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failtoplan · 4 years

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Saving Capitalism from Itself

I used to think I was an anti-capitalist. From the Rage Against the Machine posters on my bedroom wall, the Che Guevara tattoo I almost bought myself for my 21st birthday, to my continued dislike of speculative finance and its exotic instruments; the notion that our lives should be in service of the market sat uneasily with me. But I also like nice things, and have for a decade and a half have made a career out of playing games with value and culture in the marketing services industry; so I have always wrestled with dissonance.

But it’s this dissonance that is at the heart of what makes us human, and what has made humans so successful. We possess both the urge to compete and to co-opt. Both of them were – are - vital to our success. It’s why despite the obvious bloody brutality and aching banality of warfare, there is still a certain glamour that comes with the whiff of cordite and cold steel. It’s why we still venerate and decorate our war heroes. It’s also why self-sacrifice is as often praised as victory. Its almost certainly why the most lucrative sports; those most watched, most written about, most fervently followed are team sports that combine both belonging and rivalry. Despite respectable audiences, its why there will never be any golf riots or tennis ‘Ultras’. It’s why the Olympics is the one time when individual sports are most likely to spark the collective imagination; when they are in the context of an ‘us’. Cooperation within competition.

In its most elemental form, capitalism is simply ‘the market’. The market is both competition and co-operation. As soon as humanity moved beyond basic subsistence, it was this mechanism of exchange that allowed fair co-operation and fair competition when it came to things; assets, resources, time. This meant division of labour, exchangeable surpluses, efforts that could be re-deployed elsewhere; in language, in literature, in philosophy and religion and the stories that allowed us to progress along our zig-zagging but ultimately upward trajectory.

But markets have never been without rules, because they were always defined by and designed for, specific socio-political goals. There are countless examples. The guilds of the mercantile age aiming to keep limits on certain professions, medieval zoning keeping theatres and brothels out of the City of London, tariffs to tilt the tables for key industries at countless points in the history of trade; consumer protection, regulations and child labour laws; they have all been part of the ongoing negotiation of the ‘moral limits of markets’. And these have always shifted, based on our times. I mean, we used to trade humans – including I would presume some of my forebears - until we decided that was ‘not cool’. The proscribed footprint of the market and its rules of engagement have constantly evolved to meet the needs of societies that they served.

This is why ‘Capitalism’ - with a capital C - is so problematic in the 21st Century. In its purest, Marxist, sense it is incredibly useful to understand the industrial capitalism of the 19th Century; Marx was always a better historian and analyst than theorist; As a framework for understanding a period of time when the mass populace was seen primarily as a labour force it is invaluable, but does it work if we project it backwards into pre-industrial mercantile capitalism of the 16th, or forward into the 20th Century’s consumption-driven society, where we the people were primarily seen as drivers of demand? The Market – capitalism – evolves according to the society which it serves.

The problem I had – have – is with the Neoliberal Capitalism that I grew up under, the only capitalism I have personally know; the one where we are all incentivised to be mini ‘Capitalists’, privileging competition over co-operation, in order to serve the market itself. The reason why the market, why capitalism, has become so unappealing for so many now is because this neoliberal market lacks any idealogical prefix. For better or for worse – and in the big scheme of things it has ultimately been for better – the market had always been a means serving a society’s ends, but now the market is now the ends and our socio-political lives are the means.

Without understanding the fundamental role that the market, in its most elemental sense serves; to mediate between our urge to compete and our need to co-operate, it has been allowed to run amok. Neoliberal Capitalism is placing brick on the accelerator and then jumping out of the car. The market is a tool and we are responsible as a society, as a polity for how it is used. There is no such thing as a ‘Capitalist Society’.

No wonder we are rebelling in all directions. In the face of increasing wealth and decreasing worth, empty economic growth and chasmic inequality we turn wherever we can see an alternative. Nationalism, nativism, economic Luddism. Orban, Corbyn, Bolsanaro. They all diagnose the problem. And more frighteningly, for those of us of the left, all of us who could loosely be termed progressives the Right may be closer to getting it right when it comes to providing a direction and a solution. Illiberal Capitalism at least begins to provide a purpose for the market, a direction. It makes the market once again the means to an ends. It’s just that this ends leads towards the border wall and the purge, the lynching, the internment camp, perhaps war. But it may succeed because is is a vision for shaping the market, not simply the desire to burn it down.

The issue with anti-capitalism in the 21st century is that it is fighting the previous war. The classic Marxist rhetoric is designed for overthrowing industrial capitalist world that no longer exists. The sentiment is admirable, but times have changed.

