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Chapter Text

Somewhere in the wilds of Liyue, close enough to harbor that they could limp back for lunch but far enough away to avoid prying eyes, Lumine and Childe threw lightning at each other. 

Paimon huddled behind a particularly sturdy rock and ignored them for the most part. The novelty had worn off after the tenth week in a row of this little game and she was content to read a picture book and grumble while the adults played. 

Meanwhile, Lumine hit her opponent’s block hard enough to rattle her own teeth. Childe staggered under the assault and she punished him for accepting it, striking again and again until sparks flew off her sword. Her heart pounded faster with each brutal blow, each beat distinct through the clarity of adrenaline, and she couldn’t help but notice Childe’s grin reflecting the giddiness she felt inside. He scrambled for distance, flicking his spear out at her nose and nearly catching the tip of it while he backpedaled. Lumine narrowly avoided throwing her face into harm’s way and used the momentum to duck to his side. He’d have to switch to his dual blades so long as she stayed close, and while she struggled to defend against attack from two directions at once, he also couldn’t block with them. Not well, at least. 

Lumine took a wild, messy swipe at his shins and he took the bait. He overcommitted to an overhead strike at her hunched back. She just ducked forward, closer, and responded in kind with a slap of the flat of her blade to his exposed stomach.

He sprang back with a grunt and massaged the rapidly-swelling welt with his elbow. “Ow.”

“Could’a killed ya,” Lumine sang. Just holding her sword a different way would’ve ended their sparring session with both of them shoving his organs back where they belonged. Her pitying smile fell into a grimace while she blinked the mental image away. This was fun, she reminded herself. They were having fun. 

Childe certainly was. He leapt on her momentary angst like a shark on blood. “Your mistake,” he laughed – a wonderful, rare sound that lifted her spirits back to their battle-high – and rushed her. 

Long legs and an inhuman devotion to his craft gave him an advantage, but Lumine had a star’s lifetime of experience. One knife came out to block her sword and the other stabbed for her unguarded shoulder. She twisted out of the way but Childe spun with her, easily covering the distance in one step that would take her several. He tried for her weak spot a few more times before getting impatient and pressing both blades into her block.

She could feel his breath hot on her face like this. He grinned down at her, sweat slicking strands of hair to his forehead, panting lightly. Freckles dusted his nose and cheeks, splattered like blood. Dull blue eyes crinkled in delight as he bore down, the muscles of his shoulders flexing and driving her back a few steps – frighteningly strong, but she knew he was holding back. She’d leave if he hurt himself, and that was no fun for anyone. 

Unfortunately for Childe, her sword was now wet and she had a direct conduit to his skin. She smiled sweetly up at him, then electrified her weapon. 

He yelped and staggered back. She kept up the pressure, taking a few sloppy, powerful swings that weren’t intended to hit. He shook his arms out and jogged out of her reach. His grudging respect shifted to something smug as he raised his arm over his head, telegraphing her favorite move. 

Water bubbled up from between blades of grass while a mournful, otherworldly call reverberated throughout her teeth and bones. He rarely had the space to flex this attack, but she was always tempted to stop and watch when he did.

Not today, though. As soon as the great whale of water breached from the abyss below and made its slow arc overhead, Lumine kicked forward in a surge of lightning, under it, and aimed for his face. He was so busy admiring his handiwork that he didn’t notice her approach.

Childe’s eyes widened and he slammed his swords back into a spear to block. She skidded to a stop rather than risking a counterattack, residual electro surging forward to singe him, then geo stomped with the last of her momentum. 

The rock caught him in the middle of the chest. He went flying back to hit a tree with a sick crunch that would’ve meant certain injury for anyone else, though her punching bag would just be a little sore tomorrow. 

She pranced forward as he slid down the trunk, taking bark with him, his knives dissolving back to water as he admitted defeat. She was careful to step between his sprawled legs while his head rolled back with her approach, eyes unfocused but with a rare spark of light. He always looked so pretty laid out like this.

“I win,” she crowed, reaching out to flick his nose with the tip of her sword. “Same time next week?” 

He blinked away the stars and grabbed her sword, careful to pinch the flat of it. She pulled him to his feet while he rubbed his sternum and cleared his throat, his face returning to his rather dour neutral with the end of the fight. “Ugh, god. You just get better and better. I don’t know how I’m gonna keep up with you.” 

He could quit his job and travel with her like he had suggested several times before. That’d give him better training than anything the Fatui could offer. She opened her mouth to say as much when Paimon poked her head out from her rock not a foot away. 

“ARE YOU DONE?!”

“Yes, Paimon,” Lumine winced at the volume. “We’re done. Unless?” she paused and raised an eyebrow at Childe. He lit up for round two but Paimon fluttered between them.

“NO! You two have been out here for HOURS and Paimon is HUNGRY!”

“It’s been maybe half an hour,” Childe replied, similarly leaning away from deafening shrieking. 

She rolled her eyes and turned her back to him. “Ugh, Paimon doesn’t know why you bother hanging out with him.”

She made the same comment last week, to which Lumine replied “The attention’s nice.” Before that, her excuse was “It helps me relax.” Last month she said that it kept her sharp. 

Today, Lumine inspected Childe with a lingering glance at the angry welt across the flash of his stomach that he insisted on showing off. “It keeps him out of trouble.” 

“Pfft, as if you don’t attract more trouble than I ever could,” Childe laughed and leaned against the protection rock. His right eyelid twitched as he found a sore spot, though that was the only indication that he was in any pain. “I haven’t assaulted an archon in their own country yet.”

Lumine squinted with the tiniest twinge of irritation. “Not for lack of trying. I had to pull you off of Zhongli before you got yourself hurt.” 

“I could take him.”

“No, you couldn’t. Also the Shogun attacked me first. It was self defense, not that you’d know the difference.”

“You think so little of me,” he drawled. Now that they were proper friends, he didn’t bother pretending to smile. “And here I was going to ask for the privilege of taking you to lunch.” 

Paimon spun around, suddenly attentive. Lumine crossed her arms and couldn’t choke down her blush. “Is that so? I could be convinced if you twist my arm.”

“As you wish.” He was on her in an instant, darting to circle around and wrench her arm behind her back. She allowed it, laughing when he swung her into the air by another arm around her waist. “Go to lunch with me!” 

She kicked her feet while Paimon lost her shit, buzzing around Childe’s head and pounding her tiny fists on his shoulders. “No! Bad Childe! Let her go!”

“Not until she agrees!”

Lumine tilted her head back against his chest, getting a good look at the underside of his chin. He had a small scar. She could hook a foot behind his knee and take them both to the ground, but instead she said, “I accept your invitation. I expect only the finest food that the Fatui’s money can buy.”

Childe chuckled and gave her a squeeze before returning her to her feet. A shadow fell over his face. “Anything for you. I just have to, er, run a quick errand first.”

God fucking dammit. Lumine scowled. She’d let her mind wander to a hard-won meal at his expense – sitting across from each other, feet entangled under the table, sharing a drink – but she knew what that guilty face meant. For as much as she loved her affectionately dubbed pet Harbinger, she couldn’t help but feel responsible every time he took a metaphorical dump on the floor. “An errand, huh?”

“Don’t you have people for that?” Paimon asked, oblivious.

“It won’t take long!” he said too fast, trying too hard to sound casual. “If you’ll just wait for me–”

She straightened and put a fist on her hip, fixing him with the glare that once had kings and queens cringing away from heaven’s disapproval. “What is this ‘errand’?”

His comforting – fake – smile fell, replaced with, again, an irritation mirroring her own thoughts. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

“Mmm… I do want answers, though. I wanna hear you say it.”

“Not this again.”

Paimon gasped and backed away, drawing his attention. “No, are you off to do something evil?! Again?!”

He crossed his arms. “It’s not evil! It’s my job!” He felt Lumine’s eyebrow raise and looked back over at her. “What!?”

“You know what.”

“It’s just a little debt collection,” he grumbled, guilty and obviously mad about it. 

“Mmhm.” They’d had this argument before. It usually ended in him blowing up or sulking away before they could really get into it. Today felt like the former, and Lumine’s blood was up enough that she was happy to entertain it. “Funny how it’s ‘debt collection’ and not ‘terrorism’ when you’re the one doing it.”

“I think terrorism is a little harsh,” he said and rolled his eyes, which gave her the nudge she needed to move from ‘irritated’ to ‘well and truly pissed off.’  

“There’s a few dozen drowned Millelith that would argue otherwise.” 

“Seriously? We were having a nice time.”

“So were the people of Liyue.”

Childe worked his jaw while he glared down at her, his lip curled like he smelled something bad. Paimon looked between them and quietly backed away. 

Lumine continued. “Why are you even doing all this? Isn’t this… beneath you? Getting sent out on ‘errands’ to beat up innocent people?”

“They are not innocent,” he growled. “Innocent people don’t borrow from the Fatui.”

“Desperate people borrow from you,” she snarled. It had the intended effect and Childe loomed over her, a retort forming, but Lumine interrupted him. “You promise me up and down that you wanna ‘quit your job’ and ‘take on the other Harbingers together’, but you don’t. You haven’t done anything to work towards leaving them.” 

“It’s not exactly that easy, Traveler.”

“Oh, it isn’t?” she asked with mock sincerity. “Then what’s holding you back?”

He held his hands up. “I told you! The Fatui train me and help me take care of my siblings. I need this job to support–”

“Bull,” Lumine leaned forward, over-enunciating the second syllable. “Shit.” 

He reeled back and she felt a twinge of satisfaction for getting under his skin. “Excuse you?!”

Paimon clapped a scandalized hand to her mouth. “Traveler!”

Lumine continued, voice rising. “Do you ever stop to think that the families of the people Osial crushed maybe, ya know, cared about them? Relied on them? Or is your family just special?”

His shoulders hunched up to his ears and he looked away for a split second. “Well somebody has to look out for them! I’m all they have. Our parents–” 

Lumine rolled her eyes. “Oh, your parents.” Her voice lowered. “Tons of people don’t have parents, myself included.” 

She stepped forward and jammed a finger in his chest, having to crane her neck back to glare up at him. He met her gaze with his own fury. “If I can turn against my own brother, the only family I’ve ever had, because it’s the right thing to do, you can leave the Fatui.”

Now she was pressed against his trembling chest. He radiated heat. “This isn’t about your family. It’s about the money and the status. It’s about you.”

She was so close she could hear his teeth squeak as he clenched his jaw. The fabric of his sleeves bunched as he dug his fingers into his arms. Lumine just stepped back and spread her arms. “If you’re really the only one to take care of your family, why are you here in Liyue? What’s gonna happen to them when some Archon justifiably annihilates you? What’s Teucer gonna think when someone scrapes what’s left of you off the floor and sends it to him in a box?!” 

“You made your point, Traveler,” Childe growled. He had gone very still and there was an electric edge to his tone.

“No. This isn’t about your family. If you cared so much about them, you’d quit so you could actually take care of them.” She stepped forward again. “You’d get a job where you didn’t have to lie to your little brother.” 

“That’s enough.” 

“You lie because you know this is wrong.” 

“ENOUGH!”

Paimon shrieked and cowered behind her as Childe slashed at the air next to her head, the spray from the blades wetting her hair. Lumine just stared at him, her hand itching towards her sword for a temper tantrum of her own, but she could hurt him better with words. “You’re not a hero, Childe. You’re a terrorist, and every day that you dig your grave deeper, you’re digging your family’s with it.”

She worried for a brief moment that he was actually going to try to kill her, try being the operative word, but her concern was unfounded. A flash of panic cut through his dark fury as the meaning sank in. She only got to see a shred of humanity before Childe flicked his wrists, dismissing his weapons, and turned his hurt away from her. 

“Look,” he said shakily. “I just wanted to have a nice day with you and maybe take you out to dinner. I don’t want to have this conversation. I have work to do. Bye.”

He limped away like a kicked dog and she watched, disappointed. Paimon peeked out from behind her shoulder now that the danger was gone and Lumine took the opportunity to tuck her under her arm and cover her ears. 

“I have friends everywhere, you know,” Lumine yelled at his retreating back. “I can keep your family safe if you ever decide to grow the fuck up!” 

He responded with a middle finger. Lumine moved her hand to cover Paimon’s eyes, instead, and turned back towards the city to get them some food. 

She had a feeling he’d be back.

Chapter Text

Childe fumed on his way to his target. 

It was an easy enough job that he could afford to think on personal matters en route. A simple in and out: rob some sleazy businessman for all he was worth, break some bones if needed, go home. Have lunch alone like a sad sack. Bum around Liyue and try to avoid both the Traveler and that damn lizard. 

He chewed on the right side of his lip until he tasted blood, then moved to the left. Every time he shoved some of the Traveler’s words to the back of his mind, the others sprang forward. Angry he could deal with, liked it even, but that disappointed glare? Why couldn’t she just fight him? Why’d she have to bring his family into it? Why did he even care so much what she thought about him?!

Childe grunted as he vaulted over a fence in the Liyue countryside. The end of his scarf caught on a nail and he ripped it free. His partner for this mission, Svetlana, gracefully hopped over with a swish of dark fabric. Her boots didn’t crunch on the gravel or grass, nor did her long pyro agent robes make a single sound as she came to stand at his side. 

“Are you alright, my lord?”

He should take Svetlana to lunch instead. Go somewhere the Traveler would see, rub it in that he did have friends. He had people he could trust. Totally. That’s why he lied when he said, “I’m fine, just thinking about orders.” 

She nodded, satisfied with the response. He could tell her he was thinking about kicking puppies and she’d look at him in the same doting, worshiping way, like he was above human.

Childe decided that he would rather have lunch alone. 

They walked in tense silence through the steppes until they came up on the inn at the outskirts of the village. The village sat nestled at the base of a cliff with a picturesque waterfall feeding the river running through the center of town, powering their waterwheel. Plenty of trees and shrubs dotted the town, providing cover for him and Svetlana if needed. Two children chased each other in the distance and an elderly couple went out on an afternoon stroll. Beyond that, the town was asleep. 

Svetlana broke away and disappeared into the shadows of the trees, the red glow of her robes fading into a shifting mirage. Childe strolled down the main road like he belonged there. It was usually the best course of action. People tended not to question the man with the carefully crafted smile and dead eyes. 

Except the Traveler.

Childe grimaced and slipped behind the inn to join his partner. Their target was staying on the third floor, second room from the left. He latticed his hands together and knelt to give Svetlana a boost. She all but sprinted up the side of the building, picked the window lock, rolled inside and then, after making sure the room was unoccupied, held her hand out to help him inside. Childe scaled the wall with a grunt and accepted the offered hand, then dusted himself off once he was inside. Svetlana bowed so deep that her robes brushed the ground. 

Truthfully, he hated this part of his job. The chase was fine, but this, this sneaking around? Assaulting civilians? The only test of his abilities was of his patience and his stomach. Any loser could break and enter. 

Childe rolled his shoulders and looked around the lived-in room. It looked just like every other sleazy businessman’s hotel room – a few things scattered around for room service to handle, a suspiciously locked briefcase on the dresser, a set of nice robes laid out nearby, the briefcase’s key sticking out from under the nice robe because he didn’t think anyone was smart enough to look through his stuff, the usual. Mr. Zhao would return within the next hour. Childe plopped down in an armchair and rubbed his face while they waited. 

This really was beneath him, wasn’t it? Running around like a common hitman? He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Hey, comrade?”

“Yes sir?”

“Does Mr. Zhao have anything to drink while we wait?” 

Svetlana nodded smartly and went to rummage in the tiny adjoined kitchen, trusting him to handle any and everything. She returned promptly with some osmanthus wine and he wrinkled his nose once he recognized the label. His displeasure caused her to stand up straighter. 

He didn't even say anything and she had begun to back away. "Apologies, my lord. Let me see if he has anything more suitable–"

"No no, it's fine," he hurried and took the bottle from her hand. “I won’t be picky about free booze. Here–” he took a swig directly from the bottle to prove that he wasn’t about to reprimand her like some of the other Harbingers. He then wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, trusting the alcohol to kill off any mouth germs, and offered her the bottle. She hesitantly took it. 

“Are you sure?”

“Please, go ahead on behalf of Mr. Zhao.”

She laughed too hard at his joke. “Well, if my lord insists,” she said, then she lifted her mask and threw back two swallows.  

They waited for their target in companionable silence. Svetlana rifled through Mr. Zhao’s things and put them back exactly as they were, mentally taking note of any valuables or new blackmail opportunities. Childe trusted her to do what she did best and so he turned to something he’d been getting better at: brooding. 

The Traveler had a point – a lot of points, actually, but he wasn’t ready to admit all that. His work was hard on his siblings (and him, but that was less important). He was a bit of a rat bastard. Hell, he was sitting in some guy’s hotel room waiting to rob him. This was a far cry from cutting down the Abyss horde or protecting Snezhnaya’s national security. 

And then there was that whole thing with Teucer hitchhiking across the continent to come see him. Childe had barely even paid attention to him. He was too busy lying and robbing people and clinging to consciousness after overexerting himself wondering whether the Traveler would take the throat that he offered to her, all because he’d told his siblings that he was a toy salesman rather than the truth.

He ran a hand through his bangs. He would never tell his siblings what he really did. He wasn’t going to apologize for it or change his mind, in no small part because acknowledging the reality of what he did would compel him to leave and then that would put them in danger, and he hated that it made the Traveler right. Why did he even care so much she thought of him?

...He knew exactly why. Short of his god, he had never met someone so terrifying, so fierce, so utterly sure of themselves and still so kind. It would be an honor to die at her hand and,  almost as much as his god, he trusted her. Her gaze was permanently fixed on the horizon, yet she recognized him and his effort when he sprinted to get in her sights. He felt the acknowledgement of a peer when she looked at him, not… Svetlana hanging onto his every word, or his coworkers' gazes dripping with contempt. The Traveler treated him like a person instead of a tool, with all the expectations and responsibilities that came with it, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. 

The sound of footsteps on the stairs jerked him from his thoughts. Svetlana slipped a sheet of paper into her coat and darted to the door to stand in its shadow. Despite the contrast of dark clothes on light paint, her stillness let her melt into the background. Childe remained seated in the armchair in the corner. 

The plodding, unhurried steps continued with the loud thunk of someone that had nothing to fear. Childe tapped his cheek in boredom and more than a little bit of irritation. He hated being interrupted during a good brood. Keys jingled, then the door opened and Mr. Zhao with his slicked hair dumped his travel bag on the floor and stretched. 

Childe contained his energy enough to sit almost as still as Svetlana, and because of that, their guest took another five steps into the room without noticing either of them. Childe waited for him to close the door behind himself before he casually called out, “Heya.”

The sleazy businessman got a tenth of a screech out before Svetlana had a rag stuffed into his mouth and his arm wrenched behind his back. He made a lame attempt at a struggle before the prick of a knife at his kidney convinced him to relax. 

Now for the shitty part. Childe slapped his hands on his knees and hauled himself up with a groan. “Apologies for showing up unannounced. The Northland Bank has been trying to reach you regarding your outstanding loans. I am Tartaglia, a collections agent and Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers. The lovely lady behind you is my assistant.”

Svetlana beamed at the praise, digging her knife in a little deeper with the smile. Mr. Zhao whimpered. 

Childe approached. “We’ve been sent to get in touch because our intelligence says that you tried to leave town rather than pay your balance. Surely you’re smarter than that.”

He wasn’t. Mr. Zhao’s eyes went wide and he frantically shook his head. Childe continued until he was a mere foot away and bent down to get a good look in his target’s uncomfortably sweaty face. 

“Now, Mr. Zhao, my comrade here is going to let you go and we’re going to have a civil talk. If you scream, I will kill you, cut our losses and sell your organs to the highest bidder. Do you understand?”

The sleazy businessman began to hyperventilate, saliva darkening the rag in his mouth. 

Childe contained his inner eyeroll and instead snapped his fingers in his face. “Yes or no, Mr. Zhao. I have other things I want to do today. Killing you takes longer, so I’d appreciate it if you would cooperate.”

Great. He was crying. The two Fatui shared a look over the trembling man and Childe couldn’t stifle a small sound of disgust before he waved Svetlana off. She dutifully released their target and Mr. Zhao dropped to his knees in a heap. Childe squatted next to him, his ribs protesting after his spar. The pain didn’t help his mood.

“You owe two million Mora. That’s a lot of money to spend with nothing to show for it. If you can repay a quarter of that right now, my partner and I will leave you alone for another month.” 

Mr. Zhao curled on himself and pulled at his own hair. “I don’t have it. I–I’m sorry, I don’t–”

Childe waited for him to elaborate, but once it was clear that Mr. Zhao wasn’t going to manage anything other than terrified babbling, Childe clapped a hand on his shoulder. He flinched. “We’re not bad guys,” he said, his stomach twisting as he said it. “We’ll work with you.”

“I don’t have it,” he sobbed. 

“Alright, alright. Then how about this? Since it’s your birthday–” Zhao cringed, like the Fatui didn’t know everything about him from his shoe size to his blood type – “I’m gonna do you a favor.”

Childe rubbed his back comfortingly and gestured at the room. “Surely you have some assets you could sell? Or some secrets? We also deal in information, if it’s useful! You have plenty of options!” 

“P-please don’t kill me–”

Childe dragged his free hand down his face with a muttered sweet Tsaritsa and pushed down the urge to beat some backbone into him. “Work with me, Mr. Zhao. Surely you didn’t gamble all of it away?” 

“It wasn’t gambling!” he managed to spit. Childe raised an eyebrow at the sudden vehemence. “It was a calculated risk!”

“How’s that risk working out for you now?”

“Please don’t kill me,” Zhao begged, the bravado evaporating as fast as it came. “My wife and daughter–”

Childe tightened his grip on his shoulder, feeling a sudden kinship with the Traveler, and the target yelped. He shuddered as the hand crept towards his neck. 

“Your wife and daughter deserve a man that can fix his own problems,” Childe growled. “From what you’ve shown me, they’re probably better off without you. You better convince me you’re worth more than spare parts real fast.” 

The fire under his ass prompted a different direction of begging. Mr. Zhao covered his head with his arms, his hand brushing against Childe’s iron grip. “I can get you your money! I just need more time!” 

“You had plenty of time and plenty of notices before now, which you ignored. Your debt’s past due. I need something to bring back to Regrator now.”

“Please, I can’t–”

His patience worn thin, Childe hauled their target up by the front of his shirt. “You’re gonna have to. Figure something–”

The sound of Zhao’s crying had drowned out the faint steps on the stairs outside. All three of them looked up when the door flew open and a woman yelled, “Surprise!”

A middle aged woman and a young girl stood in the doorway, cake in hand. The girl had a present wrapped in silk. The mother’s bright smile froze while she processed the sight before her. The two stared at the scene in the room, blinking in surprise, and Childe stared back at them with naked horror. 

High-pitched screaming overlaid his thoughts. Zhao’s wife and kid lived a few towns over. They shouldn’t be here. He specifically waited until now to tackle his target so this wouldn’t happen.

Zhao paled and wheezed, “Please.”

The little girl was the first to react. She hugged the present to her chest and took a half step backwards, then shuffled forwards. “Daddy?”

“Uh, it– it’s okay sweetie,” Zhao whimpered, passing panicked glances between his daughter and Childe, who still stared at the family with a vacant expression. The girl was Teucer’s age. “Jun, Jun get her out of here.”

All the color had also drained from the mother’s face. She held the cake protectively in front of her and put herself between the Fatui and their girl, quickly backing her out of the room. “Um… Daddy’s busy. We’ll, we’ll just come back later–”

The agent took a step towards them. The mother yelped. Childe’s grip on Zhao’s collar tightened. “Svetlana–”

“Yessir,” she said with horrible glee. Her knives slipped free of their sheaths and she advanced. 

“Svetlana, no! Be gentle,” he warned, grateful to Skirk and the military for beating the fear out of his voice years ago. “He doesn’t owe that much. Just, just walk them outside. I’ll join you soon.”

She hesitated. Childe half turned from his trembling target, prepared to assault his comrade and deal with the consequences later, but it was ultimately unnecessary. Thank the Tsaritsa for unquestioning loyalty. Svetlana straightened and flicked her knives away with a threatening snick, then wordlessly put an arm around the mother and guided her back the way she came. She was too terrified to resist, and the daughter only whimpered once before turning to totter after them. 

Childe waited until couldn’t hear the three sets of footsteps over his own heavy breathing to whisper, “This is your fault.” 

Zhao cried something incoherent and pathetic. Childe responded by throwing him to the floor and following him down, dropping to a kneel directly on the other man’s biceps and straddle his chest. His target’s scream was cut short again, but this time it was by hands choking him with intent to leave marks. Childe leaned down to hiss in his face. “You have a little daughter like that, and you borrow money from me, and you’re stupid enough to not pay it back?!”

Zhao writhed under him. He couldn’t do much with his arms pinned, but he eventually found Childe’s thighs and tried to scratch them. Childe just tightened the choke in response. 

He waited until the desperate scrabbling got weak to let up, but only enough to keep him teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. He was so close his nose brushed the other man’s cheek – a necessity, given how low and murderous his growl was. “Do you think this is a game? A game you can win?! We’re the Fatui! You don’t win against the Fatui, especially not with family like that!” 

“P–please,” Zhao gasped. His face was bright red, about to pop.

“Do you have any idea what we do to families like yours?! Dottore is always looking for new test subjects! Arlecchino snatches up any orphans she can find!” Childe sat back, sliding his knees off the other man’s arms in a way that would pinch and bruise, then picked him up by the neck with both hands and slammed him back down on the floor. His head hit wood with a satisfying, nauseating thud and he gave a fullbody twitch as his brain rattled. Childe took a deep breath before he killed him. When he spoke, his voice was no less furious, but considerably calmer. “You are going to give me everything that you owe Right. Now. And you are going to apologize to your wife for ever putting your family in this position.” 

“Y–yes, please, just–”

“Now. ”

Zhao dug in his pockets for change. His eyes had rolled back in his head and his movements jerked uncoordinated. He produced a few mora after agonizing seconds of fumbling. Childe snatched them out of his hand alongside the flat change purse and counted all ten coins. 

Regrator wouldn’t accept this.

Childe continued to stare at the family’s death sentence in the palm of his hand. He felt Zhao’s heartbeat spasm under his thumb and his own drummed faster and harder in his ears while the gold swam in his vision. “This isn’t enough.”

“I’m sorry,” Zhao mumbled around a concussion. “It’s all I have. I’m trying–”

“How do you even gamble that much money away?” Childe demanded. 

The target coughed wetly. “I jus… Just a few more days. I can get the rest–”

Childe picked his torso up by his lapel yet again and dragged him over to the suitcase, enraged by the terrified sob that followed. Hushed voices whispered outside the door. He kicked him in the ribs – one crunched – when he got too loud. “Your daughter is right there. Shut up.”

Mr. Zhao was no use right now. Childe dropped him with a thud and went to rummage through the suitcase himself. There was some jewelry, some silks and some documents for insider and illegal trading inside. Turns out he really was a bad person. He just also happened to have a five year old daughter. 

Childe stuffed the random crap into his inventory and made a quick pass around the room, looting it like a common robber. It’d have to do. It definitely wasn’t enough, but he could pad the sum with his own money until it was time to kill Mr. Zhao. Hopefully this case would be someone else’s problem by then. 

He was happy with it just being someone else’s problem. The admission made him sick. 

Childe stepped out into the hall before he could get too far in his own head and took stock of the situation. Svetlana had brought the two to the edge of the stairwell where they probably heard everything. His eyes fell on the girl’s as he tried to avoid the mother’s. She stared up at him with her mouth slightly parted, cringing behind her mother’s skirts, too scared to scream. 

Childe cleared his throat and looked at a point slightly past the mother’s shoulder, shoving the image of the girl behind his worst memories before it haunted his nightmares. He knew he was about to say something ridiculous, but he couldn’t help himself. “I am so, terribly sorry. You weren’t supposed to get caught up in this.”

She didn’t respond. 

“Don’t go to the Millelith. They won’t help you. Divorce your husband as fast as possible. He still owes an unreasonable amount of money.”

He saw her stiffen with rage, the barest flicker of knowing and expecting. “How much?” she whispered. 

“One and three quarter million,” he said. He absolutely did not get a quarter million worth of stolen goods, but he’d make it work.

The mother swore. “Wh-what’s going to happen to our daughter?”

“Hopefully, nothing,” he said, grateful for numbness keeping the shudder out of his voice. “Divorce him. Don’t kill him or we’ll go for you to finish the debt.” 

She curled her arms around her daughter, not bothering to cover her ears after what she’d just seen. “Are you sure I can’t kill him myself?”

He coughed. “Yes. Someone will be back in a month for the rest. Good luck. Svetlana, come.” 

He turned on his heel without looking at any of them and made his way down the stairs, out the door and into the cold glare of the sun, trusting the family to use discretion. He felt his comrade’s presence at his side as they walked back towards the Harbor together. 

–

“My lord is too kind,” Svetlana said at length. 

They had been walking in silence back to Northland Bank for the better part of twenty minutes. Childe did not miss the closest she got to criticism in her voice, the tinge of wariness. 

“People would look for a missing wife and daughter, and killing them would leave Mr. Zhao without incentive to pay his dues,” he replied. 

She tipped her head down and kept her thoughts to herself. “Of course, my lord.”

He made it another ten steps before he had to open his mouth again. “Svetlana, why don’t you head on ahead? You did great back there. I’ll finish up the deposit and you can take the rest of the day off.” 

She paused, a hitch in her step before continuing her pace. “...If you insist. Are you alright, my lord?” 

“It’s not fair for his family to pay for his mistakes,” he said, a touch desperate. He couldn’t help but imagine brown eyes replaced with blue. “I’m alright. I just hope he’ll figure something out before we have to return.”

“Er, why not let me handle the deposit, my lord? You look unwell.” 

“No.” He said, and she immediately flinched and got back in line. He couldn’t find it in himself to comfort her this time. They did not say another word to each other for the entire rest of the trip back. Only when she saluted and left him at the gates did he pull his own wallet from his inner jacket pocket to make the deposit.

Then he went back to his own hotel room and tried to figure out what the fuck he was going to do.

Chapter Text

The next morning at a little breakfast shop in Liyue Harbor, Lumine cracked an eye mid-stretch to see Paimon completely freaking out. She pointed frantically behind Lumine and screamed around a mouthful of rice bun, then ducked under the table. Lumine calmly looked over her shoulder. 

Childe gave a stiff wave in the distance before shoving his hands back in his pockets and marched over. He moved with what most would assume was murderous intent – hunched slightly, his eyes only leaving hers to search for outside threats, a total contrast to his usual unworried swagger – but she knew better. She sat up straight and called out to him before he got too close. “Oh my God, what happened?” 

The thoroughly cowed terrorist cleared his throat when he finally limped over to their table, looking around one last time for eavesdroppers. He hadn’t combed his hair. “Were you serious? About being able to protect my family?” 

She kicked the spare chair out for him and gestured for him to join them. She’d expected to gloat when he finally showed up, already having a plan drafted to help him when he finally decided to get over his pride, but his expression killed any desire to needle him. “Absolutely. Are you okay?”

“Errand went badly,” was all he said and awkwardly sat in the offered chair.

“Are the kids okay?”

He nodded and melted into his seat, weight dragging every joint out of alignment.  “Yeah. It had nothing to do with them. It’s just. You’re right. I’m not doing them any favors with the Harbinger thing.”

Paimon peeked up from the edge of the table. “That’s it? You changed your mind, just like that? What the heck happened to you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said with finality. He crossed one arm over his chest and rested his face in the other hand, his mouth resting against his palm and two fingers over his nose. He stared out at the water without looking at either of them. “You know they don’t just let Harbingers retire and then go adventuring with the enemy.”

Lumine passed their rice buns over to him, not expecting him to take them but offering anyway, and set a few sheets of paper from her inventory across the table. 

“I know. I was thinking Inazuma,” she said. She flipped a few pages around and pointed to the notes she had prepared for this exact occasion. Childe blinked and leaned forward to study them while she continued. “Mondstadt would love to have you, but the Knights of Favonius wouldn’t be able to do anything about a Harbinger, much less eight of them. I do have a friend that could take a Harbinger in a one-on-one, but he’s terrible with children and way too wrapped up in his own stuff to be much help. Also he hates you.”

Paimon squinted. “You mean Diluc?”

“Yeah.”

“What?! Master Diluc is great with children! He’s so nice to Klee!”

Lumine leaned back and crossed her arms, continuing the conversation over Childe’s distressingly quiet head. “Yeah, for five minutes at a time. Besides, the man is home three hours a week and two of them are spent sleeping.” 

Paimon grumbled. 

“I don’t think I’m important enough to send another Harbinger after me,” Childe murmured. He sounded equally relieved and disappointed. 

“Still, I’d rather not take that chance,” Lumine said. She spun a sheet of paper around and slid it over the one he was reading, tapping her crude drawing of an angry child to try to lift his spirits. “I don’t think you should stay in Liyue. All it’d take is one orphan to figure out who you are, then your family is out a big brother and there’s a new kid with a Vision in town.” 

When he didn’t respond, she clarified. “From killing you.”

“Yeah, I pieced that together.” 

“Because you deserved it,” she prodded.

“Yes, Traveler. Thank you.”

“Because you woke up a sea monster that squished their dad.”

“I get it,” he said, a flicker of amusement finally returning to his voice. 

She patted him on the shoulder and grinned. “Let’s just avoid you becoming someone’s backstory, ‘kay?”

She sat back and picked up a different paper, this one marked in blue. “I’m apparently famous in Fontaine, but I haven’t been there myself and I don’t know how much my word would go for. Same for Sumeru.”

Childe scanned the notes, chewing on a knuckle while she continued. 

“The safest possible place would be my teapot, but I know your siblings are younger. They’d get bored fast and they wouldn’t have anyone their own age. Besides, I’m still not sure what happens if I lose the teapot or it breaks.”

“This is incredible,” he whispered. He looked over at her, unguarded for the second time she’d ever seen. She liked this much better than him crumpled on the floor betting her mercy, even if it did things for her ego. “Did you really put all this together for me?”

“And for Teucer.” She smiled and tipped her chair back on two legs while she cracked her back. “Honestly, this is for the whole world. I think it’d be a much better place with Childe the guy instead of Childe the Harbinger.”

He nodded, slipping back into that worrying quiet. She gave him a minute to reflect before nudging his leg with her foot. “Trust me. It’s hard, but it’s way more fun being the good guy.”

He collected the papers back into a neat stack, ignoring her comment. “Are you sure you can do this?”

“Honey, I got the Raiden Shogun to chill for the first time in 500 years. Your little mob game is nothing,” Lumine laughed and sat back forward, chair returning to four legs with a clunk. “Speaking of Raiden, Inazuma has a strong military, direct contact with its Archon, suspicion towards outsiders and a ‘stab on sight’ order on Fatui. No Harbinger is getting into Inazuma city without someone finding out about it. And, Scaramouche already has the Shogun’s gnosis. The Fatui have no reason to go poking around.” 

“And I know for certain that he isn’t in Inazuma anymore,” Childe added. “He left as soon as he got it. I’ve been tailing him through Liyue and Sumeru ever since…” 

He trailed off and nodded, eyes glazing over as he studied the top page. She smiled and patted his arm. “I can ask the Raiden Shogun directly for sanctuary for you. I think you should be there when I do.” 

He crossed his arms and put a palm to his cheek. “Okay. Okay, that sounds good. And then I can…” He bit his lip. “Well I can’t say I’m taking the kids to vacation in Inazuma. Uh…”

“Are you trying to figure out how to get your siblings out of Snezhnaya?” Paimon asked, finally rising from her hiding place.

“Yeah.” He tapped his cheek. “I guess I could take some time off and say I’m bringing them to visit Liyue, then go from there? I don’t think they’d be suspicious of that. The other Harbingers don’t really care what I do.” 

Lumine nodded. “I can have you taken to Inazuma from here.”

“You really do have friends everywhere,” he murmured absently. He stared at the papers for a moment before looking back at her without any sarcasm or silliness. It was a weird look on him. “I can’t thank you enough for this.”

“Anytime.” 

He drummed his fingers on the table and picked up the paper stack, settling back into his businesslike cheer. “So, when are we going out to meet the Shogun?”

“Wait, you’ve already made up your mind?” Paimon looked between them. “After that huge fight you two had yesterday? That’s it?!” 

Childe leaned back and tweaked her nose, stress lines belying his joking tone. “Nobody’s ever accused me of being patient. Besides,” he said, ignoring her indignant squeak. “It’s kinda hard to sleep at night after your best friend calls you everything but a mother- you know what I mean.” 

“Yeah…” Lumine started. “That was a little harsh. Sorry ‘bout that.” 

“Don’t be,” he said just a little bit too fast and a little bit too aggressively. “I needed to hear it.” 

“Oh good, because I really just felt like I was supposed to say that. I’m not sorry at all.” 

He snorted and rolled his eyes, eventually settling back onto the papers. He got a faraway look and a somber tone. “Inazuma, huh?” 

“Yep. I can get you an audience tomorrow. Meet me by the docks at eight.” Lumine leaned forward and threw an arm over his shoulder. He reeked of blood and she politely ignored it. “Things are gonna get a lot better for you and the kids.” 

He still didn’t look at her, so she gave him a little shake. “We’ve got your back. If this doesn’t work, we’ll figure something else out, okay?”

His eyes flicked back and forth between her and Paimon before settling on her, uncharacteristic worry creasing his forehead. “You sure?”

“I promise.”

Chapter Text

Lumine, Paimon and Childe hopped off the boat onto the docks of Ritou, stretching after the cramped journey. Childe had been quiet for the trip, though Paimon was able to keep them occupied with boat trivia and stories of their time in Inazuma. He stuck tight but not too tight to Lumine’s side, about a step behind and to her left, away from her sword arm. 

Lumine led them down the docks and tried to walk them through the plaza, but two guards blocked their path. “Papers, please.” 

She frowned. “...Seriously?”

“Do you have any idea who we are?” Paimon asked. Normally Lumine would criticize her for sounding entitled, but, seriously? They helped end this country’s civil war. They earned some special treatment.

The older guard dipped his head apologetically. “Yes, but we still need to inspect your friend here’s paperwork.”

“He’s with me. We’re going to get his papers.” She crossed her arms as they hesitated, obviously unsure of what to do. “Your god trusts my judgment but you can’t?” 

“Our apologies. We mean no off–”

She turned and dug around her inventory, pulling out the sigil Yae Miko gave her for access to the Shogun’s personal quarters. She flashed it at them, then returned for more trinkets. A feather, the Shogun’s hairpin, stamped letters from the leaders of every branch of Inazuma’s government: All were dumped unceremoniously into the overwhelmed guards’ arms. 

“You are welcome to talk to any of these people if there’s a problem with my guest. Now if that’s all, let us through.”

The guards bowed and gave her back the offerings. “Our apologies, ma’am. Please enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you.” She swept past them, Paimon and Childe in her wake, before she paused and tossed the hairpin back into the older guard’s hands. “Here. You can have that.” 

Lumine waited until she was out of earshot before complaining. “See, this is why I said being the good guy is hard. It would’ve been so much faster to anemo blast them into the water but noooo. They’re just doing their jobs and it’s not their fault that their jobs are stupid.”

Childe laughed and shook his head. “You are the meanest nice person I’ve ever met.”

“Oh trust me. It’s a lot of work sometimes,” she grumbled.

“But it’s rewarding!” Paimon added.

“It’d be nice if they could reward me with some answers about my brother, but... Yeah. It’s worth it.”

They made it out of Ritou without further incident. Childe matched her pace, walking slightly behind her as he looked around. He had his business walk – shoulders set in manufactured ease instead of his comfortable slouch. “Inazuma’s so… purple,” he trailed off. “Tonia’s gonna love it here.”

“You sound surprised.”

“A little bit. I’ve heard stories, but I’ve only been here once and I didn’t get far.”

Lumine looked back over at him. “Really? With how much you like to sightsee?” 

He bumped his shoulders in a small shrug. “I didn’t have any justification to stay after I found out Scaramouche left, and you’re right about the ‘stab on sight order,’ heh. I was asked to leave.”

“And you did? Just like that?” Paimon asked.  

Childe tilted his head from side to side. “Yeah, well… the Jester threw the book at me after the stuff in Liyue. I was on a shorter leash than usual and I really didn’t want to find out what happens if I push it.” He chewed on his lip and looked away. “And it was a good excuse to spend some more time at home.”

“Oh? You’ve been home?”

He grimaced. “Yeah, on and off. I’d… actually been thinking about what a mess my life was for a while before you said something about it. Thank you, by the way.”

Lumine cocked her head. “For what?”

“For telling me what I didn’t want to hear. I’ve been having doubts ever since Teucer ran away to find me.”

“That was months ago.”

“Mmhm.” Childe sighed with his entire chest. “I still can’t believe he did that. He was five. He was five and he hitchhiked on a boat across the continent.”

“Sounds like he takes after his older brother, huh?” Paimon said. 

Both adults winced. Childe continued once he recovered. “Yeah, well, anyway… Even I couldn’t ignore that, but the other Harbingers had me out running pointless errands. Regrator’s still trying to patch things up in Liyue and had me over there to help him fix my mess.”

“But wasn’t it Signora’s fault?” Paimon asked. 

“Yes, but I was the face for that disaster,” he growled. “Remind me to thank the shogun for taking care of her.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and scowled. “Anyway, you know that I joined because, well, I stayed because they gave me enemies to test my strength against, but all they’ve had me do recently is embarrass myself with political nonsense. And… other. Stuff. I’m not even getting anything for being away from my family.”

Lumine nodded. He’d said before that he wanted to conquer the world, but getting to know him better, his idea of conquering was… It had very little to do with his power over others and everything to do with his own safety. Some people ran away from their fears, and the people she tended to respect tried to kill their fears.  

“And, you know, I did feel bad,” he said in a whisper. “I don’t like hurting people that are weaker than me. There’s no honor in that, but I swear the others get off on it.”

“I get it,” Lumine said. “I’m glad you listened. It'll be nice to have a fresh start in Inazuma, right?”

“I suppose so…”

 Paimon fluttered forward. “It’s a really pretty place once you get past the eternal storm and deadly lightning. Paimon’s sure you’ll love it!”

He laughed, but he cut it short as a distant monster was launched off a cliff by the aforementioned deadly lightning.

He blinked, mouth slowly closing. “Does. Does that happen often?”

“What?”

“The lightning.”

Lumine gave him a sidelong look. “It’s the land of thunder, home of the Electro Archon.”

“Well yeah,” he said, fidgeting with the edge of his pocket. “I just didn’t expect the nature here to be so… hostile.”

“It doesn’t usually strike around populated areas, but if you’re worried, you can pick up an electrogranum from the baby thunder sakura.” Paimon pointed to the gnarled stump pulsing with electric energy.

Childe looked down at it, then back up at the sky just as a singed bird plummeted from above. “This is ridiculous.”

“It can't be any worse than Snezhnaya! Teucer said the cold will bite out your tongue, or something!” 

He turned to look at her with a strained expression. “In Snezhnaya, you put on a coat, light a fire and stay indoors during blizzards. You don’t have to find a fairy to block lightning.”

Lumine shrugged as they walked on. “Generations of people have survived here so far.” 

“I guess,” he huffed. “Do you really think it’s safe for the kids, though?”

“Safer than anywhere else, unfortunately.” She looked back and gave him a comforting smile. “Let’s just hurry and get to the Shogun. You can make up your mind after talking to her, okay?” 

“Fine.”

Childe was a lot of fun to watch while he took in the sights. Lumine kept an eye on him while they made their way through Inazuma city. He looked everywhere but where his feet fell, scanning the signs, scrutinizing the people, sizing up potential threats and escape routes… or so she assumed. Maybe he just liked the colors. 

It was a long walk, so she messed with him for a bit. Absorbed in his sightseeing as he was, he’d unconsciously slow down or speed up to match her pace. She got to the point of almost jogging before he noticed and stuck his tongue out at her.

Thankfully Paimon was there to fill the silence. All Childe had to do was point at things of interest and she’d rattle off a half dozen relevant tidbits ranging from the disruption of silk imports to the local delicacies. He took advantage of the floating encyclopedia while they walked.

They soon reached the Shogun’s palace. Lumine led the way up the stairs and nodded to the guards. “Is the Raiden Shogun available? I have something important to discuss with her.”

“She is. Who’s this?” the guard gestured at Childe, eyes narrowing at his outfit.

“A friend, and relevant to what I need to discuss.” 

“Very well. You may enter.”

Lumine put on a polite smile and bowed before beckoning her companions forward. 

“yOu MaY ENtEr. Whatever. These paper windows wouldn't stop me if you said no,” she grumbled as soon as they passed the threshold. 

Childe chuckled, a hint of nervousness underlying it. She glanced over to check on him and saw that he was, somehow, a shade paler than usual, though he forced a bright smile when he caught her looking. 

Best to get it over with. The Shogun meditated in the middle of the room, an otherwise very normal looking woman suspended by electromagnetic forces. 

“Hey Ei! Hey Shogun!”

The Shogun cracked an eye, then Ei took over and their face took on emotion. A warm smile spread as she gracefully dropped to her feet and marched to greet them. 

“Traveler, Paimon! How nice of you to drop by.” 

Her eyes flicked over to Childe, settling on his mask and Snezhnayan Vision. Her smile waned ever so slightly but the electric charge building in the air was anything but subtle. 

“Fatui.”

Lumine stepped between them while the last of the color drained from Childe’s face. “About that. I have a favor to ask.” 

Ei shifted her focus to her. The storm in her eyes had mostly stopped intimidating her, but a lifetime of fighting had Lumine struggling not to draw her sword. “I pray it explains why you brought an enemy of Eternity to my door.”

“It does,” she said and pulled her charge forward by the arm, finally giving her something to do with her hands. “This is Childe, codename Tartaglia, older brother of three and Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers.”

His eyelid twitched. “Why would you lead with that?” he hissed. 

She turned her shoulder to the god in a display of familiarity that was much more casual than she felt and gave him a look. “Because this was actually a big act to get you here for my new hobby: Feeding Harbingers to the Shogun.” 

He did not look amused. Lumine rolled her eyes. “It’s because she likes people being upfront. Isn’t that right?”

At least Ei appreciated her humor. She chuckled and the atmosphere relaxed somewhat, letting the hair settle at the back of everyone’s neck.

Lumine continued and thanked the heavens for answering her prayers. “My little Ginger Tart here is looking to leave the Harbingers. On his behalf, I’ve come to ask for sanctuary for him and his family.” 

Ei raised an eyebrow. “And you find him deserving of our protection… why?”

“In my travels, I’ve found that everyone can change, but few do. I believe that he’s one of those few.” Lumine chewed her lip, thinking. “His siblings and his people adore him, and as irritating as he can be, I care about him, too.”

He was also the only mortal to so thoroughly capture her interest in centuries. She and Aether had learned that getting too attached to people they would leave, whether through travel or time, would bring immeasurable heartbreak. Aether would mope, cry and sleep with anything that moved when the inevitable happened, not always in that order, and had long since sworn off mortals for his stupid mental health. Lumine was sturdier. (He said it was less sturdiness and more carelessness and/or emotional masochism. Sometimes she didn’t miss him.)

Thinking about Aether made her sad, so she stopped and refocused on Childe. There was something so interestingly wrong with him – violently independent yet painfully suggestible. Not nearly as sad as he should be, yet never truly happy unless he was staring death in the face, had it pinned where he could see it coming. Was the virtue of being interesting really worth asking her friends to put their faith in him? 

