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What cruel irony, she has an heir to Khaenri'ahn legacy in her home, in her bed, even, and yet he knows no more than she does. Or perhaps doesn't want to admit to what he knows.
"Can you show me Foul Legacy sometime?" Lumine asks Childe one day when they both happen to be in the teapot. "Not in battle, just to observe. I'm not a scholar but maybe I will still learn something."
There's a pause.
"I guess there's no harm in that," he says slowly.
Another pause.
"Now?"
"What, here?" she didn't expect it to be this easy.
Childe shrugs.
"There's enough space. Unless you want to spar." There's a bit too much eagerness his voice.
"No, no. Here is fine," Lumine hurries to correct herself.
He raises from the chair sprightly, already standing in the middle of the room the next moment. He's looking at the floor past her and it suddenly feels almost... awkward. Oddly intimate. Almost like she asked him to take his clothes off.
Perhaps showing your best weapon to a rival is far more intimate than undressing.
"I can look away if you want..."
Childe huffs.
"You wanted to study it, didn't you."
He sighs and then grins boyishly, moving his mask from the side of his head.
Hair on the back of Lumine's neck stand up from familiar abyssal energy. She knows the sequence. Limbs then the rest. She hears Childe's pained groan as water and little thunderbolts wrap around his arms. Lumine closes her eyes and focuses on elemental vision instead.
It's like watching a storm ravage through flowering trees. There's flickering of colour, a flurry of black and bright spots and surprisingly little behind it. No solid shapes, what she sees is closer to smoke carried away by the wind or a drop of ink dissolving in water.
When she parts her eyelids her gaze is met by a single unblinking blue eye.
"Come here," Lumine urges softly. She doesn't know why she expected him to float but he slowly walks over instead and he is graceful in a way Childe is not.
"You are too tall," she complains and without a word he lowers himself on one knee.
A polite beast. Very well then.
Lumine can reach almost the same height if she stands on the armchair, which she does. She extends her hands towards him but pauses.
"Can I touch you?"
"Go on." Deep voice is distorted by the mask, but the amused tone is undoubtedly his.
She slides her fingertips across the breastplate. Feels like ceramics more than metal. It isn't cold. She puts her hands on his shoulders cautiously and squeezes her eyes shut again.
Elemental vision says there's a big space of nothing in front of her. Nothingness even. Darkness, deeper than that of the Primordial Sea. By all accounts he shouldn't exist.
She opens her eyes to check if he's still there and the blue eye still staring at her feels almost reassuring.
She leans forward, resting her cheek on the smooth breastplate. With magical things physical proximity sometimes helps.
That darkness is cold, she realises. But not completely devoid of elemental traces, they flicker in and out, like lights dancing through the fog on a misty night. In a way, the shape of them resembles the man she knows.
Metal claws on her back interrupt her observations. She almost yelps in protest.
"You're distracting!"
Deep rumbling laughter resonates under her cheek.
"I'm bored."
"A little more," she asks, wrapping her arms around him. It feels like he would pull away, like a cat resisting being cuddled, but then he chuckles and falls still.
He's breathing, she understands belatedly, in a rhythm she knows well, that of his human self.
Her hands trail down absentmindedly, some parts of the armour are softer, closer to leather perhaps. Good points to aim in a fight, she thinks, then goes back to observing.
It's the same elemental flicker in the darkness, nothing new.
One thing she understands at this point is that it's him, on some deeper level. Not possession, not something alien to his body.
Or perhaps he made it his. She wonders how much of what she sees is the art taught to him and how much he weaved from his own dreams. A better version of himself, stronger, more fierce.
His scent is still his too, in part at least. There's also the ozone note she catches after spars sometimes and something else, dark and dirty, more alien than unpleasant
Lumine notices his jaw not hidden by the mask, coal-black skin almost seems like part of the armour. She presses a kiss to it and is rewarded by a slight shudder.
It's nice to know she too can startle him.
He leans his head to the side a bit and she presses her lips to his neck next, listening to his pulse. She isn't sure he'd let her if she asked but maybe it's fine if disguised as a kiss.
He's warm, almost feverish, despite how cold the magic in him feels. His pulse is slow and steady, nothing like frantic human heartbeat.
For now he simply allows her to do as she pleases, not moving. It's almost sweet.
Lumine hasn't learned much but she can't fathom what else to do.
"You can go back now," she whispers.
She doesn't quite capture the moment when he changes back, it's all a little fuzzy and then she sinks on her knees under his weight, the man in her arms is a normal human man again and it feels like he has always been.
He leans on her, breathing heavily.
"You're weird, comrade," he murmurs into her shoulder.
"How so?" She strokes his hair
"The way you fondle something like this."
"As if you wouldn't fondle something like this, given the chance."
"Probably not," he laughs.
She moves to the side, nudging Childe to sit and landing on his lap. They stay in silence for a while, Lumine embracing him, unsure what to say.
"Did you like that side of me more?" he asks suddenly, a teasing note in his voice.
"No. But it's you."
He scoffs.
"How are you feeling?" she asks quietly.
"Please. It was less than a minute."
Not a lot more than a minute at least.
"Just so you know." Childe leans to kiss her neck. "If you ever want to suggest an improper use of my transformation, I'm very much up for it."
She wonders if she really heard what she thinks she just heard.
"You're impossible."
"So I'm told."
Lumine can feel him smiling against her skin.
"The offer still stands."