But there are similarities. Much like industrial capitalism was for the few, neoliberal capitalism has been for even fewer. Current upheavals may well represent its death spasm. It can’t come soon enough. We are in a time of flux, but we must not mistake the gross unfairness of this version of capitalism with a fundamental flaw with the market itself. This is the time to radically reimagine what the purpose of the market itself is. What are the rules of engagement? What are the behaviours we want to incentivise? Changing the world to be as we would wish it is Judo, not boxing; we must work with natural momentum not against it, we must work with the seemingly contradictory angels of our nature. And this does not mean I believe there is not a role for the state. But where we allow competition and where we do not should be decided with an eye firmly fixed on the future. Many experiments in privatisation have not worked because the incentives have been wrong. Railways and utilities should probably be renationalised, so they can be greened and subsidised with road charging nationwide; we subsidise the internal combustion engine by building highways, yet we privatise clean mass transit. A carbon tax on every item bought that reflects its true cost to the planet. Monetary policy that targets the Gini coefficient rather than GDP growth. I am not a policymaker, but these are the places I would start.

The path to this Damascene moment has been a long one for me. I am not against Capitalism. I am against this Capitalism.

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sasorikigai · 5 years

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@pxlariis continued from here (x)

🔥|| Instead of the harshness of the rushing teeth and virulence in a heartbeat, Hanzo’s chasing darkness on his own, as the coursing strands of poison butts its rearing, ugly ovipositor against his own cleansing, pristine hellfire, attacking every swelling larvae inside the protective shells. In time, in space, in matter and in thought, within the chasmic hole of his guardedness, Hanzo remains pendulous, not quite yet pulled into the irreversible gravity of blinding terrestrial light. How it reminds him of the slow fire, engulfing his bones and flesh; the world swimming away from him for long moment as he holds himself in his arms if his viscera was spilling, rupturing in front of him in cradling motion. He bows his head and screams as a sickening warmth grows behind his eyes. Tears staining over the thick, slick perspiration beneath his layered garment.

Hanzo knew his past would be his undoing; for blind rage overcame towards his past-self for his wrongdoing, then towards himself in amazement or stupidity. He already made a death wish, left a string of dying words to him in what was to be the last fateful moment with him finally slipping away. Now, fire stains the obfuscating miasma of midnight darkness and blood spills onto the horizon, then onto the ground as the deposited poison and egg crumbles like balled paper in his fist, then explodes, drenching and coating him with his own blood and unnatural green of the kytinn larvae. He feels nothing; no pain, no struggle as limbs fall naturally, stumbling before falling to his knees again for the second time, and nothing as the deceptive vile creature like D’Vorah had threatened to bring an end to his life like a dog in the street.

“I refuse to crumble, not when I still have a given task to fulfill,” thunderous grate of his voice roars soon afterwards, and a light rain of his swollen tears spill beneath the meaningless massacre. His weary, yet sharp and attentive gaze scans the vicinity; D’Vorah would utilize every opportunity to strike him back down if he weren’t careful. “Kuai Liang, I always keenly demolished him for being too soft, not only with you, but everyone else. Thank the Elder Gods for the goodness of his heart,” his palm grounds himself, as talon-like fingers curl to grasp the dry, scalding earth, filled with carnage and the deepening scent of death that has brushed him off. His dirt-covered, but soft palm overlaps with Frost’s own as he pulls himself up with her strength. “And thank you for coming to my aid.”

His physical form endlessly bathes in the neverending light of his fire against the portent red of the Netherrealm. Perhaps this was his own grave mistake; for trusting his abilities too much, as well as his past of being the offspring of the Netherrealm itself. With both elegance and malignity in the palm of his hand, Hanzo rises once again, with slight slouch and a groan as he rolls his shoulders back. He gently pushes Frost’s arm back, as if telling her to focus on the given task with his usual one-track mind. Even in his weakened state, Hanzo would push through and persevere, for the shifting tide of the triumphant victory was closer than ever and Hanzo wanted to trudge through without wasting a second of it. “We should concern more with achieving the given task. I should be the one to convince Kharon, for I have acquainted him when I was serving as Quan Chi’s servant. You, on the other hand, can guard the house for D’Vorah’s return. Inform me when she does, for I’ll incinerate the Kytinn into pulverized ash.”

#✗ the ineffable testimony of spawned hellfire (scorpion)#✗ seeking reconciliation with his own humanity (iii)#(of course I had to reply)#(let's fucking rewrite canon)#(and MAKE IT BETTER)#pxlariis

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lauriewoodward · 3 years

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On Meditation

Breathe in deeply. Hold it. Exhale. Repeat, filling your chest deeper with each inhalation. Repeat. The practitioner recites. And I listen, trying to I follow his/her instructions. Trying to find peace in an uncertain world of chasmic divisions. Trying to find wisdom in the myriad of mistakes and false steps that have tripped my life. What set me on this path? Didn’t teaching full time give my…

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#acceptance #breakup #findingpeace #lovingyourself #meditation #relationships #risinghigher

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flauntpage · 6 years

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We’ve Devolved To Being Dopes

Just like fucking clockwork!