No. But, they all owed her favors.

Lumine stood up straight. “I’ve known him for a while now. He’s giving up… pretty much everything that he knows for the sake of doing the right thing. I want to help get him a second chance.” 

Ei nodded but still squinted, unconvinced. 

Lumine brought her hand to her heart. “I trust him with my life. If he betrays Inazuma, you can hold me responsible.”

“You’re aware of what happens to those that betray Eternity,” the Shogun warned.

“I am.”

Lumine caught movement out of the corner of her eye and glanced over. Childe stared at her incredulously, equal parts surprised and touched. 

Ei relaxed as the last of the threat faded from the air. “Very well.” She turned to Childe and handed him an emblem from her robe. “At the Traveler’s request and her request alone, you and your family have our official protection. You shall not come to harm while you are in my land. Report to the Tenryou Commission to have your papers made.”

Childe bowed and clapped his hands together in the praying gesture of Liyue. “Thank you, shogun.”

“It’s Almighty Shogun to you.”

“Thank you, Almighty Shogun.”

Ei left him to grovel and returned her attention to Lumine. “Is there anything else you wished to discuss?”

“I… think that’s it! We need to get lunch together sometime though! It’s been awhile.”

“Agreed! Just drop by when convenient. We look forward to it.” 

They spent a few moments catching up before Lumine politely excused herself and scooted her companions out the door. As soon as they made it past the gates, Childe chuckled and put his hands behind his head. “Man, you really laid it on thick there. It almost sounded like you can stand me.”

Lumine punched his shoulder. “I meant it! I even enjoy your company.”

They walked down the steps together. She guided him a different route, past the Tenryou Commission headquarters and out into the countryside. “And I appreciate you not putting me in a weird position anymore. It was getting hard to justify spending so much time with a Harbinger.”

He looked about to make a comment about weird positions, but Paimon shushed him. “Just take the compliment! Also, Traveler, where are we going?”

“To the Kamisato Estate. He’s gonna need a place to stay.”

“You don’t have to do all this–” he began. 

Lumine hushed him with a raised finger. “I don’t wanna hear it. I gotta keep you on the straight and narrow or else Ei’s gonna kill me.”

He frowned and walked a little faster to come alongside her. “...I won’t give her a reason to kill you.”

“Good, because I’m not sure if I can take her in a fight again,” she laughed.  

Paimon flew in front of Childe’s face and put her hands on her hips. “Speaking of Ei, Paimon’s never seen you look so nervous! What happened to loving a challenge and the thrill of the fight?”

“I like a good fight, not an execution. I don’t get anything out of dying.” 

“He has a point,” Lumine added. “I mean Signora outranked you and she didn’t last two seconds.”

“Yeah…” he sighed. “Where did Signora die, anyway? I feel like I should pay my respects.”

“About where you were standing while we were talking to the Shogun,” Paimon chirped.

Lumine grimaced and noticed Childe making a face as well, but they both declined to comment further. They walked the rest of the way to the Kamisato residence in relative quiet.

On arrival, Lumine threw the doors open wide and spread her arms, Paimon whizzing past her head. “Thoma!”

His blonde head appeared from behind a paper screen, soon followed by the rest of him with his own arms outstretched. “Traveler! Paimon! It’s good to see you!”

They hugged. Lumine picked him up and spun him in a circle before dropping him and turning to get his gift out of her bag, politely ignoring his startled squeak. “I got something for you while I was in Mondstadt!”

She presented him with a ham, carefully wrapped in wax paper and crusted in salt. His eyes lit up as he accepted it.
“Yo! Is this from Springvale?” 

“Yep!” she said, fists on her hips. 

Paimon pouted by her shoulder. “You never give Paimon a ham.”

“Paimon doesn’t cook, so Paimon doesn’t need a ham.”

Childe waited at the door while Lumine followed Thoma to the kitchen to put the gift away, chattering excitedly. “Are the Kamisatos in?”

“No, but they should be back any moment.”

They returned to the lobby and Thoma went to greet Childe. “My apologies. I got a little caught up seeing an old friend. Ah…” 

His eyes fell on the mask and the obviously Snezhnayan outfit. Thoma glanced at Lumine, who smiled, before returning to Childe with a somewhat forced smile of his own. “Welcome to the Kamisato Estate. Any friend of the Traveler is a friend of mine, and of my lords. I am the housekeeper, Thoma.” 

He extended his hand to shake, which Childe did. 

“You’re not from here, are you?” her problem asked.

“Mondstadt, actually. Good eye! What gave it away?”

“You’re the friendliest person I’ve met so far.” 

Thoma laughed, a bit stiff. “Haha, yeah… Everyone’s still a little raw from the civil war we just had.”

“Started by the Fatui,” Lumine added helpfully.

“Yes, thank you, Traveler. I got that.” Childe was about to say more when the door opened behind him. He got out of the way as Ayaka and Ayato walked in.

“Heyyy!” Lumine called and rushed them. 

Ayaka lit up and accepted the hug, smiling with her entire body and indulging in a rare moment of girliness. Ayato hugged Lumine in a much more reserved but no less genuine manner. “What a pleasant surprise,” Ayaka said. “It’s been awhile.”

The siblings turned to greet Childe, paused on seeing his outfit, then turned to look at Lumine for an explanation.

“So I have a favor to ask.”

“Does it have something to do with the handsome Fatui gentleman in our home?” Ayato asked. The head of the clan smiled easily like he always did, but he studied their uninvited guest out of the corner of his eye. His inspection lingered on the face and eyes and not the clothes. 

Lumine gestured at Childe’s mask. “You really should take that thing off. Anyway,” she said, returning to the Kamisatos. “This is Childe, formerly Eleventh of the Harbingers, also goes by Tartaglia. He’s trying to leave the Fatui. We already got sanctuary for him and his family here in Inazuma, but they’re without a place to live. Do you guys have any housing recommendations for him and three young kids?”

The two of them shared a look before Ayato nodded. “If it’s you asking, we can see about arranging something. Come, sit. Let’s discuss more over refreshments.”

Thoma bowed and rushed off to the kitchen while Ayato and Ayaka led the way to the dining room table. Childe awkwardly tucked his legs under him on the floor, next to Lumine and Paimon.

Once settled, Ayaka neatly laid her hands in her lap and looked between the two. “How did you meet?”

Lumine, Paimon and Childe took turns telling their story, beginning with Rex Lapis’s death and funeral. Thoma returned in the middle of it with tea and buns. 

Childe got to the point where he was tasked with retrieving Morax’s gnosis when Lumine interrupted him, keeping him from sharing the more unsavory details. They didn’t need to know everything. 

“He’s done some bad stuff, but… he’s trying,” she deflected. “His situation isn’t easy. I decided to give him another chance after seeing how much his siblings love him. His little brother stowed away on a boat just to spend some time with him, and then he wouldn’t stop bragging about him the entire time.”

“And Childe won’t shut up about his siblings, either,” Paimon added. He made a face and looked away, though she could see the corner of his smile. 

“He’s a great older brother. How bad can he be?” Lumine asked. 

The Kamisatos nodded.

He looked down and rubbed the back of his neck, almost too quiet to hear. “Eh, I could be better.”

Lumine leaned back and lazily crossed her arms, giving him a little pat on the back as she did so. “And you’re working on it. Anyway,” she said, addressing the Kamisatos. “We’ve been sparring partners ever since. I’ve gotten to know him pretty well, and it’s safe to say he doesn’t have a dishonest bone in his body. I trust him.” She took a sip of her tea. “And if he misbehaves, I can break his legs.” 

Thoma choked on his tea and Ayaka snickered. Childe just nodded sagely. 

“She can. Anyway,” he cleared his throat and crossed his arms. “She gave me some… encouragement, to get my act together. So here I am.” 

“Was this encouragement at swordpoint?” Thoma asked.

“No, actually. She just told me what she thought about what I was doing, and…” he shrugged. “She was right.” 

Lumine turned and gave him a soft little smile.

Ayato nodded. “I believe we’ve heard enough.” He stood and beckoned Ayaka and Thoma to follow. “Please excuse us for a moment.”

Lumine raised an eyebrow but chose to stay quiet, awkwardly sipping on her tea in the resulting silence. Childe fidgeted the moment their hosts left, scanning the room, eyes flicking between the windows, doors and table. He stood and tightened into his relaxed facade when footsteps approached from the hall. She stood with him.

It didn’t take them long to return. When they did, Ayaka stood in front of them and clasped her hands in front of her skirt. “Mr. Childe, we have plenty of room here at the Estate. My brother and I would like to formally invite you and your family to stay here until you can build a foundation in Inazuma.” 

Well, damn. Lumine opened her mouth to answer but Childe was already speaking. “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary.”

She blinked, then elbowed him in the (injured) rib. “What are you talking about? This is a great opportunity.”

Ayato’s eyes narrowed, his smile never changing. “It’s also a very generous offer, one few people would refuse.” 

Lumine was about to criticize him further when she noticed Childe playing with the end of his scarf behind his back, his fist clenching around the fabric until he creased it. “I understand, but I couldn’t possibly repay you.”

“You don’t even know what we’d ask of you in return,” Ayato purred. “Besides, we are not the Fatui. We don’t punish debts the same way.” 

Childe crossed his arms casually, which Lumine knew meant he was actually incredibly uncomfortable. “Alright then. What would I owe you?” 

“Your best behavior,” Ayaka replied simply.

He couldn’t keep the disdain out of his voice. “...That’s it?”

Their host nodded, almost sounding honest. “The Tsaritsa only recruits the finest. Having you be a force for good is reward enough in itself.” 

Childe straightened and let his arms fall, confusion obvious on his face. “Er… You’re too kind, but I couldn’t impose.”

“Please accept our hospitality,” Ayaka said with the tiniest shred of evil. “It’s quite rude not to.”

He raised his hands and stepped back. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t my intent!”

Ayato smelled blood and leaned forward. “So you accept the offer?”

“I–”

“Or are you unwilling to comply with such a simple request?”

“Hey now,” Lumine interrupted and took a half step forward, putting herself between her ginger and the royal siblings. “Don’t threaten him in front of me.” 

“I’m not threatening him,” Ayato said innocently and met her stare unflinchingly. “I’m merely sharing my expectations for a former Harbinger starting a new life in our country.” 

An awkward silence hung for a moment, broken when Ayaka cleared her throat and stepped forward to address Childe directly. “I apologize. It is not our intent to make you uncomfortable. The political climate of Inazuma has been very tense as of late and I feel like that has influenced the tone of our discussion. I assure you that the Traveler’s opinion of you has secured our favor. Would you be willing to share your concerns so we can come to a solution?” 

Childe tapped his foot twice before catching himself, flustered by the friendliness. He glanced at Ayato once, who still stood on par with Lumine, then cleared his throat. “I would gladly accept it if it was just me, but I have my three little siblings to think about. I don’t want to…”

“...Put them in the hands of someone who could use their safety against you?” Ayato offered. Seeing the slight widening of Childe’s eyes, he continued. “I’m sorry to inform you that they will be at significantly higher risk anywhere else. Not everyone in Inazuma is as open-minded as we are, or as forgiving. They will not come to harm in our care, but I cannot guarantee the same outside of these walls.” 

Thoma nodded grimly, firsthand experience written on his face. 

Childe was quiet for a long while, until eventually he glanced over at Lumine. He looked… young. 

“I think it’s a good idea,” she whispered, doing a remarkable job of suppressing the urge to throw Ayato through the window for upsetting her pet Harbinger. “I think he’s overstating how dangerous Inazuma is, but you guys won’t want for anything while you’re here.”

He nodded, chewing on his lip. 

“I trust them,” she said. 

At that, Childe shut his eyes and his mouth moved in what almost looked like silent prayer, then he turned back to the Kamisatos with his brightest, friendliest, fakest smile. “Well then, if she trusts you I suppose it’s settled! When can we move in?” 

“Whenever is convenient for you,” Ayaka said sweetly, looking relieved. “Thoma will have your rooms ready by the time you arrive. Take as much time as you need and travel safely.”

Childe clapped his hands together in gratitude and bowed. “Thank you. I will return soon.” He straightened and flashed them a grin. “I won’t disappoint. I promise.” 

With that, they said their goodbyes, refused Thoma’s offer of leftovers for the road no less than three times and finally hurried outside to finish preparations. Paimon, blessedly quiet up until now, buzzed by their shoulders. “Well that was, uh, intense.”

“Mm,” Childe hummed. 

Lumine eyed the Grand Narukami Shrine towering in the distance, then fished out her mora pouch. “Hey… Paimon? I think we should introduce Tart to Yae Miko while we’re here. Would you mind running up and getting some fried tofu for a gift? Get some for yourself too.”

The fairy squealed and hurried off to buy things. The second she was out of earshot, Childe mumbled something. 

“What?”

“I don’t want to take my siblings from one hostage situation to another,” he repeated, perfectly flat. 

Lumine wished she could say with her whole heart that ‘the Kamisatos would never,’ but she had a brain and felt like Childe would completely stop talking to her if she lied to spare his feelings. “They’re not cruel. Ayaka is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met and Ayato is… more like you.” 

Childe grimaced. 

“He’ll do anything for his country and his family, but he won’t hurt people for no reason. He also cares a lot about what his sister thinks of him and won’t do anything terrible in front of her.” 

“I’m not sure that I like this comparison,” Childe grumbled.

“You’re a better martial artist than he is, if that helps? You could totally take him in a fight.” 

He snorted, then looked off into the middle distance. “If it was just about fighting, I wouldn’t have to take them out of Snezhnaya.”

Lumine stepped up and squeezed his arm. “Look, if this doesn’t work, we’ll figure something else out. We always have my teapot if nothing else.”

He put his arm around her and pulled her tight to his side in a lingering sidehug. He was always touchy, with everyone, though he normally aborted any attempt at a hug with anyone except Teucer or herself. His voice was as distant as his gaze. “Right, right…”

“I promise,” she added.

He relaxed – actually relaxed, not the crafted ease he wore – then eventually looked down at her. “Thanks.”

“I want to take you to meet one more person before we go. She’s the head priest. If she tolerates you, then you’ll have the approval of everyone that could possibly cause problems for you here.”

It took a moment for Paimon to return and when she did, they hurried up the stairs to the shine, Paimon hitching a ride on her shoulders. Thankfully the adults were both in excellent shape and the trip didn’t take too terribly long. Lumine still thought having a shrine all the way up there was a touch excessive, but whatever. Not her god, not her problem.

They finally arrived at the top, Lumine breathing hard but Childe seemingly unbothered. He was too busy taking in the scenery. She stretched her legs and approached the shrine. “Yo, Yae! Where are you?”

“Oh! Well hello dear. Long time no see,” Yae purred and stepped out from behind the frontmost building. She met Lumine at the threshold, tucking a sweaty lock of hair behind the shorter woman’s ear before discreetly wiping her hand off on her robes. 

Lumine held up the fried tofu. Yae’s eyes widened as she accepted. “A gift? My favorite gift? Oh,” she cooed and booped Lumine’s nose. “You’re too sweet.”

She popped a piece in her mouth and swallowed, eyes closed. “It’s about time you spoiled me.” 

“Anything for you,” Lumine said just as warmly. 

Yae hummed and opened her eyes. Her gaze flicked over to meet Childe’s and settled there - unblinking, unwavering, mesmerizing and just a little bit threatening. “And who might this be?”

“This is Childe, my good friend and–” 

“I was asking him.”

He looked caught off guard for a split second before collecting himself, smiling in that easy way. “My apologies. My name is Childe and I was a Harbinger, but the Traveler has agreed to help me leave the Fatui and keep my family safe.” 

Yae took a step towards him, leaning forward predatorily. “My, my. What a noble goal. How exactly do you plan to go about this?”

Childe looked to Lumine for help, but she just shrugged helplessly. “She asked you.” 

“Um. We, well…” he stuttered. “The Almighty Shogun has already granted us sanctuary here in Inazuma and the Kamisatos have graciously offered me and my siblings a place to stay. So… I guess I’m gonna go to Snezhnaya, grab my family and bring them here.” 

Yae blinked, slowly, smile unchanging and absolutely not meeting her eyes. “That's it? You mean to tell me that the most reckless, stupid and violent of the Harbingers is going to retire to a quiet life of exile and domestic bliss?”

Introducing them may have been a mistake.

Lumine cringed while Childe waited to answer, his eyes locked on Yae’s while he thought. 

“I’m waiting,” she purred, though it was the purr of approaching thunder. 

Eventually, Childe blew out the breath he was holding and mussed his hair. He re-met Yae’s glare with a sheepish smile. “Yeah. Yeah I am.”

The tension broke and Yae stood straight, laughing clear and loud. Both Lumine and Childe took a step back at the suddenness of it. 

She broke eye contact for the first time and wiped at the corner of her eye. “Oh, goodness, what a story. You simply must keep me updated. You,” she said and flipped Childe’s nose with her wand, “are going to be Yae Publishing House’s next bestseller.”

“...What?”

Childe tilted his head as Yae spun on her heel and walked off. She soon turned back to face them. “As your Guuji, you have my blessing. As your editor, I have some suggestions.”

He looked to Lumine yet again, his long bangs accentuating the utter confusion on his face, and once more she had no help. “Oh?”

“You should fake your death.”

“Excuse me?” 

Yae paced back and forth, idly gesturing with her wand. “It’s a hot trope in light novels right now. Besides, think of the imagery: the death of the Childe, the birth of the adult… reborn in a foreign land, the same land that claimed the life of your colleague…” she sighed dreamily before shaking herself from her reverie and turning to face him directly. “And while I trust the Shogun’s ability to fend off a horde of angry Fatui, I would very much rather they not come looking for you in the first place.” 

“Okay? Well how should we do that?” Paimon asked.

“You tell me. It’s your story.” Yae ate another tofu puff and made a shooing gesture while she chewed. “Mmph. Go on. Show me. Report back when you’re done.” 

The trio stood dumbstruck for a moment before Yae repeated herself. “Shoo.” 

Lumine started to lead them back the way they came, Childe bringing up the rear, when Yae interrupted them. 

“And one last thing.”

“Hm?” They turned. 

Yae made a pointed glare at Childe’s lower back. “Don’t bring that thing into the presence of the Sacred Sakura ever again.” She shook her head and stalked off, muttering to herself. “Honestly. This is a shrine, not an arms depot.” 

Lumine waited until Yae rounded the corner before looking at Childe for an explanation. He pulled his blazer up and twisted, showing her the sickly purple Delusion clipped to the back of his belt. 

“Ah. That makes sense, I guess.” 

“Okay! Well, that could’ve gone worse, Paimon guesses. To Liyue?”

They nodded, took a second to process what just happened, then started the long walk back.

Chapter Text

Childe grunted as he loaded the last of his siblings’ things onto the second boat. He’d spent the past week making excuses to his superiors about needing some time with his family, securing a fake inn stay and covering his tracks. They weren’t thrilled about his vacation until he said he’d be taking the kids out of the country rather than him coming to stay. Suddenly they were allll smiles and encouragement. 

Bastards. 

So, he’d packed their bags and covered their tracks and got them excited for their extended stay, taking them to see their older siblings one last time before they left. His older sisters and brother had long moved out by the time Teucer, Tonia and Anthon were old enough to know them and they rarely came to visit – to the point that even Childe barely knew anything about their lives. His rampage as a boy probably contributed to that – but it felt wrong to just… leave without saying goodbye.

All of this felt wrong. He loved his god. He loved his people. He loved his home and his men and his culture and everything about Snezhnaya, but… he loved his family more and he wouldn’t let them go. The Traveler was right about his work. All he could do now was trust her and pray that the Tsaritsa would understand. 

He knew she would. She would execute him for betrayal, certainly, but it was simply a matter of her love for her people versus his love for his family. He'd never fault her for it.

His older siblings had been somewhat disinterested and very uncomfortable at his arrival, giving their younger siblings a pat on the head and him a respectful nod before going back to their own work with the Fatui. On some level he wanted to bring them, too, but they all had their own lives. They were all old enough to make their own bad choices just like he had and he couldn’t risk loose lips. So… he just insisted on a hug goodbye, which they all cringed away from, and prayed again they’d be alright. Hopefully they wouldn’t come looking for the kids after he ‘died.’

Now, he grumbled and wiped away the sweat threatening to bead into his eyes. He hated to admit it, but it would’ve been great if his older siblings took over after their dad died. Then Pulcinella never would’ve been involved and the kids would’ve been safe. Childe would’ve been free to drop everything to be with the Traveler, take the other Harbingers head-on, live the life of violence and adventure that he’d always wanted. He’d be free to hone himself into the greatest weapon the world had ever seen and put himself in the hands of someone that deserved to wield it – to only worry about himself, only keep himself safe. Just… limp home every once and a while to check on the kids and rest easy knowing someone more competent was watching them. 

It would be a perfect story for a perfect weapon. Unfortunately, he wasn’t perfect and neither was the world. 

The ginger quartet had arrived in Liyue without issue. Now Childe just needed to stealthily get the kids and their things onto the Traveler’s friend’s boat for the final jot to Inazuma. He’d already checked in at the inn to keep up appearances, then brought them back so he could keep an eye on them. 

Things would be fine, he told himself. He only needed to finish this, then fake his own death without traumatizing the kids. Perfectly doable and sane. 

He blew out the breath he’d been holding and stared at the hull of the boat for a bit before a tug on his pant leg got his attention. He turned to his youngest brother, Teucer, who bounced in place. 

“Ajax! Ajax! I wanna go see the lanterns!” 

“Oh, uh. We’ll go see them in a second. I just need to finish this, alright?”

“Can you finish faster?”

“I’ll try.”

“I need to pee,” Tonia, the oldest, announced from behind him. 

Childe frowned and looked at her over his shoulder. “Why didn’t you go while we were at the inn?” 

“Because I didn’t need to go then.”

Childe pinched the bridge of his nose, remembering why he didn’t take the kids on trips more often. A cough from above brought him out of his thoughts. 

“You good down there?” an imposing woman asked. 

“Yep. Just gotta, urgh–” he grunted and shoved an overburdened suitcase up and over the railing onto the deck of the Alcor. “– get the last of this. Thank you again, Captain Beidou.”

She watched him struggle, her remaining eye floating over to the growing pile of baggage that her men carried below deck. “...You’re welcome.”

Beidou leaned over the railing. He briefly admired the security of her outfit. “So… have you considered that this might be a tad excessive?” 

“I have my reasons,” he grunted, lifting the final suitcase and chucking it up there. 

He glanced back to see his middle brother about to wander out from behind the crates obscuring them from prying eyes. “Anthon! Get back here.”

His brother sighed and trudged back. Childe pulled all three of his siblings together into a line and had them look up at the captain. “This is Captain Beidou. She’s gonna take us to Inazuma, where we’re gonna stay for awhile, okay? You need to listen to her.”

The kids nodded and said hi. Beidou propped her chin on her fist. “Cute.”

She turned her attention back to him. “Traveler’s up here when you’re ready. Kazuha can watch the kids while you two do your thing.”

“Uh, I… kinda just promised Teucer I’d take him to see the lanterns.” 

Beidou blinked, unimpressed.

“Also Tonia needs to pee.”

“...”

“I’m sorry.”

“You best hurry up,” she warned. “I have other things to do today.”

“Yes, Captain,” Childe said and ushered the kids along. “We’ll be right back.”

Childe speedran the kids through Liyue’s tourist traps and made one last pass by the inn – mostly to occupy Teucer and make sure that nobody else needed to use the bathroom, but also to throw off any Fatui trailing them. Not that anyone would. He doubted the other Harbingers cared enough about what he did in his free time to have him watched. 

He couldn’t help but be paranoid, though. Introspection wasn’t his strong suit, as the Traveler not so nicely pointed out, but even he recognized that he was a spectacularly bad liar and his family’s safety hinged on his success.

He nearly jumped out of his skin as they passed in front of the Northland Bank and an agent called out to him, saluting. 

“Hey comrade,” he yelled back before scooting the kids along. The money he had withdrawn earlier for ‘mission expenses’ hung heavy in his pocket and stress gnawed at the back of his mind. He’d never had anything other than his own life at stake before, and Tsaritsa knew he’d never been careful with it. 

He eventually managed to return the empty-bladdered, toy-laden children to the Alcor without being seen. He hauled himself up after them and stood on the deck with the Traveler, Paimon, Beidou and a softspoken, short man. 

The captain put her hands on her hips and bent down to get closer to the kids. “Alright kiddoes. My boy Kazuha here is going to take you all below deck and get you settled in for our trip. I need you to be very quiet and listen to him, alright?” 

The short man waved. 

Childe prodded the kids. “What do you say?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Yes, Captain,” she corrected, then turned on her heel and gestured for the kids to follow her and Kazuha. “C’mon. We’re burning daylight.” 

Childe let out a shuddering sigh as he watched them disappear below deck, Teucer turning back to wave at him before he vanished into the dark. 

“Paimon, why don’t you stay with the kids?” the Traveler suggested. The child nodded and went to follow the other group, leaving the two of them alone. 

“So. What exactly is the plan?” he asked. He’d been so focused on getting to this point that, now that they were here, he had no idea how to proceed.

The Traveler put her fists on her hips. “We’re going to make a huge scene, fight, throw you into the ocean and have the Alcor float over you with the anchor down. You’ll climb up the anchor rope and then we’ll be off to Inazuma!” 

“Alright, sounds good,” he said, a bit dazed. 

When he didn’t do anything more, the Traveler tilted her head at him. “What’s on your mind?”

“Everything.”

She frowned and reached out to rub his arm. He looked over at her, realizing that he had been staring at the deck and a little surprised by the contact.

“It’ll be alright.”

He smiled, equally nervous and touched at the gesture. She looked at him differently than other people did – not afraid of him, not disappointed in him, not looking up to him. She was just… normal. Very normal, and very kind. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, but he liked it. 

Childe groaned and put both hands to his face, running them back up his scalp and then through his hair. “Ugh… this is a lot.” 

“I know. Wanna get it over with?”

“Yeah,” he said and swallowed. “Uh… meet me in front of the Bank? There’s a ton of witnesses there.” 

“Sounds good.” She turned to hop off the other side of the boat, but paused before jumping. “I’m really proud of you, you know.”

“Oh stop it. I feel weird enough about this as it is.”

She gave him a sad little smile and left, leaving him to eventually unroot himself from the deck and get moving. 

Childe had far too much time to think about things as he walked the long way around to the other side of Liyue. The events of the past week kept circling in his head – fighting with the Traveler, going to Inazuma, deciding to fake his own death like the plot of a bad book. 

Did he bring enough of the kids’ things? Were they going to be okay in Inazuma? Would he even be able to take care of them without Pulcinella’s help? What was he going to do while he was there? Why was the Traveler helping him? Why were the people of Inazuma going along with it? Were the Kamisatos going to be a problem, specifically Ayato? Where would he go if things didn’t work out? 

All these thoughts and more hounded him as he finally stepped in front of the Bank. He waved to the agent from before.

“Mornin’ comrade.”

“Lord Harbinger! It’s an honor.”

“I know. You’re welcome.” Childe casually leaned against the opposite building while he waited. “How’s work going?” 

“Oh, uh. Good! It’s very good, sir. I-”

“CHILDE!”

Well that was fast. He looked up barely in time to deflect the lightning that arced out at his face, immediately followed by two more blasts. The Traveler didn’t mess around. 

A white and gold blur advanced. Her blade sparked off the wall next to his head. He sidestepped and kicked her down the road, though she was up in an instant. 

“My Lord!” 

The agent rushed out into the walkway to block her way – bless him. Childe gave the Traveler a pleading look and started backing down the road back towards the harbor. “Stay out of this, comrade. I’ll handle it.” 

“But sir–” he was cut off by her vaulting over him, planting her hand square in his face and using him as a springboard. Childe winced as his subordinate’s head hit the ground. 

He didn’t have long to think about it, though. The force of her charge sent her spiraling around Childe after he blocked. He spun with her, whipping his spear along and slashing at her head. He missed. The force of her counterstrike against his spear rattled the last of his nerves loose and finally, he started to relax. 

He could do this. 

“You won’t leave Liyue alive!” the Traveler roared, loud enough for the horrified Bank employees clustering on the balcony to hear. 

“Oh come on, now. Surely we can work this out,” he said, spreading his arms. He really missed his calling in theater. Maybe he could start over with that? 

Focus! He shook his head, flicked his wrists and brought out his hydro knives. “Through violence, obviously. Loser leaves town.” 

She lashed out at his unguarded stomach. He took a half step back, letting the tip of her sword graze his blazer, then brought the hilt of his knife across her temple. She hit the ground shoulder first and rolled back to her feet. 

“That’s not good enough,” she hissed, slightly dazed by a blow that would kill another. “You’re a threat to the entire world.” She stood up straight and struck a grand pose. “I can’t let you leave!”

She delivered the lines with such conviction that he vaguely worried whether this would’ve been reality if he made worse choices. He didn’t have much time to think before she was at him again, electricity and wind biting alongside steel. 

He let her batter him back to a less crowded area, trying to be considerate of the panicking townsfolk, before he started fighting back properly. The power of his Delusion demanded use and soon he was meeting her lightning with his own. 

This was his last fight as a Harbinger. He wanted it to be good. 

Childe brought his spear down over his head and she blocked. He kicked it around, slapping her in the ribs with the shaft before ripping it back. She twisted closer to him before the blade cut her, then swirled a palmful of his own hydro back into his face.

They traded blows for a bit, steadily working their way towards the waterline. His Delusion burned against his lower back, egging him to tower over her and bear down against her sword with both of his, using his height and weight to his advantage. 

She wobbled under the pressure. He grinned, forgetting that he was supposed to lose, and then she hit him in the stomach with that damned rock. 

He coughed as the earth itself knocked the wind out of him. She then slapped him in the face with that wind. 

“You good?” she whispered when he doubled over.

“Mmhm,” he grunted, dazed out of his bloodlust. “Just a few exploded organs. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” 

“Oh, good.” She stomped, a spire of stone erupting from the ground and punting him out into the harbor. He skipped once on the water’s surface, hard and unyielding, before colliding with an unlucky ship. Thankfully his head was there to slow him down.

He groaned and stabbed a knife into the boat’s hull, hanging there for a moment while he blinked the black spots out of his vision. A white blur replaced them and he shot up onto the deck with his Delusion’s help, Traveler not far behind. 

He ignored the panicked crew and scaled the mast. He alternated between jumping a body length up the rigging and slashing at the advancing Traveler. She had long ago memorized his reach and danced just a hair’s breadth outside of it. His heart fluttered as he reached the top and watched her ascend. 

He had faced many men and monsters in his short life, but none compared to her. Most people fought for their lives – messy, reactionary and fearful – but she fought with an otherworldly ferocity that pushed past his limits and put him in the position of prey. She fought like Skirk. 

All that terrifying power, commanded by a heart of gold. She was everything he’d hoped he’d be, everything his parents had wanted him to be, and he knew he would never find someone like her again.

The Traveler hopped up and balanced on the mast’s yard, sword loose at her side. Her face softened and they both looked over at the city where a sizable crowd had gathered to watch. It didn’t feel real. He’d always expected to die alone, conveniently, stubbornly wedged between death’s teeth in some dark, forgotten part of the universe. He logically knew that there would be a funeral when he eventually didn’t come home, or maybe he’d live on as a Fatui legend – the Harbinger that disappeared in the line of duty, forever beating back the Abyss. Either would be an end to his story that his family could be proud of. This… wasn’t that. 

Eventually, the Traveler looked back at him with a breathless smile. “Ready?”

No. “Yeah.”

She kicked forward and met him with a bone-aching strike. He blocked, but it didn’t matter. She launched him back over the water with the force of a hurricane and leapt after him.

Childe barely breathed as time slowed around him. She hovered above, wind billowing in her glider and whipping her hair around her face. She raised her hand and golden light haloed her head. 

She had that same determined stare that made him pledge his allegiance to the Tsaristsa all those years ago, but unlike her, the Traveler’s eyes held no schemes, no contempt, just warmth. She looked at him as he fell, really at him, and smiled. 

“Hold your breath.”

With that, she flung the stone spear she had been gathering over her head. He didn’t have time to react even if he wasn’t stunned by a glimpse of the star in all her burning glory. It stabbed through his cloak and dragged him down, down, crashing through the water’s surface and sucking him to the ocean floor. 

Her light faded as he stretched out his hand. Bubbles rose and obscured his vision while the weight of the ocean pressed around him. Darkness closed in, but it couldn’t block out that afterimage forever burned into his memory. 

He decided that he would follow her wherever she led. Sorry, loving Tsaritsa and sorry, merciless Skirk. A real angel had found him, one more terrifying and kind than any god of this world, and he would gladly be burned by that light. 

Childe’s Vision shined bright as he sank into the abyss. For the first time in many, many years, blanketed by the cold embrace of the sea, he felt… right. Like he was doing the right thing. Like he wasn’t marching towards his own violent destruction. 

The spear finally settled in the muck. Childe turned and ripped his cloak free, tearing the fabric, then pulled his mask off and left it for the Fatui to find. He climbed up the spear and cast around for the rope, idly hoping they’d arrive before he drowned. He could hold his breath longer than most, thankfully, but even he had limits. 

Once he finally, blindly stumbled across the rope, Childe hauled himself up hand over fist to outrun the shadows bleeding into the edges of vision. It was like crawling out of the Abyss for the first time, his lungs and eyes burning from salt and poison, the surroundings crushing tight against his body and whispering for him to surrender, to let them in. 

Just like before, he did. 

His lungs gave out a foot below the surface. Childe sucked in a chestful of water and almost surged forward with the help of his Delusion on reflex, but he only had a few more inches to claw. Strong hands grabbed him by the hair and shoulders the moment he breached the surface, hauling him onto the deck while he choked, then wrapped him in a blanket and hurried him out of sight. 

It hurt. Drowning was a truly terrible way to kill someone. That’s why he never did it. Childe stumbled along by the stranger’s guidance until the world came to rest, then promptly vomited water at his feet. He blinked in the dark and looked around while taking a few shuddering gasps, consciously restraining himself from bolting or injuring whoever was stupid enough to touch him while he was hurt. 

The quiet guy, Kazuha, pounded on his back and looked worriedly into his face. “Are you alright?”

“Never better,” he wheezed, but he meant it once he calmed down. Salt water was purifying, after all. Three little voices called out from below and he straightened, wiping the last of the water from his nose and mouth. 

Kazuha gestured for him to enter the hold. Childe followed and met up with his siblings, kneeling to scoop all three into a huge hug. 

“Ew. Why are you wet?”

Childe chuckled and kissed the top of Anthon’s head, knotting his fingers in their hair. “I had to take a little swim to get here.” He sighed heavily, coming down from his battle high and collapsing into a familiar touch.

This was all for them. Despite what he liked to tell himself, he probably never would’ve left the Fatui on his own terms, not without the pressure of needing to take care of them. They would never know that they saved his soul from a long, bloody, dark decline. 

Eventually, just as the kids were about to question why he was clinging to them, Childe rebuilt his composure and leaned back into a squat with a wild grin. “You guys excited for Inazuma?”

They waited until the ship was out of view of the harbor before Childe and his siblings went back topside. The kids chased each other around the deck. Childe watched them fondly as he made his way to Captain Beidou and the Traveler leaning against the railing, keeping an eye out for Teucer specifically. He had a tendency to fall off of things. 

Captain Beidou turned to leave just as he arrived, but she paused to clap him on the shoulder and then ruffle his hair. “You’re doing good, boy.” 

He froze. “Uh. T-thank you.”

She left and he turned to look at the Traveler after a moment, who smirked. 

“What?”

“You’re blushing,” Paimon said, judgemental. 

“Beidou has that effect on people,” the Traveler said. “I couldn’t talk for like five minutes the first time she hugged me.”

“You’re being weird. Paimon’s leaving.”

The Traveler snorted and waved at her as she floated off to join the kids. “Alright, Paimon. Let the grown ups talk about the icky stuff. Anyway,” she turned to Childe. “Feeling any better about your new life?”

He turned to lean against the railing next to her, his legs a touch unsteady with Delusion overuse and a brush with drowning. “Much. Really, Traveler. I can’t thank you enough.”

“It’s Lumine.”

He paused and looked over at her. “Pardon?” 

“My name. It’s Lumine.”

Childe watched her face for a moment, a bit surprised. He considered his choice for a moment before deciding that it was only fair, then reluctantly held out his hand to shake. “...Ajax.”

“Huh. How… normal.”

“You sound disappointed.” 

She hopped up onto the railing as well, her boots dangling a few inches from the deck. “Nah, it’s just hard to match the extravagance of Childe or Tartaglia.”

She kicked her heels. “I like Ajax better, though. You look like an Ajax.”

He crossed his arms and looked back at the kids, stuffing down his irrational discomfort. “Ajax and Teucer were heroes from an old story my dad used to like.”

He watched as Teucer tripped over his own feet and went sprawling onto the deck. He snorted, then looked down at his boots. Old bloodstains noticeable only to him stared back. “He wasn’t the best with names, apparently.” 

Lumine punched his shoulder, ignoring Teucer in favor of him. “Hey, you’ve still got… at least two years to live up to it.”

He swatted the side of her head. “I’m going to make it to at least thirty, fuck you very much.” 

Her toothy grin faded and she looked away from him, instead at his family. “Besides, most old heroes were actually pretty horrible people. History just focuses on the good parts.” She chewed her lip for a moment. “Maybe you’re better off as Childe.”

“Mm, maybe,” he agreed.

“What do you want me to call you?” 

What did he want her to call him?  Tartaglia was a title and Childe was an insult, but… what else was there? He killed Ajax with his own two hands. His parents knew what he did in the dark, grimacing every time they called him by their dead son’s name, but his younger siblings never knew him as anyone else. Was it time to resurrect him? Did he even want to? 

Childe sighed, his lungs still raw from salt. “...Ajax.”

He felt her sympathetic, sad smile boring into him. He glanced at her sidelong but chose to remain silent, instead looking out over the horizon towards their new home. Thunderclouds hung heavy in the distance. He heard an unexpectedly loud thump as Lumine dropped off the railing and started walking towards the kids. 

“Alright then. Get some rest, Ajax. I’ll help you guys get settled once we get to Inazuma.”

Chapter Text

“C’mon guys. Hold hands,” Childe urged, holding Tonia’s hand. He daisy chained the kids together after helping them off the boat and directed them down the dock, Lumine and Paimon at his side. 

“We’ll come back to get their things!” Paimon yelled back at the Crux crew. 

Beidou gave them a thumbs up. “No rush. We’ll be here until the morning. The boys deserve some leave.” 

Childe waved gratefully at her and turned to follow Lumine to the Tenryou Commission headquarters to get their paperwork. They made it halfway down the dock before Teucer gasped and released his brother’s hand, rushing over to the edge of the dock and squatting down. 

“Ajax! Look at the fish!”

Childe paused and went over to him, looking down at their reflections in the water. A few pufferfish swam in lazy circles. He wondered how difficult they were to catch. “I see. They’re different than the fish in Snezhnaya, aren’t they?”

“I wanna go fishing!” 

He smiled and patted his brother’s back. “We’ll go fishing later. C’mon now, hold Anthon’s hand. We gotta do some stuff.”

Teucer pouted and did as he was asked. Anthon held his hand tight and half dragged him along, but he himself got distracted by a vendor as soon as they crossed into Ritou. He stopped in his tracks, pulling on Tonia’s hand, who pulled on Childe, who stopped. 

“What’s that?” Anthon asked. 

“That’s a snack shop,” Lumine offered. “They have some kinda fried dough ball thing.” 

“Can we get some?”

“Oooh, Paimon wants some too!”

Childe took a sharp breath in and closed his eyes. “...Sure. And then we gotta focus, okay?”

Nevermind that him asking everyone else to focus was a bit hypocritical, he went over and got an order for everyone to share. He offered one to Lumine, but she politely refused. Paimon had no such grace. 

“What’s the chewy thing in the middle?” Tonia asked. 

“Uh…” He took the last one and bit into it. White mystery chunks nestled in the center of the admittedly delicious dough. “I have no idea.”

“It’s octopus!” Paimon announced. 

Tonia made a face but continued chewing. Anthon and Teucer seemed unbothered by the realization. Once they finished and Childe discarded the wrapper, he collected the kids and tried to leave Ritou again. 

Every few steps were punctuated with an interruption – fascination over the sakura blooms, chasing after a stray cat, pointing at a stranger in a particularly nice robe, staring at the guards. 

He wasn’t frustrated at them necessarily, but he was getting very worried about having them living with the Kamisatos. He couldn’t even get them to get their immigration paperwork. How was he going to have them living under the heads of Inazuma’s government? 

He settled on picking Teucer up and putting him on his shoulders so he couldn’t run off anymore, which would hopefully keep Anthon in line. Tonia, to her credit, would at least stay by his side as she gawked at the scenery. 

He heard Paimon whispering something about his siblings being spoiled and scowled. He glanced over just as Lumine swatted her leg and muttered, “Be nice. He’s trying.” 

So there was that. He desperately tried to be a good brother and pay attention to every little thing Teucer pointed out, but they were only just out of the city and he could feel every nerve fraying. Anthon went over the shore and picked up a seashell, then squawked and dropped it when something moved inside.

Lumine came to his rescue once again. Childe paused as she went to the front of the group and put her hands on her hips. “Hey kiddoes, listen up.”

All four gingers turned their attention to her. 

“Your big brother has a big, big present for you that he worked really hard on. It’s so big that he can’t wrap it up, but we want it to be a surprise! You don’t want to spoil his hard work, do you?”

They shook their heads. 

“Okay then. Cover your eyes.” 

The kids giggled and did as she instructed. 

“Great! Now hold hands, just like you were,” she knelt down and joined Anthon’s stiff outstretched hand to his sister’s. “Now you hold onto Chi– er, Ajax.”

Tonia held onto the tail of his suit jacket and Anthon clung to her. Childe looked to Lumine and mouthed, “Thank you.”

She just smiled at him and bounced on. “Alright now! Be careful. You can look at the ground to see where you’re going but no peeking.” 

They made their way to the Tenryou Commission building much faster than they otherwise would’ve. The kids only peeked once or twice, but all it took was a sharp look from Paimon or Lumine to get them behaved once again. Lumine left them at the armed gates to get things set up, then returned almost immediately and nodded to him. 

Childe put Teucer back on the ground. “Alright guys. We’re not at the surprise yet, but you can open your eyes.”

They did and looked around. Anthon and Tonia brightened at the sight of the guards, but Teucer blanched and clung to his leg. Childe reached down and gave him a pat on the head. “We’re gonna go get some paperwork done. I need you guys to be very quiet and behave, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Or else Auntie Traveler and Paimon will be very upset with you,” Paimon added. 

The kids nodded, much more seriously. Lumine led the way through the courtyard with its sand gardens to the secretary, who directed them deeper into the Commission headquarters. They passed the entrance to the jail on the way to the screening booth. Everything was dark wood and paper and serious faces, professional but brooding. The kids crowded around his legs as they followed Lumine through the halls and into a much friendlier looking waiting room.

He figured it’d be best to take Tonia in first. She was the best behaved and Childe didn’t entirely know what he was doing, so he left his brothers with Lumine and took his little sister up to the counter.

A tired clerk glanced up at him. Childe pulled out the Almighty Shogun’s emblem and quickly explained the situation for their immigration, leaving out as many details as possible without seeming cagey. The clerk raised an eyebrow at the sigil and nodded, then gestured for him and Tonia to stand against a plain backdrop. 

“Name?” 

He blanked. He didn’t want his code name on any official documents given the likelihood of Fatui floating around, but he also didn’t want to use his real name. Unfortunately, Tonia made the decision for him. “His name is Ajax!”

Dammit. 

“And?”

“Ajax Narval. This is Tonia Narvala.” Would Narval Tonia fit the local customs better? Too late now, unfortunately.

“Wonderful, thank you. Height and weight?”

“Uh… about 190cm and 85kg. And Tonia is–”

“151.2cm!”

The clerk glanced at them over his glasses, smiling faintly. “Would you like that decimal on your papers?”

“Yes please!”

Childe couldn’t help but smile, even if she did just blurt out his information. He picked Tonia up by the armpits to get a rough estimate of her weight. “She’s about 40kg.”

“Perfect, thank you. Occupation?”

“Toy salesman.” He picked Tonia up and held her aloft. “And her title is best sister ever.”

She smiled and kicked her legs. 

“Age?”

“Eleven!”

“Twenty-three.”

“Great, thank you.” The clerk finished scribbling some things down and turned to file the papers away. He filled out two forms and handed them back to them. He actually put ‘best sister ever’ as her job description. 

“Those are for you. Keep them on your person while you’re in Inazuma, at least until people start to recognize you.” 

“Yessir. Is there anything else before I bring my brothers over?”

“No, sir. That will be all. Go right ahead.”

Childe went and retrieved his brothers and got their paperwork done, both of them uncharacteristically quiet, then tucked the forms into the inside of his jacket. Lumine got them to cover their eyes again and they walked back out to the terrace, Childe considerably more at ease knowing they wouldn’t be arrested randomly when Lumine wasn’t around to protect them.

He guided them to the edge of the terrace and put Teucer onto his shoulders for a better view. 

“Alrighty guys. Here’s your present!” He gestured out over the city. “Anything you wanna do, anything you want. Starting tomorrow, whatever Inazuma has to offer, I will get for you.”

Teucer made a happy noise and bounced on his shoulders, gripping his hair just a little too tight, but Childe didn’t mind. “Fishing!”

Tonia pointed at the massive building to their right. “What’s that?”

The crushing dread he’d been feeling broke for the tiniest sliver of hope. At least they were excited. “That’s the Almighty Shogun’s palace, like the Tsaritsa’s back in Snezhnaya.”

Lumine cleared her throat to get his attention. He looked over. “I hate to rush you, but I do have some commissions to do. Is there any way we can get them settled soon?”

“Oh yeah! Sure!” Childe turned and gestured for Anthon and Tonia to follow. “Let’s get to where we’re gonna stay, okay? I want you guys to meet our hosts before I take you out on the town.”

They hurried along towards the Kamisato Estate. The promise of fun kept the kids in line for the time being while Lumine and Paimon told them more about the Kamisatos – what kind of people they were, the things they liked, what to expect and so on. Childe nodded along with the kids, grateful for the crash course. He wished Lumine would stay longer to help them get settled, but he didn’t feel right asking for more than she was already doing. 

He didn’t know what he’d do without her. He followed placidly behind her, watching her hair and dress bounce with each step, and thought about how grateful he was that they could get back to normal after that tragically brutal rejection. He had worried that asking her out would make her uncomfortable or awkward around him, but she seemed more at ease if anything. Definitely the kind of person that liked being in charge of a project. 

Childe steered Anthon away from the edge of the path and took his hand, allowing himself a moment to feel sorry for himself. He’d… never wanted someone before – relationships just happened to him and he strung them along until either he wisened up to how terrible it was, got bored or they got sick of him. Even joining the Harbingers hadn’t been his idea! His dad shoved him off to the military after he got to be too much to handle, not that he blamed him, and then Pulcinella groomed him for excellence. 

Childe shook himself out of his thoughts and focused on Lumine’s voice, now describing how Inazuma’s government worked with Paimon’s input. She’d set them up with the closest thing this culture had to royalty and once again, he couldn’t express how much he appreciated her. Really, this was for the best. She was his best friend, his siblings’ Auntie Lumine and an invaluable relationship, one that he couldn’t afford to lose. 

