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Despite all the rumors and whispers surrounding him, Childe was perhaps one of the most fitting candidates to bear the title of Harbinger. After all, he was a weapon. And weapons did not need emotions.
Love was fickle. Love was cruel. Love was something that could be taken away without warning, leaving nothing behind but weakness and regret. His family had shown him that much. Attachments only created things that could be lost.
So when the Tsaritsa offered him a place among the Harbingers, it felt like the greatest reward he could have ever received. A purpose, a cause, a way to bury all those useless emotions beneath something greater. To devote himself entirely to the nation and become something that could never be broken by something as fragile as love.
But perhaps that was his only flaw. A weapon could still break.
݁ .‧₊⋆.٠༺✶༻٠.⋆₊‧. ݁
"Every drop of blood coursing through my veins belongs to the Tsaritsa." Childe's voice didn't waver as he drew a clean line between them, a boundary neither of them dared to cross.
"We cannot rewrite our own origins, we cannot change what we are born with," he continued, his stance rigid, though the muscles in his jaw betrayed him. "Your blood carries divinity. An undeniable truth that you are an Archon. That is a fact as immutable as the stone beneath our feet." His gaze flickered, softening for the briefest of seconds before hardening into something resembling grief. "It is the same as my own allegiance. I am hers, body and soul."
Zhongli's breath hitched, the sound swallowed by the heavy silence that followed. Those words those devastating words carried a weight far greater than Childe likely intended, pressing against Zhongli's chest like the crushing depths of the ocean floor.
Before Zhongli could gather the fragments of his composure to respond, before he could offer some measured argument or a confession. Childe cut through the tension like a blade. "Are you aware of who I am?"
The question hung suspended in the air, leaving Zhongli momentarily paralyzed. Mine, his traitorous mind whispered, the answer rising to his lips before reason could intervene. But it would have been a lie not because the sentiment lacked truth, but because Childe had never truly belonged to anyone. He was a creature of singular purpose, bound to the ideals he had chosen to wield as both armor and weapon.
"Tartaglia," Zhongli finally answered, his voice rougher than intended, stripped of its usual steadiness. "Eleventh of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers."
Childe tilted his head, his gaze sharp enough to draw blood from Zhongli's heart. "And what role does that entail?"
Zhongli hesitated, the words feeling like ash in his mouth. "The Tsaritsa's weapon of war."
A laugh escaped Childe a cruel, jagged sound that tore through the heavy night air. Yet, in some twisted alchemy of the heart, it remained the most beautiful melody Zhongli had ever heard.
"So why pretend, Morax?" Childe's eyes locked onto his, pupils blown wide. "I solely belong to the Tsaritsa." The admission was soft, almost reverent, but it cut deeper than any blade. "To love you is to betray my Archon. And I would embrace death before I live with the stain of such betrayal."
Something cracks within Zhongli, a sound more devastating than any shifting tectonic plate. "What does she possess that I lack?" His voice carries the weight of centuries, desperate and uncharacteristically fractured. "The Tsaritsa has abandoned her love to her people, how could she possibly offer you the tenderness you deserve? How could she love you better than I do?"
"She can't," Childe answers immediately, the words clipped and hollow.
"Then why?" Zhongli presses, stepping into Childe's space, his eyes burning with a desperate intensity.
"Because she sees me," Childe whispers, looking everywhere but at the god before him. "She sees all of me."
"And I do not?" The question hangs between them.
"I don't let you." Childe's mummers refusing to face the Adepti.
Zhongli's composure shatters. "You are so much more than the instrument she wields. You are not some weapon to be sharpened and discarded, Childe." His voice drops to a dangerous, guttural hiss. "I see you more clearly than you dare to see yourself."
Childe finally meets his gaze, a sad smile touching his lips. "She sees me as I wish to be seen as something useful, something simple. I like being used, it means I have a purpose"
"This is why I cannot stay." The smile widens fractionally, though it holds no joy. "You deserve a love and I cannot give you that."
"I don't want love," Zhongli counters, his voice cracking, "unless its from the one who showed me what it was"
Zhongli lets out a laugh that sounds suspiciously like a sob. "So this is how it ends?"
Childe's eyes soften, glistening with unshed tears. "Maybe in another life." A pause "Maybe in another life, you would simply be Rex Lapis, and I would simply be Ajax."
݁ .‧₊⋆.٠༺✶༻٠.⋆₊‧. ݁
Childe stared silently at the flowing water before him, watching the ripples distort his reflection. The face staring back looked no different from usual. Yet he knew better. How pathetic. A Harbinger hiding away and drowning in his own self-pity. He should have been stronger than this. He should have been above such things.
A small cryo slime bounces toward Childe with childlike curiosity, its movements unthreatening as it plops onto his lap. He cradles the gelatinous creature in his palm, but even through the thick fabric of his gloves, an invasive, biting chill seeps into his flesh. He finds himself locked in a silent stare with the creature two sets of eyes meeting, one pair glassy and vacant, the other bright with something far more dangerous. The numbness spreading through his hands should frighten him, but he welcomes the sting— it feels like home.
"Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned," he murmurs, his voice cracking. Without warning, his grip tightens. He squishes the creature between his fingers, watching with detached fascination as its translucent face distorts under the pressure. Then comes the wet, satisfying pop as it explodes, leaving his gloves slick with frigid, slimy remains.
Before he can savor the silence, the mother slime appears, hopping closer with that same innocent gait. It doesn't attack, it simply stands there, staring up at him with those same lifeless eyes. The sight sends a jolt of revulsion through him it reminds him too much of his Master's unblinking scrutiny. With practiced, lethal efficiency, he draws his blade. The steel sings as it slices through the air, cleaving the creature in two.
A weapon has no room for sentiment, and Childe has learned long ago that mercy is a luxury he cannot afford.