Just like fucking clockwork we’re back to inhabiting a world where dipshits hate the Eagles because the notion of serenity in their lives* doesn’t exist.

Angelo Cataldi:

The coach must know by now that there is nothing more important to fans than the daily updates on the health of the stars, and especially Wentz. If the media asked Pederson 10 different ways to assess the availability of the young quarterback, he owed it to the fans to answer every variation of the same question.

Instead, he lashed out on two separate occasions at perfectly legitimate inquiries, actually parroting agent Drew Rosenhaus on Sunday by snapping “Next question,” over and over to reporters who were trying to find out whether Wentz had been cleared to play. This is not the understanding coach of the first two seasons – not even close.

Over that period, I had to ask Pederson countless tough questions during his weekly visits on my show, and he handled every one with a respect for the fans that he had demonstrated throughout his entire career, both as a player, assistant and head coach. What has changed? The only obvious answer is that success may be spoiling one of the class acts in sports.

After seven months of pure adulation – including the parade, national talk-show appearances, and even a book tour – Pederson may have lost his appreciation for the passion of this city. Wentz will not play the season opener. Everybody knows that. Heck, the first opponent, Atlanta, put the report of Nick Foles starting Thursday’s game on the home page of its website.

Pederson was delusional if he thought he could keep Wentz’s status a secret for an entire week leading up to the game. If Pederson needs a reminder of how things work in Philadelphia sports, here it is: The fans always come first. The media is doing its job. Now do yours. Answer the questions.

We’re, if I’m not mistaken, still more than a day away from the Eagles kicking off their SUPER BOWL DEFENSE on a night where they’re going to raise a big fucking banner and celebrate something the team and city has never enjoyed before. They’ll probably lose. For starters, the -2 line sucks, and defending champions typically lay an egg in these emotion-filled openers– see the Fat Man’s drubbing of the Patriots last year as a recent example. But an 18-point output and season-opening loss hasn’t even happened yet and we’re already, collectively, shitting on the champs.

Make no mistake, our media has no clue how to cover sports without pandering to the lowest common denominator by fomenting fear and outrage. Cataldi is, obviously, one of the biggest offenders. But then there’s also fellow dipshit, Poop Head Marcus Hayes, whose whiny piss drivel posited that Pederson has already reached his breaking point.

The beat writers – who oh so badly want to be Woodward but would struggle to comb Bernstein’s hair (or their own, for that matter) – treat covering the Eagles like a life mission rather than the job of entertainment reporter, which is actually what every sports reporter, writer, host, pundit, blogger, and podcaster is. And while it’s commendable to have that sort of dedication to the craft, in most instances it represents a chasmic disconnect from the audience, which cares little-to-none about the intrigue surrounding the painfully obvious starting quarterback decision, out of which the local media expectedly got more than a month of mileage from. I was there on the day training camp opened and watched in AWE as more than 30 writers sat around for three hours, including a literal tent of NBC Sports personalities and pundits (I know because I was in it), watching 10-10-10 drills, just waiting to try out their new refrain on Doug Pederson: When will Carson be cleared? And then they’d all go on to write the same article, or produce the same live shot, every day, for the next 40 days. Even Jesus would’ve gotten bored with this rote monotony of sameness.

They’d remix the verse 50 times over that stretch until its beat was so familiar that you’d just turn off the radio when you heard it. As expected, they lost sight of the forest through gorgeous redwood that is the franchise quarterback, while the fan base yearned for something… better.

But no, we’re not better. This town doesn’t know how to cover a winner. Celebrate it, sure, but cover it, no. Our media appeals to its worst negative instincts and finds news ways to invent controversy where none exists. It’s all part of the big circle-jerk of sports, which is undoubtedly well chronicled in Mark Leibovich’s new book, Big Game, which shines light on NFL owners and the ecosphere of the league.** Cataldi can systematically shred Pederson over… things… and then welcome him on his radio show, on the flagship network of the team, built around the institution of the franchise itself, without even thinking twice about how disingenuous the whole charade is.

Make no mistake, I was the biggest hater of Doug Pederson prior to, oh, say, last December. But his balls grew on me, and eventually swelled to a Lombardi Trophy. He won’t be above criticism, and perhaps was a little out of line the other day, but can you blame him when faced with the same nonsense day after day?

The Eagles haven’t even started the season yet and, right on schedule, the media has already reverted to their natural state: shit-stirring. They don’t know how to be better.

*Public-facing, as even our resident chuckleheads can’t feign true outrage anymore.

**Leibovich’s book This Town, which goes deep inside Washington to dismantle the incestuous nature of the nation’s capital, is one of the best, most insightful and funny books I’ve read. His ability to cut to the heart of absurd characters is unmatched, and he undoubtedly does this to NFL owners in this new book. I’d recommend you go read this.