A few guards, from the city, not the Estate, glared at him and he felt his skin crawl without the political protection of the Fatui. It’d been a long time since he’d felt as vulnerable as a normal person. Lumine laughed ahead of them and Childe sighed. 

He really couldn’t afford to lose her. 

Paimon let herself into the Estate first. She announced their arrival while Childe put Teucer back on the ground. Thoma and Ayaka appeared at the threshold shortly after. 

“Welcome to the Kamisato Clan Estate,” Ayaka said with a warm smile, bowing. “I am Kamisato Ayaka. My brother, Kamisato Ayato, is currently out on business, but you will meet him soon. This is my loyal servant, Thoma.”

Thoma knelt down with a big smile. “So you’re the little guys that’re gonna stay with us? Your brother’s said a lot about you.”

Tonia put her hands on her hips and nodded proudly. Anthon gave a shier nod from behind her. Teucer, dammit, asked, “Are you the butler?”

Childe winced and covered his brother’s mouth. “I’m so sorry.” He craned his head down to look him in the face, those big blue eyes peeking out from over the smothering hand. “No buddy. Mr. Thoma is not a butler. He’s one of our gracious hosts and you need to listen to him, okay?”

Teucer blinked and nodded. Thoma chuckled. “It’s alright. It’s an easy mistake to make.” He stood and dusted his knees off. “I am the personal servant and housekeeper of the Kamisato Clan, so I do do a lot of things that a butler would, but I’m more of a… hausfrau?”

“What’s a frau?” Anthon asked. 

“What’s a butler…?” Ayaka whispered, equally mystified. 

Thoma just ushered them inside. “I’m sure you must all be exhausted. Let me show you to your rooms.”

Ayaka shook herself back into elegance and turned to follow him, looking over her shoulder at Childe. “Where are your things?” 

“Still on the boat. I planned to bring them here first and then go back and get their stuff.” 

Thoma leaned in to whisper something to Ayaka. She frowned and held her hands to her chest. “Are you certain?”

“Of course, my lady. I’ve got it handled. I’ll come get you if we need anything.”

“Very well.” She turned to the group and curtseyed. “My apologies, but I also have some things that require my attention. I will return for dinner, but in the meantime, I wish you all a pleasant stay and an easy adjustment. Please do not hesitate to ask Thoma if you need something.” 

“Awww. Bye Ayaka!” Paimon pouted. 

Lumine went for a hug, making Ayaka blush a deep red. “See you soon! Don’t work too hard.” 

Without Childe’s urging, Tonia nudged both of her brothers and stepped forward. She put her little hands together in a praying gesture and dipped her head down, the others following her lead. “Thank you Ms. Ayaka and Mr. Thoma.”

…Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. 

Ayaka regained the ability to speak after Lumine released her. “You’re most welcome. Um. Goodbye.”

With that, she turned and disappeared deeper into the mansion. Thoma just covered his mouth with a hand, eyes crinkling with barely restrained glee. He looked over at Childe. “Wow, your siblings are adorable.”

He turned on his heel and gestured for them to follow. Childe hurried to join his side. 

“Your rooms are this way,” Thoma said and dropped his voice. “Is it alright if they share a room? I assumed since they’re so young, but I can clear out a space for them as needed.”

“That’s fine! I planned to sleep with them anyway,” Childe said. 

“Oh that’s not necessary! We have plenty of space. I already have the guest room prepped for you, I just didn’t have time to prepare three others.”

“I don’t want them to be scared of the thunder,” Childe waved him off with a practiced excuse. He did not want to overstay their welcome, not when they had literally nowhere else to go. He’d grown up in a tiny house with way too many people and then slept in shared tents with the Fatui. An entire room for four was downright spacious. 

“Um, alright. If you insist.” Thoma opened the door to the kids’ room, divided into three by paper curtains painted with beautiful, swirling patterns. Each section was fitted with a plush bedroll, an array of pillows and a dresser. 

The kids filed in and looked around, poking in the dressers, tracing the designs on the walls and plopping down in the beds. 

“Which section do you guys want?” Childe asked. 

Tonia pointed to the rightmost one, Anthon to the left and Teucer kicked his heels from his spot in the middle. 

“Great. Teucer, we’re sharing.” 

“Yay!”

Teucer ran over for a hug and Childe picked him up, swinging him onto his hip. Thoma excused himself to go make dinner and ducked out of the room leaving Lumine, Paimon, Childe and the kids to sort things out. 

“Alrighty,” Childe sighed and ran his free hand through his hair. “I’ll go grab their stuff. Uh…”

“I can watch them while you’re gone,” Lumine offered.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course!” she said and took Teucer from his arm. She tossed him up into the air with a happy squeal, then turned to the others. “You guys ready for a pillow fight?” 

They swarmed her like they had known her for years. He didn’t even feel the usual murderous rage when Lumine picked up a pillow and hauled back to clock Anthon good. Childe watched her and Paimon play with the kids for a moment before he gave her shoulder a grateful squeeze and set out back towards the docks. 

It took a few trips and a very unfortunate-for-them encounter with some bandits, but Childe got the last of the luggage to the room before sunset. He tried to ignore the judgemental looks from the guards, but he couldn’t when Lumine and Paimon gave him the same raised eyebrow. 

Lumine sat crisscrossed on the floor, Paimon in her lap and a pillow at her side. Tonia and Anthon were halfway through unpacking what he’d already brought. 

“Wow, it’s like he brought everything they owned,” Paimon whispered, much louder than she probably intended. 

“I only brought the necessities,” Childe said with fake cheer. She really needed to know that other people could hear her.

“The necessities? ”

Lumine leaned back on her arms and gave him a look. “You don’t think the Fatui will think it’s a little suspicious that you brought half their belongings for a vacation?”

He rolled his eyes. “This is nowhere near half of their things. Nobody will notice a thing.”

She flopped onto her side while he fussed with the luggage. “I thought you said you traveled light.”

“I do! But that doesn’t mean they have to.” He dropped his single duffel bag by the door,  the assorted weaponry inside clattering, and hauled the last of Teucer’s things over to his section. He let out a heavy breath and stretched, back popping in multiple places. “Wellp. That’s the last of it. We are officially moved in.”

The kids ran up to hug on his legs, abandoning their play for now. He ruffled Tonia’s hair and turned to his savior. “Thank you for watching them.”

“Of course!” Lumine said, stretching with a cute yawn. “Congrats on the new life. You sure you’ll be alright if I head out to take care of some stuff?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He offered a hand and pulled her upright – dear gods she was heavy – and swallowed his disappointment. Of course she couldn’t stay forever. Tonia looked between the two adults before grabbing onto the edge of Lumine’s skirt. 

“You’re leaving?”

She smiled and mussed his sister’s hair in the opposite direction, getting it to lay flat again. “Yes, but I’ll be back tomorrow! I just have some work to do.” 

“But you’re on vacation!” 

“We’re on vacation,” Childe corrected. “Auntie Lumine isn’t.”

Her eyes narrowed. “But you should spend time together on vacation. That’s what couples do, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, but–”

“We’re not–”

Both adults paused mid-sentence and looked at each other. Childe saw her confused expression and mistook it for hurt. Leaden panic gripped his chest, far stronger than he consciously thought was reasonable, but he shoved it down.

Lumine just cocked her head to the side. “We’re not?”

“I…”

Tonia glanced between them before pointing at Lumine. “I like her answer better.”

Lumine tilted her head at him, squinted, no doubt in fury, then held up a finger to his sister. “Can you excuse us for a second?”

He followed her like he was walking to the gallows, and what she said next didn’t make any sense. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. I just thought…” 

He blinked himself out of that bizarre, choking panic and leaned against the wall, forcing himself to calm down and think clearly. “No no, it’s fine. I just… you’re interested now?” 

“Yeah? Have you looked in a mirror?”

Childe blushed and covered his mouth before getting ahold of himself. “Er, thank you. But I don’t understand. What changed?”

“You’re not a terrorist anymore,” she said simply.

“...That’s it? That was the only reason you said no?”

She raised an eyebrow. “It’s a pretty big reason, Ajax. Kinda a dealbreaker.” 

“Huh…” He looked down and pinched his lips. 

She bent down to look up into his face, a hint of disappointment worrying at the corners of her mouth. “It’s alright if you’ve changed your mind.” 

“Oh no no! I really like you. I just, uh…” He raised his hands and started to backpedal. He couldn’t afford to upset her. His siblings’ place in Inazuma depended on her goodwill. One word and the Almighty Shogun herself would descend and leave them brotherless, stranded in another nation with no protection from the Fatui. His heart thudded in his chest as he scrambled for an explanation.

She frowned. He saw his own terrified expression reflected in her eyes. “Ajax, what is it?”

He put his hand behind his head and carefully smoothed his hair back, forcing his face to follow suit into a relaxed smile while he scrambled for an excuse. “I just don’t know how I could ever live up to being your partner, you know? You’re kinda awesome.” 

And now she was angry. Shit. His breath came fast and shallow but he had nowhere to go. No choice but to commit harder. 

“I mean come on, you’re the hero of Mondstadt, Liyue AND Inazuma. I’m just some guy now. Isn’t that a little beneath you?”  

Lumine frowned and squinted. “...Since when are you insecure? Dude, seriously. What’s wrong? You’re freaking me out a little.” 

He opened his mouth but no words came. He couldn’t help but cringe away from her. “I don’t want to upset you.”

She tipped her head down and fixed him with a warm but firm stare. “I won’t be upset. Just tell me.”

He swallowed hard. The wall he was leaning against was very interesting. He chose to stare at it while he spoke. “I don’t want things to go badly and then Teucer and Anthon and Tonia get kicked out of Inazuma.” 

He glanced back just as her eyes widened. His panicked mind took it as offense. He leaned forward and grabbed her arms and held them to his chest, unconsciously restraining her so she couldn’t hurt him. “I know you’d never take anything out on them! I just, I don’t think it’s a good idea right now. Maybe later?”

“Hey, hey, calm down” she crooned. His heartrate settled at her tone. “Maybe never! Never is fine too. I understand.”

She twisted in his grasp to pet his arm and he breathed a little easier. His thoughts slowed with the grounding touch. “You do? You’re not upset?”

“Not at all. I wouldn’t date someone that I needed to find my brother. I’m not as stupid as he is.” She rubbed his shoulder and he felt relief washing over him. “I didn’t even think about putting you in a weird situation. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry! I asked you out.”

“Well, still.” She gave him a once-over and, once satisfied that he wasn’t going to drop dead of a heart attack, a little pat. She pulled back and tilted her head. “I’m sorry I didn’t think about that, even though I’d never do that and the Kamisatos would never kick your siblings out just because I said so.”

He swallowed and nodded. They seemed like the kind of people that made their own decisions, but still. They were her friends, not his. 

Lumine took his face and thunked his forehead against hers. “Friends?”

He let out a shaky breath.  “Friends.”

She smiled, then pulled him into a full body hug. He let out a slow breath while she rubbed little circles in his back. She fit perfectly in his arms, so sturdy and warm, at the perfect height to put his chin on her head. He may have dreamed of doing that before, but this time, he went for something a little more pathetic. He dropped his forehead to her shoulder and sagged, letting her odd smell of petrichor and ozone distract him. 

The hug lasted longer than he would ever normally feel proper about and he could’ve gone all day, but eventually the sounds of the kids and Paimon drifted over. He ached to keep holding her, but he stepped back to arm’s length anyway. “Thank you.” 

“You thank me a lot for no reason,” she replied. 

“And you apologize for no reason.” 

She shook her head and looked away. He continued. “And I don’t thank you for no reason. You’ve done a lot for me.” 

“What else are friends for, though? Don’t worry about being so thankful all the time,” she said. 

Before he could respond, she gave him an evil little grin. “I am going to tell people that you’re so repulsed by the thought of going on a date with me that you almost started crying.” 

He smacked the side of her head. “Do not.”

She belly laughed and danced out of his reach. He lunged for her and missed, the stress of the past few minutes bubbling out as his own giddy laughter. He chased her back into the room and nearly tripped over his siblings. His smile fell as he saw those bright, happy little faces. 

What was he supposed to tell them?

Lumine saved him, as usual. She put both hands on her thighs and leaned forward. “Okay, so. I was wrong. We’re not dating, but I’m still your Auntie Lumine, okay?” 

Teucer and Tonia nodded, perfectly content with this, but Anthon quirked an eyebrow. “What’d Ajax do?”

Childe gasped and held his hand to his chest. “What do you mean ‘what’d Ajax do?!’”

Lumine leaned forward and pet Anthon’s head. “Nothing. We’re just better as friends.” 

She glanced back at him. “Right?”

“Right.”

The children, satisfied with this, returned to poking around their new room. He and Lumine watched them for a while longer and he vaguely worried about them sharing the space, but they seemed to love it, calling each other over to look at their decorations and squabbling over toys with ambiguous ownership.

Lumine gave him one last, tight side hug after a few minutes. “Congrats on getting settled, Ajax. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” 

He twisted to hug her properly. He missed touch after being stationed in Liyue for so long. “See you then. Be safe.” 

He stepped back as she waved goodbye to the kids, met with a chorus of “Bye Auntie Lumine! Bye Paimon!” before they left. 

Thoma took their place at the door. He peeked around the corner and smiled. “Dinner’s ready whenever you guys are.” 

Lumine had wiped the kids out earlier – and him, for that matter. They were unusually well-behaved as they sat down for soup and rice. Childe did his best to make conversation with their hosts, but the events of the day were starting to catch up with him and soon he was repeating variations of ‘thank you’ on loop. 

Ayaka stood once she was finished with her food. “I’m sure you must be exhausted. Please, get some rest. We can catch up in the morning once my brother returns.”

Childe thanked them one last time and stood to usher the kids along to their room, though he paused while Tonia led her siblings to bed. “Do you need any help with dishes?”

Thoma waved him off. “I’ve got it. You get some sleep.”

Childe nodded and turned to leave, rubbing a tender spot on his jaw where Lumine had caught him during their act. Mystery aches took advantage of his time sitting still and protested loudly at any motion. 

He helped his siblings get settled before he flopped into his own bed, kissing each one on the head and hugging them tight before tucking them in. Unfortunately, his mind started racing as soon as his head hit the pillow. 

How was he going to take care of them without Pulcinella? Would they ask questions about the rest of their family? What was he going to tell them when they wanted to go home? What was he going to do with himself? 

He sighed heavily and watched distant lightning play across the ceiling. Thunder rumbled in time with Teucer’s snores, soft and low, the ever-present reminder of the Almighty Shogun’s watch – the same god that had killed his coworker for lesser transgressions than his own. He rolled his head over to watch his siblings, all sleeping peacefully.

I’ll do something I’d be proud of telling them, he thought. I’ll be a toymaker.

His heart fell as the thoughts crossed his mind. Fatui Harbinger, one of the most feared, powerful and respected people in existence to… nameless toymaker. 

But it’ll make them happy.

He returned his gaze to the ceiling and tried to empty his mind, focusing on his breathing until his body gave in to a fitful sleep.

Chapter Text

Childe woke to the smell of breakfast. 

He went to stretch and let out a strangled groan as every inch of his body protested, loudly. He blinked, feeling almost as tired as when he had gone to sleep, and started to untangle himself from the blankets wrapped around his neck. He must’ve been fighting demons in his sleep again. 

He rolled to his knees and forced himself to his feet, gently working his muscles loose from their protective stiffness. He pulled up his shirt and blanched at the bruise covering the entire right side of his stomach. 

Sweet Tsaritsa, what would Lumine do to him if she didn’t like him?

He shivered at the thought, whether out of fear or excitement he didn’t care to figure out. He still couldn’t believe that she liked him back. If only life could be different…

He splashed some hydro in his face to banish the thought. No good fantasizing about bad ideas. He’d done plenty of that in his short life and look where it got him: A refugee stuck in the good graces of his hosts and, more importantly, his siblings here with him. 

He dropped his shirt back down before the kids could see and looked around. They were all still asleep, so he dug in his small duffel bag for a clean shirt and pants to change into before he went over to wake them. “G’morning, guys.”

They grumbled and slipped out of bed, used to waking up in unfamiliar places and following orders from their time in Pulcinella’s care, then followed him to the washroom. He drew some hot water for them and helped them wash their faces and do their morning routine. 

“It’s so warm,” Tonia commented, letting her hands sit under the running water. 

“Mm.”

Childe propped Teucer up on his hip so he could actually see himself in the mirror while Childe brushed his teeth. Tonia and Anthon brushed their own hair, but Childe sat back and ran a comb through Teucer’s before making a few messy passes through his own. The humidity made it curl more than normal and he soon gave up on trying to get it to lay flat. 

He turned his back on the kids and slipped into his clean clothes, quickly, so they wouldn’t ask any questions, then turned back to them with a happy huff. “Ready?”

They nodded. He ushered them out to the dining room once socks and other clothing were in order. 

Ayaka was already sitting at the table cradling a cup of tea. She looked up and smiled serenely. “Good morning.” 

A ginger chorus greeted her back. Thoma took the opportunity to appear from the kitchen, arms laden with precariously balanced dishes. Childe rushed over and took a few from him, then helped him set the table that sat practically on the floor. 

He was so focused on his task and looking like he wasn’t exhausted that he didn’t catch what Thoma said, only that the kids responded and that meant Childe no longer had an obligation to contribute. It’d been so long since an adult had addressed him over a meal. Back when he had a home to come back to, his older relatives would awkwardly talk around him in the guilty hope that ignoring him would make him go back on deployment sooner. It usually worked. 

“Mr. Childe?”

He flinched when Ayaka addressed him, setting a bowl of rice down harder than he intended. “Huh?” 

She didn’t take offense to his inattention. She just smiled all the way to her eyes. “Did you sleep well?”

Childe knew he was a terrible liar. He also knew from the way Ayaka looked at him that she could see through whatever flimsy excuses he threw up. She was definitely nicer than her brother, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think she was safe. He just smiled back, a bit strained. “Not really.”

Her expression fell in genuine concern. “Oh no! Are your accommodations unsatisfactory? I can have Thoma–”

Childe held up his hands and turned slightly so the kids couldn’t see him blanch. “Oh no no, the room is great. Better than great. I can’t thank you enough for your generosity. I just realized I didn’t plan past getting to Inazuma.”

Ayaka watched him prattle on without judgment. When he took a breath for air, she patted the seat next to her and he accepted, Thoma to his right and the kids across from them. He felt weirdly close to the ground sitting like this. It wasn’t like he hadn’t squatted on a log outside to eat before, but he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with his legs in a respectable setting. He settled for crossing them tightly and trying to take up as little space as possible. “I don’t want to wear out our welcome. I’d like to get a job and start looking for our own place soon.” 

“Understandable, but please, do not rush.” Ayaka took a sip from her tea and reached for a bun. Childe scooted the plate closer to her. “Thank you, and remember that you’ve just made a dramatic life change. These things take time. The Traveler’s glowing praise has secured you a place here forever, if necessary.”

He blinked, not quite able to believe that, before his attention was pulled away by Anthon. 

“Ewww! What is this?”

His middle brother was holding up a strip of unagi stabbed onto the end of a chopstick. Childe stood – careful not to bump the table or his neighbors with his knee. How the hell did Thoma fold himself under the table so gracefully? – and went around to the kids. “Oh, buddy, that’s not how you use those. Here–”

He quickly showed them how to use the new utensil. He was by no means a master himself, not helped by his right ring finger and pinky being stiff from an old injury, but Zhongli had insisted he learn at some point and he wasn’t one to shy away from a challenge. Tonia got it down pretty quickly, like she always did, and Teucer picked it up surprisingly well, but Anthon was having none of it. 

Childe knelt next to the kids, wincing as his side protested. “Alright, you hold one in your thumb like thi-”
“Like this, Ajax?” 

He glanced over at Teucer as he clicked his chopsticks together – a little clumsy, but workable. He nodded encouragingly. “Perfect. Now, Anthon-”

“Ajax! Look!” Tonia said and scooped up a roll and put it in her mouth. 

“Very good!” Childe said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, which was a lot more than most people would be able to, then returned to instructing his normally more competent brother. Anthon had one chopstick in each fist and was trying to maneuver food that way. 

Childe hovered for a moment, sensing their hosts staring and feeling his cheeks burning, before eventually accepting that Anthon wasn’t listening. He settled for gently taking the sticks out of his hands and manually repositioning them for him. “Like that.”

His middle brother sighed and looked up at him with a little pout. “This is hard. Can I have a fork instead?”

“Oh! Sure! I… Uh. Wait.” Childe jumped to his feet and patted his pockets like a fork would magically appear. He deflated when one didn’t. “I didn’t think to pack any.” He mussed his hair and frowned before looking over to Ayaka and Thoma for help. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I’d find a fork in Inazuma, would you?”

“We keep some for guests. Here, let me get one for you,” Thoma offered. “In the meantime, I also made soup.” 

“Perfect.” Childe sighed in relief and shuffled the kids’ plates around, giving the neglected eel to Tonia and dishing out some rice balls and broth for Anthon while their host went for silverware. 

Childe noticed Teucer sneaking some kimchi while he was distracted. “Hey, you won’t like that. It’s spicy.”

“I love spicy food!”

He squinted. “Since when?”

“Since forever!”

A strangled sound of despair crawled out of Childe’s throat as Teucer committed to it. He got three chews in before tears stood out in his eyes. Childe barely got a napkin to his brother’s face before he spit onto the table, somehow cringing harder on the inside than he did on the out. “Ugh, Teucer…” 

Of course Thoma had just returned to witness that. Childe could feel the heat on his face and had a flash of ‘how the hell did Pulcinella manage them?’ before he looked over to their hosts. “I’m so sorry.” 

Ayaka just smiled, though he was convinced it was pitying. “It’s alright. They’re going through a big adjustment.”

Teucer made a show of fanning his tongue while Childe wrapped up the gross wad of pickled cabbage. “Teucer, close your mouth when you’re eating.”

“Buh ith hoth.”

He sighed and pushed his glass closer. “Then drink some water. Are you alright?”

Teucer took a couple big gulps before nodding. Childe patted his back and stood. “Alright, good. Eat your food. And what do we say?”

All three of his siblings looked at him. “Thank you Ajax!”

“Uh, no. Thank Mr. Thoma. He cooked.”

They turned to Thoma and repeated their gratitude in sweet little voices that almost made up for the embarrassment. Thoma just smiled wide. “You’re welcome. Now, why don’t you let your brother eat?”

Childe sheepishly returned to his seat, muttering a slew of apologies. 

“It’s quite alright Mr… Ajax?” Ayaka questioned. 

“I prefer Childe. Ajax is just a nickname.”

He felt a twinge of guilt for saying it, but he hadn’t been Ajax for nearly a decade, at least not to anyone that wasn’t family. Lumine was special because she told him her real name first, and while he liked the Kamisatos – well, he liked Thoma –  having them call him by his birth name was a touch too intimate for his liking. Ajax was long dead and he’d worked very hard to bury the body, to everyone’s disappointment. 

Maybe one day he’d dig him up, but not today. 

“Very well. So, Mr. Childe, do you have plans for the day?” Ayaka asked. 

He hurriedly swallowed his mouthful of rice. “I thought I’d take the kids out shopping and show them around Inazuma, then–”

“It’s so squishy!” There was a loud gasp, followed by Tonia excitedly yelling. “Sweet Tsaritsa, it’s sweet inside!”

“Hey! No swearing at the table,” Childe looked over as Tonia immediately dished out mochi to her brothers. He watched as they poked and pulled and squealed over their rice thing, only pausing briefly to apologize for using their god’s name in vain. 

“...You were saying?” Ayaka gently prodded. 

He blinked back to the conversation. “Right. Sorry. I was planning to show them around the city and look for a job while we’re out.”

Thoma cocked his head. “What kind of job do you want?”

Childe glanced over to make sure the kids were totally engrossed in their stretchy food before continuing. The other adults leaned in slightly to hear his hushed tone.  “I told them I was a toy researcher while they were in Snezhnaya. I might as well live up to that and make toys or something.” 

Thoma and Ayaka shared a nervous glance over him. Childe looked between them before she spoke. “Are you… certain?”

He frowned. “Yeah? Why?”

Thoma held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m sure you’d be great at it, but, from what little I know about you… it just doesn’t seem like your thing?”

Childe shrugged and mixed a piece of fish into his rice. “Yeah, well, it’s not about me. Besides, I feel bad about lying to them for so long. This’ll make up for it.” 

He could tell they weren’t convinced, but Thoma just nodded. “If you insist, I’d recommend talking to Yoimiya. She’s like a toymaker.” 

Breakfast passed rather uneventfully from that point on. The two gave Childe a few shopping suggestions before Ayaka wiped her mouth and stood, bowing politely. “I apologize for leaving my esteemed guests, but I have some important affairs to attend to. Please, enjoy your day and do not hesitate to call on Thoma or any of the Estate staff if you need assistance.” 

“Bye Ms. Ayaka!” Tonia called, waving excitedly. Anthon copied her, then elbowed Teucer to do the same. 

Thoma also stood and bowed. “Let me know if you need anything, my lady.” He went on to gently tap Childe’s shoulder when he tried to stand to join their hosts, winking with a comforting smile. For once, it felt like genuine help instead of a subtle reminder that everyone thought Childe was a fucking idiot. 

Childe patted the housekeeper’s calf in thanks and sat up as straight as his back would allow. “Bye Ayaka! Thank you again.” 

She curtseyed, waved goodbye and disappeared into the depths of the Estate. Childe watched until she turned a corner at the far end of the hall, skirts fluttering like the wings of some graceful bird, and then he wolfed down the rest of his food. It was always a crapshoot whether his appetite would let him eat, and today was a hungry day. 

Once everyone finished eating, Childe collected the kids’ dishes and followed Thoma to the kitchen despite his protests. 

“You’re our guest ,” he laughed. “You should go relax, enjoy your day.”

“You’re feeding and housing me. Let me do the goddamn dishes,” Childe playfully snapped, hesitating as he stepped into the absurdly large kitchen. It was certainly built to feed an entire estate, though only about a quarter of it was currently in use. He parked himself at the closest sink and started washing. 

Thoma chuckled and settled for taking care of the leftovers. “Fine, if it’ll make you feel more comfortable. Though…” he reached over Childe’s shoulder for a towel to wipe down the counter with. “You really don’t need to worry about repaying favors. I think my lord was very clear that your best behavior is all that’s expected of you.”

Childe gestured with a bowl. “And this is my best behavior. Anyway,” he set the bowl out to dry and moved on to the next dish. “Where can I find this Yoimiya lady?”

Childe was allowed to wash five more dishes and put his hand on the counter to help for three seconds before Thoma all but shoved him out the door. “Go! Enjoy yourselves! Dinner will be waiting when you get back.”

With that, Childe had no choice but to corral the kids to the door and get their shoes on, which was about a ten minute affair. Anthon stayed glued to Tonia’s side while Teucer vibrated with excitement. To keep him from bolting off – again – Childe tossed his youngest brother on his shoulders and held onto his leg with his left hand, then took Tonia’s hand in his right. They set off towards Inazuma City once everyone was dressed and ready, nodding to the guards as they did. 

They didn’t make it far before Tonia gasped and ripped herself free of his grasp, charging up to a floating sakura bloom that crackled with energy. He trusted her more than he did the boys so he didn’t sprint after her, but he did tighten his grip on Teucer and hurry to catch up. 

She skidded to a stop and swiped at the flowers, whining wordlessly when her hands just passed through it. She craned her head straight back to look up at Childe once he joined her. “It’s tingly.” 

Anthon also passed his hands through the little cloud, yelping and jerking back before sticking his hand right back inside. Childe cocked his head while they played and, eventually, put his own hand into it. “Huh.” They were right. It was tingly. 

An elderly lady shuffling by paused to watch them. “You need Electro to harvest sakura blossoms.”

“Oh? Like this?” Childe asked and dropped a tiny spark into the petal cloud. His Delusion tried to swell with entirely too much force, eager to act out, but he stamped it down before it caused a problem. The purple haze coalesced into a flower the second the spark touched it, but Tonia snatched it up almost before it took shape. 

She bounced in place, clutching the flower to her chest. “Ah! Can we get more?”

“Of course!” Childe bowed partially to the woman, careful not to dump his brother onto the ground. “Thank you, ma’am.” 

She smiled, big and toothless. “No troubles, dear. It’s so nice to see outlanders here again.”

She continued on her way to the city. Childe could just let her go, but he didn’t get where did without at least trying to make friends – and more importantly collect information. He gave Tonia’s shoulder a little pull and nudged Anthon with his knee to get them moving, then fell into step beside the elderly lady. “Mind if we join you? We’re heading to the city too.”

Her gnarled face lit up. “That would be lovely.”

Childe only had to take one step for three of hers, bent over and shriveled as she was. He almost wanted to offer to carry her, but he’d have to drop her if Teucer tried to run off and hurting the elderly was rarely a good look. 

Besides, she seemed perfectly content taking her time. “I would never dream of questioning the Almighty Shogun, but I was so disappointed with the Sakoku Decree… I missed seeing bright, sweet young gentlemen like you in town.” 

“Sweet? You barely know me. How could you possibly know if I’m sweet or not?” Childe joked. Half joked. Actually he was completely serious but he said it with a tone that suggested otherwise. The Fatui had taught him how to make people like him and he was grateful for the instruction. 

She wagged a winger at him. “You’ve got kind eyes. The eyes always tell.”

He couldn’t see hers for how hard she squinted. Clearly she was blind, or nearly so. He smiled and rolled his dead eyes, the feature everyone found most intimidating about him.

“I saw that, young man.”

“Ah–” he looked back over at her with a crooked grin. “How?!”

She chuckled and continued down the path. “Besides, you’re keeping an old lady company and looking after three delightful little children. How bad could you be?”

Oh, she had no idea. He didn’t feel the need to correct her, though. His parents had blessed him with a winning smile when he bothered to use it. “What’s your name, Miss?”

“ Miss , oh. You flatter me. My name is Minoto. And yours?”

“Childe. This is Teucer,” he said and bounced him on his shoulders. Teucer tried to hide behind his head. “This is Anthon, and this is Her Magnificence Tonia.”

Tonia grinned at the praise and put her hands behind her back. “Hi Miss Minoto.”

They walked on for nearly an hour once introductions were taken care of, chatting about Inazuma and its people. Childe dodged Minoto’s prodding with the same weak excuses he gave his siblings when they’d ask about work and managed to turn it back around to her. Luckily she had endless stories about her life, her own children, her favorite light novels and many, many opinions on the latest politics. 

Childe gave her his utmost attention, absently zapping every sakura cluster they came across, only refraining when a shrine maiden would pass. Each flower disappeared into Tonia and Anthon’s hands, reappearing once they got to the city gates in the form of a flower crown. 

Tonia bounced on the balls of her feet before they split ways. “Miss Minoto! Miss Minoto!” 

“Hm?” The old lady bent down to better hear her, which gave Tonia the opportunity she needed to put the crown on Minoto’s head. 

Childe couldn’t keep the grin off his face watching the old lady gush and coo over the gift, rearing up straight and holding her hand to her heart, calling his siblings every sweet thing under the sun. Eventually she finished her praise and wiped away a laughing tear, then gave Childe a knowing look. “They’re delightful. You better treasure them.”

“I do,” he said, proud and tense in equal measure. “I’d do anything for them.” 

She just smiled wide, her eyes disappearing into her cheeks. “It shows.” She broke away from staring at him and ruffled both of his siblings’ hair, then continued on her way. “You lovely kids have a great day. Stay out of trouble!” 

Childe watched her go, turning over the information she gave him in his mind while Anthon and Tonia hovered nearby. Teucer wiggled on his perch and Childe bent down to deposit him on the ground with a warning. “Stay close, okay?” 

While he was down there, Tonia stuck a flower behind his ear. Childe smiled, a real one, and pulled her close for a hug. She still smelled like home even with the pollen from foreign flowers stuck to her hands. They used to do the same thing with the first flowers that broke through the melting spring snow. 

“Uh… Ajax?” she asked when the hug lingered for too long. “You okay?” 

“Never better.” He pulled away from the hug and kissed the top of her head, reaching up with his free hand to make sure the flower didn’t slip out of place, then took her and Teucer’s hands again. “Now come on. We’ve got the whole city to explore.”

Chapter Text

Inazuma City bustled with life. Stalls lined the walkways, their owners calmly waiting for someone to catch their eye and be lured in. The kids poured over all the shiny, new, purple knickknacks while Childe worked on building a reputation as, as Minoto put it, a sweet young gentleman. He was the Fatui’s face for a reason and soon all but the most bitter and xenophobic townspeople could overlook his accent and attire, and by extension his siblings’. He almost felt welcome. The smile he wore wasn’t really his, meaning it wasn’t him that the people liked, but he was used to that. He could put on an act for his siblings’ sakes. 

It wasn’t a good act. It crumbled under the barest scrutiny, but it worked for surface level connections, which was all he was good at anyway. 

The kids acquired a collection of trinkets as they made their way downtown. Anthon and Tonia took matching hairpins. Anthon also bought a paper samurai doll, Teucer had both arms full of stuffed animals and Tonia carried an elegant fan. They almost looked like locals all decked out in purple, except for Tonia who went for blue.

They passed an aging vendor en route to Chlide’s future employment and Tonia forcibly dragged her three brothers over. Masks hung in every imaginable shape and color, most of them animals or unfamiliar monsters. Childe picked up the fox mask that Teucer was pointing at and flicked it hard. It resonated with a satisfying thunk. 

“Huh. These are really well made,” he said loud enough to be overheard. He turned to the salesman. “Do you make these?”

The salesman grinned, pride radiating off of him. “I do indeed!”

Childe toed his youngest brother away from his leg and towards the merchandise. “Could you tell us a little bit about this stuff? We’re new in town.” 

The salesman clapped his hands together once and launched into a minutes-long monologue on Inazuman folklore. By the end, the kids were wide-eyed and Childe was giddy with the thought of tracking down youkai to spar with. He unconsciously shifted his weight back and forth, which the salesman misinterpreted as boredom. 

The salesman blushed and waved his hand dismissively. “Well, I apologize for prattling on. I just so rarely get to talk about my work. You must have other things to do.” 

“No no, I appreciate it,” Childe said. “Thank you for taking the time to explain.”

He glanced over at Tonia, who was staring at him. She whispered to her brothers for a moment before pointing at the kitsune mask he had put back on the rack. “Can we get that one?”

As if the answer would ever be no. Childe nodded, “Of course!” and turned back to the salesman. “How much?”

“It’s on the house. Consider it thanks for listening to an old man.” 

Childe gave him a look and craned his neck around to see the price tag, then counted out the appropriate amount of mora. 

The salesman retreated a step, out of money-handing distance. “Sir, I insist. Please accept this as a welcoming gift from Inazuma.”

Childe couldn’t stop himself from frowning, mirroring the instinctive pit in his stomach. He was accumulating debts faster than he could pay them. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely! There’s a festival coming up soon and sales have been good, so I am quite comfortable. Enjoy.”

Seeing no way that such a small gift could be used as meaningful leverage against him or his family, Childe bowed and thanked him, then handed the mask to Tonia. 

“Thank you.” She accepted it with a seriousness that made her seem so much older, holding the mask to her chest for a second, then handed it right back to him. “For you.”

Childe blinked. “Eh?”

Teucer wiggled, glued to his calf. “You lost your other mask. You should wear this one.”

“Aw,” Childe took the mask back and turned it around in his hands, actually bothering to inspect it now that it was a gift from his siblings. Warmth filled his chest while he traced the elegant red paint around the fox’s eyes and muzzle with a finger. Even if he refused to hide behind anonymity like many of his (former) coworkers, he did feel somewhat naked without his mask. His old one was metal, a bludgeoning device in an emergency, and while this plaster one would serve much worse as a weapon, it still felt good to strap it to the side of his head. If nothing else, the false eyes would keep Abyss monsters from attacking him from behind. 

After thanking the mask salesman yet again, the young quartet wandered throughout the rest of the city. They stopped at a few more places, though the kids were mostly content to play with the souvenirs they already had. Childe did indulge himself with a set of throwing knives he’d probably never use, but he excused it by promising himself that he’d pass them on to Tonia one day. Hopefully before he died, and hopefully once she was old enough to use them well. 

The smell of gunpowder pulled Childe from the haunting visions of Teucer getting ahold of a knife. Following it, he and the kids came to a nondescript shop with a goldfish emblazoned on the sign. A bright young woman with an alarming amount of bandages stood at the counter, tongue sticking partway out of her mouth as she copied some documents into a notebook. 

“Are you Yoimiya?” he asked once close enough that he didn’t have to shout.

She looked up, only briefly started by his proximity before she had her book snapped shut and her fists on her hips. “That I am! How can I help you today?” 

Childe glanced around for a distraction. “Do you sell anything for kids?”

“Sorta!” She walked around behind the counter and flipped open a case of sparklers and poppers. “Everything in here is way safer than anything else in the shop, though all fireworks should always be lit with adult supervision.” 

“Perfect, thank you,” Childe said and scooted his siblings in front of the case. He leaned in close to murmur to them. “Pick out as many as you want. I gotta talk to Miss Yoimiya for a second.”

He straightened, walked back over to the main counter and held out his hand to shake. Yoimiya tilted her head at the offered hand, ponytail bouncing with the movement, then awkwardly set her hand on top of his. 

Close enough. “My name is Childe, Elev–ah guest of the Kamisato Clan. I’m trying to start a toymaking career and they said I should talk to you.”

“Oh!” she brightened and put a finger to her lip. “Well, I’m not much of a toy maker, but I make a mean firework. That’s kinda like a toy… and I could always use another pair of hands around the shop – especially if the Kamisatos sent you. Who was it? Ayaka or Thoma?” 

Childe opened his mouth to answer but she filled the brief silence. “Nah, it doesn’t matter. I trust their judgment. What kind of experience do you have?”

“Ah.” He blinked. “I’m a… fisherman and adventurer.” 

“Hm,” she pouted. “Can you cook?”

Childe frowned. What a stupid question. She might as well ask if he could dress himself in the morning or wash his own ass – or perhaps breathe. “Of course I can cook.” 

“Are you good at alchemy?” she pressed. 

“Um–”

She waved him off. “Eh, same principles. If you can do one, you can do the other. You’ll pick it up on the job. Now, most importantly, are you artistic?” 

“...Yes.” He had to think about it for a moment. Violence was an art. He also enjoyed poetry, though his coworkers had always found the things he said unnerving at best and funny at worst. Lumine was the only person he bothered to share with now, and even then only rarely.

“Great!” Yoimiya beamed. Her smile fizzled out shortly after. “But you have to know, making fireworks isn’t easy. I’ve been practicing this since I was a baby and even I'm still learning things. Why do you want to get into this?”

Childe glanced over to make sure the kids were still occupied before he dropped his voice and leaned in close. “I’ve been telling them I’m a toy researcher so they wouldn’t worry about me being a–,” he hesitated, “adventurer. Now that I’m starting over, I’d like to do what I said.” 

It wasn’t untrue. He was an adventurer. She just… didn’t need to know the details, especially not with his siblings right there. 

“Mm…” Yoimiya put her hand to her chin and sized him up. “Lying to kids isn’t a good look.” 

“I don’t want to lie,” he begged. In a flash of genius, he reached over, picked Teucer up by the armpits and held his adorable face up to her. “And I really don’t want to disappoint him.”

“What?” Teucer asked, completely limp in Childe’s hands.

Yoimiya shook her head, succumbing to the charm. “Oh, nothing. Just talking to your dad about work stuff.”

Childe visibly flinched. Teucer, thankfully, did not have the same violent reaction. He just tilted his head, squinting.”Dad?” they asked in unison.

“Oh, are you not?”

Childe tucked Teucer under his arm. More stable that way, especially now that his fingers had gone cold along with his voice. “I’m their brother. Our dad’s been gone for a while.”

“Dad died, but he’s the best brother ever!” Teucer shouted, throwing both fists up before hanging limp again. Childe suppressed the urge to cringe and set him down with a little pat to go back to his siblings.

Yoimiya spared Teucer a glance as he tottered away before she winced back at Childe. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “I guess I can see why you would lie. It must be really hard taking care of them.” 

“No, not at all,” he lied again. Perhaps if he said it enough it’d come true. “But that’s why I want to do this. They’ve got enough going on and I want them to be proud of what I do for work.”

Yoimiya tapped her lip for a few seconds, nodding to herself. “Yeah, I get it. If the Kamisatos trust you, I can too. Drop by tomorrow and I’ll have something for you to do.” 

Fucking finally, something going right. Childe liked her. She was direct and energetic and – more importantly – liked his siblings.  He clapped his hands together and bowed. “Thank you! I won’t disappoint.”

“I’ll hold you to that!” she said. “Wear something light. It gets hot in the shop.” 

“Yes ma’am!” 

She chuckled and turned just as the kids brought over armfuls of party poppers and sparklers. She rang them up, Childe paid, and then they were off to the rest of the city. 

They spent the rest of the day wandering around the city, greeting their new neighbors and exploring everything Inazuma had to offer. As the day neared its end, Childe loaded the kids up with snacks and carried their haul of stuffed animals, toys and decorations under both arms. He was in the middle of discussing how, yes, the fan Tonia bought did look a lot like Miss Ayaka’s, when they crossed the threshold to the estate and one of the guards opened the door for them. 

He nodded his thanks, as much as he could so laden down, and met Ayato and Ayaka in the main room. 

The older man clapped his hands together and turned to them with a smile that even reached his eyes. “Ah, Childe, children! How are you all settling in?”

The kids clustered around Childe’s legs to hide from their imposing host. Childe squeezed Tonia’s shoulder and she in turn comforted her brothers, who edged forward at her urging. “Great! Great,” Childe said, stepping forward and to the side slightly. It put him out of the way of the door and in front of his siblings. “I found Yoimiya and she agreed to teach me how to make fireworks.”

“That’s excellent news!” Ayaka said, holding her hands to her chest. “I’m sure you’ll get along wonderfully.”

“Quite,” her brother nodded. “Unfortunately, we have some business to attend to. Apologies for being unable to stay.”

“No worries, just glad we got to say hi,” Childe said, putting on a practiced smile. The Kamisatos were kind, but they still had his siblings’ safety in a stranglehold and he found it hard to relax around them – especially Ayato. While Ayaka was obviously the better swordsman from the way she moved, her brother seemed to be the type to make up the skill difference with a knife in the back. Or politics, which were infinitely worse. 

Childe stood at the ready out of the way until they passed. The hair at the back of his neck refused to settle until their hosts left, but once they did, he almost felt at home – at least at ease enough to scurry to their room to drop off the kids’ things.

Thoma followed them. “Hey, Childe!”

“Hm?” Childe paused in the doorway, passing the knickknacks to his siblings while he waited for the blonde man to catch up. Thoma was far less intimidating, both in personality and status, and Childe even felt comfortable having his shoulder to him instead of his front. 

Thoma got within touching distance, lowering his voice so as not to disturb the kids. “Are you sure you don’t want your own room? We have plenty of space.”

“I’m sure,” Childe said automatically. “Thank you, though.”

Thoma frowned, looking a bit deflated, and Childe felt some tension leave his own shoulders. “Alright, well, it’s open to you whenever. I didn’t make a big dinner since my lords couldn’t stay, but I’ve prepared something for all of you at your leisure.”

Childe dipped his head in gratitude. “Thank you. What can I do to help?” 

Thoma tried to wave him off. “You’re our guests! Please, relax and enjoy yourself.”

“I would feel more relaxed if you let me help.” 

Thoma clucked his teeth. “Ah. You’re one of those kinds of people. No wonder the Traveler likes you so much.”

His chest twinged at the mention of Lumine liking him, though he rationalized it as a general comment and not a subtle threat for turning her down. “I–”

Thoma clapped him on the back in an effortless, easy affection that seemed genuine. “I’m the same way! If you have to do something, could you pick up some groceries while you’re out tomorrow?”

Childe leapt on the opportunity. “Of course! Just get me a list.”

Thoma gave him a big smile all the way up to his eyes. “Thank you. I’ll get some money together for you.”

“No need.” 

“But–”

Childe put a hand on the other man’s forearm. Not meant to intimidate, for once, though he did take the opportunity to judge Thoma’s reaction speed. Not bad, but not great. Decidedly average for a martial artist. “Consider it rent,” he said. “And thanks.”

Thoma chewed on his lip. “...You’re going to be a very difficult guest, aren’t you?”

Childe just smiled his agreement. Thoma sighed and walked past him. “Alright, alright. If you insist. I have some things to take care of, but just shout if you or the kids need me.

Childe waited for his host to leave before he went to the bathroom and put enough water on to heat for the kids to have a bath. Once done with that, he made a quick rummage through his duffel bag for the chopsticks Zhongli had given him months ago – grateful he hadn’t snapped them in half like he’d wanted to – then ushered his siblings along for dinner. They dropped their toys and padded after him to the dining room where Thoma had left sets of dishes and pots of food on the stove. Childe portioned out as much as they would eat, no more or less, and sent each of them back to the table. 

He flopped down next to Teucer with his own bowl of rice and fish and watched his siblings eat. His youngest brother reached up to play with the new mask and Childe dipped his head to accommodate him. Once done, Teucer bounced and cleared his throat for an announcement. “This is the best vacation EVER!”

Tonia nodded. “I don’t ever want to leave.”

Childe laughed, cringing on the inside. “Well that’s good. We’re going to be here for a while.” 

All three of them cheered and Teucer hugged his waist. Childe draped his right arm over his little brother and squeezed him back, a bit of hope creeping into his voice. “So… you guys really like it here?”

They nodded. Anthon frowned slightly and, before Childe could ask if he was alright, said,  “It’s hot.”

“Yeah. I wish it was cooler too. It should get better with winter, though.” Childe had taken a few too many dives on rocks and through brambles to ever feel comfortable wearing shorts again. Thank every god with and without a name that Lumine decided against hiding them in Sumeru. 

“I miss my jacket,” Anthon mumbled.

“Did you leave it at home?” Childe asked, his chest tightening. He hoped not. He couldn’t exactly go back and get it – not without asking Lumine for yet another favor. 

Thankfully Anthon shook his head. “No, it’s just too hot to wear it.” He was quiet for a moment, then added, “I really like it.”

Childe smiled. When he was a kid, he had a favorite scarf that he wore even in the hottest summer months. It even survived the Abyss, barely, but certainly better than Ajax had. The thing was in tatters by the time he dragged himself back to the light, caked in his blood and others’, strips hacked off for makeshift bandages and permanently stained purplish by the star-studded water. It had quite literally saved his life. 

He had stupidly asked his mother to mend it after he returned home. He should’ve just done it himself. She taught him to sew for a reason but he still asked her to do it anyway, perhaps because it was a normal thing for a son to ask his mom to do, or perhaps because he had hoped it would make her stop looking at him like some monster that had broken into her house wearing her son’s face. 

The scarf she gave back to him was lovingly mended, but it wasn’t the same scarf. The fabric was different. She hadn’t actually taken the time to stitch together the shredded edges or scrub out the abyssal poison – which in hindsight was an unreasonable thing to ask her to do, but Childe was fourteen at the time and still believed she could do anything. Instead, she had made an altogether new scarf from red rags and pretended it was the same, throwing out the evil thing he had given her. Better than throwing him out with it, Childe supposed, but it felt… unfair, to throw away something that had saved him even if there was something deeply wrong with it. 

Childe sighed and picked at his food. He’d burn a dozen sentimental scarves and his Delusion with it if it meant his siblings having their mom back. 

Anthon abruptly dropped his jaw for an impressive yawn. “I’m tired.”

