closed his eyes and settled in for a pleasant afternoon relaxing side by side, though his eyes shot back open when she looped her arms under his elbows and pulled his torso into her lap.
This was new. Childe wasn’t sure what to do with touch that wasn’t violent. She’d taken to touching him a lot, lately – rubbing his back, holding his hand, quick hugs when nobody was looking. It was always over before he got his wits together.
She didn’t seem to mind, though. She carded her fingers through his matted hair tenderly, lovingly, in such sharp contrast to the brutality that put him on the ground in the first place. She even went so far to ask, “Is this alright?”
“Of course.”
They sat like that for a long time, the Traveler absently picking at a tear in his blazer that she didn't cause. Childe slowly relaxed into the new development, though eventually her voice shook him out of his doze.
“The Tsaritsa should treat her dogs better,” she purred in time with petting his head. Her nails scraped pleasantly against his scalp. “You’re such a good boy.”
If anyone else called him a dog, they’d be in pieces in the nearest ditch. He still bristled when she said it, but the good boy smoothed his hackles against his will. Childe blushed and covered his face and, at a loss for anything more intelligent to say, “Oh stop it.”
“I mean it,” the Traveler said. She didn’t look at him. She didn’t need to. She just kept stroking his hair after kicking his shit in and forcing him to the floor. Her voice had a faraway quality, like her mind was elsewhere. “You’re a good man under it all.”
He snorted. “Not even my parents say that anymore.”
“Mm. It’s harder to see after being disappointed so many times, I’m sure…”
Childe cringed. It was one thing for him to make bitter jokes, another entirely for her to wield his insecurities like a knife. It was always the nice people that wounded the deepest. He was so wrapped up in pain that he almost missed what she said next.
“But you haven’t hurt me the same way you hurt them. I have a different perspective, and I judge that you can be good.”
He felt her turn to look at him – not by her moving but by the sheer intensity of her gaze. He shifted in her lap to meet it against his better judgment. Gold eyes stared back, brighter than the sun and twice as dangerous.
“If I was your god,” she murmured. “Not a day would pass without you in my sight.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t.
She continued. She seemed to look through him, past his eyes and into his soul. Her hand moved to brush his cheek instead. “I would cherish you every second of your short life.”
His stomach flipped. He’d never been so afraid, so excited, before. She kept talking in that low, reverential croon.
“You have so much potential… It's so sad watching you break yourself for someone that doesn’t care. Good tools should be taken care of.”
He was a very religious man – all Snezhnayans were – but this… this was something completely different than the Tsaritsa’s frigid affections. His birth god had so much love to give, but also so many people to give it to. The Traveler, though… They were the only ones here.
“What– what do you want?” Childe stuttered.
“You.”
He shrank away from that burning stare, but he had nowhere to go. “Why?”
“You’re interesting,” she said simply and dragged her nail across his cheek, dangerously close to his eye. He didn’t dare flinch. “I’ve known many people that were fascinated by the stars, but terrified once they had one in their hands. You, however,” she said and booped his nose. “You only get more devoted every time you witness the horrors.”
He swallowed around the lump in his throat and tried to chuckle. It came out dry. “What can I say? I live to improve.”
That was the right thing to say, apparently. She laughed that wonderful, warm laugh once again, and the praise went straight to his head. “I know that you do. You’re wasted on the Fatui.” She finally broke that unnerving stare and followed her hand down to his neck, her gaze settling somewhere near his collarbones. Her mouth partly slightly while she traced the vulnerable muscles, clearly watching him twitch and swallow on reflex. He bared his throat for her to do whatever she wanted with.
Eventually, her eyes flicked back to his and her hand abruptly stopped its roaming, heavy against his pulse. “You know that my war is better.”
It wasn’t a question. He nodded anyway.
“You want to fight real monsters, right? You want to be a real hero?”
“Yes.”
She smiled and pet him harder, his flesh yielding under her fingertips. She could snap his neck without a thought. “You want to overthrow gods, don’t you? You want to be more than a pawn?”
“Yes.”
She reached up to pat the mask that never left the side of his head. “Then why do you still have this?”
He didn’t have a good answer to that. Childe was breathing too hard, too fast, overstimulated by the touch and light and the horrible, wonderful things she was saying. She didn’t give him a chance to recover, only pinned him tighter under her scrutiny.
“Tell me what you want, Ajax,” she demanded.
“You.”
He’d do anything for that self-satisfied little smirk. She gave him a rough pat and ruffled his hair, like she would a dog, and it made him want to show his belly. “You can have me,” she said, then frowned and flicked his mask again. The metal tinged from her nail striking it. “But you can’t have two handlers at the same time. I urge you to think–”
Childe ripped the mask from his head and flung it into the grass. He trusted her to handle all the hard, moral dilemmas and point him in a better direction. All he had to do was follow her instruction. He looked back up at her mildly surprised face with an overconfident grin of his own. “I can be the Traveler’s zealot.”
She looked impressed and his heart swelled, giddy. She blinked a few times, inspecting him, before eventually stating, “Lumine.”
“Pardon?”
“You may call me Lumine,” she repeated. She leaned in close, deadly serious but with a warm, knowing smile. “But only when we’re alone.” She cupped his face with both hands. “Will you follow me into the night?”
“Yes.”
“Good boy,” she said again.
Again, it set his nerves on fire and burned away his thoughts. It encouraged him to be perfectly obedient, perfectly pliant as starlight leaned closer, then closer still, until he felt her breath against his face. He had to close his eyes against the beauty and whimpered when she finally kissed him.
He ached to touch her back, but was he allowed? His hands hovered uselessly near her arms, still holding him while she pressed gentle, unyielding pressure to his lips. He hesitantly opened his mouth to kiss her properly and found that she tasted like rain.
She eventually pulled back, looking perfectly unbothered while he panted in her lap. She brushed his hair out of his face and guided his hand to finally rest on her cheek – so soft, even through his glove – then pinned him between her cheek and shoulder. “I’ll take good care of you,” she whispered.
He knew that she would. From this moment on, that holy smile was the purpose of his existence. Childe tentatively asked for another kiss and she obliged, once again scorching his worries away and consecrating him with her affection.
This was good, he thought, finally brave enough to play with his new god’s hair. This was right, and he was happy.