“Alright,” Childe said and reached over the table to pull his brother’s dishes closer, reluctantly dragging his thoughts back to the present. “I made a bath for you. Why don’t you go wash up and head to bed?”

“Okay…” Anthon hauled himself to his feet and tottered off to the bathroom. 

Childe was content to stay and continue eating for a moment, slipping back into the past, but he soon reconsidered and twisted to call down the hall. “You got it okay by yourself?” 

“I’m ten.”

“Yeesh, just asking,” Childe grumbled and returned to his more polite siblings. 

“I’m six!” Teucer announced. 

“Yes, you are,” Childe smiled and gave his brother another squeeze, the last of his broodiness disappearing with the contact. After a moment, he sat up straight and turned back to the hall. “Hey, Anthon, leave some hot water for everyone else!” He heard something that he assumed was an affirmative, then turned back to the other two. “You guys getting tired yet?”

“Nope,” they both claimed. Tonia’s eyelids drooped but Teucer did seem well and truly wired, climbing into Childe’s lap and tapping his chopsticks together in his face.

“Ajax! Look what I can do!” Teucer yelled. He proceeded to methodically pry a single grain of rice from his bowl and present it to his older brother. 

“Oh, wow! Look how good you’re getting with those!” Childe said, leaning away from the unwanted offering. 

Teucer put the single grain of rice in his own mouth, then teased another individual out of the bowl. He held it up for his brother’s approval, waiting until he received encouragement to eat that one too. This repeated five times. 

Childe’s eyelid twitched and he hesitantly asked, “Are you done eating?”

Teucer shook his head. He didn’t want to be here all night, so Childe carefully moved his younger brother out of his lap and started collecting the rest of the dishes. “Alright, well I think Tonia is. You finish up and I’ll start cleaning.”

Tonia followed him into the kitchen and leaned against his legs, clutching the tail of his blazer while he started washing dishes. She yawned long and loud and he looked down. “You sure you’re not sleepy?” Childe asked.

“Nuh-uh,” she murmured. She squished the side of her face against him, coming all the way up to his ribs. “I like being here with you.”

His hands were wet so he didn’t ruffle her hair, but he did bend over to kiss the top of her head. “I like being here with you, too. I’ve missed you guys.”

She hugged him tighter. He absently scrubbed at a stubborn spot and smiled down at her. “Gosh, you’re getting so tall.”

“...I’m gonna be taller than you.”

“Are you?” 

“Mmhm…”

He chuckled and wiped the porcelain out with a hand towel, then set the dish out to finish drying. “You’re gonna have to eat a lot of meat and milk to get taller than me.”

“Mmmm… Uncle Pulcinella always gave us milk.”

Hearing that name sent a pang through Childe’s heart, first of fear, then pain. No more lingering in the hallways hoping for a glance from Capitano. No more coming home from a mission to Pulcinella’s praise and recount of his siblings’ antics during his absence. No more looking up into his god’s frigid glare, hunting for the ghost of a smile that meant her respect. 

No more Snezhnaya.

Childe blinked, cleared his throat and shoved the homesickness out of his mind. Thankfully Teucer barged in at that moment. “Ajax!”

“Hey!” He turned and put on a bright tone, careful not to bump his sister still attached to his leg. “You done eating?”

His little brother nodded. Childe glanced at his empty hands. “Can you bring me your bowl?”

“Yeah!” Teucer raced off, then came right back with his dishes. He stood on the side opposite their sister and tried to look over the counter, holding his bowl over his head. “I wanna help.”

“Aw, thanks. C’mere.” Childe grunted and swung his brother onto his hip. He set him up getting dishes wet while he turned to their sleepy sister. “Tonia, why don’t you go check on Anthon? Then go wash up and head to bed.”

“Okaaaaay…” 

He watched her leave and, once satisfied she wouldn’t pass out in the middle of the floor, went to scrub at the last dishes one-handed. Moments like this made him grateful for a hydro Vision. Pure hydro cut through food and, well, everything, much better than normal water ever could. 

He handed the bowl to Teucer alongside a towel. “So, what do you want to do tomorrow?”

“I want mochi,” Teucer stated, messily wiping the bowl dry.

Childe chuckled and tried to focus on the future, though the clouds of his homeland still lingered in his thoughts. “Okay, what else?”

“I wanna go fishing!” 

He laughed. “Alright. We can go fishing after I get back from work.”

Teucer dropped the pair of chopsticks he was drying – the gifted ones. Childe tried to catch them, but couldn’t without risking dumping his brother on the floor. “Oop, careful!”

His little brother’s mouth hung open with the all-consuming despair that only children could feel. “You’re going to work tomorrow?!”

“Yeah?” Childe frowned. “But it’s new work! I’m gonna help that nice lady with the fireworks.” 

Teucer remained silent, staring vacantly at the chopsticks on the floor. Childe bounced him once on his hip. “Hey, I’ll be back before you know it. I’ll bring some sparklers with me, and then we’ll get you some mochi and go fishing, okay?”

His little brother nodded, though misery still radiated off of him. Childe craned his neck down to look him in the face, gently guiding his brother’s chin up with a knuckle. Teucer tried to look away. Childe let him, but when he spoke, his tone was firm and warm. “It’s not gonna be like before.”

Teucer just made a strained little sound. 

“I promise,” he insisted.

Those bright blue eyes finally looked back at him, big and wet and sheepish under his bangs. “You sure?”

Childe smiled in what he hoped was encouragement and cupped his brother’s cheek. “Positive. You know I don’t break promises.”

Teucer nodded, then yawned and buried his face in Childe’s shoulder. “I’m sleepy now,” he said, muffled. 

Childe patted his back, rocking side to side. “Okay... Are you alright?”

“Mmhm.” 

The grunt didn’t inspire Childe with confidence, but he set his brother down anyway and tugged him to his leg. He sagged in relief once Teucer latched on. “I’ll be done with this in just a second. Then we can go wash up and go to bed, okay?”

“Okay...”

Childe hurried to re-wash the chopsticks. “So… what kind of fish do you think we’ll catch?”

That got Teucer chattering excitedly. Soon he was back to his usual self, only needing the occasional “Uh-huh” and “Wow!” to keep him going. It didn’t take Childe long to wipe down the counters. Once done, he scooped his brother up, tossed him squealing over his shoulder and carried him to the bathroom. 

Childe let Teucer undress himself while he went to check on the other two. Anthon was fast asleep facing the wall with one leg wrapped in the sheets, the other hanging off the mat and onto the floor. Tonia’s arm hung out over the side of her mat. Childe crept in and repositioned both of them to something more comfortable, then returned to his youngest brother who had gotten a horrifying amount of water on the floor. 

After mopping up the mess, Childe helped Teucer with his bath, toweled his hair dry, then carried him to their room to tuck him in. He really had missed holding them like this, Teucer clinging tight to his shirt and burying his face in his collar. Ever since he joined the Fatui, his parents and older siblings would rush over to pull Tonia and Anthon out of his arms every time he tried to take them to bed. They always said it was because he worked hard and should relax when he was home, but he wasn’t completely stupid. 

He knelt by the bed, gently laid his brother into it and kissed his forehead. “Goodnight, buddy.”

“Goodnight Ajax.”

Childe waited until Teucer snuggled in and turned away to rise and rifle through his bag for nightclothes. He wouldn’t bother unpacking his own things until they got to their permanent location, though he did set out a shirt and pants for work tomorrow. 

He padded back to the bathroom and stripped off his blazer with a groan, stretching out a dozen aches and old injuries, and inspected himself in the mirror. His bruise was turning putrid yellow in the center and feathering out from the edges – pretty in its own way, but alarming to other people – so he resigned himself to sleeping with a shirt on. In this climate. Woo.

He finished undressing and tutted at a few bloodstains that had well and truly set themselves since the last time he washed his suit. He bled as much of it out as he could, then tossed it to the side for laundry, and settled into the warm tub with another groan. It didn’t matter that his knees bent nearly up to his chest. This was heaven. 

Childe absently scrubbed himself, mindful of old, raised injuries, and let his mind wander anywhere but Snezhnaya. He was a little sad Lumine hadn’t visited today. He knew she had important work to do, but he had selfishly hoped that he also counted as important work – or at least that his siblings would. Still, he knew to curb his enthusiasm. She’d already done so much for them. If she were anyone else, he would even worry about her. He wished he could say that it wasn’t like her to not keep her commitments, but she didn’t have the best sense of time without Paimon nagging in her ear. Sometimes months would pass between their “weekly” meetings.

He rubbed at a scar stretching from his collarbone to the bottom of his ribs. Now that he thought about it, he realized he had no idea what she did between their sparring sessions. Somehow she ended up saving nations multiple times and made friends with everyone under the sun, but beyond that…

The Fatui kept a close eye on her, but it was nothing they’d ever felt the need to share with him. Besides, digging up intelligence on your friends was weird and impolite – or so he’d gathered. He’d just ask her next time he saw her. Soon. Hopefully. 

To avoid thinking too hard about Lumine forgetting about him and leaving him stranded here for months, Childe hurried through the rest of his bath, toweled himself dry, threw on sleep shorts and a shirt and then went to rejoin his siblings. All three were snoring softly by the time he returned.

At least there was enough noise. Childe couldn’t sleep in a house that was too quiet – too still, too dead, too much like the Abyss. He flopped down into his own bed and hoped to pass out the second his head hit the pillow, but as usual, his mind started racing. He hoped the kids would be alright tomorrow. Thoma had volunteered to watch them for the time being and they seemed to like him. If not, he’d gotten them enough toys to occupy them for the next two years. 

Childe sighed and massaged his face, calluses scraping over his cheeks. He’d never had to worry about things like this before. When he was young, they had their parents. When their mother died, they had their dad. By the time their dad died, Childe was a Harbinger and they were set for life even after something inevitably killed him. 

But deep down, Childe knew that wasn’t true. Their older siblings wouldn’t step up to take care of them. Pulcinella, as wonderful as he was at times, would’ve groomed them for the Fatui. The Tsaritsa herself had promised his family a generous inheritance as thanks for Childe’s service, but she made no claim to personally watch over them and money wouldn’t protect them like he needed it to. In the worst case scenario, Dottore would’ve gotten ahold of them. 

Childe winced.

Now, they were at the mercy of a murderous god, a master manipulator, a shy princess and a sickeningly sweet housekeeper. There was nothing to hit, nothing to kill, nothing to bribe or threaten or hunt or any of the other things he was good at. 

He fidgeted with the Vision that never left his hip. He’d gotten it when Tonia was born, the first time his parents let him hold her. They’d been so proud of him for it and he hadn’t even done anything. He’d just loved the little thing they put in his arms – loved her so much that it made god look twice. 

The worst part was that was probably the last time they were proud of him. Childe swallowed and listened to the sounds of an unfamiliar house underneath the equally unfamiliar sounds of his siblings snoring, exhaustion lurking at the edges of his consciousness while he rubbed the gemstone beneath his thumb. 

He wished it was any use now.

Chapter Text

Childe woke up to his arm trapped under his stomach. He got up and roughly shook it out, preferring the pins and needles to the numbness. The kids were already up, somehow, having slipped past him while he was asleep. At least he could get dressed in peace. 

Once dressed and hair combed-ish, he walked out to the dining room. “Good morning!”

A chorus of voices called back, Thoma included. “Thank you for cleaning the kitchen last night! You didn’t have to do that!”

Childe just chuckled and waved him off. He made his rounds to kiss each of his siblings on the head before coming around to sit next to the housekeeper. He served himself something portable and ricey and glanced out the window to judge the time, frowning at how late he slept in. “Are the Kamisatos still not back?”

Thoma shook his head. “They might be back tonight, but I’m not sure.”

“Mm,” he mumbled around a mouthful of something he didn’t bother to identify. “Are they out like this often?” 

“More often than not. The Yashiro Commission is demanding work.” 

“I bet.” Childe took a sip of the tea offered to him. “Anyway, you got that grocery list for me?”

“Ah, yes,” Thoma said and dug in his pocket. He pulled out a piece of paper with ingredients written in both Inazuman and Mondstadt script. How thoughtful. 

“Thank you!” Childe said, skimming through the list with its beautiful handwriting. “Though, you know I can read most Inazuman.”

There was an unreadable undercurrent to Thoma’s smile. “Ah. I suppose that would be important with your work.” 

“Not really. I just had a coworker from here,” Childe explained. “I was getting worried that his freak of a partner would have him kidnap me for spare parts one day, so I got a tutor to teach me Inazuman and Rainforest Sumeran. I’m not fluent, but I learned enough to find out that the letters they were sending each other were perfectly normal.” He glanced back to double check that the kids weren’t watching, then grinned and lifted his shirt to show off a scar stretching from his navel to his hip. “Mean little bastard did this when he found out I went through his mail.”

Thoma blanched. “Oh dear.”

“I know! He wasn’t even good!” He dropped his shirt back down and started gesturing, laughing while he talked. “He got a gut shot and still lost! No wonder he ran off with the gnosis. He’s completely fucking useless without it and had the nerve to say I’m weak.” He bit into a bun with more force than was necessary and glanced over at the silence to his right, expecting Thoma to either laugh with him or be politely bored. Childe really didn’t like the expression he saw instead. “What?”

Thoma had stopped eating, his forehead furrowed and his mouth slightly open. “Your coworker did… that, just because you went through his mail?” 

“Well,” Childe hunched a bit. “Wouldn’t Ayato do the same?”

Thoma shook his head, maintaining eye contact as he did. “I– no? Not unless he already knew they were a threat and had enough evidence to warrant an execution? He’d call the Tenryou Commission to handle it, not just… attack someone he was supposed to work with.” 

Childe didn’t want to look away first, but that pitying expression was making his face heat up and his palms itch. “Hm. Well, anyway,” he mumbled and turned back to his food. 

He didn’t believe for a second that Ayato wouldn’t murder someone for sabotaging his lines of communication. More importantly, Scaramouche’s little stunt didn’t warrant slack-jawed horror. It was funny how ineffectual the attempt to hurt him was, even with Scaramouche’s entire body weight and all the hate the little bastard could muster behind it. Honestly, Childe had hurt himself worse punching the puppet to get him off. 

Thoma correctly interpreted the anger from his body language and leaned away. “Well… I’m glad you’re out of that situation?” 

Childe hurried to choke down the food that had turned to ash in his mouth. “Thanks,” he spat meaner than intended, then followed it up with a kinder, “And thank you for making breakfast.” 

“Oh. Of course. Anytime, every day,” Thoma said, chuckling nervously. He frowned when Childe stood. “Are you leaving already?”

Childe nodded and waved to the kids, marching towards the door. “Yep! Bye guys! I’m heading to work. I’ll try to get home ear-ly…”

He said home. He blinked, too caught up in that realization and residual feelings over Thoma’s concern to notice his siblings’ expressions. He didn’t stop to wonder why Teucer and Tonia hung limp when he hugged them, or why Anthon didn’t even look at him. He just left before he could get any more uncomfortable. 

Once outside, Childe shook out his jitters and retraced his steps from the day before – on towards his new career. 

Woo.

-

He made it there uneventfully, stopping to check his kitsune mask placement and fix his hair before hurrying on. He jogged for the majority of the trip, relaxing into the rhythm of his heart pumping, and he felt pretty good by the time he knocked on the door barely hanging onto its hinges. “Hey Yoimiya! I’m here for work.”

A wild ponytail stuck up from behind the counter to his right, soon followed by her smiling face. “Heya! Childe, right?” 

“Yes ma’am.” He sat on the edge of the counter, a polite but friendly distance away. “I am yours to order around.” 

She laughed and raced around to grab his hands and pull him into the shop. “You came at the perfect time! I just got a last minute order for a wedding.” 

Childe followed at her heels, actually getting a little excited, but he stopped short at the threshold to the shop. He’d seen less carnage after something exploded in Dottore’s lab, and that had casualties.

Yoimiya was on him before he had a chance to recover. A roll of paper, knife and ruler appeared in his arms and he was shoved off to a nearby table. “I need thirty sheets of 21.5 by 40.5, fifteen sheets of 40 by 80.5 and five sheets of 60 by 120.”

“Uh.”

She retreated to the back of the shop where chemicals lay strewn across her table. “That’s my last roll of casing paper until next week, so please try not to waste any. It’s no big deal if you do but try to be careful.” 

“I don’t–”

“Oh! Also!” She stopped in the middle of measuring a black powder and ran over to a small pot suspended over the remains of a candle. She dug around in a nearby drawer for a replacement, chucked the candle base into a wastebasket, set the new one in its place and snapped a spark to light it. “Once that melts, we need to wax more fuses. Go ahead and cut fifty one meter lengths. We can tie them together onsite as needed.”

Childe was still trying to find a place to start cutting. He hesitantly scooted a few things to the side on the largest table, checking to see if Yoimiya would contest it. He jerked when she spoke again. 

“Be sure to put the paper wax side down!”

He turned the roll over in his hands. “Um. Both sides are waxed.”

“Oh, then the uncolored side down.”

She strutted around the shop, tapping her chin while she thought, completely oblivious to his struggles. “They’re going for pink, so I’ll need some sango pearls ground real fine.” She rummaged around somewhere before she thrust a collection of pearls into his hands, making him nearly drop everything else he had. She then pointed to a mortar and pestle. “We need it fine enough to be a respiratory hazard. Don’t breathe it in.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said hesitantly. 

She smiled wide and clapped him on the shoulder, then flashed him two thumbs up. “Okay, good luck! I’ll get started on the star bases. Let me know if you need anything.” 

And just like that, she was back at the far end of the shop. Jars and boxes clattered as she pulled equipment closer and shoved other stuff away, punctuated by the gentle tap of her measuring chemicals. Childe gave himself a moment to be overwhelmed before he shook himself into focus. Paper first. 

He spread half a table’s length of paper out, white side down, then looked over at his new boss for help. “How big did you want these again? And how many?”

“Thirty twenty-one point five by forty point five, fifteen forty by eighty point five and five sixty by one-twenty.”

That. That didn’t help at all. He stared down at the paper and ruler. “Twenty one point five what?”

“Twenty one and a half by forty and a half!” 

“What unit!?” 

“Centimeters! Bottom number on the ruler.” 

“Thank you!” He looked around and grabbed a random lump of charcoal and used it to mark out the requested measurements, then started cutting along the marks he made with a small knife he found. He was… mostly sure what the lines on the ruler meant. His father had taught him a bit of woodworking at some point. Probably. Childe had a poor memory of things that happened before he fell into the Abyss, but Tsaritsa knew the Fatui never bothered to teach him math and he doubted anyone else would’ve taken the time. It almost felt good to use a skill his old man had passed down. Once Childe finished three sheets, he held them up for her approval. “How’s this?”

She looked back at him, her ponytail bobbing, then frowned. She set down the things on her scales and jogged over. “This seems short.”

“Oh? I measured it.”

She took the ruler and held it to the edge of the paper, then frowned harder. “It’s a centimeter off.”

“Oh, sorry.” He couldn’t even see the difference. He had no idea how she could and also wasn’t sure that it mattered, but she was the expert. 

“Here,” she said, gently scooting him back with a hand on his chest. In seconds, she pulled the paper off the edge of the table, ran the ruler along the edge until finding the 40.5 point, then slashed the paper off the table without making a mark. She flipped the paper back onto the table and shifted the ruler down in 21.5cm increments, dragging the knife along the edge of the ruler each time and producing perfectly even sheets. “Like that!” 

She smiled, flashed him a peace sign and ran back to work on the stars, leaving Childe only slightly less confused and considerably more embarrassed. He tried to follow her motions, taking many times as long to get a single sheet, much less five. They were big and unwieldy and he struggled to avoid creasing the paper, but he managed to set all fifty aside in a messy pile. 

She returned at his call some minutes later and flipped through the sheets. “Great job!” She seemed to pluck out every fifth one, finding a crease, ragged edge or other blemish that made it unfit to her standards, and handed the reject stack back to him. “Just redo these and we’ll be set.” 

Childe quietly took them and went back to cutting paper, which was apparently a difficult task for him. Monsters, chinks in armor, ancient machinery – he could cut all that with expert precision, but paper was too much for him. 

Maybe Yoimiya sensed his dejection because she paused before she left and squeezed his forearm. “It’s only so specific because it’s a wedding. Most of those are good enough for other fireworks! Don’t throw them away.” 

“Got it,” he said, forcing a cheerful tone. He eventually finished redoing the last sheets and went to stand by the cauldron she’d fiddled with earlier and cautiously leaned to look into it. Liquid wax glimmered in the light. “You said something about waxing fuses?”

“Ah! Yes!” Her head popped up, soot smeared across her cheek. “Take that string over there,” she pointed to a few spools hanging from the wall. “And cut it into meter lengths. We’ll need fifty of them. Then just dunk them in the wax and hang them to dry over there.” 

He followed her finger to an overhead rope draped from one end of the shop to the other with several fuses already hung on it. He saluted and went to do as instructed, feeling much more confident with an example of what the end product should look like. 

This went considerably better. He stirred the molten wax with a wooden rod laying nearby, covered in light yellow wax itself. He cut the strings as he went, swirled them in the pot and let the excess drip back into it before hanging them. Childe could afford to divide his attention, so he glanced back at his new boss. “So what’re you working on over there?”

“Making the stars!” she chirped.

“What’re those?” he asked. She probably wasn’t trying to make him feel stupid, she wasn’t Signora, but he’d had to ask fewer questions during interrogations. 

“They’re the explosives!”

Childe wrinkled his nose as the stench of sulfur wafting towards him. “What’re they made of?”

She rattled off a list of coloring agents, oxidizers and other chemicals in exact amounts, sulfur included in the list. She delivered the information with such speed and ease that it all went over his head, leaving him to intelligently comment, “Ah. Explains the smell.” 

“Yeah. They smell much better once they go up,” Yoimiya chuckled and returned to her station. She consulted a piece of paper taped to the wall, then swore. Loudly.

Childe glanced back, careful not to drip wax on himself. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head and set her supplies to the side before pulling out a few different chemicals from beneath the counter. “I misremembered the firework they wanted. I was trying to make ones from a different client, same surname.” 

Childe winced. “...Do I need to cut more paper?”

She laughed and smiled at him over her shoulder. “No, no. Luckily I caught it in time. How are those sango pearls coming?”

“Oh, I haven’t started yet,” Childe said. “I’m halfway done with the fuses. I’ll hurry up.”

“No rush,” she said, but he felt extremely rushed. She didn’t seem to pressure him intentionally, it was just that she was so fast that he couldn’t even keep track of her, much less keep up. He started dipping fuses three at a time, struggling to keep them from sticking to one another, and finished in what he hoped was acceptable time. 

Childe moved to the table next to her with the mortar and pestle, scooping up the pearls she had given him on the way there. He assumed they were somehow different from normal pearls or else he was holding a small fortune. He let a couple plop into the stone mortar and experimentally tapped them with the pestle, tilting his head at the unpleasant, brittle sound. He’d seen Dottore do this a couple times before he’d kicked Childe out of the lab for talking too much. 

Chipping away, Childe idly wondered what that crusty old bastard was up to. Probably out profaning life itself, weaseling his way around every law of nature and kicking puppies. He hoped Lumine or someone would kill Dottore soon. The oldest-appearing segment was the only tolerable one, too old and wise and absorbed in his work to worry about trivial things like human experimentation. The rest of them needed to go.

Childe kept tapping the pearls until they cracked enough to give flat edges. Yoimiya looked over and hummed disapprovingly. “Did you wash the mortar out before you started?”

“No? Should I?”

Well dammit. She rushed over to take the bowl out of his hands and Childe tried very hard not to get irritated at it. She dumped the pearls onto the table and scurried away to the sink. “Let me get this cleaned for you.” 

He forced out a cheerful “Thank you!” while she did that. He could kill dragons and train armies, but this? This was hard. Yoimiya returned shortly, blasting the inside of the dish with fire to dry it, then dropped it back where it belonged. She plucked the larger chunks of pearl from the pile and wiped them off, then plopped them back in. “Here you go!”

“Thank you. Is there anything else I should keep in mind?”

“Hold your breath!” she winked and pranced back to her own station.

Childe got back to the grind. The sound of pearls shattering and stone scraping against stone grated on his ears, making him tense his jaw without realizing. The stench of sulfur grew overpowering as Yoimiya moved onto the next stage of whatever it was she was doing. He coughed. 

Once the pearls had been reduced to sand, Childe brought the mortar over to his boss. “How’s this?”

She paused and looked into the bowl, tongue sticking out slightly, then smiled up at him. “You’re about halfway there!”

Childe tried to keep the horror off his face, he really did, but he was pretty sure he failed. Good thing Yoimiya’s eyes were closed with the force of her smile. He wordlessly nodded and returned to his station, wondering how much finer it could possibly get. 

The sand just shifted under the pestle, stubbornly refusing to grind any finer. Maybe he had to put more force into it? Childe shifted his weight onto his right hand and bore down on the pestle, trying to twist it and pin the grains under it into powder. It went great, until he slipped. 

The pestle flipped out onto the table, kicking up sand and dust into his face while the soft spot between his knuckles slammed into the edge of the table. Childe managed to bite back a torrent of curses before they made Yoimiya think any less of him, but he thought them. Loudly. 

“Are you okay?” she piped over her shoulder, still engrossed in her own work. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he grunted, pinching the hurt spot to alleviate the pain. “Just slipped.” He blinked and wiped at his eyes, which had started to burn. Between the stinging, the growing headache and the throbbing in his hand, Childe’s mood was quickly souring. 

Yoimiya glanced over and he heard something clatter on her table. “Oh, crap. Childe, hold your breath!” 

He opened his mouth to make a sharp comment back when he noticed the pink dust lingering in the air around him. He coughed and stepped back, waving his hand in front of his face and nearly tripping over an errant box in his haste. 

“...Why don’t we take a break?” Yoimiya suggested once he was clear of the cloud. 

“Don’t you need this done today?” Childe asked, trying not to rub his eyes and instead let his tears flush out the stinging powder.

“Tomorrow, actually. I just like to get ahead. C’mon. It’s lunchtime.” She grabbed his sleeve and gave him no room to argue. 

Childe gratefully followed her out into the sun and fresh air, vision still blurry between rapid blinks. He took a deep breath the moment they got outside and immediately felt his headache and mood lift, though he waited until she stretched and popped her back to start complaining. “I admit. This is a lot harder than I thought.” 

Yoimiya smiled and put her hands behind her back, rolling her shoulders. “Told ya.” She pulled her lunchbox out from under the counter and popped it open. “Did you bring something to eat?”

“Oh, no. I was planning on getting something out.”

“Here! Have some of mine!” she said and offered him some food. “I wanna chat.” 

He frowned and took the offered fried vegetable ball thing and popped it into his mouth, humming appreciatively. Spicy, but filling. It did what it needed to, so he liked it. “Thanks.”

She swallowed her own portion and held the box between them. “So how long are you in Inazuma for?”

He grabbed another and bit through half of it, taking a look at the inside. Pieces of carrot stood out against the green filling. “Until I die, probably.”

She only hesitated a bit at his response. “Oooh, well, welcome to the country! How do you and your little siblings like it?”

“It’s good,” he said and meant it, his personal feelings aside. “The Kamisatos have been beyond generous and almost everyone’s been super friendly. Even the Almighty Shogun, all things considered.” 

Yoimiya sat forward. “You met her?!”

He nodded. She whistled. “Most Inazuma nationals haven’t met her, much less an outlander. How’d you manage that?!”

Childe chewed reflectively, trying to think of something that would satisfy her curiosity without leading her to ask too many questions. “The Traveler asked her to let me and my family move here.”  

She pursed her lips. “...Traveler?”

“Yeah. Short, cute, blonde, nice to kids, terrifying to everyone else, hangs out with a fairy.”

Yoimiya held her hands to her chest and bounced in place. “Ohmygosh I love her!! I would’ve hired you on the spot if I knew you two were close! How’d you guys meet?”

He chuckled in a strained way that sounded more like a cough and scratched his jaw. “Work. By the way, have you seen her recently? She said she’d drop by yesterday and didn’t. I’m getting a little worried.” …Not necessarily for Lumine’s safety, but worried nonetheless. 

She waved him off. “Oh, don’t. She’s always out handling someone else’s emergency. You know how she is. She’ll show up when you least expect it.” 

“I guess…” he muttered. They spent a few quiet moments munching before Childe pushed off of the wall and stretched. “I’d like to get back to work. I promised the kids I’d try to get home early and take them fishing.”

“Oh yeah!” She covered her mouth and hurriedly chewed. “Leave whenever you need to! Family comes first.” She swallowed and sucked in a deep breath. “Why don’t you finish up the pearls and then head out? I think this has been a crazy first day. I promise I’ll actually, like, train you next time.” 

“Thank you.”

They went back inside together and Childe started coughing the moment they passed the threshold. Yoimiya frowned and put her hands on her hips, ponytail bobbing as she did. “...I should probably improve the ventilation in this place.” 

“Just maybe.”

She pranced to the back of the shop and jumped to try to reach the dusty window overhead, bracing herself on her table for extra height. “I actually can, now that I don’t have to hide refugees here anymore.”

Ha. Childe followed, his shirt pulled up over his nose. “Want help?”

“Please!”

He knelt experimentally on the table and, once satisfied that it would hold his weight, reached up and shoved the window open without even straining. Yoimiya sighed. “It’s so nice having someone so tall around. I’m gonna bother you a lot to get things off the shelves.” 

“Whatever you need, boss,” Childe laughed. At least he could do that right. With one task completed successfully, he returned to his station and scooped the spilled powder back into the mortar. 

It just sat there coarsely, staring back at him while he willed it to turn to dust. It didn’t, no matter how fiercely he glared at it or how hard he prayed. Childe stalled for time by looking at what his boss was doing. She was flipping tabs around on an overly-complicated looking scale, tiny piles of multicolored powder arranged on the table like flowers. 

Her tongue poked out of her mouth until she noticed him watching. “Oh! Have we talked about your payment yet?”

“Nope.”

She shook her head and ran her hand through her hair. Her hands were perfectly free of chemicals. “Gosh, I’m so sorry. I’ve been so frazzled lately.”

Somehow he doubted that it was a ‘lately’ thing. Regardless, he just smiled. “No worries. We can talk about it now.”

She nodded and leaned against her table, expertly avoiding brushing against her reagents. “Besides this order, we’re in the dry season for fireworks. It’ll pick back up in fall. Do you think you could do part time until then?”

“Sure.”

“Excellent. Now…” she hummed, then went to a bookshelf with a worn journal on top. She pulled out her ledger and flipped through the numbers. “I can afford to pay you fifteen hundred mora a day.” 

“Ah…” He ran some comparisons in his head. It was perfectly fair – he had zero experience in this field, after all, but it was still literal pennies in comparison to his old salary. But that’s what he got for not learning a craft, he supposed. “That’s perfect, thank you.”

He’d just… get a second job. Maybe one he was better at. 

“Wonderful! Welcome officially to the team!” she said, smiling from her toes to her eyes. She patted him on the back and left him to finish grinding the pearls, which he eventually managed within the next hour. 

All in all, it wasn’t the worst day ever. Yoimiya and Skirk had similar teaching styles – sink or swim with a few lead weights attached. Childe half expected a spoon to come flying at his head the second time he slipped and spilled the pearl dust, but the reprimand never came. Yoimiya was endlessly patient and inexhaustibly cheerful, chattering for the duration of his shift. Her kindness was unnerving, only tolerable in its sincerity. 

Part of him wished she’d just hit him.

Chapter Text

So, I have good news and bad news:

The bad news: I've been wanting to stop writing this story for over a year and I think it shows. The only reason I've been suffering through it is because I wanted this to be first novel, because everyone's first novel is, well, their first, and therefor unskilled and not great, and I wanted to get it out of the way as a sacrificial lamb to make way for my original work alksjf. I've also completely lost interest in Chilumi as a ship. Even worse, seeing Childe interacting with the House of Hearth made me realize that Childe/Lynette is actually everything I wanted out of chilumi and all my energy is going towards that instead alsd;jf. The only reason I haven't been writing Chilynette is because I feel intense guilt over not writing this instead, and I've realized that "not writing the thing I'm dreading means I'm not allowed to write things that I actually do want to write" is... bad.

The good news: I realized that bit about being a first novel doesn't really apply to fanfic. I can't expect myself to write a novel with the looming threat of everything being decanonized and Childe being completely ooc by the end of it because Genshin updates faster than I write, especially now that I have a really intense job. So, what I'm going to do is post the outline/first draft. I'm gonna go polish up the scenes I really care about and note that they're "finished" and imo worth reading, but I want the whole story available for closure because this is one of the few stories I have actually planned all the way through.

I don't need comfort or anything. I'm not insecure in my abilities as an author. I just flat out don't like this story anymore and it's not fair to myself or anyone else to force myself to work on it. And, this way, I can come back to it whenever I want! My outlines are damn near first drafts anyway

(Also, this means you're going to get, like, ALL the updates in the next few weeks :D )

Anyway free open source: you are more than welcome to flat out plagiarize - take what's here, rewrite it, make it yours. You have my blessing. I'll even link your version if you let me know it exists laskjdf

Chapter Text

Yoimiya sent Childe home with a fistful of sparklers and a promise for as many as he wanted on the sole condition that he played with a few himself and reported back on their quality. Before returning to the estate, he went and picked up the groceries that Thoma had requested. They were easy enough to find with his passable literacy, but the translation helped with the more specific items. He made sure to buy only the highest quality, a little perplexed at the contents of the list – he expected more rice and less wheat – then hurried home with produce under both arms. 

The guard opened the door for him and Childe nodded his thanks, then crowed into the empty lobby, “Hey guys! I’m back!” 

Silence, then the sound of rapid footsteps increased in volume until all three of his siblings threw themselves at his legs. “YOU’RE HOME!”

The guard put out a hand and braced him between his shoulderblades before he fell over backwards. Childe thanked him, then tried to shake Tonia off his leg and take a few steps inside. “Yeah! I said I’d be.” 

Thoma’s head peeked around the corner, looking haggard and very relieved to see him. “Oh, Childe! Welcome back!” 

“Heya! Got your groceries.” Teucer jumped in circles around Childe while Anthon and Tonia took a leg each, wrapping their arms and legs around him and clinging tight. The housekeeper took the heavy load from the trapped man and carried it to the kitchen, letting him waddle forward with the leg weights. Childe couldn’t keep the smile off his face as his siblings climbed all over him, eventually giving up on any pretense and picking his youngest brother up.

Thoma returned and raised an eyebrow. “Wow. They sure livened up.”

Childe had his littlest brother upside down, squealing and pinwheeling his arms as he was thrown in the air. He caught him and tucked him under his left arm, then turned to the housekeeper. “Oh? Were they giving you trouble?”

“No, no, not at all. They were just all out of sorts. They hardly ate anything and Teucer and Tonia have been following me around like puppies all day.” 

“Huh, weird.” He turned to his siblings, slinging Teucer back out in front of him. “Are you guys okay?”

His sister nodded. “We missed you!”

“I missed you guys, too.” He reached out and ruffled each of their heads in turn, then reached into his pocket. “By the way, Miss Yoimiya wanted me to give you guys something.” 

He whipped out the sparkler box and handed an equal number to each kid. Teucer immediately tried to light his, but Childe reached out and snuffed the flame between his thumb and forefinger. “Outside. This house is very flammable.”

His sister bounced and clutched hers to her chest, taking one step towards the door. “Mr. Thoma! Come with us!” 

Thoma gave them a pained smile. “Oh, I can’t. I have some things I need to do.”

“Please?” She nudged her brothers, including Childe, and they all gave their host the same big, blue puppy eyes. He put his fist under his chin and fluttered his eyelashes to make up for the lack of childish cuteness that his siblings had. It was probably more disconcerting than anything, but it did get Thoma to relent.

“...Okay, fine.”

The gingers cheered and ushered their host out the door. Childe slipped sparklers to the guards as well, who accepted them with stony faces. They waited until their backs were turned to start playing with them.

The sand garden made the perfect location to play with fire. The kids chewed through the sparklers at an impressive rate, rushing over to Thoma for a light before chasing each other around the yard. Teucer spun in a circle, a lit sparkler in each fist. “Ajax! Look!!”

“Great job, buddy!” Childe chuckled and dropped into a squat in front of the stairs, rolling his own stick between his fingers and watching it burn. He wasn’t sure what criteria Yoimiya wanted him to judge them on so he just tried to commit the whole thing to memory. They certainly smelled better now than when they were being made. 

Thoma settled onto the stairs next to him with a loud groan, stretching his long legs out into the sand. He reached out and flipped a few ash spots off of Childe’s arm. “Sooo, how was your first day of work?”

“Fine. I’m not used to not being an expert, but I’ll manage,” Childe said with more enthusiasm than he felt. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. “Might need to pick something else up, though. Yoimiya can’t pay very much.”

“I’m surprised she could afford to hire you at all.”

Once sure his siblings weren’t going to set themselves on fire in the next three seconds, Childe glanced back at his host. “Isn’t she the best fireworks maker in Inazuma?”

Thoma shrugged. “She’s the best fireworks maker in all of Teyvat, but she’s, uh, generous. She only ever charges what her product is worth when it’s for the government or really rich people, and even then…” He laughed. “She’s always made sure she and her parents are comfortable, but she’s not the kind of person that’s interested in getting rich.” 

“Mm.”

A few seconds passed punctuated by children laughing. Thoma pursed his lips and put his hands behind his head. “Given your background, have you thought about working for the Tenryou Commission?”

“I’d rather not get back into the military,” Childe lied. 

Thoma shook his head. “I don’t mean like that. They wouldn’t let you join, anyway. I meant more as a consultant.” 

Childe narrowed his eyes. “A consultant? For what?”

“Training, and Fatui tactics.”

“Ah.” He was suddenly very, very nauseous. “I’ll… think about it.” 

Thoma dropped his voice to a whisper and leaned in close so the kids wouldn’t hear. “I only suggest it because we could really use your help. The Fatui are the current largest threat to Inazuma and its people, behind the Abyss.”

“I know,” Childe whispered back. Most Fatui developed a fanatical devotion to their Harbinger, possibly through conditioning, possibly to compensate for their utter distrust of everyone else. At least a quarter of those assigned to Rosalyne never reported for reassignment following her death. Snezhnaya had cut contact with the dissenters to avoid outright war with Inazuma, but that just meant that the stragglers were vengeful and desperate. 

Was that why Lumine hadn’t shown up? Had she run into problems with his old subordinates for killing him? Childe had gone out of his way to discourage that kind of cultish behavior in his troops, mostly because it creeped him out, but that didn’t mean he succeeded. 

He didn’t have much time to dwell because, thankfully, Teucer’s last sparkler fizzled out. His brother dropped the stick in the sand and watched it smoke, then looked over at the two adults. “Can we go fishing now?”

Childe leapt at the chance to avoid the subject. “Sure! Go grab your pole. Anthon! Tonia! We’re going fishing!” He paused before rushing back inside to get his own tackle and squeezed Thoma’s shoulder, hedging off any further comments. “Thanks for the suggestion.” 

Thoma frowned, looking contemplative, but held off on whatever was on his mind. “Anytime. Bring back any bass you catch and I’ll cook them for dinner.” 

“Will do, boss.” Childe snapped double fingerguns at him while he ran backwards up the stairs, then directed the kids to get their gear. He dug in his own duffel bag, shoving aside assorted weaponry and a couple changes of clothes before he finally pulled out his collapsible rod and a tiny pouch of tackle – the perfect size for getting stranded away from supply lines, not that he had to worry about that anymore.

After Childe helped the kids put their rods back together, walked them down the cliff behind the estate to the beach ringed by rocks that were sure to hide aggressive fish. He carried their poles so he wouldn’t get slapped in the face with them and watched as they clambered down the rocks to the shore, poised to spring after them the moment they tripped. “Be careful. It’s slippery.”

There was something so… normal about taking a family hike down to the beach. Childe nearly tripped at the sudden pit that opened in his chest. He hunched as if he’d been struck and took a step backwards to regain his balance, blinking the mist from his eyes. God, he wished their dad was still around. Things would be so much easier. 

Tonia turned to call back to him, her dress fluttering in the breeze. “Ajax? Are you coming?” 

He swallowed and hopped down after them, able to clear the short cliff without any injury. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry,” he croaked. 

It’d been awhile since a memory had hit him like that. Maybe it was the stress making grief rear its ugly head again? He tried to shake his head clear and put on a big smile, carefully depositing their tackle on a rock before ushering the orphans to the sand. “C’mon, guys. Let’s get some bait.”

He directed them to dig for little sand fleas and other critters to use. Anthon caught the most, diving after the crustaceans with their pinchy legs totally without fear and sharing his haul with his little brother. Childe baited their hooks for them and walked them over to good spots, picking them up over the water as needed, lost in thought.

He hoped his father was proud of this new life. Archons knew he never gave him a reason while he was still alive. 

Childe squatted in the sand once he had set his siblings up in good spots with their poles. Normally he’d fish himself, but he wasn’t up to another emotional gutpunch right now. So, he just propped an elbow on his knee and kept an eye on his siblings. 

Thankfully he didn’t have much time to brood. The kids pulled in fish after fish for him to unhook and either toss back or put on the stringer. Teucer especially was quite talented. 

Thank the heavens. He was starting to get worried about his youngest brother. 

“Ajax! I got another one!” he yelled. An evil-looking fish dangled from his line, absolutely covered in spines and hate, more like some monster from the abyss than a real animal.

“Great job, buddy!” He hurried over and unhooked it, then gave the rod back to his brother. He looked over just in time to see Anthon haul up the same kind of furious fish. “Oh, Anthon, hold up–”

Before he could finish, he had dug the hook out of its mouth by hand. 

“Anthon!”

“What?” he asked, casually tossing the fish back in the water as he did.

“Be careful with those! They look poisonous.” 

“Venomous,” Anthon corrected. 

“Whatever! Let me get those off, okay?” 

He just shrugged and went back to fishing. Childe frowned, not liking the attitude but also not really sure what to do about it, especially with Tonia requiring his attention for a bass. 

The next hour passed eventfully. He barely had a moment to sit between unhooking fish, adding them to the stringer and catching more bait. The fish were small but plentiful, the polar opposite to his experiences ice fishing with their father, and he was grateful for the distraction.

The sun started to set before they knew it, just in time for the kids to start to get bored. He quickly and painlessly dispatched the fish on the string and slung them over his shoulder. “You guys ready to head home?”

They all nodded their agreement and followed him back to the estate, pleasantly tired and quiet. He brought up the rear with the gear and helped them over large rocks and the like.

When they got back, he sent the kids to wash up while he delivered the catch to Thoma. In the kitchen, as usual. 

“Here you go!” 

His eyes widened as he took the many pounds of fish. “Oh, wow! Looks like you guys had a good time.”  

Childe nodded and put his hands on his hips. “Want any help with dinner?” 

“You could help me clean the fish.”

They did so in companionable silence. His hydro knife was sharper than any steel, a trick of pressure and moving water, and he fileted the fish with practiced precision. He noticed his host watching him out of the corner of his eye and put a little extra flair into his work. 

“You almost make me wish I got a hydro vision instead,” Thoma chuckled. He snapped his fingers under the stovetop to light it, then moved to start frying some vegetables. “Almost.” 

Childe wrapped up the fish and carried the guts in a bucket back to the cliff, mentally kicking himself for not gutting them earlier, and tossed them back to the ocean for the animals. The offal would attract crabs, which would attract more fish, which would hopefully keep him and his family entertained for as long as they were here. 

…Which was forever. He shook his head and rinsed his hands and the bucket off, then smoothed his hair back and started the walk back. He thought back to Thoma’s suggestion to work for the Tenryou commission. It made sense , and he should offer his expertise to the nation that took his family in, but still… The Fatui all but raised him. He’d sworn his loyalty to the Tsaritsa and them by extension.

Then again, Pierro’s Fatui weren’t nearly as devout as he was. Their god was little more than an afterthought, a figurehead to justify their actions. Betraying them would actually be supporting her! 

He managed to believe that for about four steps. Yes, Pierro had his own agenda, but the Tsaritsa knew that. She wouldn’t permit him to lead if she didn’t agree with his methods. They were entangled in a long, bitter and mutually destructive relationship, both using the other for their own ends, but a consensual relationship nonetheless.  

He sighed as he crossed the threshold. Things were so much simpler when he only had to worry about the next opponent. He couldn’t fight his feelings. 

He put the thoughts out of his head and strolled inside, kicking his boots off at the door hurrying to go wash up. He would rather not stink of gunpowder and fish at the dinner table. 

So, he cleaned up the floor water from his siblings, quickly scrubbed himself down and slipped into something more comfortable - a white, linen longsleeve shirt and track pants. He went to go look for his siblings and found them in the kitchen with Thoma.

“Any idea if the Kamisatos will be in tonight?” he asked.

“I doubt it. They–”

They both paused as a loud knock rang out, then poked their heads into the foyer just in time to see a familiar golden head and her floating companion. 

“Lumine!” His voice cracked and he didn’t care at all. He sprinted to greet her, get the door for her, while Thoma called out his own hello. A trio of gingers appeared between his legs. The older two hung back while Teucer abandoned all decorum just like his oldest brother, racing up to her and tackling her leg. “Auntie Lumine!” 

“Hey Teucer!” Her voice lit up the room with the warmth of the star she was while she reached down to ruffle his hair, then scooped him up into a hug. 

He sniffled loudly, then covered his nose. “Ick.”

“What?”

“You stink.”

“Teucer!” Childe snatched his brother out of her hands and held him at arm’s length. “That was very rude!” 

Lumine just waved him off. “Eh, he’s probably right. I've been at the bottom of the ocean for the past few days. I probably smell like fish and low tide.”

Thoma approached, the other two kids hesitantly coming out from behind his legs and standing a respectful distance away from her. “You’re welcome to draw a bath, Traveler.”

“Really?”

“Of course! You’re welcome to spend the night as well. I’ll go make a room for you.” 

She slumped in disproportional relief. “Oh my God, that sounds wonderful. Thank you.”

“Dibs on first bath!” Paimon yelled and whizzed past everyone’s heads.

Lumine turned to say something in actual, legitimate irritation. “You didn’t even get dirty!” 

Unfortunately, the bathroom door had already shut. She growled and pinched the bridge of her nose and Childe wasn’t sure whether to pat her shoulder or stay out of her way. 

He decided to do the brave thing and gave her a little pat. She relaxed a bit, though the anger bled into exhaustion instead.

Thoma tapped his finger against his forearm and looked nervously down the hall, then back at his guest. “Well, would you like to join us for dinner? The kids caught fresh fish for us!”

They beamed. Lumine smiled wearily, but shook her head. “No thanks. I think I’ve had enough fish for the rest of my life. But look at you guys, catching dinner!” She bent down and ruffled the older two’s hair. 

Childe sidled around to her front, hands behind his back, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I was getting worried about you! How’ve you been?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m alright,” she sighed, not sounding alright at all. “How are you guys settling in?” 

“Er, really well,” he frowned. What’s–”

Teucer jumped up and tugged on her skirt, interrupting them to ramble about his day. She half listened, nodding appropriately despite her gaze being fixed on some location past his head. Times like this made him almost want to punt his little brother. 

Thankfully, Thoma eventually stepped in, patting his brother on the shoulder and gently pulling him away. “Hey kiddo, the Traveler’s had a long day. Why don’t you give her a second to relax and tell her about all the fish you caught at dinner?”

“Okay!”

Just like that, he ran off to Anthon’s side. Childe mouthed a ‘thank you’ at his host and returned to her. “What’s wrong?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing, nothing,” she said and rubbed the back of her neck. “Just a long trip. I smell and I’m tired and hungry and, you know, the usual.” 

He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. That was the usual, but she usually wasn’t so upset over it. He opened his mouth to pry further, but Paimon took that moment to return with a flourish of her cape. 

“Paimon smells like sakura,” she announced.

“Finally,” Lumine grumbled, stalking off to the bathroom without another word. 

The two men frowned as she left, then turned back to the girl. “Did something happen while you guys were down there?”

“Besides the usual? No, not really. We helped a ghost sort out a library.”

Childe raised an eyebrow. “...Underwater.”

“Yeah! In Enkanomiya. Or Byakuyakoku, depending on who you ask.”

Thoma perked up. “Oh, the place that Watatsumi Island supposedly rose from? It’s real?”

“Yup yup! Kokomi asked us to take a look down there a while back and we’ve been exploring it at our leisure.” She frowned at Childe. “Wait. You were Fat-”

He made a ‘shut the hell up’ motion across his neck and gestured his head at his siblings who were sitting right there. Of course they looked over at the change in tone. Her eye twitched as she tried to recover. 

“Uhhh… fat. You were fat before. Which means you were really smart, because everyone knows that fat people are wise! Why didn’t you know about Enkanomiya?”

Teucer nodded like that made any sense at all. Tonia glanced over at Thoma, who shrugged. Anthon smelled the bullshit and crossed his arms. “You were fat?”

Childe wasn’t even offended, just awestruck at the stupid angle. His younger years had been spent with his family fussing over how small he was, which only got worse once he was gifted a Delusion. He muttered a couple swears to himself and stood up straight. “Yeah, sure. I was… uh… really depressed. I was really depressed back before I became a toy salesman. I lost weight after I found my calling.” He waited a moment, then scowled. “And don’t say it like it’s a bad thing! Your Uncle Pulcinella is fat, and so was your babushka. And that nice lady that gave you dango the other day.”

Anthon at least had the decency to look sheepish. “Sorry Ajax.”

“It’s okay. Just be nice. Anyway,” he growled as he turned his attention back to Paimon. “Being ‘fat’ doesn’t mean that I automatically know everything. People usually didn’t feel the need to clue me in on things.” 

Tonia had been frowning for most of the conversation, but decided now was the time to look up at him with big, sweet eyes. “You were depressed?”

Sweet Tsaritsa. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Uhhhh…. Yeah. For a while. And then Mom and Dad had you guys, so I wasn’t lonely anymore.” 

Anthon jumped in, because of course he would. “But you just said it was because you started being a toy salesman.”

“It can be both!” 

His prayers for help were answered as Lumine’s head poked out of the bathroom. “Hey, does anyone have a spare shirt? I need to wash the dragon vomit off my dress.”

“I’ve got one!” he yelled and jogged over, leaving the rest of them to sort things out. He gestured for her to follow him into the kids’ room and she did, letting the door click behind her as he knelt to rifle through his bag. 

She looked him up and down. “You look casual.”

“Thanks,” he said, distracted. He held up a black longsleeve shirt and a pair of sweats. “Think these’ll fit?”

“What, no Adidas?”

He paused and looked back at her. “...What?”

“Nothing, just a stupid joke from a different world.” She stepped forward and squatted next to him. “Anyway, you alright? You looked like you wanted to get out of there in a hurry.” 

He sat back into a squat of his own. “Oh, yeah. Paimon almost outed my old job.”

Lumine rolled her eyes.

“She saved it by calling me fat.”

“You could stand to gain weight, if anything.” 

Childe grit his teeth. “That’s not helping.”

“Ah, sorry.” 

He huffed. “And now the kids think I was depressed as a kid.”

She tilted her head at that. “...You weren’t?”

He threw the clothes into her arms. “No! I was a normal amount of sad!” 

She didn’t say anything, just looked at him judgmentally. 

“I’m fine!”

“Whatever you say,” she said, too tired to argue. She hauled herself back to her feet and went back to the door. “I’m going to take a bath now. Thank you for the clothes.” 

He stood, toed the door shut before she could leave and rubbed his temple. “Sorry, sorry. It’s been a long day.”

“It’s alright.”

He didn’t want to trap her, but he wasn’t sure when he’d get another moment alone with her. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind.” 

“Eh, yeah. I do,” she said and waved him off. “We can talk about it later. I seriously need to get this smell off of me.” 

He frowned and crossed his arms, but did remove his foot from the door. “Alright then. Enjoy your bath, okay?” 

“I will. Thanks, Ajax.”

Chapter Text

Lumine all but ripped her dress off and flung it on the floor. None of her clothes had been dry in the past two days and she was sick of that damp, clinging slick on her skin. She drew some water for herself and ran her hands through the knots in her hair while she decided on something from the Kamisatos’ soap collection. 

There was one that reminded her of Mondstadt - clean and a little grassy, completely unlike the wet must of that damned library. She used it to scrub the algae out of her hair as best she could and, once clean, she relaxed back into the hot water. Lantern light flickered across the walls, seemingly in time with the distant rumble of thunder. 

It was much nicer out there and not arcing out to kill her. 

She groaned and rubbed her face. She hated the dark. She hated being under the ocean. She hated everything about that place, with its tragic past and cursed legacy and dead gods. She also kinda hated that every peal of thunder made her heart race and muscles tense, but at least that was getting better with time. 

She also hated that she had completely forgotten about Childe and everything happening here until Paimon reminded her that they should, ya know, head back to check on them eventually. 

Her head thunked against the back of the tub and she let herself process the last of her emotions. She loved Paimon, but sometimes... Sometimes she needed a few minutes alone. 

Her mood improved considerably with the bath. She could’ve sat with the blessed privacy for hours, but her stomach soon demanded Thoma’s cooking. 

She ignored it for a few more minutes, waiting until she felt back to her usual self before she rinsed off one last time. The last of the irritation bled off of her with the grime. This was better. She felt properly clean for the first time in weeks. 

She stepped out of the bath with a happy sigh and toweled herself dry, then picked up Ajax’s clothes for an inspection. Big, but exceptionally comfortable. She slipped them on and groaned at the softness. Sweet, dry clothes. She hugged herself in his shirt and got a whiff of snow and that odd, metallic tang that hung around him. 

She made her way back to the dining area where everyone was already sitting and mostly done with their meals. 

“How was your bath, Traveler?”

“It was just what I needed. Thank you, Thoma.”

She took a seat across from the two men and dished herself a heaping bowl of rice. Tonia scooted up next to her and wiggled. “Paimon was telling us how you guys were fighting dragons underwater! That’s so cool!” 

“They were small dragons,” she said, a bit distracted. Ajax stared at her with a zoned out smile and a faint blush. 

“SMALL?! They could’ve swallowed Paimon whole!” 

He really was quite cute. A shame he didn’t want to pursue anything more than friends, but she understood. She cleared her throat and he glanced up from his thousand yard stare to her face, blushing a bit deeper. To his credit, he also smiled wider, not embarrassed in the slightest. 

What a good boy. 

She took a bite of rice and swallowed it. “A lot of things could swallow you whole, Paimon. Or you!” she whirled on Tonia, who flinched back. 

Her little face hardened almost immediately. “I would stab it from the inside.” 

She reared back and held her hands up. “Whoa! Geez. Paimon, take notes.”

Anthon skewered a piece of fish on a chopstick. “I would also stab the dragon. From the outside.” 

Lumine made a show of looking between the two children before turning back to her companion with crossed arms. “You need to step up your game. I might just take them as my new adorable sidekicks.” 

“Hey!” she shrieked and stomped her foot. 

“They’ll stab dragons for me. What do you do?” 

They paused their bickering when Teucer shrank down and sidled closer to his brother, who hugged him to his side. Paimon frowned. “Not all dragons are bad, though! Like Dvalin!”

She followed her lead and nodded, then gave Ajax a teasing look. “Or Rex Lapis, who you definitely should not stab. Ever.” 

His smile tightened. 

“Under any circumstances.” 

“...” 

“No matter how angry you are at him for lying to you.” 

“I get it.”

They wrapped up their meal by sharing stories about their time in Enkanomiya and abroad, mostly revolving around dragons. Lumine tapped her chopsticks against her cheek and gestured at Tonia. “You know, the Raiden Shogun killed a dragon, too.” 

“Really? She must be as strong as the Tsaritsa!”

Ajax made a sound that earned a disapproving glare from Thoma, though he didn’t seem to care. She chose to ignore it and continue. 

“She’s very, very strong. There was a dragon-snake that used to watch over the people that lived at the bottom of the ocean. He was so big, he made tsunamis with every breath!” 

She turned so she could have all of her audience in her vision. Three sets of bright blue eyes were locked on her, as well as one set of dull ones. “But he wasn’t always so big. Like all dragons, he started out small. As small as you,” she said and pointed at Teucer.

“He was just a little snake, cast about the waves and the tides. This was back when the land was ripped apart by war and he was scared, so he followed the currents down to the bottom of the ocean. There, he found a nice boy that took care of him. There were people living there that had never seen the sun.”

“How did they see?” Anthon asked. 

“They built a giant lamp, a lamp so big it lit up the deep like the day. The light scared off the mean dragons and the monsters.” He seemed satisfied with that, so she continued. 

“The people were very smart, but they were struggling. The dragon-snake wanted to repay the boy’s kindness, so he got big and strong, overthrew their old leaders and vowed to protect his new people from every hardship.” 

“The people loved him, and he loved them back. He became their god, the Orobashi. He learned many things in his long life. Even after that boy had long grown old and passed, he continued his vow. He spent his life searching for truth in the darkness, always looking for a way to better people’s lives…”

She trailed off. She needed to take some liberties with the truth, for everyone’s sakes. 

“Um, anyway, eventually the land was safe. The fires of war had burnt out and the dragon-snake decided to bring his people to finally see the sun. He broke coral that had grown on his body and built an island out of it. He fertilized the soil with his blood and watered their crops with his tears.” 

She sighed and stared into her rice. “But… it wasn’t enough. He brought his people to a sunlit surface, but he was a beast of the deep, from another time. He could no longer provide their every want.

“In desperation, he lashed out at the neighboring islands, trying to secure food and land for his people forevermore. Eventually, the Raiden Shogun took notice of him. They fought on Yashiori Island and… he lost. She cut him in half with one blow.”

“What?! No!” 

“Why’d the Shogun kill him?!”

She made a soothing motion to calm the older kids while Ajax squeezed the brother glued to his hip. “She had to! He was attacking her people.”

“But. But why? Why didn’t he just talk to her?” Anthon asked. 

She drummed her fingers on the table and looked down. At length, she lied. “I don’t know.”

She took a deep breath and sat back up. “Both gods were only concerned with their own people. Maybe they could’ve worked something out. They should’ve talked. But… they couldn’t. Only one of them could rule, and the Raiden Shogun earned her right by force.”

“Or so says the heavenly principles…” she grumbled under her breath. 

The table was quiet until Teucer spoke up in a small voice. “That’s a sad story.”

She looked up and noticed Thoma looking at her with concern. Ajax seemed lost in thought. “Yeah. Sorry. Uh… let me think of a happy dragon story.” Azdaha? No. Durin? Even worse. 

“Dvalin?” Paimon offered. 

“Perfect!”

They recounted their time with the Dragon of the East and his eventual recovery, letting Paimon do most of the talking so Lumine could eat. The kids seemed much happier with this one, though Tonia crossed her arms at the end. 

“It’s still a little sad.”

“Yeah. Teyvat isn’t very kind to dragons. But he’s doing better!” 

Teucer pushed some food around his plate. “I wanna make friends with a dragon.” 

The other two nodded their agreement. Tonia put her fist to her chest. “I’ll only stab dragons if they swallow me first.” 

Lumine smiled and rubbed her shoulder. “That’s a good plan. Not many dragons are nice, but it’s good to be kind until you shouldn’t be. So!” she clapped her hands on her thighs, gathered her dishes and stood. “Thank you very much for dinner, Thoma.”

“Of course! Anytime! Would you like to spend the night?” 

She yawned and stretched. “Yes please. I’d love to sleep on a real bed.”

“Wonderful! Let me prepare a room.” 

Ajax stood with them and took the dishes out of their hands. “I can wrap up dishes while you do that.” 

Thoma clapped and bowed. “Thank you. Traveler, please follow me.” 

He led her and Paimon to the room right across from the kids’, gestured for them to wait, disappeared deeper into the estate and then returned with a bedroll and some fresh blankets. 

They followed him as he nudged the door open and laid things out. “So, Traveler. Did your story have something to do with your travels in Enkanomiya?” 

She nodded, rubbing the heel of her hand into her eye. “Yeah.”

“Yashiori Island has always been a very sad place,” he whispered, fluffing her pillow. “It’s… nice to know the Orobashi’s history. And it’s nice to better understand why Sangonomiya rejects the Shogun’s rule.” He stood and dusted his hands off. “Would you mind if I shared your story with the Kamisatos and asked for your counsel?”

“For what?”

“Recognition of their god may help alleviate tensions between the shogunate and Sangonomiya. Things are going well, but they could be better with the Yashiro Commission's help. We just haven’t had a good way to get involved until now.”

Lumine scratched her chin. “Yeah, of course, but you should really talk to Kokomi. She’s the priest. I just know what we dug out of a waterlogged library.” 

He bowed. “We’ll take that under consideration. Thank you, Traveler.” 

She nodded to him as he excused himself, then flopped down onto the mat. Paimon hovered by her head. “Hey, Traveler?”

“Hm?”

“Do you mind if Paimon sleeps in the teapot tonight? Paimon doesn’t like the thunder.”

“Oh, sure,” she said and fished out the teapot with its pocket dimension. She set it at the head of her bed. “And I’m sorry I was snippy earlier.” 

“You were snippy? Paimon didn’t notice.”

“Oh. Well, good.” She blinked a few times and decided not to force it. “Good night, Paimon.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m good. Just tired.” 

“Okay then! Good night! Just yell if you need Paimon, really, really loudly!” 

She smiled and patted her companion’s leg. “I will.”

“And don’t replace Paimon with a dragon-stabbing kid!”

“I won’t. Good night,” she insisted. Her friend disappeared into the abode with that odd swish of wind and the warping of space, and then she was left with her thoughts once again. 

They immediately turned to Celestia’s unyielding laws, her brother and the Abyss. She sighed as they chased each other around her head, dizzying, with her paralyzed in the middle. She felt weighed down by indecision and, a little bit, grief for a god she never knew. 

A knock at the door pulled her out of her spiral. She looked up just as Ajax cracked the door. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

He poked his head in a bit farther. “Can I come in?”

She nodded and pointed to the bedroll that was meant for Paimon. She tossed a pillow over for him to sit on, though he chose to sit on the floor with the pillow in his lap, instead. “What’d you find down there that’s got you so out of it?”

…He came all this way to ask? Nobody asked her that. She blinked a few times to collect herself. “Ugh, a lot.” 

He waited for a moment while she rubbed her face. When she didn’t elaborate, he pressed. “Like?”

She chewed her lip and watched him in the dim light. He hunched over his pillow, intense and attentive, those dull, dead eyes never leaving her face. If anyone could handle the truth, it was him. 

But… she didn’t know how the laws applied to him. She didn’t even know what the laws were . Better not to risk it, lest he end up just like the dead god. “Besides the story at dinner? I’d rather not say. I just know that the more I find out about Celestia, the less I like.”

“I’m not a fan, either.” 

She fidgeted with her bangs. “What about the Tsaritsa?”

“Actively plotting against them, so… Also not a fan.” 

“I’ve yet to find someone who is,” she chuckled. “What is she planning, anyway?” 

He sat up straight and smug, hugging the pillow to his stomach. “The Harbingers are collecting the gnoses to overthrow the rest of the Archons and establish a new world order with Her Majesty at its head.”

“...That’s it?”

He blinked, deflating slightly. “I thought it was pretty impressive.” 

She felt an irrational irritation at the stupidity of this world’s deities. “Does she honestly expect that to work?”

He went quiet for a moment, then cleared his throat. “She would do anything to make things better for her people, no matter the cost. There’s a reason we love and worship her, even if she’s… cold.” 

From what she’d heard from other Fatui, she didn’t quite believe him, but now wasn’t the time to argue it. “All of the Archons are trying to care for their people, Ajax. They’re not the problem.” She paused and pursed her lips. “Well, Ei was the problem, but she’s better now.”

She leaned back before he could contest it. “It’s just so unfair. Orobashi shouldn’t have had to die.” 

“Well… it’s like you told me. You can’t go attacking people without consequences.” 

She shook her head. “That’s not what I mean.” 

He cocked his head at her. She ran through what she knew in her head, teasing out the parts that probably weren’t forbidden and praying to the stars that she wasn’t about to bring unholy judgment down on his head. 

“Orobashi found out something about Celestia that he wasn’t supposed to know. They ordered his death to keep their secrets, and he chose suicide by Shogun.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “... Oh. I should… I should warn the Tsaritsa.”

She gave him a stern glare. “I’m sure she knows, but I can remind her when I get to Snezhnaya. You shouldn’t risk yourself or the kids.” 

He reared back and his voice took on an edge. “The Tsaritsa would never hurt my family.”

“But her dogs will.”

The fight left his posture and he looked away, swallowing hard. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, then looked back at her with a small frown and a raised eyebrow. “How are you holding up? That’s some pretty heavy stuff to dig up.”

“Uh… Stressed. Very stressed. My brother and I already tried to fight one of the gods that destroyed Khaenri’ah, and we lost. I have no idea where to go from here.”

He scooted closer, to her side, and rubbed her shoulder. “We’ll figure something out. Maybe you’ll find something in Sumeru?”

She chuckled and looked over at him. “We?”

“Of course. You’re my friend, and the kids’ Auntie Lumine.”

She smiled and let herself relax into his hand. “Thanks. I appreciate it.” 

He slid his arm farther, across her shoulders, and pulled her into a sidehug. His thumb ran in little circles around her other shoulder while they sat in the quiet. 

His thumb paused for a moment. “...You fought the god that destroyed Khaenri’ah?”

“Well, ‘fought’ is a strong word,” she scoffed, making air quotes around the word. “We didn’t land a single hit on her.” She sighed, loud and harsh, and scowled at the floor. “I’m going to kill her.”

Ajax nodded and gave her a little squeeze. 

She leaned back into his arm and glared past the ceiling. “I’m going to rip Celestia out of the sky and bury her under it.” 

He laughed at her heresy. “Are you sure you don’t want to join the Harbingers? You’d fit right in.” 

She chuckled and rolled her head to the side, momentarily pinning his hand between her shoulder and cheek. “Thank you, but no. If I’m going to do this, I’m gonna do it the right way. I’m not going to screw over everyone in my path.” 

“You’re incredible.” 

She sat back up and patted his back. “Don’t compliment me until I’ve done it. I might just get splattered like a bug on a wall.”

His hold on her tightened and his voice lost all of its earlier humor. “Don’t say that.” 

She smiled and laughed him off, but he just gave her a little shake. “No, seriously. Promise me you’ll be careful.” 

She turned to say something witty, but whatever snarky comment she had died in her mouth on seeing his expression. Mortals always took death so seriously. “I will. I promise.” 

“Good.” His eyelids drooped and he stifled a yawn, suddenly back to normal. “Besides all that, how’re you doing? Is there anything else you wanna talk about?”

“I’m good. Like, actually, really good. I’ve met some wonderful people in this world.” Like him. She regretfully pulled out of his arm and turned to face him, stretching her legs out alongside his. “Thank you for checking in. How are you liking Inazuman life?”

He tossed his pillow behind him and laid back onto his elbows. “I love it. The kids seem really happy. I get to spend more time with them, and I got a job at Yoimiya’s. She asked me to tell you hi, by the way.” 

“Yoimiya! I love her!” The memory of the little firecracker banished the last of the clinging fog from the deep. “I need to go visit her.”

“You can come with me to work tomorrow, if you want.” 

They spent the rest of the night filling each other in on recent events, the details growing fuzzier as sleep approached. At some point, she curled around her pillow and watched him over her arms while he bragged about his sister. He asked her in turn for her stories, and she told him about Paimon’s latest antics, watching while his eyes fluttered shut and he eventually drifted to sleep. 

She nestled into her own bed and followed soon after.

Chapter Text

Childe woke up stiff and sore, his elbow somehow pinned behind his back, and started on seeing Lumine at his feet. 

He did a quick double take and remembered he fell asleep in her room. Sleepy golden eyes watched him get a grip on reality, hiding a smile in her arm. 

“Morning.”

“Good morning,” he groaned and stretched, very aware of her watching his every movement. He might’ve let his shirt ride up, just a little bit, as he contorted his long limbs into every possible configuration to work out the last of the tightness. Once done, he slumped forward and scratched his chest. “Were you watching me sleep?”

“Maybe.” She held her hand out at him and pinched her fingers, her eye barely visible in the gap. “‘Lil bit.” 

He chuckled and reached forward to grab his toes. “I need to do laundry later. Want me to wash your dress?”

She stretched herself, laying on her stomach and putting her arms out with the most adorable sound. “Nah, I got it. I should probably go do that now so it’ll dry by tonight.”

“Just let me do it. I can wash it in seconds,” he said and flipped out a palmful of hydro. “How about after work? Can you wait that long?”

She watched him for a moment and tapped her chin before collapsing dramatically. “Oh, fine. If you insist. I’ll need to borrow another shirt, though.”

Yes! He rolled to his feet and tried very hard to keep his excitement off his face, gesturing for her to follow him to the kids’ room. They were already up and in the living room, so the two adults had time to rifle through his meager possessions in peace. Lumine picked out a white buttonup and he picked a matching red one, excusing himself to the bathroom to change. 

They reunited in the hall. She tilted her head at him and pointed at the side of his head. “New mask?” 

He nodded and put his fists on his hips, beaming with pride. “The kids got it for me.”

“Aww. They’re so sweet.”

“Aren’t they? I love them.” 

She led the way to the living room and he watched, admiring how the tiny woman managed to pull off a shirt three sizes too big. Maybe he could put laundry off another day or ‘forget’ about it so she’d have to borrow his clothes again. 

They walked out to a very Mondstadt breakfast, table piled high with pancakes and hashbrowns and sausages. Tonia held up her plate when they entered. 

“Mr. Thoma made blini!”

“So he did,” Childe muttered, too surprised to comment further. He thought the grocery list seemed a little weird for Inazuma, but he didn’t expect this . 

Their host took that moment to step back in with a pot of tea. “Oh hey guys! You’re up!”

Lumine pointed at the centerpiece of the meal. “I meant for you to enjoy that ham, not regift it.” 

He laughed and ushered them to the table with an arm behind their backs. “What better way to enjoy it than sharing with friends?” 

He sat them down next to each other and took his own seat at the head of the table, talking around a mouthful of pork. “Since you’re both here and the Kamisatos are still out, I wanted to make something special. I know Mondstadt’s cuisine is a little different than Snezhnaya’s, but it’s a lot closer than Inazuma’s.”

Childe stared down at his own plate, not sure what to do about the weight in his chest and the sudden homesickness. Most places he’d been had some variety of fried potato pancake thing, but Thoma’s version might’ve well been his own mother’s draniki. He cleared his throat and tried not to think about it too hard. “Thank you. Seriously.” 

He just flashed them a radiant smile and turned to Paimon and Anthon to continue their conversation from before they walked in. Childe ground the heel of his hand into his eye before shaking his head and solidly putting any and all thoughts of Snezhnaya out of his mind. 

Once he settled in, Childe took a sip of tea and turned to his friend. “So do you still wanna come to work with me today?”

She nodded, bangs bouncing. She wiped a few crumbs from the corner of her mouth and hurried to swallow her pancake. “You said you got a job with Yoimiya?”

“I did! I help her make fireworks… sorta.” 

She ignored his comment and continued with a faraway smile. “I love her. She was a huge help when I first came here. She’s so bright and peppy.” She went quiet for a moment, chewing absently on some fruit before blinking back to attention. “Isn’t she adorable?”

“She is,” he said, deciding not to comment that Lumine was infinitely cuter. 

-

They wrapped up breakfast and excused themselves to go to work. Paimon fluttered behind them, hugging the kids alongside them, and then they were off. 

They chattered for the duration of the walk. Lumine stretched and latticed her hands behind her head, rolling it lazily to look over at him as they neared their destination. “You seriously took a single day to get used to Inazuma before you went and got a job?”

“I wanted to get settled properly,” he shrugged. 

“Are all Snezhnayans as hyper as you?” Paimon asked. 

He chuckled. “It’s how we keep from freezing to death. Anyway, we’re here!” He knocked and stuck his head through the door, happy to note that the place’s smell wasn’t as choking as last time. “Hey Yoimiya! I brought the Traveler!” 

“WHAT?!”

He barely got out of the way before she burst through the door, lucky to have his nose intact. The orange and red blur squealed and tackled his friend, picking her up and spinning her in a circle. “Ohmygosh ohmygosh I’ve missed you so much!! How have you been ?!”

Lumine choked and patted her shoulder. “Good, good. Missed you too. Please put me down.” 

Yoimiya did, though she immediately dragged her into the shop, leaving him and Paimon to follow. She raced around, leading Lumine by the wrist while she assembled some - God - paper and pushed the roll into his arms. “Can you get me fifty sheets of 30 by 15?” 

“I’ll try!” he whined. 

He got on that while the three women caught up. It went marginally better than last time, if for no other reason than he could chop off workable sections instead of trying to maneuver the entire roll. 

He looked up when he heard his name. “Huh?”

“How’d those sparklers turn out?” Yoimiya asked. 

“Oh!” he set down the knife and tried to remember his notes. “They were great. The kids loved them. They didn’t last very long, though.”

She sighed, collecting two handfuls of sticks that she and Lumine had cut. “Yeah. That’s the sad thing about fireworks. They don’t last.” The melancholy melted away just as fast, replaced by a cute pose and the tip of her tongue. “But the memories do!”

He smiled. She was cute, but she couldn’t compare to the woman standing next to her. Yoimiya never ran around with his siblings on her shoulders or looked up at him with a little smudge of blood on her cheek. Beyond all that, nothing could match Lumine with fire in her eyes and electricity crackling along her sword, sweat slicked bangs clinging to her face. 

He needed to stop thinking like that. 

He went back to his paper before his overactive imagination could get away from him. The girls went back to their own conversation, occasionally pulling him into it before he drifted off to focus. They didn’t realize how much concentration it took him. 

Finally, he finished the stack of paper and carefully set it to the side. Yoimiya could inspect them sometime when Lumine wasn’t there. For now, he joined them at the table with a thick paste that they were rolling around sparkler sticks. 

He watched them for a second and then copied them, sticking the sparklers into a drying rack at a decent pace. 

“I can’t believe how well the kids are adjusting,” Lumine said. 

“Yeah, you’d think they’d be more upset about moving!” 

Paimon hovered nearby, shrill in his ear, while Childe put his head down and focused on his work. He didn’t like where this conversation was going and he really, really didn’t like it when he felt Lumine’s glare on his shoulder. He tried to ignore the expectant silence that followed. 

“...They do know they live here now, right?” Lumine asked. 

He rolled another sparkler instead of answering. 

“Childe Ajax Tartaglia.” 

“That is not my full name.” 

Paimon floated to his front, disappointment written in every line of her face. “ Bro .”

He collected a handful and sparklers and went to put them to dry. “I don’t want to upset them!”

“It’s an upsetting situation!” Lumine yelled, throwing her hands up. 

Yoimiya stuck her head into the conversation, too. “You really shouldn’t lie to kids, you know. They’re a lot smarter than you think.” 

He took a step back so he wasn’t in the middle of them. “I know, I know. I just need to find the right time.”

“The right time was on the boat!” Paimon shrieked. 

Childe turned his shoulder to her, starting on another sparkler so he had something to do with hands that itched in preparation for a fight. He couldn’t shake the familiar tightness in his chest whenever one of his superiors would publicly dress him down. He never understood why the other Fatui hated him so much. Maybe he was actually just stupid? 

Lumine saved him, either sensing that he was at the edge or just being kind by coincidence, leaning comfortingly against his back while he finished his task. He managed not to flinch away from her touch. “Well… maybe not on the boat. A tantrum in the middle of the ocean sounds terrible.”

“ Thank you.”

She smacked his shoulder and pushed off to return to her own work. “This doesn’t mean I’m backing you up.”

Of course not. He was just the idiot she was taking care of. He caught Yoimiya’s concerned expression, her mouth quirked to the side and her arms crossed. “I get it. But really, you should tell them soon. They’re gonna stop trusting you if you keep keeping things from them.” 

“I know,” he lied. A pang of fear lanced through his chest at her warning, though. He hadn’t considered that they’d eventually be upset with him or worse, stop coming to him when they needed something. “But how am I going to explain why we’re here?”

Lumine chewed on the end of a broken stick. “I mean, I still think you should tell them you were a Harbinger, but I understand why you’d want to keep that from them.” 

He froze, horrified, looking between her and Yoimiya. Lumine caught his eyes and the stick fell out of her mouth as she swore. “I’m so sorry! I thought you told her!”

“Nope!” he said through gritted teeth. He turned to his boss and half bowed. “I guess I should explain.”

She waved him off. “Oh, no need. It’s not my business. I only really care about who you are now, anyway.”

“I…” he stuttered. “O–kay?”

He blinked and partially straightened while she continued. “Can I make a suggestion? Just because it seems like you really care about your siblings.”

She was actually asking for permission. It took Childe a moment to realize that she wouldn’t continue without his input, but when he did, he nodded. “Please do.”

“Kids need reasons for things, but they don’t need to have an argument about it. You should just tell them this is happening. It’s okay for them to be upset about it, and they should talk about their feelings, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is happening.” 

“Oooh, that’s really good advice!” Paimon chimed in. 

It was. It didn’t tell him what to tell them, but it cleared up how. He scratched his jaw and inspected the floor. “I’ll try that.”

“Kids like structure. They ask why a lot, but the ‘what next’ is the important part.” Yoimiya smiled and clapped her hands together. “And that wraps up work for the day!”

“What about that giant order for the wedding?” He asked. 

She waved breezily, turning to escort them to the door. “I finished it last night. I got a little in the zone and finished them in one sitting, heh.” 

She must’ve been up until the morning. He raised an eyebrow and checked her for signs of fatigue, though it was hard to tell with her permanent buzz.  

“I’m taking tomorrow off to rest up. You should probably not come to work.” She turned back and winked at him as she opened the door. “I mean you can , but I don’t think you’d have a very good time.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah! One of the perks of working for a small business, right?”

He nodded while Lumine hugged her and exited the workshop ahead of him. “Thank you!”

“Anytime,” she said, then held up a finger. “Ope, I almost forgot your pay. Here you go!” 

He palmed the pouch and stuffed it in his pocket before Lumine could see the pitiful amount, waving goodbye as she ushered them out. “Thank you. See you the day after tomorrow?”

“Yep! Bye Childe! Bye Traveler! Bye Paimon! Stop by and say hi again sometime soon, okay?”

“We will!” 

-

“Sooo…. What now?”

Childe stretched his arms behind his head, pointedly avoiding any talk about the kids and what he was going to tell them. His entire body was still tense. “I dunno. I didn’t expect to have the day off. What do you wanna do?”

The two girls shared a glance before Lumine looked back at him. “Honestly, I’d just like a break. Enkanomiya takes a lot out of you.”

He wanted to offer to take her and Paimon to lunch privately, but he felt too guilty leaving the kids home alone to do more than consider it. “Do you guys wanna go grab the kids and then get lunch?” 

“Sure!”

They walked back in relative quiet, broken only when Lumine nudged his hip. “What’cha thinking about?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and chewed on his lip, sorting through his jumbled thoughts for something easy. “Oh, just something Thoma mentioned.” 

She just waited for him to continue, poking his stomach when he didn’t. He flinched away from the tickle and rolled his eyes. “He suggested I go be a consultant for the Tenryou Commission on how to handle the Fatui.”

“That sounds like a fantastic idea to me.”

“Yeah,” Paimon added. “Thoma really knows what he’s talking about. You should listen to him!”

Childe made a face and walked a little faster. “It feels… scummy.”

Lumine got serious, not in a critical way but in a firm one. She nudged him and nodded towards two haggard looking kids going stall to stall, likely collecting donations. “Nearly every family here has someone that’s been hurt by the Fatui.”

“Yeah, well, the Fatui have families, too,” he said, though it sounded lame even to him. He started to hunch in preparation for the berating sure to follow. 

Instead, Lumine just chuckled and elbowed his rib. “All the more reason to teach the Tenryou Commission to deal with them non-lethally, right?”

He grumbled because she was right and because he wasn’t sure what to do with guilt. He snuck another glance at the two kids. They’d probably lost their own big brothers in the war. He swallowed down the bile and tried to comfort himself that he wasn’t directly responsible for their suffering. 

It was weird. A few months ago he would’ve said it was their brothers’ fault for not being strong enough. After all, he could throw himself into danger and come out victorious. Why couldn’t everyone else? 

But, not everyone else had the privilege of devoting nearly their entire existence to martial arts. Not everyone wanted to be a living weapon. Nobody else had the Tsaritsa herself promising peace through war, a warm bed and a cared for family to come home to after months abroad. 

Even he couldn’t even keep up on his old training regime now that he had to take care of the kids. How was the average person supposed to handle war? How were they supposed to handle the average bandit ? 

He turned away from the ragged children and walked a little faster. Maybe that’s what people like him were for – not to conquer for the sake of his own, but to protect everyone alongside them. 

That’s really all he’d ever wanted. He’d always wanted to be someone like Lumine. 

Her hand on his arm snapped him out of his thoughts. He looked over at worried eyes. 

“Maybe just relax a little bit? Enjoy your new life. You don’t have to have everything figured out the first week.” 

“I guess.”

She wasn’t convinced, her face soon coming in front of him. “You don’t look like you’ve been sleeping well. You really need to try to relax.” 

“It’s just really hot here.” He grumbled and waved her off. “What about you? Do you feel any better after last night?”

“Much. Now stop deflecting.” She patted his back and led the way back home. “You’re doing really good, okay? Not many people are brave enough to start their lives over like this. You’ve earned a break.” 

He shook his head. “If you say so.”

Chapter Text

They arrived back at the Estate without incident. Childe nodded to the guards as he opened the door for the two girls, then followed behind. 

Thoma’s voice drifted from the office, frazzled. “C’mon Teucer. Why don’t you go play with your brother and sister? I have some things I need to do.”

He took a quick look around. Anthon and Tonia were in the dining room on the floor and the office door was open. Thoma was partially visible through it, tapping his foot, though Teucer thoroughly blocked the door. 

“Hey guys! We’re home!”

The kids all dropped what they were doing and rushed them, cheering the whole way. Thoma popped his head in. “Oh! You’re home early!”`

Childe crawled out from under his sibling pile, catching Tonia as she fell off his shoulders. “Yeah, Yoimiya didn’t need too much help today and Lumine did most of it.”

“I did not.”

“Yes you did. Hush.”

His host gave him a strained smile. “That’s wonderful. Um, Childe? Can I talk to you in private for a moment?”

That sounded bad. He dumped his siblings into his friends’ care and hurried over to his side. “Sure! What’s up?”

Thoma shifted from foot to foot and wrung his hands. “I just wanted to let you know that I have meetings all day tomorrow and won’t be able to watch the kids.”

“That’s fine! I have tomorrow off anyway.”

“Oh. Good. Good…” he hesitated, like the wind had been taken out of his sails. He looked around the room before he continued. “Well… also, I think you should consider getting a proper babysitter.”

Childe cocked his head. “Have they been giving you trouble?”

“No, no, not at all!” he stuttered, obviously lying. “It’s just that I do have a lot of things I have to attend to outside of the estate, and I’m sure you’d rather I not drag them across all the islands.” 

Leaving the kids here all day probably was a huge imposition, wasn’t it? Childe had always just… had Pulcinella or his parents or one of his siblings take care of them before. He chewed the inside of his cheek before looking to him for advice. “Of course. Do you have any recommendations?”

Thoma immediately relaxed. “Yes, Hinoa is wonderful. I’d trust her with my own children, if I had any.”

He nodded and tapped his foot. “Okay, can you give me more information on her? What does she do? Where’s she from?”

“Er… she’s Taroumaru’s dogsitter.”

The disappointment must’ve shown on his face because Thoma held his hands up. “Trust me, she’s beyond qualified. She’s the first choice to watch over the Kamisato clan’s children! It’s just that neither of my lords have any and it’d be a little silly to hire her to watch over an empty house.”

“Hm…” He hummed and tapped his finger against his bicep. “Alright. I’d still like to run a background check. What’s her full name?”

“Oh dear.”

“What?”

Thoma sighed when it was obvious he couldn’t be persuaded. “Her name is Konda Hinoa. Just… please don’t scare her. She’s a nice lady and very well respected in the community.”

“I won’t! C’mon, who would be afraid of this?” he asked and gestured at himself.

“...A lot of people.” 

Childe just laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I was the posterboy at my old job. I know how to smile.”

“Yes, I think smiling while fighting is the thing that frightens people.”

“You know what I mean. Don’t worry about it. I’ll have something worked out for you.” 

He gave his host a friendly shake and excused himself back to the living room, scooping up the kids as he did. “Alright guys! Who wants to go out?” 

The three kids (and Paimon) cheered and followed him and Lumine back out to the town. They spent a few hours fishing, shopping and a dozen other things before eventually returning to the Estate with three exhausted children in tow. 

-

By the time they arrived, the Kamisatos had finally come home and dinner was well on its way. 

Lumine led the way inside, squealed, then rushed their hosts for a hug. Childe followed suit with somewhat less enthusiasm and kept the children from following her example. 

“Traveler!” Ayato said, actually smiling somewhat and giving the blonde an affectionate head pat while she stranglehugged his sister. He looked over to the door, the smile in his eyes fading but not impolitely. “Tartaglia. Children. Paimon. It’s good to finally see you all again.” 

“Sir,” Childe said and bowed. He repositioned and made the same gesture to the girl currently dying in his friend’s grasp. “Ma’am.”

“The formality isn’t necessary,” Ayaka wheezed. She stumbled and smoothed her dress repeatedly once Lumine released her, her face bright red. Despite the tomato complexion, her voice sounded almost normal. “Our apologies for being absent as of late. We’ve been having difficulties with a certain… person.”

“Person is a strong word,” Ayato muttered.

“Oh hush,” she chided, swatting at his back with her fan. 

Paimon came out from behind Childe, leaving the three children caged behind his legs. “What’s going on?”

“The Kanjou Commission wants to raise taxes on the creative arts,” the lord said breezily. 

The lady filled in. “Normally these things wouldn’t require our presence, but as it has to do with Inazuma’s culture… we have no choice.” 

Childe nodded like that meant anything to him and went to assist Thoma in the kitchen, leaving Lumine to catch up with her friends. Teucer followed tight at his heels.

“I’m hungry.” 

“I know, buddy. We’re making dinner now.”

They rounded the corner to a kitchen in ordered chaos. Their host scurried from pot to pan, carefully adjusting things to make sure they all finished cooking at the same time. It was a bit overwhelming compared to Childe’s usual “throw some soup on and call it a day” cuisine. 

Childe looked down at a tug on his pant leg, his brother’s wide eyes all big and hopeful. “Can I have chicken kiev?”

Thoma raised an eyebrow and wiped a bead of sweat away with his shoulder. “What’s that?”

“Oh, it’s delicious,” Childe said. “It’s chicken pounded flat, rolled around a core of garlic butter, breaded and fried.”

“Ooo, you’ll have to show me sometime.” 

“So we can have it tonight!” Teucer crowed. 

Thoma smiled and ruffled his hair. “Sorry bud. We don’t have the stuff for it tonight.”

“I can go run out and–” Childe offered. 

Thoma cut him off with a pleading expression. “Childe, please . I’ve been cooking for the past two hours.”

“Oh, right. Right. Uh, Teucer, we can have chicken kiev another day,” he said and blushed. “Thoma’s making…”

“Udon, miso, sakura tempura, chicken skewers, butter crab and sakura mochi for dessert.”

The boy clapped, completely forgetting his earlier disappointment. “Mochi!”

“That’s right!” Childe turned to their host to try and save some face. “What can I help with?”

Thoma sagged in visible relief. “If you could wash the dishes, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Yessir!” He got right to it, waiting to continue conversation until he was partly done with a cutting board. “Are you alright? You seem really tired.” 

“It’s been a day. I’m just trying to get everything organized for tomorrow and tidied up for the Kamisatos’ return.”

The actual child occupied himself by roaming the kitchen, asking what different things were and generally being underfoot. Thoma slipped into the sink to get some water before returning to his post at the stove. “Did you happen to find Hinoa while you were out?”

“Oh no, I’ll find her tomorrow.” 

Paimon took that moment to interrupt and drifted in. “Oh it smells AMAZING in here!”

“Thank you!”

She hovered over the pan of grilling crab. “Can Paimon try a piece?”

Thoma scooted her over to a different pot. “It’s not done yet. Here, try the miso and tell me if it needs anything.”

She took a sip from the offered spoon and smiled wide. “It’s perfect!”

Unusually for her, she only reflected on the food for a moment more before blatantly turning to Childe. “And don’t forget what we talked about at Yoimiya’s!”

He paled with a nervous laugh and a singsong voice. “How could I forget!” 

“Paimon was trying to be polite. Paimon knows you’ll avoid it if you can.”

“I know. I will, Paimon,” he growled with a pointed look at his oblivious brother. 

“And the Kamisatos know, too. You’re not getting out of this.”

“I will! Geez.” 

She took that moment to leave as suddenly as she arrived. “Okay! Bye! See you when dinner’s done!”

“Teucer, go with her.”

Thankfully his brother did as asked without argument. Childe massaged between his eyes and took a deep breath to calm the bubbling anxiety. 

Thoma looked between him and the door with concerned expression. “Oh?”

Childe sighed. “I. Haven’t… told them that we live here yet.”

“...”

He mistook the silence for judgment. “I know! ”

Thoma put his hands up. “Hey, hey, no. I get it. I can’t imagine the stress you’re under right now.”

Childe reached behind the blonde man and grabbed the dirty cutting board he had set aside. “Sorry. You done with this?”

“Yes, thank you. Seriously though, I don’t envy you. It’s a difficult situation.”

Childe had been in more than his fair share of literal life or death situations, but few of them compared to the insurmountable difficulty of just being honest with his siblings. He hydro blasted a stubborn stain and sighed. “Yeah, but Yoimiya gave me some really good advice earlier.”

“Oh good! She’s incredible with children. I’m glad you talked to her.” 

Childe let his hand trail, staring somewhere past the bottom of the sink. “...I just have to do it.”

A clap on the back shocked him out of his daze. “Don’t worry so much. You know they love you more than anything.”

That gave him the tiniest shred of comfort. He looked up at his host with his honest eyes. “Really?” 

Thoma grinned wide, so wide his eyes disappeared behind his cheeks. “Oh yeah! I hope my future kids like me as much as they do you!” Thoma relaxed to his normal amount of sunshine. “You’ll do great. Now, do you want to help me take all this to the dining room?”

“Of course.”

Chapter Text

Lumine groaned and stretched after an excellent night’s sleep. Knowing the dead god would get some recognition soothed one of her many, many nightmares, and at this point she’d take whatever relief she could get. 

Thoma had neatly folded her dress and left it next to her bedroll. She didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but she really wished he hadn’t. A clean dress meant she had to change into it, which she did, and then return Ajax’s very soft and big and wonderful shirt, which she did not want to do. The man packed light, though, so it was probably best she give it back as soon as possible. She pouted and went to his room. 

Two knocks, a few seconds waiting and then the ginger menace himself appeared, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and yawning dramatically. “Mornin’ girlie.” 

She could see into the room past his slender frame. Teucer was curled in his bed, fast asleep. 

“Good morning, tart,” she said and reluctantly handed off the shirt. “Here’s your stuff.”

“Oh… thanks,” he trailed off. He shook off the disappointment, then yawned again and tossed the shirt into a growing laundry pile in the corner. “How’d you sleep?”

“Great! You?”

He smiled and rolled his shoulders, seemingly every vertebrae popping in unison. That grinding sound couldn’t be good, but he didn’t seem to be in pain so she decided not to voice her concern. “Really good. Knowing that they’re okay with this is such a load off.” 

Well. Anthon and Tonia were okay with it. He earned a few days without worrying, though, so she just put her arms behind her back and swayed on her heels. “So what’s the plan for today?” 

“Uh… I’m off work so I’m gonna take the kids out into town for a bit, then run a background check on the babysitter Thoma suggested.”

“Awesome! Can I come?”

He lit up like a miniature sun. “Really? You don’t have other things to do?”

Heavens below he was cute with his messy hair and honest smile and, just, everything about him. She ignored all that in favor of a cool shrug. “Eh, I do, but it’s been a rough couple days and I feel better hanging out with you.”

“Great! I’d love that!”

They moved their conversation to the living room and both paused at the notable absence of breakfast smells. They shared a glance and checked on Thoma’s room, its occupant snoring loudly inside. 

Ajax frowned. “He said he had a meeting at ten… Should we wake him up?”

“Let’s make breakfast. Then, yeah, totally.” 

She dropped back by the guest room and grabbed the Serenitea pot, then met up with her companion in the kitchen. He already had some kind of dough rising next to the stove. She set her personal domain on the counter and got to work peeling the potatoes he had washed. 

“Hey, don’t put my teapot on the stove. I don’t know what’ll happen to everything inside.”

Ajax nodded and handed her another spud. “What’s it like in there?”

“It’s mostly a place to store stuff and sleep. Tubby’s mad that I’m not doing more with it.”

He set the last of the potatoes next to her and started digging through drawers for something to light the stove with. “Tubby?”

“Teapot spirit, a minor adeptus. They look after the place. I think their actual name is Rain Catcher? Calmer? Something esoteric. You know how adepti are.”

“Ah.” He straightened after finding a flint, then sparked the gas. “I could help you decorate sometime. If you want.”

She snorted and glanced over at him. “With what? Monster trophies?”

“Yeah! What are you giving me that look for?”

“There’s kids that show up there!”

“So?” He reached around her, painfully close, and stole the peeled potatoes. He set about shredding them fine after sticking his tongue out at her. “C’mon, you disaster woman. You have one set of clothes. I’m terrified to think of what your home looks like. For the sake of your guests, let me help you liven up the place.”

She flicked a peel at him and snickered when it stuck to his cheek. “I don’t think hanging dead things on the walls will ‘liven up the place.’”

-

They made something simple for everyone, more Snezhnayan and Mondstadter than Inazuman, but eggs, gravy, flat wheaty things and fried potato were staples of almost all cultures. Ajax put her on hashbrown ( draniki , he said, not hashbrowns ) duty after washing the shredded potato of its starch and got to work on a gravy, pulling some leftover pork fat from the icebox for the base and idly stirring while Lumine waited for the potatoes to do something. 

They lapsed into a comfortable silence until he looked over at his dough. “I’m sure that’s long enough,” he muttered, then put the gravy on a different burner and oiled a pan. “Mind stirring that for me?”

“Aye, sir.”

She watched him drizzle the thin batter into the pan and swirl it. “Ooh, pancakes? Crepes?”

“Blini.”

“They look exactly like crepes.”

“They’re better than crepes!”

She leaned around his shoulder, still stirring the gravy and occasionally pushing the hashbrown/draniki/potato pancake/whatever the hell it was around the pan. “I dunno. Crepes are really good.”

He ignored her blasphemy and flipped the misshapen not-crepe onto a plate, scowling at it. “First one’s always for the chef I guess.” 

She stared longingly. He noticed, then gestured at the blin. “Have you ever had them before?”

She shook her head. He swept his arm behind himself to her back and scooted her towards it. “Take it! Tell me if it needs something.” 

She pulled a too-hot piece off and popped it in her mouth, then recoiled at the taste. “Oh, wow. That really isn’t a crepe.”

“Told you. It’s better, isn’t it?”

She nodded and tore the other half of it, then ate that too. Tangy and fluffy and oddly yeasty - utterly surprising, but very, very good. Part of her wanted to finish it but that would be rude, so she nudged his hip and offered the last half to him. He took half of the half and indicated that she should finish it.

She split that in half. 

He looked at her. 

She held the now eighth of a blin up to him.

He took half.

“Fuck you,” she said. 

He re-oiled the pan and laughed, swirling more batter into the pan, then snatched the last of the blin before she threw it at him. He got into a rhythm and soon there was a stack of blini waiting for everyone else to wake up. 

Once eggs were underway, they both paused at the sound of rapid footsteps. They turned as one to see a very frazzled and very confused Thoma in the door.

“Eh?”

“Morning, Thoma,” Ajax waved.

“What time is it? How late did I sleep in? Are the Kamisatos still here?”

“It’s like eight and yes they are,” Lumine said. 

He blinked a couple times and openly stared. Ajax handed her his spatula and directed the other man to a chair in the dining room, his voice dimming with distance. “Relax. We’ve got breakfast covered.”

“Aww… you guys didn’t have to do that.”

Lumine poked her head out into the adjacent room. “Not like anyone else is awake. We don’t mind.” 

The three of them worked and sat in sleepy quiet broken by the occasional chatter. People filtered in as they woke up, including a very disoriented Paimon. 

“Why is Paimon in the kitchen?”

“I brought the pot in here. Blin?” she offered. 

They all shared greetings and good mornings while Lumine and Ajax set the table. Everyone served their own portions and commented on the quality, making friendly conversation while Lumine congratulated herself. She loved gatherings like this, where she was included but not necessarily the center of attention. Everyone was just happy and content and full of love. With as much time as she and Aether spent hitchhiking across worlds, she’d come to treasure these  little domestic moments. 

Eventually, though, they had to get moving. Ajax stretched, contorting those long arms with concerning flexibility and exposing a thin strip of his stomach. He went to take both of their plates to the kitchen but Thoma came along and literally took them out of his hands. 

“But–” 

“I’ll handle dishes,” Thoma said, spoken with authority that even Ajax didn’t want to challenge.

“You sure?”

“Yeah! I have an hour to kill. You guys enjoy your day and thank you again.” 

Lumine stood sleepily in the lobby while Ajax got the kids dressed and ready to go. Paimon buzzed around her head and she answered her incessant questions with half her attention, the rest still focused on how much she loved these people. She always made family wherever she went, but it was rare for her to return to something that passed for a home. It was nice. 

Ajax reappeared with his three siblings in tow. The kids looked nearly native save for the orange hair, dressed in flowing, loose fabric rather than their stuffy Snezhnayan winter survival gear. 

“So, what first?” Lumine asked. 

“I was thinking about taking them to the bookstore, then go check out this Hinoa lady.”

Lumine and Paimon nodded their agreement and helped him usher the excited kids out the door, out the gate, down the road and out to the city. 

She noticed him flicking lightning at the sakura blossoms as they passed. She tugged on his sleeve to get him to bend over, careful not to dump Teucer off his shoulders. “Hm?”

“Isn’t using the Delusion really bad for you?” she whispered. 

“Eh,” he made a face and responded too quietly to worry the kids. “Not in small doses. It’s only seconds off my lifespan.”

“ONLY?!” Paimon shrieked. 

Lumine rolled her eyes and pushed him away from the next flower. “Fuck’s sake, let me do it.” 

“Lumine, it’s fine–” he began.

She walked backwards, electricity lancing out from her fingertips as she held her arms up in a half-shrug. “It’s literally nothing for me. Besides, I could use more electro practice.” 

He rolled his eyes but smiled anyway. They continued on towards Yae Publishing House, ignoring the sounds of shrieking children and a familiar bellow in the distance. Apparently Itto had made it home safe and sound after all that drama in the Chasm.

She should check in on him and Shinobu soon. She’d been neglecting to visit her teapot for some time now, and as far as she knew they were still using it as a base of operations. 

Eh, if anything was wrong, Paimon would’ve mentioned it. Hopefully. If she thought to. 

-

They made it to the counter of the bookstore. Lumine hung back while Ajax leaned on the wood, expertly balancing his brother with the new angle. “Heya! I’m looking for something good for kids.”

The cashier glanced over the menagerie of children. “We have quite a selection. Do you have something more specific?”

Ajax turned to the kids, who had all suddenly gone shy and hid behind him and Lumine. “Well? What do you want to read about?”

Teucer squirmed to be let down and his brother complied. The three of them discussed for a moment, Tonia putting her ear to Anthon so he could whisper into it, then nodded as one and marched to the counter. 

“I want something about robots!” Teucer announced. 

“I want something about royalty,” Tonia said. “And Anthon wants something about fighting monsters.” 

“O…kay,” the cashier said. “We have quite a few of each of those. Let me get you a spread.”

As they stepped away to produce the goods, Lumine turned to Paimon. “Do you want anything?”

“Hmmm… Is Xingqiu’s next volume out? Paimon wants to see what Albedo drew for it.”

“...Not to read what Xingqiu wrote?” 

“It’s very dense.”

She chuckled and leaned over the counter. “Can I also get the new release of A Legend of Sword ?”

“Absolutely.”

They soon returned with an armful of paperbacks. They set them in three piles and handed her the last one. “ Legend of Sword is fifteen hundred mora.”

She nodded and went to dig in her pockets, but Ajax stepped in front of her. “I got it.”

“What? No! You bought dinner last time!”

“And every time,” Paimon added. 

“And I’m buying this too, so deal.” 

She tried to force her way back to her spot, but he took a fighting stance and hip-checked her out of the way. “I’m getting it!” 

“You always get me stuff! I have plenty of money!”

“Just let me do something nice for you!” 

The cashier watched them fight for a moment, then cleared their throat once the two of them were quite literally at each other’s throats. “Ahem.”

The two froze and looked at them. “Yeah?”

“The latest edition of Whale in a Sea of Stars by Jihi is out as well. It’s our most popular romance novel, if you’re interested.”

“Romance? Gross,” they both said in unison. 

They shrugged. “Just a suggestion. Anyway, let me know which of these you’d like and I’ll ring you up.”

Ajax just pulled out his wallet and started counting coins while the kids were in the middle of pawing through the books. “Oh we’ll just take them all.”

The cashier raised their eyebrow. “...Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

“...Alright. That will be eighty four thousand and fifteen mora.”

Paimon hovered over his shoulder, awestruck, as he produced the amount. “Wow… that’s a lot of money for something they might not even like.”

He shrugged. “It’s not like books go bad.” 

“Still. You could use that for so many other things…”

Lumine gently smacked her leg. “Paimon, I drop that on equipment for every person that joins us on a quest. Let him spend his money how he wants.”

“Well Paimon thinks you could be a little more careful with your mora, too.”

“ Paimon can share her opinion on it when Paimon doesn’t have her every need and most of her wants met out of Lumine’s pocket,” she growled. She waited until her companion was sufficiently cowed to turn back to Ajax. “But seriously, are you doing alright moneywise? I’m sure Yoimiya can’t pay much.”

He nodded. “I got some savings together before we left.”

…That sounded ominous. She bumped into his side and watched the coins change hands. “Is someone gonna come looking for your ‘savings’?”

“I sure hope not!”

Right. Planning. Not his strong suit. She grimaced and gave him a pleading look. He just propped his elbows on the counter behind him and fidgeted with a stool with his foot while the cashier wrote up a receipt, holding his hands out in a flippant gesture. “Hey, I’m dead! If they really want to find the money, they’ll look at the bottom of the harbor, right?”

“I guess…”

Once the kids had their books, Ajax leaned forward and whispered to the girls. “So, I’m gonna go check out this Hinoa lady. Do you mind staying and watching them?”

Paimon crossed her arms, voicing Lumine’s thoughts accurately for once. “Babysitting? I thought you invited us along for company!”

“I did! I just, I don’t wanna leave them alone,” he muttered and adjusted his kitsune mask. 

Lumine glanced over her shoulder at the kids, now sitting on the ground next to the store, utterly engrossed in their stories. “Well… this is the safest place in all of Inazuma. I think they’ll be fine.”

“Yeah! Just tell them not to wander off!” 

“I don’t know…” he hesitated. 

As if on cue, a squadron of unsupervised children tore through the street. They laughed and argued over snacks and games, all following a girl with a beetle proudly lifted over her head. They soon disappeared down an alley, but the brick and paper buildings did nothing to stop the sound of their happy voices on the wind.

“They seem fine to me,” she said. 

Ajax sighed and put his forehead to his palm, tapping his scalp.

“We’ll only be gone for a few minutes, right?” Paimon offered. 

“Yeah… yeah. You’re right.” He sighed and straightened, then went over to the kids. The girls watched the three little faces turn away from their books and up to him, a little confused, then all nodded and went right back to it. The older brother deflated, shrugged to himself, then turned back to them with two thumbs up. “We’re good! Let’s go ask around for information.”

-

The hunt began. 

Ajax marched along at a blistering pace, his usual resting bitch face replaced with a friendly smile that was only mostly unnerving. He hadn’t quite nailed smiling with his eyes.. He hit the pub, first, chatted up the bartender, slipped them a tip, then followed the trail to a local tutor. She directed them to Hinoa’s previous clients. Lumine and Paimon barely kept up as he weaseled information from seemingly everyone they came across. 

Ajax would smalltalk until he got them talking about themselves and a few leading questions later, everything he wanted to know just fell out of their mouths. For someone best suited to beating his problems into submission, he was very good at letting other people talk. It was impressive. 

It was as impressive as when Kaeya deflected conversations however he wanted them to go. Maybe she should introduce them? 

The sudden punch of jealousy at the thought quickly buried it to the back of her mind. 

-

The intelligence gathering didn’t take more than an hour altogether.

Ajax had determined that Hinoa was, in fact, excellent with children, with no criminal record to speak of save for a single misdemeanor for ‘disturbing the peace’ while drunk. So, human. Paimon panted as they both struggled to keep up with Ajax’s long legs. “So, ugh, what’s the verdict?”

“She sounds great,” he murmured, distracted. “I’m gonna hire her. She should live in… that house there.”

With that, he sped walked over without waiting for them. Paimon moaned her discontent. Lumine ignored her and jogged up to his side. “I thought she was from Konda village?”

“She moved.”

He stopped short a few feet from the house and turned back to them. “Hey, would you mind talking to her first? I don’t want to scare her.”

“Scare her? Why would you scare her?” Paimon asked. 

“Wouldn’t you be a little nervous if some two meter Snezhnayan showed up unannounced?” 

“Hm. Paimon didn’t think about that.”

He put his fist on his hip, smiling with his messy hair and dead, blue eyes. So used to having him by her side, she forgot how dangerous and unsettling he was to other people. “Lu- er, the Traveler is much less threatening… outwardly.” 

“Sure thing!” Lumine grinned at the compliment and flounced off to the door. She put her hands behind her back in the sweetest, most non-threatening imitation of Ayaka she could manage. A middle-aged woman with thick glasses cracked the door.

“Hello?”

“Hi! I’m a traveler new in town and I need someone to look after my… niece and nephews. Are you Konda Hinoa?”

Whoops. She didn’t mean to say that. Watching so many other people blurt out sensitive information must’ve done something to her head. 

“Oh, yes, yes,” Hinoa said and stepped out. She half bowed. “My last client just aged out. Tell me more.” 

Lumine scooted to the side to make room for Ajax as he approached with a warm smile and a shy wave. “Actually, it’s for my friend here. They’re his siblings, actually. He’s wondering if you’re available to babysit them.” 

“Hey, I’m Childe. Nice to meet you, Ms. Konda.” 

Lumine stepped back, her job done, while they negotiated fees and hours. At length, Ajax clapped his hands together and pulled out a sack of mora. “Wonderful! Here’s your deposit, and I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“Thank you, sir. I am very excited to work at the Kamisato Estate.” 

“No, thank you Ms. Hinoa!” He returned to Lumine and Paimon with a bounce in his step. “Alright then! We have the rest of the day to goof off. Let’s go grab the kids and I’ll treat you to lunch.” He hurried off back towards the bookshop, the girls panting at his heels yet again. 

“I hope they’re alright…” he muttered. 

-

They walked on for about a minute before they heard a child yelling, but not the happy screeching of random street children they’d been assaulted with up to this point. Ajax broke into a sprint the second the screaming rang out. Lumine bolted after him, struggling to keep up. 

The yelling grew distinct, now obvious as Teucer crying incoherently. Ajax had hydro knives out and murder in his eyes. Lumine darted forward in a burst of lightning, just enough to grab his scarf and tug on it. “Ajax, wait!” 

They rounded the corner to see a group of irritated onlookers at the edges of the circular plaza. Teucer was sitting in the middle with the one and oni Itto rapidly stepping back, his hands up in a placating gesture and a guilty expression on his face. 

Lumine couldn’t see Ajax’s face very well, but she could see the way his shoulders dropped, the way his muscles went loose for an execution. He reached up and slammed his kitsune mask over his face as electricity built in the air around him. 

He advanced.

“Ajax!” Lumine hissed. She yanked on his scarf, momentarily choking and unbalancing him, before trading it for his arm. Little shocks arced up her hands as she tried to hold on.

“Let me go,” he said. He took another step forward despite her digging her heels into the pavestones. 

“Hang on a second! I know that guy!”

“You knew him.”

Paimon flew in front of him, barring his path. “No! Bull-chucker is actually really nice!” 

He paused his deathmarch just long enough for Lumine to jerk on his arm again. “Aj- ack!” she stuttered, electricity biting at her. “Dude, trust me. Look.”

He turned to watch, cocking his head and tightening his grip on his knives as Itto knelt down in front of Teucer. 

“Hey? Hey hey hey, buh-ddy, what’re you crying for? There’s no reason to cry!”

Teucer cringed away from him, pitching up into hysteria. “I don’t wanna play with you! If you don’t leave me alone, my brother’s gonna kick your butt!”

Itto made a shushing motion at the crying boy. “Well, uh, I don’t think your brother is here right now?”

Teucer just covered his eyes and started wailing , much to the displeasure of the bystanders. 

Childe’s voice was emotionless. “I’m killing him now.”

“No, you’re not,” Lumine hissed. Her heels squeaked on the stones as Ajax took another step forward, though thankfully he stopped. “Just watch.”

Itto cringed at the sheer volume of the boy’s screaming. He covered one ear with his left hand and jammed the other into his right shoulder. He clapped a giant hand on Teucer’s knee and gave him a tiny shake. “Heyheyheyhey, no no, it’s alright, because, uh, you don’t NEED your brother. Right?”

The kid quieted and looked out from between his fingers. 

“You’re a big, tough little man!” Itto said, releasing his ear and using the free hand to give him a tiny punch on the shoulder. “Why’re you crying when you should kick my butt yourself?” He looked away and chuckled to himself. “Or, ya know, try to.”

Teucer sniffed and edged away, picking absently at the cobblestone. 

Itto dropped into a more relaxed squat and smiled at him, with a few too many teeth. “C’mon little dude. It’s alright! Look,” he said and pointed off into the crowd of bystanders. “You’re tough enough that you can protect all these nice girlies and make sure your brother doesn’t ever have to worry about you, alright? Why don’t you show everyone that you can take on a big, tough oni all by yourself?”

Teucer looked down and tensed even as Ajax relaxed in her grip. 

“C’mon kiddo! First hit’s free.” He sat forward and pointed at his jaw. “Right he–”

Teucer grabbed the brick he’d picked loose and slammed it into his face. 

“OW, FUCK!”

Itto fell backwards clutching his nose while Teucer sprinted in the opposite direction. The man weakly raised a thumbs-up and rolled onto his side. “Great! Great job, little dude! That was… oh sweet sugar honey iced tea. Ow.” He limped onto his knees and massaged his face. “Fu-hu-huuuu…”

He dragged a hand down his face and looked up, finally catching sight of Lumine and Ajax from his new position. The skin of his cheeks and lower eyelids slapped back into place as he relaxed his jaw. 

“Oh hey Traveler. Hey Melon. Hey angry brother.” 

The lightning dissolved as Ajax grunted and ignored Itto, jogging off in the direction his brother went. Bystanders parted for him and the last of the Delusion’s aura like water. “Teucer! Where are you?”

Lumine shook the pins and needles out of her arms while she watched him go, then glared down at her friend. “Great job, Itto. He was just starting to be a little less overprotective.”

Paimon whizzed by and smacked the top of his head. “Yeah! What is wrong with you?! Why are you making little kids cry?!”

“Ow, hey! I’m sore!! That little punk hits hard!”

Paimon stuck her fists out behind her. “Answer the question!”

“I just wanted to see if he wanted to fight beetles!” he babbled, reeling back to lay on the ground. “I didn’t expect him to go all crazy on me!”

“You’re seven feet tall and loud and scary and think it’s okay to challenge five year old immigrants to bug fights, you idiot!” Paimon shrieked. 

“Everyone looks seven feet tall to him!” 

Lumine rubbed both hands down her face. “Okay, you need to apologize. Now.” 

“Hey, that kid needs to apologize to me . I think he left a bruise.” He pointed to his bleeding nose. “Look at that.” 

“Absolutely not,” she growled.

Itto went to argue again, but Lumine leaned in close and dropped to her serious voice. “Look, you were five seconds away from getting liquefied . You need to apologize.” 

Itto fidgeted with his glove so he didn’t have to look in her eyes. “Oh come on. He didn’t look that tough. I could take him…”

She gently took his chin and very not gently forced him to look at her. “And more importantly than your wellbeing – those two just moved to a brand new country and are stressed out of their minds. The angry brother is my good friend and I need him and his kids to feel safe in their new home, ‘kay?”

“Whoof. You’re scary, compadre.” 

“I get worse. Apologize.” 

“I’m sorry,” he blurted. 

Lumine closed her eyes and took a deep breath, releasing him with great effort. “...To them , Itto. Apologize to them .”

He laughed nervously and scrambled back, slapped his hands on his thighs and hauled himself to his feet. “Understood! I’ll go say sorry right now. Uh, where’d they go?”

The trio made off down the street, Itto talking constantly to fill the silence. When Lumine didn’t entertain him, he put his arms behind his head and laughed. “You’re really scary when you’re mad, compadre. You know that?”

“Yes.”

He shuddered and fell into blessed silence. Still, it reminded her that she should try to curb her fury before it fed into Ajax’s. She sighed and squeezed Itto’s bicep in what she hoped was comfort rather than a threat. “It’ll be alright.”

Eventually, they found the missing adult kneeling in front of Teucer with the other two kids standing off to the side. They spoke too low to understand at this distance and Itto, bless his stupid heart, didn’t give them an opportunity to get closer. 

“Uh, heya!” he announced.

Itto flinched when Ajax’s head snapped around to look at him, flashing a big smile that absolutely did not reach his eyes. 

“Hello.”

Lumine blinked. She’d… never heard him that murderous before. Sure, she’d heard the hurt in his voice when Zhongli lied to him, the outrage when he thought she tricked him, but that’d been nothing compared to this frigid, nearly inhuman hostility. 

It was kinda hot.

Lumine choked on her spit and shoved the thoughts away to unpack later. Right now, she needed him to not eviscerate her well meaning friend in front of a bunch of witnesses. 

She didn’t have to do much, though, as Itto just strolled up and hugged him .

Ajax froze, utter confusion on his face as the giant clapped him on the back. “Hey man, I’m sorry about scaring your little bro. I didn’t mean it.”

Blue eyes flicked to her for help, his impression of her friend slowly changing. He held the same bewildered expression as Itto peeled himself free and knelt in front of Teucer, who had stopped crying and now wiped at his nose. 

“And I’m sorry I scared you, buddy. I should’ve listened when you said you didn’t want to play the first time. I just thought you were shy.”

At a loss for what else to do, Ajax stepped around to his brother’s side. “Are you alright?”

Teucer looked down with his hands behind his back and scuffed the dirt with his foot. “Yeah… Is your face okay?”

Itto smiled wide and warm. “My face is fine, little man, even if you put a big ol’ dent in it.” 

 “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be!” Itto crowed and threw an arm over Ajax’s shoulder, oblivious to the thoughts of murder going through his head not fifteen seconds ago. “What’s your name, little guy?” 

“Teucer…”

“Well Teucer,” he bent down and swept the other arm towards Lumine. “Your big sis over here told me that you guys are new to Inazuma! How about you let the Great Arataki Itto, master of the streets, show you around sometime? I know all the best places to hide snacks, hunt beetles, all that jazz. You name it, I know it.” 

Ajax looked to her for help. 

“He’s good,” she mouthed.

Tonia and Anthon advanced and stood in front of their little brother before the adults could make a decision. “Who are you, though?”

He released the ginger to point two thumbs towards his chest. “I am Arataki Itto the Evil, head of the Arataki gang and undefeated beetle champion.” 

That got Ajax to snort, finally cracking a smile. Itto whipped around to face him. “Hey! Don’t laugh at me, pretty boy”

“You’re the one wearing eyeliner,” he shot back.

“I-It’s not eyeliner! It’s a tattoo!! Oni markings, denoting my clan!!!” 

“Uh-huh.”

Lumine sagged in relief and walked up, sandwiching herself between the two men. She squeezed Ajax’s wrist. “I mean, you are pretty.”

“Shut.” 

Itto crossed his arms and turned his chin up to them, pouting. “Last chance to get an all expenses paid toured guide around Inazuma City! Make up your mind or weep.”

All four gingers looked expectantly at Lumine. “Well… he is actually really well connected. He’d help you guys make some friends.”

“Yeah-ha! Kids love me.”

“Especially when they’re smashing bricks in your face,” Paimon added. 

“You are so cruel sometimes. Can we not just leave the past behind?”

“It was five minutes ago.”

Lumine and Ajax hung back while Itto started arguing properly with Paimon and the kids, devolving into laughter before he marched off en route to something exciting. The adults fell into step behind the group, supervising. 

“Itto’s a really good guy to have in your corner,” Lumine said. She put on her best Zhongli impression. “He has a Brain of Rock, but also the Strength of Rock.”

Ajax made a face at her. “What?”

“He’s not too bright but he’s a good guy. I pray for the fool that messes with his family.” She smiled and punched his shoulder. “Just like you!”

Ajax snorted and smiled softly, then did a double take and scowled. “You think I’m stupid?”

“No! No, definitely not.”

They walked on for a moment. 

“Well…”

“I liked your first answer better.”

There was an edge to his tone. He always sounded pissed off whenever he was being natural so Lumine almost didn’t catch it, but that’s why she liked him. He didn’t do anything normally. 

She walked up to his side and bumped into him. “I don’t think you’re stupid. At all.” Once he relaxed, she leaned forward and put on her most teasing, unserious tone. “You’re just not the sharpest lightbulb in the box is all.”

He grinned and swatted the back of her head. “Ass.”

She went to tickle his exposed stomach. He yelped and twisted out of the way, then went for her armpits. They spent the rest of the evening making passing jabs at each other while following along with the kids, until eventually it was time to go home. 

-

They said their farewells to Itto, the kids full of snacks and Teucer with a cherished beetle on his head that flew off as they made their way back to the Estate. Paimon fluttered off to look through her exceedingly dense book. Lumine hung back while Ajax helped Teucer with his bath, then left the older kids alone for their own. 

Should she wash her dress again? It’d just get filthy tomorrow when she went back on the road. 

…If she didn’t do laundry, she’d have an excuse to borrow some nightclothes again. 

So, Lumine dropped by the Narvals’ room while Anthon finished up in the bath. She rapped on the door and cracked it, beaming. “Heya!”

Ajax smiled out at her. “Hey!”

“You wouldn’t happen to have another shirt I could borrow, would you?” she drawled, putting her hands behind her back and shifting from foot to foot. 

He lit up and disappeared within, then returned with armfuls of his delightfully soft nightclothes. He waited until they were safely in her hands to flash her a knowing grin. “Why don’t you just keep these?” 

“Uh–” she choked, her blush hot on her face. Yeah she borrowed his clothes before, but keeping them felt… intimate. In a different way than when her brother stole her clothes and claimed them for his own. 

Ajax leaned on the doorframe and crossed his arms, enjoying her embarrassment far too much. “And why don’t you let me take you shopping sometime? The kids will need new clothes soon, anyway. Tonia’s in a growth spurt.” 

“You can’t keep spoiling me like this.”

“What if I want to?” he purred. 

He leaned forward, too earnest, too kind, too… himself. It made her heart ache, soon followed by a wave of guilt. It was selfish of her to enable his advances and unkind of him to make them. She was the older, the more experienced one, so she just smiled sadly and flicked his chin. “You better stop wanting things that are bad for you.” 

They were thankfully interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. Thoma’s voice drifted in, increasing in volume momentarily and then fading as he went to start dinner. She leapt on the opportunity provided and tugged on Ajax’s sleeve. “Let’s go help him.” 

-

Lumine brooded over dinner, retreating into her thoughts and letting the happy chatter wash over her. The Kamisatos had both graced the dinner party with their presence and were giving their utmost attention to little Tonia as she recounted their day in excruciating detail. Ayato covered his smile in his hand while Ayaka let warm laughter bubble out. Thoma fidgeted around, checking in on everyone. Ajax struggled to keep his siblings in line, embarrassed blush bright on his face. Paimon periodically slipped bits of food for Lumine to try despite her being perfectly capable of serving herself. 

She enjoyed this. She loved this. This felt more like home than anything else she’d experienced, but it was missing something. 

Lumine waited for a lull in conversation to clear her heart out of her throat. It was better to get it out quickly. “I’m going to get back on the road in the morning. Thank you guys for your hospitality.”

She caught Ajax’s poorly-hidden pout out of the corner of her eye. Of course she would love to stay here forever, but she had her own brother to help. Ayaka just smiled sweetly over the table and gave a courteous nod while the kids whined. 

“Of course. You are always welcome here, whenever you may want or need.”

Ayato echoed her sentiments. Lumine sighed and acknowledged everyone in turn. “I’ll try to stop by at least every other week, okay?”

Chapter Text

He knew she had to go, but he didn’t have to like it. 

The next day, Childe waved goodbye to the retreating light and wished her well, filled with no small amount of longing for the adventure, the thrill , the tangible effect she had on the world. He used to make waves wherever he went, too, but now he was just… here. All day. Waiting for her to get back. 

He shook off the thoughts. He loved his siblings. He owed his Vision to them. They missed him, more than he ever realized, and he needed to make it up to them. It was horrible and selfish for him to wish for something else.

So, as soon as his star was over the horizon, Childe went to play with the kids until Hinoa arrived. They loved her, just like everyone had assured him that they would, so he reluctantly limped off to Yoimiya’s for work.

Once there, he cut paper. He ground ingredients. They took lunch and talked about nothing, then went back to their respective tasks. He only had to redo them twice. 

They finished the order and then he went home to find Thoma in a much better mood and Hinoa on her way out the door. He played with the kids for the rest of the evening, Tonia on his shoulders while he chased his brothers around. He read to them. They had fun and he idly wondered if he could bother one of his hosts for sparring one day, but the kids needed his full attention. He told himself he was content.

Then, they ate and went to bed. Teucer crawled under the covers with him and curled at his side like a ridiculously warm kitten, compounding his sleeping issues with the local temperature, but it was fine. This was fine. He loved them more than anything. He had a good six year run raising hell across the continent and now it was time to, as Lumine put it, grow the fuck up. 

That was his life for the next two weeks: Wake up. Help Thoma. Go to work. Come home, play with kids. Sleep. Wake up in the middle of the night and put Teucer in his own bed. Repeat. 

It was, overall, very nice. It almost felt like a home – the best home he could ask for! They wanted for nothing. They couldn’t be safer, nobody too stupid to assault guests of the Kamisato clan right under the Almighty Shogun’s nose. He had the entire rest of his life to devote to his neglected siblings and he did so with a vengeance.

Gods, he was bored out of his mind. 

In the rare moments that Childe existed for more than to serve his siblings and cut paper, he took the opportunity to get to know the Kamisatos a little better. Ayaka warmed up to teasing him – nothing compared to Lumine’s savage wit, but still not what he expected from the quiet girl. He liked it. It was much easier to get along with someone that would pick back at him. 

Ayato, he found, liked experimenting with food. A little dangerous for a man in his position, but whatever. Childe wasn’t known for being cautious, either, and they bonded over a shared adventure with the mett Thoma served them for multicultural dinner night. Fish was one thing, but raw pork? Ground raw pork? He’d technically eaten stranger while in the Abyss, but it wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat. 

Ayaka loved it. Childe and Ayato stomached it and bonded over a quiet revulsion, but Childe discreetly made sure the kids only ate rice and other cooked things. Thoma didn’t seem to mind. 

-

As the days dragged on, he came to the guilty realization that he was starting to look forward to work – not because it was important! Or that he felt fulfilled! No, it was for the ridiculous reason that he and Yoimiya were the same age . Even though he hated himself for it, he needed some time to only be responsible for his own fuckups, of which there were many. 

So, so many. 

He sat outside Naganohara Fireworks one Tuesday and stared at his gloved hands. They hid countless scars, the leather itself patched innumerable times. It was both a miracle and a testament to Dottore’s skill as a doctor that he could still use his hands after what he’d done to them over the years. He’d been cut, bitten, burned, electrocuted, frozen and every other injury under the sun and outside its sight. He collected them like trophies and the only reason he didn’t parade them around for all to see was that he didn’t want his siblings to worry. 

Childe let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding and blinked the mist from his eyes. He didn’t miss hurting people or slinking around to stage a coup, but he missed improving. He missed knowing his god was proud of him. He missed mattering . Cutting paper, wrapping presents – they were important to someone, but not in the same way that killing dragons and serving his country were. Each turn of the cycle just cemented the pointlessness of it all. 

He let his head thunk against the wood wall. He was so proud of himself for burying his old pathetic self in the Abyss and coming out of it a great adventurer, a Harbinger no less, even if nobody else was. Even if his parents were afraid of him from then on.

But then again, maybe they were right to be ashamed of him? It was his work and his blind ambition that kept him away for his parents’ last moments. He got to waltz into the funeral after the hard work was done and his other siblings were so burnt out and bitter that they wanted nothing to do with him or the kids. They never said it outright, but he knew that they blamed him on some level. He did too. 

And for what? His freedom to travel the world and cause chaos had turned into a cage, locking him as a refugee in Inazuma. He spent years honing himself into the finest weapon just to rust away in a fireworks shop! What remained of his family didn’t need a sword! They needed a brother! 

Childe sighed and rolled his wrist, wincing at the grind of an old injury. Maybe… maybe when his siblings were older, he could go back to making a name for himself. Maybe once they had friends here, when they’d be okay if something happened to him.  

He swallowed, massaged his eyes and went back to work.  

–

Lumine’s visits were the highlights of his new existence. 

She brought a taste of his old life both times she came with stories and a fresh set of scars from the fog-shrouded Tsurimi Island. He tutted at an oozing bite from a riftwolf and redressed it, lecturing her on the dangers of Abyss creatures, and she just watched him with a bored smile. Everything in him wanted to follow her, set her up as his new Tsaritsa (and immediately chastise himself for the blasphemy), ask her to spar, something to break the monotony. 

But he didn’t. Each time she left, he waited at the gate until she disappeared into the forest, taking his hope with her, and his siblings’ voices pulled him out of his longing. 

The second time she left and he felt his heart break, Childe made up his mind. He was going to the Tenryou Commission like Thoma had suggested. 

At least that way, his experiences weren’t a waste. Traitors were remembered.

Chapter Text

The third time Lumine visited, Childe was still asleep. Teucer was not happy about this.

“Ajax! Hey, Ajax, wake up!” 

Childe grunted and swatted at the tiny hands poking at his head and shoulders. 

“Ajax!”

“Mmphf.” 

His little brother grabbed his leg and started pulling, socked feet slipping on the smooth floor while he put his whole body into it. “C’mon! Breakfast is ready!” 

“I have a half day today,” he grumbled. Teucer managed to drag him a whole inch. “Let me sleep. I’ll eat later.” 

“But Auntie Lumine and Paimon are here!” 

“Wait, what? Really?” 

That got him to finally sit up and rub the sleep from his eyes. It wasn’t good enough for Teucer, who went for his arm and tugged as hard as he could. 

“Stop that. Ugh…” He winced through a headache that hadn’t gone away since the night prior. “What time is it?”

“Breakfast time! Come onnnnn!” 

Childe smoothed his hair back, fingers catching in the knots that had built up from tossing and turning through the night. He needed a haircut. And a shave, which he realized when scratching his jaw produced sound. 

Teucer stomped his foot when he didn’t immediately rise. “Come on! I wanna see Auntie Lumine!”

“Then go see her,” he mumbled. His voice came out muffled as he massaged his face.

“You have to come with!”

“Teucer, I don’t even have a shirt on! Just, give me a second, okay?! I’ll meet you out there.”

He pouted and stormed off, though Childe could hear his voice return to normal through the thin walls almost immediately. He groaned and gave himself a few more seconds to feel terrible before he threw his sheet off and stumbled to his feet. He couldn’t have gotten more than four hours of sleep, even after finally taking his nightshirt off. It was better that the kids asked questions about his many scars than him snap from lack of sleep. He just prayed that he’d adjust to the heat soon. Maybe this was the Tsaritsa’s punishment for traitors? She gifted her children with the inner fire to stave off any cold, but in doing so, made them miserable in any other climate. 

Childe whimpered quietly to himself. He really didn’t want to think about his god hating him right now. He did enough of that last night. 

Instead, he went on to meet his other favorite deity. 

He threw on a shirt and fresh pants and stumbled out into the lobby. Sure enough, there she was, as bright and cheerful and radiant as always. Even his headache couldn’t keep the smile off his face on seeing her. “Hey girlie!”

Lumine and Paimon both lit up. 

“Childe!”

“Ajax!”

The little star jogged over and gave him a spine-crushing hug that he reciprocated a bit too earnestly. When they finally separated, she did a double take and frowned. 

“Yikes. You look horrible.”

“Thanks.”

She ignored his response and tilted her head. “Do you feel okay? Are you sick?”

His smile tightened while he rubbed at his throbbing temple. “Nah, I’m fine. I just haven’t been sleeping well.”

“How come?”

Where to start? Was it because working with Yoimiya was both the most stressful thing he’d ever done and also the most pointless? Was it that he replayed every tiny mistake back in his head, her every strained smile and unintentionally condescending pat when she had to go behind him and fix his mess? Or was it because Ayato, despite their growing friendship, still scared the living piss out of him? Maybe it was that Teucer kept waking him up in the middle of the night by crawling into bed with him! 

He sighed. This time, no matter what he tried to tell himself, it was because he’d been haunted into the morning by the thought of going to the Tenryou Commission and becoming a proper traitor. 

Rather than dump all that, he gave Lumine a weak smile and rubbed the back of his head. “It’s just really hot. It’s hard to sleep.”

“Okay, what else?”

He spluttered. She watched him, endlessly patient, vaguely concerned and completely unwilling to entertain his bullshit. He swallowed and glanced down at Teucer, who had dragged Paimon over to one of his books despite being soooo excited to see Auntie Lumine a second ago. 

His eyes flicked back to Lumine. She smiled encouragingly, her hands cutely behind her back, open and disarming. “You can tell me anything, you know. I’m not gonna judge you.”

“Uh…”

He had to narrow it down to one thing, at least. She deserved to relax after a week slogging through ruins, not play therapist for him. He picked the one that didn’t involve her friends and bent down to whisper, hating himself a little bit for even admitting it and hating himself a lot for glancing at Teucer when he said it. 

“I’m just… tired.”

Rather than jump him for being a godsawful brother, Lumine frowned sympathetically. “I bet. You kinda spend every waking second at work or being a dad. Have you, like, taken any time for yourself lately?”

Childe blinked. He opened his mouth to respond, but she interrupted. 

“Lunch breaks at work don’t count.”

“...I’m not their dad,” he muttered when he couldn’t think of anything better to say.

She checked behind herself to make sure that the kids weren’t listening, then sidled closer. “Dude, have you considered at least taking Thoma up on your own room? There’s plenty of space. He wouldn’t offer otherwise.”

Sweet Tsaritsa, that would be so nice. He could sleep naked if he wanted. He chewed on his lip and gave her a pleading look. “But… they need me. Shouldn’t I share a room with them?”

“No? They’re six, ten and eleven. They’re old enough to have their own rooms. They’re definitely old enough to sleep without their parental figure ,” she said, emphasizing the last words and rolling her eyes. She glanced back one more time, then gave him a pained look. “Honestly I think it’s kinda weird that you’ve been sleeping with them this long.”

“Oh.”

She mistook his relief for disappointment and babbled to backpedal. “I mean, I don’t know what’s normal in Snezhnaya! Or even just your family! And it’s not a bad weird. It’s just that most of the places I’ve been expect kids to be a little more independent. I don’t think you need to… helicopter around them so much.”

Childe frowned. “Helicopter?”

“Ah. Right. That’s not a thing here. Uhh… Mother-hen. Obsess over.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I think you’re doing great with them. I also think you could stand to take care of yourself a little better. Like you said, you’re not their dad, and even if you were, you’re still allowed to have your own problems and life.”

Well this wasn’t at all how Childe expected this conversation to go. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. If anyone but her said that to him, he’d chew their head off for suggesting they knew his family better than he did, but Lumine didn’t have a condescending bone in her body. She just cared. 

Still, if he didn’t focus on the kids, he’d have to take a closer look at the rest of his life and he didn’t think he could handle that right now. He cleared his throat and gave her a tight smile. “Thank you, Lumine. Really. I should head to work, but would you like to do something when I’m done? We could do dinner.”

“Sure! Or I could watch the kids and give you a night to relax.” 

He would much rather spend time with her, but they could talk about that later. His hand twitched out to hug her again. She met him before he could doubt himself, squeezing him tight around the waist and filling his nose with petrichor and ozone and he wanted nothing more to melt in her arms. 

“Do you want me to go with?”

He pet the back of her head and hurriedly replied. “No, no, I need to focus on some stuff. I’ll be back early, though. Maybe we can get Yoimiya to join us for dinner.”

It was a lie, of course. He wanted to spend every second with her, but he didn’t want to embarrass himself. She didn’t need to know that he struggled to cut paper. Besides, he could use some time to get his thoughts in order – and by in order, he meant “shoved to the back of his mind and buried under other concerns.”

Lumine pulled back and gave his waist one last goodbye squeeze. “That sounds nice. Have a good day, alright? I’ll be here when you get back, so long as nothing horrible happens.”

–

Childe walked faster than he normally would to try and get the workday over with. He made it about halfway to the city before he noticed two Tenryou Commission officers marching down the road.  That would be normal except they subtly changed their course to intercept him. He’d seen them around the city before and they always stared at him just a little bit too intensely. He slowed down to delay the inevitable and kept his face carefully neutral while a dozen scenarios ran through his head. 

Did word get out that he was a refugee Harbinger? Was there something wrong with his immigration? Were they just the bullies that Lumine had warned him about? He stopped when the bigger of the two barred his path and tilted his head down at him, stone-faced. 

“Sir Childe?”

His heart leapt into his mouth, though experience let him talk cooly around it. “...Yes? Is there a problem?”

“My Lord, if you’re not busy, please come with us.” 

Childe’s thoughts came to a screeching halt at the guard’s inflection, the subtle accent, the pleading look in his eyes. A few other pedestrians cast them curious glances before a sharp glare from the silent officer put their noses back to the ground and sent them hurrying along. 

“Sure,” he said, internally screaming. 

The agents led the way down an unfamiliar path, shielding him from prying eyes with their bodies, veering away from the city proper and taking him somewhere that was most definitely not the Tenryou Commission headquarters. They didn’t say anything as they approached a cave. Only when they were at the entrance did the first agent salute and take up his post guarding the entrance. “Right this way, sir.” 

The cheer that greeted him in his native tongue was by far the most terrifying thing that could’ve come from the dark. 

Childe froze on instinct. Thank the Tsaritsa for nearly a decade of military training conditioning his face to disinterest in the face of incomprehensible horrors and, in this case, something even worse! It masked his panic as a dozen Fatui officers saluted him. 

“Lord Childe! It’s an honor.”

He let his mind go blank and fell back on old habits, crossing his arms and responding with the casualness that kept his subordinates from getting too clingy. “Well, I certainly didn’t expect to see you guys here. What’s going on?”

One relatively plain Fatuus stepped forward, a red moth emblem glittering on his chest. He clasped Childe’s hand in his own and gave it a firm shake.

“Sir, I apologize for disrupting your important mission, but we need your help.”

They thought he was here on a mission. Excellent. Childe’s eyes crawled along the assembly – Tsaritsa’s tits they looked awful – before returning to their leader’s face. He replied in the haughty, bored tone befitting a Harbinger. “With?”

“Avenging our Fair Lady, my lord. We’ve been stranded here since her death. Your arrival has done wonders for morale, especially since the Balladeer’s disappearance.”

Childe frowned and tapped his fingers on his bicep. That gave him an alibi and an angle. “Do you have any leads where he went? He wasn’t at the funeral, hasn’t delivered his package and we think he’s gone rogue.” 

What little he could see of the soldier’s eyes widened behind his mask. “No, sir. That’s terrible news. I’d ask Sergeant Karenin. She worked with him for a time and may know more.”

“And you are…?”

“Lieutenant Petrov, sir.”

Childe nodded. “Thank you. Now, speaking of rogue… what exactly are you all doing here? I thought Pierro recalled all troops in Inazuma for redistribution.”

The room’s tone shifted to admonition, most of the assembled Fatui shuffling awkwardly. Each and every one of them had a moth emblem somewhere on their person and he could hazard a guess, but putting them on the defensive would keep them from asking him too many questions. 

Lieutenant Petrov stood straight, though he looked somewhere past his eyes. “Ah… we… we didn’t receive that order.”

Childe raised an eyebrow. “But the other half of your division did? The ones currently under my command?”

“Er…”

“You know what happens to deserters,” Childe warned. The irony was not lost on him. 

The dark haired man bowed deep, silver standing out in the dim light. “I do, but we would do anything for our Fair Lady. We have to avenge her! We have to, and I won’t turn away any that would help our cause.”

Another officer stepped up, a boxer. “Please, my lord. We were so relieved that it was you here out of all the Harbingers.”

“And why’s that?”

He wrung his gigantic hands. “Well, you have a bit of a reputation…” he continued when Childe didn’t say anything. “A reputation for handling things as you see fit rather than the direct wording of your orders.”

“I do?!” he stuttered, genuine offense breaking through his facade. The officers before him cringed back and he frowned at their response. 

Right. They were Rosalyne’s men. 

He reigned his emotions in and recrossed his arms, chewing on his lip. “Alright then. I suppose I can’t argue that. Will you at least come back to Snezhnaya and accept redistribution once you finish up here? I don’t want to see anything bad happen to you guys.”

The best lies were built on truth, after all, and by the Tsaritsa’s teeth he needed to lie well. 

Petrov put his fist over his heart. “Yessir.” 

Childe sighed, long and loud and dramatic, like this was a minor inconvenience rather than an earth shattering revelation. A few months ago, it would’ve been an inconvenience. “Fine. I’m sure I can find time to help.” 

His heart sank even deeper seeing the relief on their faces, the vulnerability of cynics. Even Petrov, taller than him by a head, seemed to look up to him. He swallowed down the guilt and got to work. “So. What exactly have you guys been up to?”

“We want to avenge La Signora by weakening the people’s faith in the shogun and keeping Inazuma in civil war. A god without her people is nothing, and what better than to have them killed by her own hand?” 

Childe nodded. “Makes sense. I’m glad that you’re not charging into a battle that you’re going to lose.”

The dozen officers beamed at his praise. 

Oh, please stop looking at him like that. Childe masked his wince with a pitying smile and gestured at the small crowd. “Alright. What am I working with? How many of you are there? Give me a rundown.”

Petrov turned and waved over a mirror maiden and a cryo mage. They came to Childe’s side, bringing with them the ethereal scent of mistgrass and the deep. The maiden materialized a map of Inazuma with hydro and the mage dotted it with snowflakes. 

Petrov pointed at a cluster of snow dripping from a serpent’s carcass. “The majority of our forces were stationed on Yashiori Island attempting to learn about and disrupt the Mikage Furnace, but the blonde bitch that attacked Signora has routed them and restored functionality.” 

He kept himself from bristling at the insult to Lumine, gritting his teeth when he replied. “Mmhm. What was the point of disrupting it?”

“Blowing it up would destroy a large portion of Yashiori Island and hopefully spread Tatarigami fallout to the other islands. It would cripple Inazuma’s military, leaving them without superior weaponry. It would also further Signora’s initial directive to feed conflict between Sangonomiya and the shogunate.” 

“How so?” Childe asked. 

“Sangonomiya worships the dead snake. They already have a problem with the furnace’s existence, but they relented on the condition that it would neutralize the Tatarigami without causing any damage to their god’s corpse. If it blows up, that’d be a grave breach of trust.”

“Mm… hm,” Childe hummed. “You said you ‘were’ stationed there.” 

“Yessir. We can’t afford to lose any more men to the Traveler, but there are still some remnants scattered around posing as shogunate officials to harass Sangonomiya pilgrims. We have about ten men in the area.” 

“How many of you are left?”

“Fifty-two.”

He thanked every power he could name that it wasn’t more. Thank the Almighty Shogun for weeding them out, hopefully non-lethally, and thank Lumine for being such an unholy terror. Childe nodded and relaxed against the cave wall. “Good. Have you managed to remain undetected?”

Petrove sighed. “No, sir. Many of our agents within the Tenryou Commission have been dug out. I’ve instructed the remainder to lay low and display ultimate loyalty to the shogun for the time being. That bird and her boy have been sniffing them out, but they haven’t found everyonel.”

“Bird?”

“Kujou Sara. A high-ranking officer within the Tenryou Commission and devoutly loyal to the shogun. She’s one the biggest threats to our operation. She even assisted in the arrest of her own father, one of our puppets.”

An excellent excuse. Childe tapped his chin. “...I’ll take care of her later tonight or tomorrow.”

“Sir!” Petrov started. “Don’t compromise your position.”

He waved him off. “Oh, you know subtlety isn’t one of my strengths.” 

“Well, no, but–”

Childe patted his shoulder. “Trust me, the Tsaritsa has no more use for Inazuma. Signora burned that bridge beyond repair. I’m only here to find Scaramouche. I can assassinate high profile targets on my way out. Give me a list of who you need gone.”

An agent stepped forward out of the dark. “Off the top of my head, Yae Miko, Kujou Sara, Kamisato Ayato and Kujou Kamaji.”

He swallowed. “Okay, who else?” 

“Sir,” Petrov whispered, creeping up to his side with concern written in every edge of his posture. “You’re going to get the archon’s attention.”

He just laughed. “Well, if that happens and I fare better than Signora, Pierro will have no choice but to give me her seat.”

The assembled Fatui shared hesitant looks. Childe sighed, then frowned and tilted his head down to glare at them. “Give me the full list, Lieutenant. That’s an order.”

“...Yes, sir.” 

A scribe produced a list for him within minutes, hastily scribbled on a waterlogged scrap of paper. It included not just Ayato, but Ayaka, Thoma (who puts out a hit on a housekeeper!?) and a few others he didn’t recognize.

“If you insist on going through with this, I recommend you take out Kamisato Ayato before Ayaka. He’s the higher priority target and I fear what he would do to retaliate.”

Childe chuckled. He had some idea. 

“Unless we wanted to hurt him… Imagine him consumed by revenge… how he would embarrass himself, destroying his clan’s reputation,” the mirror maiden crooned. Her voice creaked with that particular edge unique to Delusion overuse. 

Childe shuddered and tucked the list into the inside of his jacket. He hadn’t been above threatening family while he was in the service, but he’d been leaning on the Fatui’s reputation to back his bluff. The thought of killing someone’s little sister… Just break the target’s legs and work your way up like a normal person. He shook his head and refocused. “Right. Keep debriefing me. Where else are your men?”

“Half of our forces are harrying Sangonomiya, alternating between seizing their war relief supplies and whipping the fanatics into an anti-shogun frenzy.” Petrov pointed at a few snowflakes pinned in the wilderness of Watatsumi island and a few on the shore of Tsurumi island. “Their camps are here.”

Childe turned to the same scribe that had made his list. “Sketch a map of this for me, too.”

“Yessir.”

They spent the next twenty minutes detailing the presence of every Fatuus in Inazuma. Halfway through, one of the officers brought him a meager portion of their lunch. He waved them off, unable to eat. 

-

“And that’s it, sir. Is there anything else I can clarify?”

“No, Lieutenant. You’ve been incredible,” Childe said and squeezed his shoulder. He tried to ignore the way he lit up at the praise, instead taking a closer look at the haggard group. Many were thin. All were dirty, their uniforms cut and burned and patched far beyond regulations. “...You guys look terrible.”

Petrov nodded. “It’s been hard without supplies. Your arrival is a much-needed morale boost.” 

Childe accepted the map and tucked it alongside his list, tapping his chin. “Yeah. Morale seems low. Do you have a central location for everyone to meet that’s safe from the shogunate?”

“Yes, sir!” he pointed to a spot on the mages’ map near Amakumo peak. “It’s dangerous, but the constant storm keeps the shogunate away. It’s the one place we can meet in large groups.”

The maiden and mage let their display fall away and stood at ease nearby. Childe nodded. “Assemble your men there tomorrow evening. I think a gettogether and a speech is in order.”

He wanted to throw up. This went against every standard he held himself to. Sure, he wasn’t above lying, he’d been pretending to be a person ever since he turned 14 and maybe a bit before, but that was just… making things easier, not tricking people. He was a bad liar, too. Anyone with half a brain could see past the shoddy mask he put up.

He sent silent apologies to his god for misusing the authority she gifted and steeled himself. This was for them. She would understand. She’d hate him for it but she’d understand.

Hopefully. 

Petrov’s voice lowered, reverent. “I agree, sir. The insurgents within the Tenryou Commission might not be able to get away without raising suspicion, but I can mobilize the rest by tomorrow.”

“Good, good. I’ll hold you to it,” Childe said and looked around at the assembled fugitives before turning his attention back to their leader. “See you guys there.”

Everyone saluted. “Sir!”

Childe nodded and took his leave, though he paused at the mouth of the cave. He turned back. 

“I’m gonna take care of you guys, okay? I promise.”

Chapter Text

Childe wanted to do anything else.

He wanted to kill something, anything, wanted to run home and drag the kids away to the wilderness, wanted to hug Lumine – some small part of himself that he thought died in the Abyss wanted to cry – but instead he marched straight to the Tenryou Commission headquarters. 

He glanced around for any guards that watched him more intently than they should – hard, given that he was obviously Snezhnayan and everyone had a healthy distaste for his people, but he managed to find them. Three of them, clustered together at the far gate. He didn’t recognize them from his first visit, thankfully, and nobody had commented on him living with the Kamisatos during the ambush. His family was safe.

For now. 

He nodded to the spies and they nodded back, standing a little straighter and a little happier. Thankfully his target was training in the courtyard. He approached, much to the irritation of her guards.

“Kujou Sara?”

Gold eyes stared through him, her bow still drawn and pointed at a training dummy. “Speaking. You are?”

He leaned in close, eyeing her weapon and hoping she’d allow him to whisper before turning it on him. “An envoy from Snezhnaya looking for a fugitive going by ‘Scaramouche.’”

Before she could cause him a whole new set of problems, he pulled the scribe’s papers out of his jacket and pushed them into her arms. “These are my supporting documents. Please take a look at them before you make a decision.”

She bristled, unwilling to break eye contact to scan the documents, but she eventually relented. Her brows furrowed as she poured over the hitlist, then turned back to him with fury.

“Can we continue our conversation in private?” Childe asked sweetly, projecting as much ‘dear God help me’ in his expression as he could manage without drawing suspicion from the spies. “The subject matter is very sensitive.”

“I can see that.” 

That was all she said before she turned on her heel. She pointed at one of her guards. “Postpone our training regime for the next hour. I will return.” 

Childe followed her through a few corridors deep into the building. Idle guards glanced over at them, then looked away at a sharp glare from their general. It was darker than he expected, everything bathed in purple shadows befitting a prison. 

She led him to the end of the hall. They got a whole three steps into the room before Sara slammed the door shut and blocked it, her arms crossed and electricity thrumming in the air while she snapped the papers at him. “Explain this.”

“It’s a list of every Fatuus in Inazuma and their hit list to continue causing instability in Inazuma.”

Her expression told him to continue. 

“Look, General Sara?” He waited for her to nod approval of the title to continue. “I used to be Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers. You know the Traveler, right? She helped me fake my death and move my family here.”

“I am fully aware of your situation, including your arrangements with Lord and Lady Kamisato. I would not allow an enemy of eternity to wander without surveillance.”

“Right, right.” The few remaining shreds of his ego shriveled and died. “Anyway, after Signora died, the Tsaritsa recalled all the remaining troops to return to Snezhnaya. A lot of Signora’s men went against orders to try to avenge her.”

“I’ve noticed.” 

“They’re cut off from supply lines and intelligence,” he insisted. “They never got the news that I ‘died.’ I just got out of a meeting with their leaders.”

“And you waited until now to share this?”

He winced. “Thoma suggested that I come in sooner and teach you guys everything I know, but…”

“But ?”

“But I grew up with them. I didn’t know they were so organized. I thought it was just a couple desperate guys. I didn’t want to sell them out.” 

That seemed to resonate with her on some level. She looked away for a split second and gave him a curt nod. 

“I wasn’t going to help them, but I figured keeping my head down would be enough… And I honestly was not aware of their presence or their plans until twenty minutes ago. I came as soon as I could.” He held his hand out for the map, then pointed at the location below Amakumo Peak. “I’m going to assemble every last Fatuus in Inazuma here tomorrow night. If you want to stop the Fatui, send your men to arrest them.”

“I have no evidence to believe you.”

That’s about what he expected. “The Traveler thinks I’m trustworthy and I have nowhere else to go if the Fatui find out where my family lives,” he explained. When she didn’t look fully convinced, he fished the Almighty Shogun’s seal of approval out of his inventory. “And your god trusts me enough to let me stay here.”

Sara huffed. Her eyes flicked up from the emblem to his face. “...Very well. I will not question the Almighty Shogun’s judgment… or the Traveler’s. How many of them are there?”

“Fifty-two. Most, if not all, of them will have Delusions.” Childe clasped his hands at his chest. If he wasn’t above violence, he wasn’t above begging, either, no matter how much it hurt him. “I have one condition for my help arresting them.”

She bristled at his audacity. “What is it?”

“Don’t kill them.”

The electric charge in the air bled away. She was also a leader, after all. Her tone softened even as she remained stonefaced. “...My men will do their best to bring them in alive, but I cannot guarantee your people’s safety should they resist. The lives of my own come first.”

“I understand,” Childe said. Reality settled like a gruesome weight in his chest. “I’ll do everything I can to get them to surrender.” 

–

The next evening, Childe made his way to Serei Island and bummed at one of the Fatui camps until nightfall. They did their best with the rations they stole from Sangonomiya and whatever they scrounged from the countryside, insisting on serving him the last piece of red meat they had even though he was content with fish. Or nothing at all. He’d probably just puke it up. 

He ate anyway, though, because he needed to keep his strength to take care of them. Childe sat on a rock with the squirrel they had so lovingly prepared for him and glanced around at the battered people. Not a single uniform was without patches. Several skirmishers limped around with old injuries that hadn’t healed right and at least three of them were sitting on the ground and staring unseeingly into the distance, dissociating from Delusion overuse. His own itched at his back.

Still, Childe missed this. His people swarmed around him, looked up to him, brightened on seeing his face. They looked at him like a light in the dark. He was important . He was their leader, their idol, their path to their god .

And he was going to betray them.

The afternoon bled into evening, then night, painting the sky crimson with varicose veins of violet lighting. The last of the dispersed Fatui filtered in and made their way to the cave that would serve as their slaughterhouse. The ones that couldn’t walk under their own power were carried. 

Only when they all arrived did Childe creep in after them. All fifty two of them were huddled shoulder to shoulder, crammed together just like they would to wait out a blizzard. It was much too hot without her Majesty’s frozen breath to herd them together. Despite the claustrophobia, they parted for him as a school of fish would part for a dolphin, reforming their cohesion in his wake as he made his way to the shelf at the back of the cave that would be his stage.

He stood there and looked at them for a moment. This was, by far, the worst day of his life. He would rather cut his way through the howling horde of the Abyss wondering if his parents would ever find his body again. He would rather see the disappointment in their eyes for the first time when he finally limped home. He would rather raze the innocent of Liyue and lean on powers greater than himself because he wasn’t enough – all of it, all over again, forever, just so he didn’t have to do this .

But he made a promise to take care of them and take care of them he would, no matter how much they would hate him for it. 

Some insane part of him wondered if this was how Zhongli felt. 

“Comrades!” Childe bellowed with a trembling smile. His stage fright had died in the Abyss alongside a lot of his other childish terrors. “It is an honor to be with you all today.”

They roared back. Forty nine voices shook the walls with their might. The three that couldn’t speak tilted their heads to acknowledge him.  

“You have served Her Majesty well. La Signora, your Fair Lady, the late Rosalyne, would be proud of you,” he lied. When her husband died, she burned away every positive emotion she had ever felt. She hated her troops, but they didn’t need to know that. 

“You are heroes of Snezhnaya! Inazuma was impenetrable, the greatest obstacle in Her Majesty’s plans, and yet here you are – thriving behind enemy lines, alone, not once losing your conviction. You will be an inspiration to soldiers for decades!”

A few of them preened themselves with the praise, though they were too disciplined to take their eyes off of him. They had a responsibility to each other: them to obey him unquestioningly and him to be perfect under their scrutiny. He fumbled for a segue to what he really needed to say. “Your love for La Signora is commendable, but comrades, you also have a responsibility to those at home.” 

Shit fuck goddammit. That was a terrible angle. He couldn’t just regurgitate what Lumine threatened him with because most of the people in front of him didn’t have families! Rosalyne got jealous of others’ happiness and cherrypicked recruits that were bereaved themselves. Childe swallowed and floundered. “You have a responsibility to your friends, your siblings in arms. You’ve fought valiantly, but from here on, throwing your lives away is a disservice to the living. Her Majesty left this place for a reason.” 

They would never dare grumble their displeasure out loud, but the atmosphere shifted nonetheless. The Fatui shuffled from foot to foot, some casting concerned glances at their comrades. 

Childe internally begged that he wouldn’t be smited on the spot. “There are people that love you, and in the words of Her Majesty the Tsaritsa, Love is the greatest power in this world. Love gives the power to change, to overcome your circumstances, to fight for what is right. And we, comrades, are not in the right.”

He took a shaky breath and glanced over the disgruntled crowd's heads towards the mouth of the cave. He prayed both for forgiveness and that Sara would give him enough time to talk them down as the silhouettes of her men stood stark against the lightning outside. The guards at the entrance were too focused on the nonsense falling out of his mouth to notice death behind them.

“Rosalyne hurt people without cause,” Childe continued. “ We have hurt people without good cause. The people of Inazuma are just like you and me, and it is not fair to resent them for defending themselves against us. So please, stop fighting on the wrong side of this pointless war. Go quietly, and when the time is right, get up again and keep living.”

That, finally, offended them into quiet murmurs. Childe raised his voice above the worried whispers of fifty two. “Everything will be okay. I promise. Please, just, don’t resist.”

Petrov finally stepped forward. “Sir? What are you–”

“Tenryou Commission! You’re under arrest!”

A half breath of silence as the soldiers in the back turned to greet facefulls of spears and arrows, then a collective wail pierced the cave as the assembled Fatui despaired. Petrov whipped back around to face him. His eye was barely visible behind his mask, but it burned with a hate that Childe had only ever seen in his victims. “TRAITOR!”

Childe ignored him because he had to. “Stand down! All of you! That’s an order!”

“You’re not our Harbinger!” someone howled back. “Go to hell!”

Petrov turned his back to him – still trusting him on some level, thank the Tsaritsa – and barked for his men to get into position. Childe roared louder. “No! Stand! Down!”

The mages and bracers hurried to the center of the cave while the vanguards and legionnaires took position at the front, weaving around each other in a practiced dance and flinging elemental attacks over their shoulders. The Fatui so rarely had to take a defensive stance, but when they did, both parties were going home in a box. He watched Kujou Sara take aim at a distracted skirmisher’s head. 

He was at the center of the chaos in seconds.

Childe sprinted through the crowd with the help of his Delusion, bowling over his men as needed, then put his body between the two forces. He turned his back to the Tenryou officers and stretched out his arms. “Surrender! Please!”

“We’ll die before we give up on La Signora!” 

The bravest anemoboxer among them took a wild swing at his head. Childe neatly backstepped and then kicked in the side of the poor soldier’s knee, dropping him instantly. He shrieked and Childe winced, both of them knowing that he would never use that leg again. 

The entrance of the cave was narrow enough that only four Fatui could surge forwards at a time. They left their downed comrade and huddled in formation, forming a nearly impenetrable wall of unstable Delusions. Childe let the shogunate officers behind him drag the boxer away. They expertly restrained him despite his frantic punches from the ground and his spewed curses. 

Everyone was screaming. Electricity, fire and stone charged in front of him for ranged attacks. Ice chimed like glass and wind roared. He heard the creak of bowstrings behind him. For the first time in his short life he was a spectator to the symphony of war rather than its conductor, and now he finally understood that there was no glory in this. 

Childe raised his arm above his head and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

Hopeless shrieking rang out as the floor of the cave wavered, water pooling up from the earth and condensing from the air. The smartest of the Fatui hurried to extinguish their weapons. A mournful call from Childe’s own heart echoed off the walls of the cave, so raw that it momentarily gave everyone pause while he readied his most powerful attack.

The narwhal, the object of his obsession, the damned monster that set him on this path in the first place, took up the entirety of the cave. It slammed soldiers into the walls and into each other with the initial swell, battering them again in the riptide as it submerged back into nothing. Pure hydro met Delusions: electro, then pyro, then cryo . The resulting explosions and flash freezes drowned their cries – those that could cry out, anyway. 

When the spray settled, he was met with the best possible outcome. By the grace of Her Majesty, most of the mages and legionnaires had been of the cryo variety. Huge swatches of the cave now glittered in a tomb of ice. Unconscious soldiers hung limp from their glass prison. The ones that weren’t frozen sat in a daze, concussed from the blasts. More still doubled over coughing, the spattering of water barely audible over wheezed breaths. 

The four soldiers at the front were spared from the runaway reactions, but despite being physically well, watching their entire people demolished by a single attack dealt a grave wound to their confidence. Childe stepped forward and disarmed the two hammer guards before they recovered from the shock. He grabbed the third agent by the collar and yanked him back into the officers’ arms. The fourth boxer – too large for Childe to forcibly move – just glared at him, clenching and unclenching his fists like he wished nothing more than to wrap them around his neck. 

Childe met his eyes for the briefest moment and had to look away. He swallowed and looked over his shoulder at the officers so he didn’t have to see that haunted, furious defeat anymore. “A lot of them sew their Delusions into their coats. Be careful.”

Handcuffs clinked as they got to work. Childe led the way to ensure the Fatui stayed down while Sara’s men advanced, confiscating weapons and tying prisoners from the outside of the cave in. Eventually, once it was clear his men were beaten, Kujou Sara stepped up to his side and patted his shoulder. He stared blankly at the comforting hand. 

“We have things covered from here,” she said with something bordering warmth, or maybe pity. It didn’t matter either way. “You’re welcome to step out.” 

He nodded and mutely did as she suggested. The hair raised at the back of his neck the second he stepped out into the storm again, but whatever. He didn’t even flinch as lightning struck not five meters away. He went to stare at the sky and pray for the Almighty Shogun to get better aim, but as he did, he noticed a figure fleeing in the distance. 

God fucking dammit.

He stood rooted to the spot. The Tenryou Commission was busy chaining his men. Surely they wouldn’t notice one escapee, right? Could he let them go? Did he really have to hunt his own people like a domestic dog hunting a wolf? 

Domestic. The kids. If even one of them got away, they’d target his family. Those kids were more important than his happiness. They were more important than even Lumine. They damn well sure were more important than his people, so, Childe whipped himself into pursuit. 

Long legs and an electro Delusion brought him in range before they could hide. It was the cryo mage from earlier, the one that had marked out his map. He dropped into a normal jog with a clap of thunder and called out to her. “Stop!”

She responded by screaming profanities in their mother language and running faster, teleporting haphazardly to shake him. He was better fed and better rested, though, and not currently killing himself with Delusion overuse. He lagged along behind and waited for her to tire herself out. 

“Please, stop,” he whined after a minute of chase. “I promise they won’t hurt you.”

“Go fuck yourself!” she shrieked and threw ice at his face. Her summoned insects chittered at him for a whole second before he struck them out of the air. She didn’t seem to care. 

She started to flag after the next teleport, staggering on her landing and audibly wheezing. She stumbled back and pointed at him, ice condensing between them. “You said you would take care of us!”

“I will! I promised!”

Out of breath, she braced for a fight. “At least have the balls to kill me yourself! How can you pawn off your dirty work to foreigners?! To the enemy?! ” 

He groaned and advanced, effortlessly dodging or deflecting her crazed strikes. The cold didn’t bite half as hard as her words.

“You’re a traitor. You’re a monster . The Tsaritsa will gut you and hang you by your own intestines as an example!”

That was probably accurate if he ever set foot in Snezhnaya again, especially after this . The kindest gods had the cruelest moments, after all. He hovered nearby while the mage threw increasingly panicked attacks, trying to figure out how on earth to restrain her without hurting her. 

Eventually he found an opening and dove to grab her. She writhed in his arms and clawed at his face like an animal.

“Please, please just stop,” Childe begged, turning his head down so she only wrenched fistfuls of his hair instead. 

“FUCK YOU!”

She kept screaming insults while he tried to pin her. He wrapped an arm around her neck for a choke, but she tucked her chin down and then bit him. Hard. He yelped and, not wanting a chunk of his forearm ripped out, punched her in the temple.

She grunted and slumped just enough to let him wrestle her arms behind her back and bind them with hydro. It didn’t last, though. As soon as she regained her faculties, she was back to kicking and biting at anything in reach. She got a few good stomps in on his shins.

“I’ll kill you in your sleep! I’ll kill myself, find you in hell and I’ll kill you again!” 

The last kick had him grinding his teeth. He grabbed her around the waist and shook her twice. “Stop it! I’m trying to help you!”

She tried to twist in his grip. “Help me by drowning yourself!” 

He moaned and carefully positioned her over his shoulder. She bucked as best she could, nearly kneeing him in the nose, but eventually he restrained her in such a way that she couldn’t bite, rip or tear anything else of his, and then he made his way back to the cave. 

Her raging soon turned to furious sobs: horrible, wordless howls that petered out into a whimper. Or maybe that was him? He tried to explain on the way, tell her how sorry he was, that this was the only way to keep his people and his family safe. She met every excuse with something sharp. He really didn’t mind. 

–

The next hour passed in a haze of screaming, spitting and cursing. The Fatui knew they had lost and weren’t going to be rescued, so they had nothing left to lose but their lives. Childe stood on the sidelines after passing off his prisoner and watched it all happen. 

At some point, he was dimly aware of someone clapping him on the back. They congratulated him as the hero of Inazuma or something and thanked him. He wasn’t really listening. 

He wasn’t really thinking. He was just there, something for the Fatui to turn their hate on instead of their captors. 

He wasn’t really there anymore.

Chapter Text

Thunder rumbled.

Childe blinked back to reality some time later, slowly, unsteadily. He was first aware of the sunset and the way his eyes hurt from staring at it for too long, compounded by the salt of the sea spray. His legs dangled over the splintered hull of an aground ship. Water dripped down his pants and into his boots. 

He was going to hell. The Tsaritsa would never love him again. 

He really couldn’t afford to think about that, well, ever, so he shook his head, vaguely remembering taking off from Serei Island and just… walking. He sat up a little straighter, now aware of how hungry and thirsty he was, and looked around. He had apparently climbed on top of a pirate ship half-buried in a sandbar. Great. He’d have to recalibrate his autopilot one day because this was getting ridiculous. 

He wasn’t very high up. Childe scooted off the edge and dropped down, fudging it a little and hissing when the edge of the boards scraped his back. He staggered on the landing and clutched at the new wound, trembling while he tried to figure out how bad it was, then breathing a sigh of relief when his hands only came away a little bit bloody. He successfully avoided taking his own kidneys out. 

A pity.

Childe hadn’t had a chance to explore Inazuma in any meaningful way. “Narukami” and “Not Narukami” were the extent of his geographical knowledge, so, he looked for campfire smoke on the horizon just like when the Abyss spit him out all those years ago.

Just like all those years ago, he stumbled across people that stood and drew their weapons on seeing him. 

“Hey,” he croaked. His voice sounded as battered as he looked. 

Their presumed leader put himself between Childe and the other bandits, his face shrouded by his hat. “You lost, pretty boy?”

Childe couldn’t find it in himself to take offense. “Yes. Which way to the main island?”

The bandit wordlessly pointed to the left. 

“Thanks.” He turned and started walking that way. Behind him, the ronin argued. 

“That’s it?”

There was a thump as one of them pulled their leader back. “Boss, there’s something seriously wrong with that guy. Don’t.”

–

It took him a few hours to get back to Inazuma city. He stopped periodically to drink out of clean-looking streams and force down some berries that probably tasted like something. It was a pretty country, he thought to himself. Very purple. Tonia’s favorite color. He hoped they were happy here. 

He probably needed to cry at some point. He idly hoped that the emotions would hit at an opportune moment and not in the middle of dinner, whenever he was able to eat again.

Childe made it to actual roads by nightfall, then Inazuma city proper. Human sounds grated against his ears, cutting through the brain fog and bringing him back into the light of consciousness. He would’ve rather maintained that protective, distant disinterest – and he almost could with the way people dropped to silence as he approached – but he had work to do. 

Childe hurried on to the Tenryou Commission courtyard. Kujou Sara brightened on seeing him, as much as she was capable of. “There you are.”

He raised his chin in greeting and tried to remember how to speak. 

“Where did you go? I let you out of my sight for a moment and you were gone.”

“I have no idea.”

She frowned and was about to ask something else when Childe interrupted – not intentionally, but he didn’t particularly care enough to apologize. “What’s going to happen to them?”

She looked him up and down once. If she took offense to his rudeness, she didn’t feel the need to voice it. “...They will be held until we can confirm that we have eradicated the Fatui presence in Inazuma. They will be questioned, sentenced for crimes against Eternity and against the Almighty Shogun, and, eventually, released.” 

He nodded. “Good. I need to have a chat with Petrov and the others to make sure they don’t cause problems for me later.” He about marched off before he remembered himself. “You’re welcome to come with me to make sure I’m not conspiring or something.”

She gave him a once-over, unimpressed. “...I’m not worried about that.”

“Suit yourself,” he sighed and walked past her. “Which way to their cells?”

She pointed to a guard. “He’ll take you.”

The replacement for the Fatui spy nodded to him and escorted him down the labyrinthian halls, ever shrouded in that purple gloom. Inazumans filled the cells, only shifting to Snezhnayans as they made their way deeper into the building. Most of the Fatui were asleep. The ones that weren’t glared at him. 

One of the more attentive skirmishers spit on him as he passed. The Tenryou guard shouted and went to reprimand her, but Childe stopped him with a hand on his arm. “It’s alright.” 

It seemed like they had to pass every single one of them to get to Petrov’s cell. The guard nodded and stood a few steps away to give them the illusion of privacy.

“Hello Lieutenant.” 

Petrov had been stripped of his coat and sat in a clean, ill-fitting prisoner’s uniform. Childe had never seen his entire face before, and right now, he wished he couldn’t. He looked about in his mid fifties, though with Delusion overuse he could be anywhere from nineteen to thirty. Graying hair sat at his shoulders and a thick, patchy beard obscured his mouth. The still-less-haggard man stood and approached, stone-faced and stiff. 

Childe sighed. “Look, I know you’re angry, but–”

The lieutenant lashed out with a small knife. His arm was through the bars before anyone could blink, but you didn’t get to be a Harbinger without a sixth sense for danger. Childe used the opportunity to grab Petrov’s arm and yank him forward, who grunted as his forehead connected with the metal bars. 

The guard stepped forward but Childe waved him off. “I know you’re angry,” he continued like he hadn’t just been assaulted, “but I need you to understand that we are the bad guys . I have retired and you and your men should too.” 

Petrov’s feet slipped on the stone as he tried to pull himself free. “Traitor .”

“Yes, I am,” Childe replied, voice darkening. “And you are not going to tell ANYONE that I am alive when you’re released. Understand?”

The other man just snarled at him. Childe pulled his arm out a little more, propping the elbow just past a support bar, and slowly shifted his weight to overextend the joint. Petrov’s knife clattered to the floor and he futilely grabbed his own arm to try and protect it. 

“I have a family to look out for,” Childe growled. “And you have your men. Now remember, comrade. Who is the most dangerous person in the room?”

Petrov let out a pained grunt as he struggled to keep his arm straight. “Th-the one who has nothing left to lose.”

It was an old Snezhnayan saying. Childe released his prisoner, who fell backwards at the suddenness. “That’s right. My family is everything to me. If you jeopardize their safety by opening your mouth, I will find you. Do you understand?”

Petrov nodded and rubbed his arm. He glared down at the floor when he spoke. “What did they offer you?”

“Nothing. I just want to do something that I don’t have to lie to my family about. I want my siblings to be proud of me.” Childe continued, a little softer. “And I don’t want them to wake up to my casket on their door.”

He dropped to squat in front of the cell. Petrov still refused to look at him, but that was fine. “I know you loved La Signora. I did too,” he lied, “but… if someone assaulted the Tsaritsa in her own home, would you have done anything different?” 

Petrov continued to glare a hole into the pavestones. 

Childe shifted closer. “Look, there’s a good reason that every nation hates us–”

“There is no us ,” he hissed, head snapping up to look at him. “ We found our family with Our Lady. You betrayed the Fatui for your own selfish fantasies.”

“And we betrayed the world for the Fatui.” He let that hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “You’ve been here long enough to know that the Inazumans are people just like you and me. We’re not heroes. We’re terrorists . Is this really the kind of person you want to be? Do you think anyone will be proud of you?”

Petrov narrowed his eyes. Salt and pepper stood out in his beard and Childe felt a little silly trying to lecture him. “La Signora never would’ve deserted to cower and wait for the Tsaritsa’s wrath to find her.” 

“Yeah, well, there’s a reason I’m alive and she isn’t. She was a monster.”

The older man snarled. “She was hurt !”

“And she hurt everyone else! She killed people for fun, Lieutenant. How many of your recruits did she torch?”

“And you don’t?!” he demanded, ignoring the latter half of his statement. 

“Not anymore!” 

Truthfully, he had never killed for fun. Beat within an inch of their lives, sure, but Childe found no satisfaction in slaughtering the weak and considered it a waste to end a rivalry before it could get started. Besides, watching the light leave his target’s eyes got old after the third kill. It made him feel powerful when he was a boy, but he grew up fast and the novelty wore off. 

Childe leaned forward. “Someone finally told me that what I was doing was wrong. La Signora and…” He still couldn’t bear to admit that maybe the Tsaritsa was wrong, so he just shook his head and continued. “She was wrong. Just look around! Have you seen how many orphaned kids there are around here? How many widows? Signora inflicted her own pain on everyone else, and she was going to keep doing that until something eventually stopped her.” 

Petrove bristled. Childe didn’t give him the opportunity to retort.

“I know that you and every single one of your men were afraid of her. I was afraid of her. She was not good to you.”

As upset as the Lieutenant was, he knew he couldn’t deny it. He took a shaky breath so similar to the one Childe had taken when Lumine threw the book at him all that time ago. “She was all we had.”

“I really am sorry, Lieutenant.”

“And yet you still betrayed us. You betrayed her .”

“Petrov–”

“I hope you burn.”

Oh, look at that. The urge to cry. Great. Wonderful timing. Childe tipped his head down and pinched the bridge of his nose, swallowing hard. “Yeah. Just,” he said and looked back up at the prisoner, opening his hand in a pleading gesture. “Please be careful. I can try to get you and your men set up with a new life once you’re out of here, okay?”

Petrov continued to give him that furious stare. Childe finally stood on shaky legs and patted himself down to give himself something to do with his hands. “I promise I’ll take care of you guys.”

“Go to hell.”

Chapter Text

Dinner was uncomfortable, to say the least. Lumine sat next to Ayaka for lack of her favorite ginger and watched the kids sidelong. Teucer and Tonia were uncharacteristically quiet and Anthon’s glare slowly cooked his sushi. 

Childe didn’t come home last night. The kids were shockingly well behaved as the hours dragged on without their brother, but now that the second night rolled around, the tension was palpable. All four adults pretended things were normal and held their conversation in secret. 

Lumine leaned back to whisper to Ayaka out of the corner of her mouth, making sure to move her lips enough for Ayato to read. “I know I said Childe was getting burnt out and probably just needed some alone time, but he wouldn’t leave for two days in a row without saying something. I think I should go look for him.”

Their hostess nodded her agreement. Ayato frowned and drummed his fingers on the table, meeting Lumine’s eyes over the rim of his teacup. “That sounds wise. Do be careful, and please hurry. They are much more comfortable in your presence than ours.” 

They didn’t look at the kids because that would confirm their worries that something was wrong, but they didn’t have to look to feel two pitiful stares and one glower. Lumine stood and smiled weakly. “I’m gonna go look for Ajax. It’s not like him to not give an explanation.”

Anthon rolled his eyes. Tonia continued eating with an unsettling calm and Teucer looked up at her with watery eyes. “Is he okay?”

“I’m sure he is. Something probably just came up at work.”

“Something always comes up at work,” the middle brother grumbled, oblivious to the younger sniffling. “Don’t look for him. He’ll show up when he wants to.” 

The adults looked between the children – Tonia scowled at her brother and Teucer finally broke into proper sobbing. Anthon whipped around and snapped at him. “Quit crying! I told you he was going to leave again!”

Tonia hit her limit and shoved him. “He’s gonna come back! Quit being mean!” 

Anthon’s chopsticks rolled across the table while he caught himself, then shoved her right back, twice as hard. “He always leaves!” 

She fell backwards but was up in an instant, bearing down on her shorter brother and tackling him to the floor. “He always comes back!” 

“What about when he doesn’t?!”

“Children! Enough!” Both Kamisatos jumped to their feet while Lumine separated the brawling and bawling kids. All three of them were crying now, Tonia with rage and Anthon with… a lot of things. Paimon fluttered around before finally settling on comforting Teucer. The middle brother hugged himself around his waist and backed into Ayato’s legs, who took a half step back before gently rubbing his shoulder. Ayaka knelt to comfort the sister and Lumine was about to say something when the door creaked open.

Everyone turned to see… Ajax. Standing there. Dripping wet, red-eyed and hollow-faced. He didn’t give them long to gawk before he was across the room, dropping to his knees and scooping all three of his siblings into a too-tight hug. 

They all just stared for a moment. Anthon wormed his face out of the crushing embrace and met Lumine’s eyes, looking upset and more than a little bit ashamed. Tonia threw her arm around her older brother’s neck and spoke muffled into his shoulder. “Um… Ajax? Are you okay? We were getting a little worried.”

Ayaka and Lumine shared a look at the understatement. Ajax wrapped his arms tighter around the children and hid his face in Teucer’s hair, who had stopped crying the instant the door opened. “Some stuff came up at work. I’m so sorry, I promise it won’t happen again.” 

Lumine frowned. Normally she wouldn’t ask in front of the kids, but seeing him so upset right after watching them have a meltdown had clouded her judgment. “What could possibly come up at work to keep you away so long?”

“My, uh, my old partners wanted to talk.”

She whirled on the door as if a Fatui agent would materialize right then and assault her friend and his siblings. She realized that was a bit silly and struggled to force down the panic, then turned back to the current problem with a more careful eye. This time, she noticed the horrid gouge in his back, ripped straight through his overshirt, and what looked like a bite wound in his arm. 

She was going to hunt down every last Fatuus in the country then set Snezhnaya itself on fire. 

The Kamisatos, ever the diplomats, both edged into the conversation before Lumine lost her shit. Ayaka stepped forward, put her hands behind her back and drowned her voice with honey. “Well, children, I know you’re excited to see your brother home safe and sound, but I’m certain he must be exhausted. Why don’t you go wash up for bed so he can enjoy dinner and rest? You can catch up in the morning.” 

Ayato opened his mouth to add to his sister’s input, expecting resistance, but Tonia just gave her brother one last squeeze and went to wiggle out of the hug. The other two followed suit. Ajax clung to them , the hug seeming to be as much for his own comfort as theirs, but he took the gentle prod after a moment and got to his feet with a pained grunt. He flashed a shaky smile and hid his bitten arm behind his back. “Yeah… it’s late. I don’t want to keep you guys up. Are you guys okay, though?”

“Yep!” The older two put on brave faces and nodded smartly. Teucer was far less convincing, but even he covered his sniffles and gave a weak affirmation. It seemed they had practice and that he believed it. “Are you okay?” Tonia asked. 

Ajax chuckled halfheartedly. “You guys don’t need to worry about me. Your big brother can handle anything, okay?” 

“Will you be here in the morning?” Anthon asked without any of the venom from earlier. 

“Yes. I promise.”

After one more hug, Tonia marched off and dragged her brothers with her to prepare for bed. As soon as they were gone, Lumine turned to her friend and grabbed his uninjured arm. “What happened ?!”

“...A lot. I assume you two know, right?” he turned to ask the Kamisatos. He spoke slowly, like talking was the hardest thing in the world.

She wanted him to answer her , not deflect with them. Lumine needed to know who to kill. Regardless, she bit her tongue.  

They shook their heads. “We’ve been home since you first left and haven’t received any pressing correspondence.”

“I guess that makes sense. Better not to have too many loose lips.” Ajax muttered, his composure shifting from harrowed to blank, then weirdly cheerful over the course of the conversation. “Well, there aren’t any more Fatui in Inazuma! I helped Kujou Sara take care of that.” 

The siblings raised an eyebrow in unison. Paimon cocked her head. “What?”

Lumine watched the fingers of his bitten hand spasm behind his back. “The Fatui stationed here weren’t aware of my ‘death.’ They thought I was here to help them and took me to their headquarters, and then I sold them out! They even wrote down their plans for me. Every last one of them is in jail.”

“Oh… my,” Ayaka whispered, her hand to her mouth. She looked like she wanted to say more but Ajax continued. 

“We got all of them, but you two and Thoma should keep an eye out for escapees. You were on their hit list.” 

“How flattering,” Ayato chuckled.  

Ayaka tipped her head to the side. “We’re aware. Thank you, though. Are you alright?” 

Clearly not. Still, Ajax ignored the last part and frowned. “You’re not… concerned? They wanted me to assassinate you guys.”

Their hostess waved him off breezily. “We have plenty of enemies within and without Inazuma. We are quite used to it.” 

Their host smiled and clapped his hands together, bringing the conversation back on track. “This is wonderful news. You’re certain that every Fatuus has been captured?”

“All fifty two of them. I even have their names.” 

Ayato nodded, surprised for the first time Lumine had ever really seen – not that she was looking too hard. Ajax took up most of her attention at the moment. “Wonderful. Now, as my sister asked, are you alright?”

Childe just laughed.

It didn’t even seem like he meant to. It didn’t really seem like he was present . His body was on autopilot, flailing incompetently without danger to handle.  

Ayaka gave him a pitying smile, her hand hovering as if she wanted to reach out and comfort him, but didn’t dare with Lumine boiling with helpless rage right there. “You did a great thing for Inazuma. I cannot imagine how painful that must have been. Please, if you need a sympathetic ear, we are here to listen.”

Ayato filled the silence as soon as she finished speaking. “Duty is an important thing. I know well the agony of choosing between them, and I thank you for choosing wisely.” 

Ajax shivered, imperceptible to the average person but glaringly obvious to the present company. “Ah, thanks.”

Ayato smiled, actually warm. “Of course. I second what my sister said. Please, do not hesitate to come to either of us if you need to talk. Why don’t you enjoy some of the delicious dinner Thoma prepared and then relax? We can discuss things more after you recover.”

He chuckled. “I really don’t think I can eat right now. Thank you, though. I’d rather just clean up and go to sleep.” 

Their hosts finally released them and Paimon stayed in the dining room, but Lumine followed Ajax through the hall to the bathroom as he all but ran away. She didn’t care if it was rude. The kids had shut themselves in their own room and she was determined to get answers before he could hide to lick his wounds. 

She had to jog to keep up with his longer stride. Even so, she ended up panting by his side. “Ajax, buddy, what happened to you?!”

He just kept walking. His voice was hollow and faraway. “I sold them out.” 

His shirt shifted as he moved, intermittently exposing the gash in his back, the surrounding fabric darkened with blood. With too many things wrong to choose from, Lumine fixated on that first. “Here, wait– You’re hurt. Let me see.” 

“I’m fine.”

“No, just– Wait!” He ignored her, so Lumine risked grabbing his arm to just get him to stop. She flinched when he jerked around to face her, an old part of her terrified for leaving her midsection unguarded when he moved so quickly, but he just… stood there, blank, and looked at her. 

His back was now to the wall and while Lumine really wanted to take a look at it, the new injury he presented her with was more pressing. She reached back out to hover her hand near his arm, though she didn’t touch him again. “Did someone… bite you?”

Ajax looked down at his own arm, looking as surprised as she felt. Two smooth semicircles of teeth marks marred his forearm. The surrounding skin was angry and red and the individual punctures were just starting to scab over.

After a few moments of silent inspection, Ajax said, “They thought I was there to help.”

“That’s going to get infected.”

He experimentally flexed the fingers of the injured arm, mechanically running through a stretch exercise by tapping each fingertip to his thumb. His tone was as vacant as his expression. “I couldn’t let her go. I wanted to, but–”

Lumine waited for him to finish the thought. When he didn’t, she pressed. “Oh…kay… But , you did the right thing. Nobody died, right?”

He smiled. Not a real one –  the distracted smile he put on to put others at ease. It didn’t reach his eyes and so it usually had the opposite effect. “They thought I was going to save them.” 

“And, you… did?” she tried. “They, um. They would’ve all gotten themselves killed trying to fight the shogunate instead.”

Ajax giggled. He sounded like an injured animal. “They told me everything. They weren’t suspicious at all .”

Heavens above and below, she missed Aether. He was so much better at things like this. Lumine was the holy light that burned away the filth of the world while Aether was the gentle, loving embrace of the sun. Without something for her to kill or hurt or maim, the best she could offer was the meager warmth of her body and clumsy words. 

So, with her meager warmth and clumsy words, she reached for his hand. When her fingers wrapped around his, dull eyes flicked up to hers and stayed, his pupils blown so wide they almost swallowed the blue. 

“Ajax… I’m so sorry.”

He smiled weakly, lopsided and pained. “Heh… I guess the Fatui finally made a liar out of me after all.” 

Lumine grabbed both of his wrists and jerked him towards her. His entire demeanor changed the second he was restrained, his eyes snapping back to clarity. Instantly, his weight shifted to his heels as he grabbed her wrists back and resisted her pull. She could feel the elemental energy pulsing in his palms. 

She was just grateful he had the presence of mind not to let it loose and gave him a little shake. “You did a good thing, Ajax. You saved countless lives, including the Fatui. You– you put doing the right thing over your own morals. Not many people can do that, okay? It’s, hard, and it feels horrible , but I am proud of you.”

His eyes widened.

“I am so proud of you,” she insisted, shaking him again. “Okay? Everything’s going to get better, for everyone. You did that. I’m proud of you, the Kamisatos are proud of you, and the kids are going to be proud of you too.” 

She thought she was helping, but she never wanted to see that look on his face again. 

Part of her had always wondered how Ajax would break. Humans always handled things so interestingly and he was one of the most interesting of them all. Sometimes they laughed, sometimes they cried. Sometimes they did both. Usually it was cathartic, necessary, and she could take some satisfaction knowing she played an important part in their life, but this time she stopped looking at his expression the moment she could. It only took the barest suggestion to pull him into her arms where he could hide his face behind her shoulder, wrapping her in a rib-crushing hug of his own volition. 

She felt his chest expand against hers, the slight tremble in his arms and warm air on the back of her neck. The silent hug dragged on for several moments, in which Lumine realized she’d never seen him cry before, either. Even now she wasn’t sure if she was imaging the irregularity in his breathing or if he was just inhumanly quiet, like he couldn’t afford to be loud. 

At length, he croaked nearly inaudibly. “Don’t tell them.”

So he was crying. She’d only ever heard him even close to this raw once before, back when he lay barely conscious at her feet, begging not for his life but for her to not let Teucer see. It was the first time she’d seen him as anything other than a monster to put down. 

He wasn’t a monster now. Now he was just Ajax, and she hated to see him so upset. 

Lumine stroked the back of his head. “I won’t.” 

“Please.”

She hugged him tighter, her arm slipping down his back where wet seeped into her glove. It was less concerning than the fragility of his plea. “I promise, I won’t.”

Chapter Text

Lumine watched an appropriate distance away while Ajax peeled his shirt off, not even flinching as the fabric took bits of scab from his back. 

They had stayed hugging in the hallway for another few minutes, until distant footsteps prompted them to move their ‘conversation’ somewhere more private – ideally before Ajax dripped blood on the floor. The bathroom was his original destination anyway, and now that’s where they were. They had the water running to keep eavesdroppers from listening in. And, also, maybe, he found the sound of running water comforting. 

Lumine watched while he jerked his shirt over his head in one swift motion. Fresh blood beaded up from the dozen new injuries and she winced, her own skin crawling in sympathy. She watched him try to contort to look at his own back in the mirror, his arms still trapped in his shirt around his elbows. 

“...Can I help?” she asked. 

Ajax glanced at her through the mirror, then looked away. There was only a little bit of congestion left in his voice when he said, “Sure.”

He finished shucking his shirt off and let it fall on the floor, then leaned his hip against the sink to give her access to both his back and the basin. Lumine grabbed a clean hand towel, soaked it in warm water, then tried to pick a spot to start. 

She took the time to map out the parts of him she wasn’t familiar with. Myriad scars littered his torso, most centered on his sides and front but a few stretching along his back. She watched his ribs flex in time with his breath for a bit, the way she could count each individual vertebrae. He had a hungry, haunted look to him that was more than just being athletically thin. 

She might as well start at the top. Lumine began dabbing at the edges of the gouge with the washcloth, careful not to rub too aggressively into the raw flesh beneath. Ajax only flinched once, when she first touched him, then settled into an eerie stillness once she moved to the wound. 

The only indication he was in pain was the tightening of his jaw, but she wasn’t sure if it was actually pain or just her touching him where he couldn’t see, only feel. She glanced up and followed his line of sight in the mirror, the way he tracked her every movement. His eyes were locked on her hands tinged with his blood.

Lumine swallowed and started cleaning a bit lower. “So, do you want to stay in my room tonight? I know you said you were getting a little burnt out with the kids, and I can’t imagine you want to have to worry about them after… that. We can set up your room tomorrow.”

He didn’t answer. 

“Ajax?”

He blinked back to awareness. “Huh? Oh– uh, only if you wouldn’t mind.” 

“Not at all,” she mumbled, scowling as the washcloth caught on something unexpectedly. She gently teased at the skin of his back with her thumb and grimaced. “Er… you’ve got a splinter. Can I…?”

Ajax procured a pair of tweezers from somewhere and wordlessly passed it to her. She set about removing the offending wood before it gave him an infection. As treatment went on, he slowly started to relax. He was still distant and exhausted , but in a way where it was catching up with him. Not that… walking corpse he was before. 

Eventually she finished with his back. It wasn’t as deep as she’d feared and she felt comfortable just giving him a light bandage wrap. Then, it was time for the worse injury. 

Ajax slowly came back to life, looking down at his own arm and pulling it from her before she could do anything. “Here, I’ll take care of this.”

Lumine crossed her arms and was about to argue when he just turned the water on and started roughly scrubbing the bite – too fast and too hard. She recoiled. “Ow?!”

He just chuckled, wincingly lightly as he let it rinse. “Better to get it over with.” 

He soon finished and patted it dry, hesitated, then offered his arm to her. “It’s hard to wrap it with one hand. Would you mind?”

Lumine swallowed her horror and did as asked, gently wrapping a bandage around the freshly aggravated wound. Big deal and good sign that he asked . He returned to his usual fidgets slowly, tapping his foot, looking anywhere but at her face while she dressed his wound. 

She wasn’t particularly good at it. Again, Aether was the nurturing one. Her bandagework was messy and she had to unroll it twice because she did it too tight, but within a few minutes she’d covered his arm in something acceptable. 

–

With that, they went to bed. Lumine rolled out a spare bedroll for him and changed into the nightclothes he gave her a few days ago, then settled into her own bed. 

Paimon would sleep in the teapot tonight. Ajax quietly followed her and settled down into the offered spot.  

Lumine nuzzled back into her pillow and gave him a sleepy smile. “Feel any better?”

He nodded, eyes red and puffy and half-lidded with exhaustion. He unceremoniously squatted by the bedroll and smiled over at her, a thick bandage wrapped around his wrist. “Yeah. Thank you. Seriously.”

“Anytime.”

She expected him to collapse right there, but instead he just… looked at her. His eyes always looked so strange in the dark – disappearing into their shadowed sockets, only visible by the wet glint of moonlight when he was upset. Light seemed to pool on the surface, blocked before reaching the iris, but nevertheless she felt him watching her. 

She raised herself onto her elbows when he shifted to sit closer. “You okay?”

He answered by hugging her. This wasn’t that thoughtless, desperate hug from earlier, though. This was the best hug she’d had in months. He completely wrapped her in his arms and held her close to his chest, so tight she could practically hear his heartbeat, and she responded in kind. He was warm and solid and it was with great reluctance that she let him pull away. 

The tender look he gave her did downright embarrassing things to her heart. “Thanks. G’night, starlight.” 

She really wanted nothing more than to offer to hold him through the night, but he seemed better and nothing just friendly would come of it. She’d rather not put him in an uncomfortable position in the morning, so, Lumine relaxed back into her own bed and closed her eyes. “Good night, humanmeat.” 

He snickered. She listened to the sounds of him fidgeting for a comfortable position for a few minutes, then heard his breathing deepen. Only then did she finally allow herself to drift off too, content that he was home safe at last.

Chapter Text

Childe groggily woke to thunder. 

He mumbled to himself and contorted to stretch under the sheets – he slept so soundly that he didn’t kick them off like usual – and winced when his back scraped unpleasantly against the floor. He’d forgone the shirt he grabbed when he went to check on the kids last night. Lumine probably didn’t care and he’d had enough misery for a lifetime. He could treat himself to not sweating the night away. 

Thank the Tsaritsa that nightmare was over with. Childe still felt like wet shit, but at least he, the Fatui and the kids were safe. He rolled onto his stomach and hummed, languidly looking at the strips of sunlight crossing his outstretched hands and picking at the bandage currently peeling from his wrist. The sun didn’t normally shine this bright or at this angle until–  

He had work today.

Childe shoved to his feet and bolted into his room, yanking a fresh set of clothes onto himself while he stumbled back out to the foyer, shedding his bandage at some point. He just got his shortsleeved shirt over his head as he crossed the threshold. Lumine, Paimon, Ayaka, Thoma, Hinoa and the kids all flinched at his intrusion. 

“Ajax?” Lumine asked. 

“Hi guys,” he said as he hurried to give each of his siblings a quick hug and a kiss on the head. He immediately turned to the door. “Bye guys! I’m late for work. I’ll be back tonight, I promise.” 

Paimon spluttered, the adults and children too stunned to respond. “You’re going to work? After yesterday?!”

“Yep! Bye!” he said and was out the door before anyone could argue. 

He gave a polite nod to the guards and staff as he jogged through the courtyard. He made it just to the estate gate before he heard Lumine behind him. “Ajax!”

Childe slowed just enough to let her catch up, then resumed his pace. “What?”

“You’re not seriously going to work, are you?” she wheezed. 

“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I?” he asked, walking fast. She had to jog to keep up. 

“Oh I don’t know, you just had one, if not THE, most traumatic experiences of your life!”

“That’s not Yoimiya’s problem.”

“Dude.”

They rounded the bend and made it to the main road. Childe picked up the pace, both for time and to let her switch to a more natural gait. He panted lightly and more than a little irritated. “Why didn’t you wake me when you got up?” 

“See my first point, about the trauma,” she said. “You needed sleep.”

“I know what I need best. I need to not lose my job and have to figure something else out to tell the kids!” he snapped back. “I’ve already missed two days without an explanation. I can’t afford to be late.” 

Lumine glared at him. “Alright, alright. Can I at least come with you?”

“Sure,” he grumbled. 

They made it to Naganohara Fireworks in record time. Childe barged into the shop without even checking if Lumine was still behind him, his heart pounding in his chest. “Yoimiya! I’m so sorry I’m late!”

“Oh, Childe! There you are!” Something bumped inside the shop, then rapid footsteps rang out until the owner herself stood at the door. Her sunny smile faltered as she looked at him. “...Are you okay?”

He clapped his hands together in the gratitude gesture of Liyue out of habit and bowed. “Yes, yes. I’m so sorry. I had a… uh, family emergency for the past few days and couldn’t get away to tell you.”

He was aware of Lumine coming to stand beside him while Yoimiya made a concerned sound. “Oh don’t worry about that. Family comes first. Are you… sure you’re okay? You look… um… tired.” 

“You people are going to give me self image issues,” he muttered and straightened. 

Lumine leaned against the door jamb and crossed her arms, gesturing in his direction without looking at him. “Childe’s been stuck in a living nightmare and isn’t giving himself any time to rest.” 

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” he snarled.

“Then do it.”

Did she not realize she was talking shit in front of his boss?! Stress and embarrassment fed into his natural temper. He opened his mouth to say something he would probably regret, but Yoimiya took the opportunity to step between them. 

“Ooookaayyyyy,” she crooned, which pissed him off even more but he tried to take it as she intended. “How about this: Childe, would you like to take today off? And a few more days if you need it? I don’t have much work for you anyway.” 

“I…” he sighed. It would be nice. If she was offering, surely there’d be no harm in accepting. “Are you sure?”

“Of course!” she bounced in place and put her fists on her hips. “Your wellbeing is the most important thing. Even I wouldn’t come to work if I just had a family emergency, and I own the place! Well, sorta.” 

What a foreign idea. On some level he knew that civilian life was very different than the Snezhnayan military, but still. This seemed unreasonably kind. 

Yoimiya’s face leaning into his vision pulled him out of his thoughts. “Soooo…. What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.” 

He shot a preemptive glare at Lumine, but she was content to let him speak for his own damn self this time. “I had an issue with my old coworkers. They, uh, jumped me, and I had to go get things sorted with the police.” 

Yoimiya’s eyes went wide and she covered her mouth. “Oh no! Is that what happened to your arm?” 

He glanced down at the bite on his wrist, now inflamed and oozing. He really needed to stop wearing shortsleeves until that healed. “Uh… yeah.”

“That looks infected,” she said, lines standing out on her forehead while she pouted and inspected the wound. “I have some ointment for it, if you want.”

“Oh no, I–” he said, waving her off, then paused when he felt Lumine’s glare burning into him. He twisted to face her. “ What?!”

She made finger quotes. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” she mocked. 

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, Yoimiya,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “I would love some ointment. Thank you.”

She gave a smart nod and rushed off to rummage in her first aid kit. The second she was out of earshot, Childe turned on Lumine. “What is with you today?!”

She threw her hands up. “I’m worried about you!”

He leaned back. The admission threw him for a loop, but he was too angry to do much with it. “Making me look bad is a real shitty way of showing it!” 

Lumine crossed her arms and sneered at him. “Well I’m sorry,” she said unapologetically. “My best friend had a total breakdown and then ran off the next day pretending everything was normal? You expect me to just go along with that?” 

He would respond, but Yoimiya returned at that moment with a thick bandage and a container. The ointment tingled, probably having either alcohol or menthol or something in it. It hurt, but not nearly as badly as the profanities screamed when the mage gave him the wound. Yoimiya roughly rubbed it into his skin and frowned. “Yikes, this almost looks like someone bit you.”

He elected to stay quiet while he wrapped him up. 

Eventually she finished her work and patted the fresh bandage, beaming up at him. “There you go!”

“Thank you,” he said, genuine. The area throbbed but in a clean way. 

“Anytime!” she said, her hand over her heart. “Just let me know if you need anything else, okay? Our fireworks are only as good as our employees, so you need to take care of yourself.” 

Childe blinked. Sure, he took a lot of personal time as a Harbinger, but he was expected to find a way to make it happen when he had work to do. Unless he was physically incapacitated, there were no excuses. Snezhnaya did not believe in sick days.

Without anything better to do, Childe withdrew his arm and rubbed absently at the bandage, then turned to go. He waved goodbye. “Uh… alright then. Thanks. See you soon, Yoimiya.”

She waved back. “I’ll see you when I see you! No rush, okay? I’ll come find you if I absolutely need you.”

Childe shook his head and started the long limp back to the estate, Lumine falling into step beside him. Confusion overtook his seething, only worsened when she sighed. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been a little overbearing. I, just, seriously. I’m worried about you.”

He chewed on his lip and refused to look at her, instead checking their surroundings for bandits or, worse, escapee Fatui. “S’alright. Sorry I’m irritated.” 

He noticed her put her arms behind her head out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t understand why going to work was so important to you. It’s not like Yoimiya is strict or really… needs you.”

He shrugged. “I said I would.” 

“You sound like Morax with his contracts,” she grumbled, her tone heavy with disapproval. 

Childe took in a deep breath through his nose before he snapped back. He only liked sword fights, not… whatever this was. “How so?”

Her golden head bobbed side to side. “People understand that sometimes things come up. You don’t always have to power through to reach your own unreasonable expectations.” 

He glared over at her. “You don’t think promises are important?”

“I do, I do,” she soothed, her tone switching to something more appeasing than lecturing. “But sometimes there are extenuating circumstances. Life happens.”

“I have to follow through on your word. If I told my men that I would be on the front lines and then didn’t show up, they’d die.” 

“This isn’t war, Ajax.”

He skipped half a step, then continued walking.

Lumine sped up a bit to try to look into his face, her mouth twisted into a confused frown. “You work at a fireworks shop. The stakes are a lot lower.”

“Hmph.”

She frowned harder, then her eyes widened as something clicked. “You’ve only ever known war, haven’t you?” 

“No. I had a perfectly normal childhood.”

…It did sound ridiculous as soon as the words left his mouth. Still, Lumine didn’t laugh. She did, however, raise an eyebrow, and shot back with something he’d never considered. “A perfectly normal childhood in the military state of Snezhnaya, plagued by war .”

“My parents tried to keep me away from it, for the most part,” he grumbled. “I didn’t know much about the Fatui until I joined them. I’d always wanted to be an adventurer before that.”

“Didn’t you say your father handed you over to them?”

He wanted to argue that he marched himself on the path to terrorism, that it was nobody’s fault but his own, but he really couldn’t handle any more hits to his ego today. He shrugged to avoid the topic. “He had good reasons. Anyway, I don’t think sticking to my promises is a bad thing. It’s one of the very few things I can be proud of.” 

“It’s not bad ,” she insisted. “It’s just… destructive, sometimes. I promise you the world won’t fall apart just because you don’t go to work one day.” 

He grit his teeth. 

Lumine stopped walking, making him turn to face her. The look of pure concern on her face smothered the last of his rage. “I’m just trying to say that your wellbeing is the most important thing right now. Take care of yourself, for me if nothing else.” 

He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, trying to keep up some pretense of irritation even if his lips wanted to smile of their own accord. “Oh don’t pull that on me.” 

She clasped her hands in front of her dress and gave him puppy eyes, swaying her hips from side to side in that damned way that made him look anywhere but at her. “What, asking you to do it for me!”

“Yes!”

“Please?” she whined. 

“Stop it.”

“Is that a yes?”

He pulled her in for a side hug and ruffled her hair, trying to ignore how well she fit at his hip. “I’ll try , asshole.” 

She laughed and squeezed him back. “Thank you. Let’s go home, okay?”

They returned to the Estate slower than they left, though not by much. Lumine led the way and he followed, eyeing the horizon with its boiling clouds and distant thunder. It’d storm soon.

She didn’t seem to care. Lumine just opened the door for him when they arrived and he muttered his thanks, then limped inside. Paimon’s chattering abruptly ceased and Ayaka looked up from her seat at the main table in the too-quiet living room.

“You’re back!” Paimon crowed and raced over to Lumine’s side. 

“I’m glad you returned so soon,” the lady of the house said, rising to bow to them. The children were nowhere to be seen and neither were Ayato or Thoma, though that was more to be expected.

“Ah, thanks,” he mumbled. The table was absolutely covered in documents - invoices, legal jargon and scraps from textbooks. He ignored it for now and cleared his throat. “My lady, do you know where Hinoa and the kids are?”

“They left shortly after you did. Miss Hinoa took them out shopping.” 

Childe ducked down - feeling exposed without the buffer of Thoma - and took a step back towards the door. "Thank you. I’ll go find them, if I may be excused.” 

“Of course. You do not need my dismissal.”

Lumine scooted out of his way but met his eyes before he slipped out, in the middle of hugging her companion. “Want me to come with?”

“If you’d like, sure.” 

They turned to go, but Ayaka waved before they could. “Ah, Traveler? A word, when you’re available.”

She lit up and pranced over, leaving Childe to slink in her wake. “Sure! What’s up?”

“Paimon and Ayaka were talking about Orobashi!” Paimon said. “Ayaka has a plan.”

Said Ayaka nodded, looking as proud of herself as she would ever let show. “Paimon shared a lot of what you’ve found in the land beneath the sea. I am in the middle of drafting a proposal to the Raiden Shogun. We may be able to annex Watatsumi Island and bring it under her protection.” 

Lumine raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that… kinda the opposite of what they want?”

“Yes,” Ayaka conceded, a blush rising in her cheeks, “so long as they believe that the Shogun murdered their god. We may be able to reframe it as her continuing his will.” 

Childe copied his friend’s expression, criticism creeping into his voice despite his best attempts to be civil. “Coming from the Fatui’s posterboy… That sounds like propaganda.”

“Perhaps, but it’s the truth. The Raiden Shogun has never harbored any ill will towards Orobashi’s followers. It was only after outrage following the Vision Hunt Decree that real conflict arose between the islands.”

Sensing Lumine’s disapproval, Ayaka hurried to continue. “I know she seems cold, but the Almighty Shogun truly wants the best for her people. I’m sure you understand, given the Tsaritsa’s reputation,” she said with a pointed, pleading look at Childe. “She already believes Watatsumi Island to be an extension of Inazuma and her reign. She has and will continue to protect them as her own.” 

Ice blue eyes flicked between them, searching for approval and finding none. “We will also be able to provide war relief and supplies if they were to join Inazuma proper. We both know they need it. Why let them suffer?” 

Lumine bit her lip and crossed her arms. “Well… Kokomi is really stressed out.” 

Ayaka pressed on. “And Kujou Sara has already shared the Fatui intel with Sangonomiya as well in a show of goodwill.”

“Woo,” Childe deadpanned. 

She cringed. “I apologize. It’s just such a benefit.”

“No, no, I know.” 

She fidgeted with her dress, smoothing down the front of it while she reapplied her usual diplomatic pleasantness. “I just ask that you think about it. We can discuss more later. In the meantime, how are you feeling, Childe? You rushed out of here in quite the hurry.” 

He blinked, not expecting to be addressed, and stammered a bit when he responded. “Huh? Oh, much better. The Traveler and I talked and I have the next couple days off work.”

“Wonderful. Er…” she trailed off. “About last night…”

“Yes?”

She looked away from him and to Lumine for help, or maybe permission. “I’m not sure if she told you already.”

Lumine took a second to catch up, then nodded and cleared her throat. “Oh yeah, I was going to tell you over breakfast before you ran off. The kids were really upset when you didn’t come home. You might wanna talk to them.” 

He frowned. “What do you mean they were upset?”

She hesitated, which made his heart creep up into his throat. “Uh… Anthon and Tonia got in a fight over whether or not you were going to come back.”

Her words nearly stopped his heart. “ What ?!”

Ayaka took a step back. Lumine opened her mouth to reply, her hands up soothingly, but he continued. “What do you mean they didn’t think I was going to come back?! They know I’m going to!”

“Well that’s what Tonia said,” Paimon muttered, “But–”

“Why didn’t you tell me?! ”

Lumine scowled. “Do you really think you were in any state to comfort them last night?”

“I would’ve found a way!” 

“You came home,” she said, her head tipped down while she looked up at him. “They were okay for the night. You weren’t. You even went and checked on them, right?” 

“I didn’t know they were that upset!” His voice raised and he didn’t care in the slightest. “I wouldn’t have just gone to sleep if I knew!”

“Yeah, that’s why I wanted to focus on yo–”

Panic took the guise of anger as he stepped forward. “You should’ve told me.”

“I just did,” she said, unflinching, her eyes never leaving his. 

“ Sooner ,” he growled and advanced until he loomed over her, Paimon wide-eyed in her arms. “You had no right to–”

“ Childe .” Ayaka warned. 

He snapped his mouth shut, goosebumps rising along his back and tingling unpleasantly against his wound. He straightened from his hunch as if the Tsartisa herself called an end to one of his and Arlecchino’s fights. “Sorry, sorry.”

He coughed and held his injured arm behind his back in a show of submission, waiting for one of them to steer the conversation elsewhere – sweep his issues aside in favor of more important matters. All three girls frowned at the drastic change in demeanor, like a bucket of water on a flame. 

Lumine, inhumanly patient, released Paimon to float on her own. “Um… anyway. Think you’d feel better if we just went and checked on them now?” 

“Yes, thank you,” he murmured. Cowed from Ayaka’s not-reprimand and deeply uncomfortable with the continued attention, he turned to bow to the lady of the house. “Thank you, Lady Kamisato. I apologize for my outburst. It won’t happen again.” 

“It’s quite alright,” she said with a worried smile. “I just didn’t want you getting carried away. No need to be so formal.”

Lumine shooed her companion off towards the center of the room before Childe had to figure something else out to say. “Paimon, why don’t you stay here? I’ll bring some food back for you.” 

Ayaka clasped her hands before an objection could be made. “Thoma made some delicious tea cakes for you in the meantime, Paimon. And you could help me with important matters while they talk.” 

She pouted but didn’t argue, floating off to sulk behind Ayaka’s skirt. “Fine. But don’t let him bully you! Paimon’s running out of mean nicknames for Mr. Anger Issues.” 

Lumine tutted at her while guilt curled in his stomach. They said their goodbyes and hurried off once Childe switched into a longsleeve shirt, his face set in his neutral frown. 

A light, cool breeze picked up while they walked back to the city, thunder demanding their attention in the distance, but ultimately ignored in favor of more important things. Childe tried to think of something to say, some way to explain or apologize, but Lumine started for him. 

She bumped into his hip to get his attention and smiled up at him. “And for what it’s worth, the kids seemed fine this morning. I wouldn’t have left them alone to find you if they were distraught.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah. I know you’d have my head if I ever saved you instead of them. Kids come first.” // maybe a bit where she swears to him that, if it ever came between saving him or the kids, she’d get teh kids

He swallowed hard and returned to looking at where they were going. He was getting to the point he didn’t need to watch where his feet fell to make it to the city, but he didn’t want to look at her. His coworkers would laugh in his face whenever he talked about his siblings. “Er… Thank you. I’m sorry for yelling.”

“It’s alright. You’ve got a lot going on.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

She gave him an impassive sideeye. “Buddy, I have seen significantly worse freakouts than that. You’re allowed one after the week you’ve had.” 

“Yeah, but… you’re the only person that doesn’t deserve it.” 

She just shrugged. “If you had’ve tried something, I would’ve put you on the ground and we’d have a talk about it. It’s whatever. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Just… know I’m on your side, okay? I’m a little bitchy because I’m worried too.” 

“You’re not bitchy,” he said automatically.

“Well, I mean–”

“You’re not.” He insisted. “It’s… it’s irritating, but you’re not bitchy. You’re never bitchy.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head, brushing her bangs out of her eyes while the landscape crawled by. Inazuma city crept closer and she let out a fond sigh. They walked on until gravel gave way to pavestones that clicked under their boots. Families’ voices filled the air and he strained to pick his out of the din, but under it all he just barely heard Lumine murmur to herself. 

“Sweet boy.”

Chapter Text

Lumine led him left, towards the restaurant district. It didn’t take long to pick out Teucer’s loud babbling, soon joined by Tonia’s normal person volume and Anthon’s near silent mumbling. Hinoa’s voice slipped through breaks in the conversation, growing louder with proximity. Soon they were at the restaurant. 

They rounded the corner and Childe paused, trying to gauge just how upset his siblings actually were. They seemed fine last night – all tucked into bed, no teary eyes, the usual ‘good nights’ and ‘I love you’s – and nothing looked out of sorts now. Look, Anthon had even figured out how to use chopsticks. They seemed perfectly fine. 

He whistled to alert them of his approach. All three of their heads shot up, then their bodies followed – tackling him in a group hug that had him staggering backwards. Childe laughed and scooped them all into an embrace. 

“Hello, Childe,” Hinoa hummed with a smile in her eyes while he struggled under the weight of three tiny bodies. “Traveler.”

Anthon and Tonia extracted themselves and went to swarm Lumine, leaving Childe to pick the youngest up by the armpits and swing him in a circle. Teucer shrieked and kicked his feet until Childe tossed him onto his hip and held him there. “Hey Hinoa. How’s it going?”

“Very well, thank you for asking. You’re back early.”

He invited himself to the table and slid into a vacant seat, repositioning Teucer into his lap. “Yeah, Yoimiya sent me home early after a… rough night. Speaking of,” he said just as Lumine herded his older siblings back to their seats and joined them at his side. “How’d you guys sleep?” 

A chorus of “good”s responded and they lapsed into comfortable chatter about nothing important, mostly clamoring for Lumine’s attention while huddling against him. He wanted to leave it at that – he knew them best. They were fine – b ut Lumine’s words wouldn’t stop circling in the back of his mind. …but what if he was wrong?

So, Childe waited until Teucer was done with his retelling of Hinoa’s fairytale to clear his throat. “Sooo… your Auntie Lumine said you guys were upset last night.” 

There was a telling quiet before Tonia took the lead and shook her head. “No. We were fine. We’re just happy you’re home.”

Home . Childe swallowed the lump in his throat. “You sure? I’m really sorry I was gone for so long. It won’t happen again.” 

“It’s okay.”

He didn’t really know what he expected. Normally he’d just take their happiness at face value but today, with Hinoa and Lumine’s eyes on him, he felt… pressured. More than he ever did when his parents watched them, at least. He hugged Teucer a little tighter. “You guys gotta tell me if you’re upset, okay?  I’m your knight. I can handle anything.”

“We do!” Tonia insisted. 

Teucer whimpered, then turned in his lap, hugged his waist and loudly asked, “Can we go fishing soon? I wanna go fishing.” 

“Uh, yeah,” Childe said and awkwardly patted his brother’s hair. He looked back over at the older two. Anthon’s head hung too low, his shoulders hunched up to his ears. He met his older brother in a split-second glare before looking back at his food. Tonia’s smile tightened. She looked so much like their mother. 

“You know I’m always gonna come back for you…” Childe led.

And now Tonia’s smile turned venomous. Her eyes joined her brother’s tablewards. “Yeah, we know. You don’t have to keep bringing it up. 

“The other night won’t happen again. I took care of it for good.”

“Yeah.”

Fortunately, Lumine and Hinoa were both content to keep their comments to themselves. Unfortunately, he also couldn’t look to them for guidance. Childe swallowed and tried to catch Anthon’s eye again. He just kept staring at his bowl, chasing some rice around with his newly-mastered chopsticks. 

“Anthon, what’s wrong?”

He shrugged. Tonia opened her mouth to say something but the middle brother continued unhindered. “I mean… you’ve left a lot. I dunno why you say it won’t happen again.”

“It won’t. I promise,” Childe blurted out automatically.

The table went uncomfortably quiet. He hurried to fill the silence, feeling a bit ill and squeezing Teucer a little bit too tight. “When have I ever broken a promise?”

At that, Childe felt what he assumed was disapproval radiating off of Lumine and seethed. Before anyone could hop into his business, he sat up straight. “Here, I’ll show you. What do you guys wanna do tomorrow? I’ll take you anywhere.”

Tonia pouted. “Um… actually… I was gonna ask you if I could help Miss Ayaka tomorrow. And… maybe sometimes if I could go with Miss Ayaka instead of Miss Hinoa. If Miss Ayaka says it’s okay.”

He blinked. Surprised out of his irritation, immediately after hit with a wave of shame for letting it show. “What?”

She pressed her cheek into her shoulder and put her hands in her lap. “Well, Miss Ayaka does really important work, and I think it’s neat, and I wanna help instead of just being babysat.” 

She blinked quickly and looked up at Hinoa. “No offense, Miss Hinoa.”

The older woman chuckled and shook her head. She addressed Childe. “Tonia has already asked Lady Kamisato and she’s already agreed. However, I wasn’t going to let her out of my sight without your approval.”

Wind out of his sails. A little hurt that they didn’t even want to spend time with him, but they were growing up, right? They needed hobbies. “Oh. Um… if that’s what you want, sure.”

“Yay!” Tonia all but sprinted out of her seat and crawled in his lap alongside Teucer, snuggling up under his chin. “You’re the best brother ever!”

Comforting weight. Looked over at Anthon. “What do you want to do tomorrow, Anthon?”

“I also want to study with Miss Ayaka,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument. 

Well then. “Teucer?”

He wiggled. “I want mochi.”

Gentle laugh. Leaning into the hugs, grateful for the normalcy “I will get you mochi.” 

He dismissed HInoa with a full day’s pay and ushered the kids back to teh Estate. For everyone’s sanity, him and Lumine split in the living room: him curling up to read to his siblings and Lumine to talk to Ayaka about her grand plans. Idly listening to them discuss the dead snake. 

Thunder rumbled close enough to rattle the windows and the kids didn’t even flinch. Gentle patter of rain, the heartbeat of the country and his siblings’ weight piled on top of him lulling him to sleep. Hit with a wave of exhaustion, he tucked his arm tighter around Tonia and rested his cheek on Anthon’s head. 

“...Hey, guys?” he yawned. 

They made questioning noises according to their personalities. 

Childe idly scratched at his collarbone. “Would you mind if I start sleeping in a different room?”

“That’s fine,” Tonia said and nuzzled tighter to his hug. 

“You guys won’t get scared of the thunder?”

“We don’t get scared of silly things,” Teucer said proudly. 

Childe shut his eyes and let his head get heavy on his brother. “Mm… you gotta promise you’ll come get me if you do get scared.”

“We will,” Anthon grumbled.

“You gotta promise.”

“We promise,” all three said. 

He let Teucer take over attempting to read, Tonia stepping in to correct his pronunciation as needed while Childe dozed. He twitched awake with every set of footsteps through the estate – the efficient yet unrushed pace of the old lady servant he liked, the posturing thud of the two younger men he didn’t, Ayaka’s near-silent tread and Lumine’s weirdly heavy footfalls before finally, the confident, energetic stride of Thoma returning from his errands. 

The kids had more or less entertained themselves without him, currently arguing over the quality of the writing and art in their book, so, Childe pushed to his feet with a groan and expertly maneuvered his injuries out of sight. Once the kids filled the gap he left, he went to harass the head housekeeper for a room. 

Thoma lit up and insisted on taking him to the room he had already prepared for this eventuality. Childe frowned behind his back, plastering on a genuine, grateful smile when his host turned to look, then chewing on his lip when he looked away. Was he really this predictable? Was he really the last to realize he’d want his own space? 

At a loss for what else to do and red-faced with embarrassment, Childe thanked his host and got to work moving his sparse belongings to the new room. His bedroll went in the corner closest to the door – a strange location, one that would give intruders pause and him an advantage. His laundry went in the other corner, as far away as possible. He might just need new boots after their dip in the ocean.

He tapped his socked foot and looked around. Thoma had removed the typical art that hung in the guest rooms, no doubt expecting him to have something to put on the walls and overestimating his tastes. He had one singular thing – the bow Lumine had gifted him – and while he hated to leave it off his person, the walls made him want to walk off a cliff. 

He comforted himself by promising that the bow would come with him whenever he left the house. He traced along the silvery limbs studded with spikes for the rare occasion that someone got within smacking distance, relaxing with the weight in his hands. He preferred to practice with lower quality weaponry, all the better to master his own skills, but gods knew what Lumine had to do to get this. It was his second most valuable gift after his Delusion. 

With some reluctance he stepped back and admired the weapon on the wall, then looked around at the rest of the empty room. The emptiness reared up, striking him in the stomach and forcing him to sit on the floor while his throat closed and mist clouded his eyes.  

He’d never sleep in his childhood room again.

Childe gasped in pain. He fumbled behind himself to make sure the door was closed. Without Anthon and Teucer and Tonia filling the space, he realized that he’d left… everything. He was so busy getting the kids’ things that he just didn’t think to pack his own. His first fishing rod, the one his dad made for him, was still in his closet. The kitchen cleaver he’d clutched when he fell into the Abyss was still in the block next to the sink back at the house. 

He’d always had home to come back to every time he got sent on deployment or left for travel. His parents would wait for him, greeting him at the door with wary hugs and strained smiles. Even when they looked at him with something bordering on horror, they always made sure he had a bed and a warm meal to look forward to. They’d only ever wanted him to be happy.

Now he sat on the floor of a foreign power’s guest room with a gift from an alien being the only thing of his besides the clothes on his back. Disappointing them again . 

What even happened to the house? Their mom had willed it to his oldest brother, but they all used it and Childe paid the bills for it. Would Regrator actually pay out his life insurance to them? What would his older sister Natasha do with his things? Did she care? Would she give them to her kids? 

He hoped so. He’d never see his nieces and nephews grow up and it was comforting to think that he’d be in their lives in some way

He squeezed his eyes shut and curled over his straining chest, muffling himself in his knees and pulling at his bangs to ground himself. He wouldn’t get to watch them grow up anyway. Natasha was, rightfully, afraid of him and wouldn’t let him near the family she’d worked so hard to separate. Dead or a Harbinger, he never would’ve been an uncle. He could only be a brother from here on out. 

…If the kids would let him. They didn’t need him to stay in their room and fight off the thunder. They seemed much more interested in their hosts than spending time with him. 

He looked up to where the bow hung on the wall. It loomed above: Adventure. Glory. Everything he’d killed himself and sacrificed his family for. His arm throbbed. 

…Why didn’t he leave the kids with someone that knew what they were doing?

Chapter Text

His favorite shirt was ruined. 

After a good twenty minutes staring at the wall with its singular piece of art like a lifeline from heaven and the anchor weighing him down, the jitters got to be too much. Childe had wadded up his laundry and hurried to the washroom where he now held his red buttonup to the light. 

His mother had taught him how to sew – no son of hers would grow up useless – but the foot-long gouge cut out of the back of it was beyond his abilities to patch. Blood and fetid water stained it brown. He threw away one of his few sentimental items and got to washing the rest of his clothes with his mind as blank as he could manage. 

Laundry was like fishing, which led him to thoughts of combat. He twisted his clothes mechanically in his hands while flushing hydro through the fibers, his vision fuzzing while his mind went elsewhere. 

Lumine was the last person he sparred with, by far the most dangerous opponent he’d ever faced. She fought with overwhelming power and speed, and it worked against him because normally he was the one in somebody’s face. Nobody ever expected the baby-faced, freckled young man to cross the distance and take their legs out before they could blink. 

He wondered if that Fatuus would ever walk again.

Childe grit his teeth and wrung the last of the moisture from the shirt he was on and moved to a pair of pants. They reeked of gunpowder. 

Attacking Lumine from the front was suicide. She left her back open, no doubt expecting her brother to fill in the gaps, but it did little good unless you could get to her back. Even if you managed it, she would just bite a chunk out of your arm for trying to choke her.

Childe slammed his head against the sink. He willed his mind to shut up while he hurried through his laundry, focusing on the cool porcelain against his forehead and the dull ache in his skull. He’d go check on the Fatui again tomorrow, maybe take a walk. He just had to make it until tomorrow. 

He felt like he was lurking around back in his Fatui days with the way he scurried from the washroom to the guest room, praying nobody would see him and prepared to straighten into a relaxed posture if they did. Thankfully his prayers were answered. He slipped into the dark and shut the door behind him, breathing a heavy sigh as he did. 

…He didn’t have a dresser. 

Childe grumbled to himself and fussed over the best way to arrange his clothes on the floor for the night, decided he could not handle one more inconvenience, laid them out so they wouldn’t get wrinkled and flopped down into his bedroll. He was in the middle of ripping his nightshirt over his shoulders when he heard heavy footfalls approaching the door. 

Three light knocks rang out. He didn’t bother pulling his shirt back on. “It’s open.”

Lumine appeared in the door crack, the hall lanterns haloing her in burning gold. “Hey bud.”

“Hey,” he croaked, not bothering to sound more enthused than he was. He was happy to see her, but he didn’t have the energy to be upbeat about it and she never demanded that he fake it. 

Her fingers curled around the edge of the door. In the dark, her eyes glittered a little too bright. Some small, animal part of him shuddered but the rest of him lurched towards the alien glint. 

“Can I come in?”

Childe leaned back and patted the floor next to him, thought better of it, then scooted onto the floor and patted his bedroll. Lumine shut the door behind herself and collapsed with billowing skirts, bringing the smell of burning ozone with her. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine,” he only half lied. The emotions swirling through his head had settled into a numb buzz, each one indistinct and unable to hurt. “And you?”

She just hummed and bumped against his bare shoulder. Her gaze drifted towards the floor, following their joint shadow up to his injured hand. His deadened senses lit up when she brushed her fingers against his palm, interlaced them with his, then gently manipulated his arm to get a better look at his wound. “That looks bad.”

“I’m just letting it breathe,” he whispered. The darkness around them pressed in, shushing both of their voices. “I’ll cover it up before I go out tomorrow.”

“Hiding it won’t make it heal faster.” 

“I don’t want the kids to see.” 

Her skin was so warm. He’d always thought the stars must be cold up in heaven, but she burned like a rock in the afternoon sun. 

She brought her other hand to trace the inflamed skin around the bite, narrowing her eyes and pouting slightly. He felt… a slight tingle? Maybe? “What are you doing?”

She ignored him for a moment, then sighed heavily and leaned back. “If that Bitch hadn’t sealed me, I could probably heal you.” 

Childe frowned and made a questioning sound. 

“When Aether – my brother – and I first came to Teyvat, we were answering a cry for help. That Bitch was waiting for us. She grabbed Aether first, then put me to sleep for five hundred years.” Lumine put her hand to her chest. The prismatic glow flickered through a few colors, burning white for a brief moment before settling back into a dull purple. A grief deeper than seemed reasonable pulsed in time with the glow. “She was incredibly powerful. Even more than us.” 

“Who was she? Can I help you kill her?”

Lumine shook her head. “I’m willing to bet she’s in charge of Celestia, but I don’t know anything for certain. It seems like they just nuke anything that comes close to challenging them, so it’s hard to get information.” 

A pit of longing opened in his stomach for the Tsaritsa’s rebellion. A gentle touch pulled him from the void before he fell in. Lumine was absently trailing her finger around the edges of his wound, her eyes heavy lidded, lost in her own darkness. 

“Are you alright?”

She looked up, startled, her eyes too bright. “Hm? Oh, yeah. I’m fine.” 

He pulled his arm away and hooked it around her waist, keeping her from running. “What is it? You can tell me.” 

She chuckled sadly and shook her head. “You’ve got enough going on without my silly drama on top of it. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”

“Lumine, please. If even you stop needing me, I think I’m going to go insane.” 

He’d tried to say it casually, funny, but he cringed inwardly at how desperate he sounded. Silence stretched between them while Lumine’s eyes flicked towards the door, her irises capturing the faint light and compounding it. Eventually, she bit her lip. “I’ve just been thinking…”

“About?”

“About… you,” she said haltingly. “And the Fatui. And… Aether…”

She took a shaky breath, in sharp contrast to her steadfast stare at the door, her shoulders set. Hugging her was like hugging a statue, as hard and brittle as stone. Childe decided that, if someone walked through that door to interrupt them, he’d just have to kill them. 

She eventually whispered, “Five hundred years is a long time.” 

Childe rubbed her shoulder with his thumb, trying to coax words from the unyielding surface. “Yes, but isn’t that nothing for your kind?” 

“Time moves the same for us as it does for you. We just have longer to think about it.” 

“That’s not what Zhongli says,” Childe said, trying to turn bitterness to levity. 

“Zhongli’s full of shit.” 

He smiled despite himself. She swallowed hard and finally turned to look at him. Her expression killed the growing humor.

“Ajax, I think my brother is dead.”

He flinched forward at the wetness there, barely restraining the urge to wipe at her cheek. He settled on taking her hand in his instead. “What? Why? You just saw him.”

“That wasn’t the person I grew up with.”

Her breath hitched. “We were… together ever since we were conscious. Before that, even. We almost killed each other so many times before we figured out what we were, before we figured out that the universe was so much less scary with someone at your side. He was the nice one. He–”

She took a moment to squeeze her eyes shut. A tremble ran through her shoulders from how hard she was trying not to cry. He wished he was half as good at it. “Aether doesn’t do well alone,” she wheezed. “I mean, I don’t either, but I just get angry about it. He gets… sad. And when he gets sad he gets clingy, and he can cling to the wrong people, and he was alone with gods know who for five hundred years .”

She curled forward. “She should’ve taken me instead. I could handle it better. Aether was the one that did the, the people thing. I’m the mean one that was only ever good at killing shit.”  

“That’s not true,” he soothed and rubbed her shoulder. “Everyone loves you. You have so many friends.”

“I have so many people I’ve done favors for because I have nothing better to do!” she snapped. 

She turned a burning, wet glare at him and Childe felt… happy – the first bubble of pride since coming to this damn country. She was still glaring, waiting for a challenge, and he just squeezed her hand. 

Lumine looked away as she simmered down and leaned into his arm, resuming her story in a whisper. “I just… I can’t even imagine what it was like for him. He must’ve thought I died and he was stuck here with his wings clipped and– I think it broke him.”

He wanted to comfort, but he didn’t know anything about her brother – certainly not more than she did. He rested his chin on her head instead. “Well…if it took five hundred years to break him, maybe it’ll take a thousand to put him back together. You have that, right?”

“I don’t know if this is fixable,” she said in a voice so small. 

Childe started rocking out of habit and she moved with him, tiny motions that made the room feel less suffocating, less like they were drowning in their pain. He wouldn’t tell her that her fears were unfounded. He’d killed Ajax with his own two hands and no amount of his parents’ pleading or kindness or revulsion would bring their son back. Her brother had probably been through worse. 

Lumine was quiet for a long while, long enough that he started to wonder whether the conversation was over or even if she had dozed off, but eventually she spoke in a chilling monotone. “I might have to put my brother down like you did with the Fatui. If that happens, please watch Paimon for me.” 

“No.”

He even surprised himself with how fast he blurted it out. Lumine winced, half a sob forcing itself out of her chest before she choked it down. “Ajax, plea–”

He interrupted her by grabbing her by both shoulders and forcing her to look at him. “I’m not going to watch Paimon for you because you are not going to kill your brother. We are going to drag him out of the Abyss and fix him by whatever means necessary. I don’t care how long it takes or who gets hurt along the way. You helped my family. I’m not leaving yours behind.” 

“But you… you need to stay and watch your siblings,” she said. 

“I’ll figure something out,” he insisted, giving her a little shake. “You’re not killing your brother and if, if I’m wrong, you won’t do it alone.” 

Her eyes widened. He was painfully aware of how fucking insane he looked: his hair a mess, poorly-healed injuries waiting for a chance to ooze again, leaning forward with the intensity that had people cowering – his family recoiling.

Truthfully he was terrified about the kids, but they’d be okay for a few days when she called him to her side. Whenever she needed him.  They’d clearly gotten used to his absence before. 

Just like Childe didn’t flinch away from her furious glare, Lumine didn’t pull away from his insane conviction. Instead she met him with the closest to hope he’d ever seen in her eyes. 

Now she grabbed his shoulders, their arms bumping together. It was so rare for her to not look confident. “Do you really mean that?”

“I promise.” 

She stared into his eyes until, for once, she broke first. Watching her face crumple was like watching a riverbank collapse. Tears welled up and her mouth opened wordlessly until she jerked down to hide her face in her hands, her shoulders wracked with silent tremors. Childe wrapped her in a hug. She didn’t hug him back, but she didn’t have to, just like he didn’t have to smile for her. 

“I promise,” he repeated. He tried to hug her so tightly that she didn’t have room to shiver anymore, rocking her in wider arcs while stroking her hair. 

“I promise.”

Chapter Text

Childe woke better rested than he ever had since coming to Inazuma. 

Really, it was better than he’d slept in years – almost as good as sleeping in his own bed off deployment, back when his parents were around. He allowed himself a moment to lay confused by the lack of fatigue or leftover adrenaline from whatever nightmare he forgot about. Not one to pass up the rare chance to recover, he went to stretch. 

His left hand hit flesh, which startled him, but not enough for him to wake Lumine. 

He cautiously sat up. He hung one third on, two thirds off the bedroll. Lumine had tucked to his side but not tangled around him, which made it easy to gently extract himself and sit up. 

Childe scratched the stubble sprouting from his jaw, judging from the sound that it was time to shave. Overcast light filtered through the window, the sound of wind creaking through the eaves. It was louder than Lumine’s gentle snoring. 

[insert outline:]

He’s getting dressed and hears a wolf whistle behind him. Turns and looks. Lumine with sleepy eyes, cheek pillowed on her forearm. “Hello handsome.” 

He’d changed in front of so many people before that he forgot sometimes people liked to watch. Heat in his cheeks as he turned his back back to her and kept getting dressed. Slowly. “Good morning.”

Sleepy quiet. Lumine made a cute yawn and rubbed at her face. “Ugh. Sorry about last night. But, uh, thanks. For talking to me.” 

“You apologize a lot for no reason,” he replied. 

She says something about burdening him. 

“Listening to your thing doesn’t take away from mine.” 

Sad look down. She picked at a piece of the floor with a nail. “I need to get back on the road soon”

Heart sank. 

She asks if he wants to do something fun before she goes. He says he needs to check on the Fatui, even if it was a promise he only made to himself. 

Want me to go with you? 

He agrees, at least to let her walk him. Gets dressed, recoiling from his boots. He’d have to get a new pair while these… aired. Wasn’t sure if there was enough baking soda and vinegar in the world to fix that. 

Pulled his bow off the wall. Felt Lumine watching him, but she didn’t say anything. 

Snuck out after saying good mornings and byes to everyone. 

They went to the jail without incident. Lumine opted to wait outside, citing that assaulting prisoners for being mean to him would be a bad look. Oddly comforted by it. 

It went about as well as he expected. Only got spit on twice. Comforted seeing that they weren’t being abused. 

Going on a walk in the countryside after. Wind picking up, electricity in the air. He was itching for a fight, anything to distract himself. Lumine pointed at an acceptable target with the command of ‘Fun,’ and they descended. Sent bandits running away to build a camp away from the main road. 

He so rarely got to fight by her side. Wanted to do it forever. 

Normally fighting was an opportunity to turn his mind down and exist in his body. The only times he was ever in touch with his body: when he was in pain, when he had a surge of adrenaline, or the rare times Lumine’s hand brushed his. 

Squashed the feeling. Surprised when he caught Lumien smiling at him. “What?”

“You kept that,” she said and pointed at his bow.

“Of course. It was a gift from my best friend.”

Blinked. Sad head tilt. “...I’m your best friend?”

Affirmative. Why wouldn’t you be?

She looked off and chewed on her lip. “You’re my friend, too. I hope you know that.” 

“I do.”

“When I said last night that I help people because I don’t have anything better to do. You’re not part of that.”

…He hadn’t even consciously considered that, but the affirmation still got him weak. More emotions than he wanted to deal with right now, so he cleared his throat and coughed into his fist as the first rains came down. Wetting his hair. Running first warm, then cold down his back. “Thanks.”

Lumine titled her head back to the rain. Shock of white in the perpetual gray. “We should head back.”

-

By the time they returned, the sprinkle had turned to a roaring downpour. He led the way, boots slipping in the mud that used to be the road. His scarf flapping in the gale, whipping around to smack him in the face a few times. Had to shout to be heard over the rain. 

Or, Lumine leads. Watching her dress and scarf flapping in the gale. One of the feathers from her hair flew free and he snatched it out of the air before it was lost to the storm. She’d lost enough. 

His boots slipping in the mud. She took a sudden left, barely audible “Follow me!” 

Came up on the cliff overlooking the estate. Lumine held her hand out for him to take and jumped. 

Blindly took it. Moment of regret watching the ground rush up. This was going to hurt. 

Just before his ankles took the worst of the impact, jerked in his shoulders. Wind glider deployed at the last second so they weren’t swept away by the wind. Thunder rumbled. Scurried into the estate just as the first lightning struck. 

Childe’s hair on end. Looked over at Lumine. She looked pale

• Kids are upset. Two skid into the lobby sopping wet. Thoma tuts and brings them towels. 
• Nobody besides the kids seem alarmed even as thunder shook the foundation 
• “What is happening!?” Childe demanded. He’d seen storms before, sure, in the Abyss. Heaven itself had opened up. 
• Ayato insists on taking the kids outside. Less scary seeing it happen. 
• Childe tucked around Teucer. Noticed Lumine looking equally awestruck and ill. 
• Big strike
• He throws himself in front of Teucer, but it was unnecessary 
• Lightning striking the sand garden produced thunderglass: towering statue of 

Everyone in awe over the thunderglass. Kids getting more confident. Moved away from him. 

Thoma bringing his asters out for the storm. 

NO, THE KIDS HAND OUT WITH AYAKA AND AYATO. Him and Lumine standing there shuddering with the lightning while the kids seemed fine. 

Ayato dadding out a bit. 

Curious look. Wasn’t sure how he liked Ayatos’ hand on Anthon’s shoulder, Teucer peeking out from behind his legs. The soothing words that should come from him, instead. 

But they were natives. They weren’t afraid of the lightning, and Childe was terrified of it. 

Childe put himself on the terrace, determined to face his fears the way he always did, but even he knew he looked like an act. Already embarrassed himself. 

• He couldn’t find it in himself to relax no matter what they said. His Delusion gnawing at the back of his mind, frantic with its bastard/noble sibling so close. Quick look at Lumine suggested a similar distress. 
• Frantic with the reminder of its bastard status in the face of real lightning.

Eventually the kids and locals went inside, bored. Left Lumine and Childe standing outside. 

Quiet talks. 

LIGHTNING

Inspired by actual lightning that just happened

So I was alarmingly close to a lightning strike when I drafted this lmao

• Real lightning so much more powerful than the bastardization he used
• A blinding flash. His mind faster than his body, the rush of terror and the knowledge he couldn’t do anything. Awareness of his own helplessness
• All hair stood on end 
• A physical force passing through his body, the compression of the air from the energy slamming through it. Concussive blast
• An initial boom that made his heart twitch. He was moving to put himself between the blast and Teucer before his mind caught up
• Blinked the spots from his vision to hear screaming
• No, cheering
• Ayaka clapping her hands together and Ayato looking the closest to elated he’d ever seen - which was to say, the tiniest sliver of teeth in his smile.
• Kids shrieked and hid behind the adults. Lumine was even faster than him. Hadn’t armed herself, but did stand between them and the tower of molten glass currently cooling in the sand garden

Lumine leaves that night. He wants to join her desperately. Hangs back instead. Watches her vanish into the night. 

The next day stormed as well. Unofficial holidays so he stayed inside. 

Next day clear, but they talked him into staying home one more day. Felt compelled to spend any time not with Lumine with the kids, like it would make up for his secret thoughts. The thing with the fish. Old lady scolds Teucer for screaming. Ayato comes out and talks Teucer down. 

Frustrated in his bed afterwards. Hadn’t had an opportunity to spar and their little bandit fight had only reopened an itch. Bloodthirst. Thinking about lumine. 

Tried to stop thinking about lumine. 

Failed and resigned himself to being miserable for a bit

Chapter Text

Alrighty, we're at the point that trying to polish up the outline would be more trouble than it's worth. Here's everything I'd outlined from start to finish. Fair warning for stuff ranging from clumsy to offensive, which is why it. yk. didn't get published normally as;ldj

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V-8qFtk3gyvThlc8xDPIGezEhq3xfH5kKV88U_Pw8bE/edit?usp=sharing

The main thing I wanted to do with this story is show that Childe is not meant to be a stay at home dad and that it's bad for both him and the kids. Ultimately, the kids end up assimilating into the Kamisato family. Ayato has zero interest in ever marrying and Ayaka shouldn't HAVE to carry on the clan, so adopting the kids is the most beneficial option for everyone involved. The kids have already started looking to the Kamisatos as parental figures more than they ever did Childe, on account of how many times he's left before. It's the best he can do. It's not even willing. He WANTS to be a good brother but the damage has been done. The best thing he can and HAS done is given them the best shot he can. 

But yeah ultimately my understanding of Childe's character has changed so dramatically since I started writing this that I just don't want to continue. I do think I was right that he would go insane being the sole caretaker of his younger siblings, but I would rewrite quite literally everything else - his involvement in the Fatui, his morals, etc. This is a different man. 

Anyway lesson learned. If you wanna write a story about the complications of parenthood being thrust onto someone completely and utterly unequipped to handle it and the resentments of the kids, just. write an original story from the start lmao