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june-again · 11 months

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CHILUMI: # a chasmic mistake.

CHAPTER I: descent.

chapter summary. in which Lumine makes a decision she will regret; in which Childe has everything under control.

wc. 3.4k. genre. enemies to lovers, adventure, pining.

table of contents / next chapter

Lumine’s muscles tensed as she felt the ground beneath her feet give way. She should have seen this coming, having ignored the signs placed around the area warning against trespassing. She’d never been the type to pay them much attention, nor had her target. And Paimon wasn’t around to drag her back, either—her floaty friend was left behind somewhere as she’d scaled the mountains and skidded back down them, only willing to stop for one thing.

That one thing would be her blade to the neck of the Eleventh Harbinger.

Paimon had said this whole thing was pointless, that “Mr. Moneybags” would only get them both into danger. Lumine had initially agreed, but seeing Childe, the man who had tried to kill her and wipe out all of Liyue Harbour, recklessly hunting a bounty across the nation had driven her to devote herself entirely to stopping him.

He had never resisted her, of course. Countless duels had commenced over the last few weeks, and Lumine had contributed greatly to the chaos that followed in his wake. He liked resisting her, and she liked that she got closer to defeating him every time. But it was because of Childe. It was all his fault. Him, and those damn Fatui.

Lumine had caught word of a bountied creature, some kind of rare animal belonging to a Sumeran noble. She had already understood that this was his goal. But she found it very suspicious of the deceptive (and wealthy) Snezhnayan to chase just any bounty. Surely it wasn’t just over some Mora, because that was definitely not worth falling several hundred meters into the so-called solar chariot ruins known as the Chasm. Thus, she had been keeping an eye on him. A very close, hunting eye.

He had told her about his plans himself during one of their duels, saying, “You can’t blame me for bounty hunting. You’ve done enough of that to understand the thrill of it.” And this, she could not deny. In a way, he was her own target, the unattainable bounty being satisfaction.

Lumine had never been great at saving herself from near-miss falls, but whatever ability she could muster would momentarily have to come into use. She would grab ahold of something—anything—to keep from getting herself stuck in the abandoned mines. She slid down a crumbling slate of rock, which angled her closer to the gaping black hole below. The Qixing had claimed to have sealed it off completely; how could it be that there was now a wide mouth to the dark caverns below?

Making quick use of Anemo, she managed to propel herself to the edge of the gap, scrambling up to uncertain safety. Only once she was assured the rock would hold her did she venture to peer down the hole.

“Hey, girlie! You sure you wanna go down there?”

The nauseatingly charming voice echoed dramatically from somewhere above her and she looked up.

Childe stood on some jutting rocks further up the opposite side of the cavity, waving his fingers at her from over the edge. “Hello!”

She didn’t respond, making a face she hoped he could read from his distance.

“Someday you’ll be happier to see me,” Childe said. “Come now, no need to look at me like that. Suppose I’ll catch you later, then, traveller. Careful on the way down!”

With that, he took a step and a hop over the edge, soaring confidently towards the depths of the Chasm. A flash of grey and ginger later, and he had disappeared into the darkness. Lumine crawled to the overhang’s edge, gazing down into it again.

She had no defensive logic for the decision she was about to make, and yet… she had to. He was dragging her down with him without even touching her. She had to follow him, no matter what.

—

The first thing Lumine noticed upon landing was an ache in her legs. Her glider had served her well for most of it—but the amount of time it took her eyes to adjust to the low light level still had her legs nervously tensing for most of the descent.

It smelled of dank cave, metal, and some bitter scent she couldn’t place. She immediately took to a rock that was just the right size for leaning on, and regained her wits as she looked around. There was no exit; that was clear. The cavern appeared to be fairly large, narrowing towards the stone ceiling from which she fell, assuring no simple clambering out. She’d find a way out eventually, as she always did, but escape seemed to be quite out of reach for now.

Damn. If only she could contact Venti to fly her out. But then, even if she could, the last time she had seen him he was too intoxicated to fly straight. It wouldn’t serve either of them well. Also, as lovely as Venti was as a friend, he was one of the last people she’d like to be stuck underground with. Childe was further down that list, of course.

Around herself, she could make out the shapes of different rocks and minerals, dismally glowing cave-dwelling blossoms, and in the distance, the faint silhouettes of abandoned mining equipment.

And no Paimon. Paimon would have no idea where she was.

Lumine had no chance to grieve this lack of communication, because she heard footsteps and disfigured yelling just a moment later.

“Who’s there? Name yourself!”

She said nothing, hopping over the rock and gliding further down into the cavern. Unfortunately, she noticed the Fatui camp’s fire all-too-close to where she landed.

“There’s an intruder!” The distorted voice of a Pyroslinger broke out and she groaned internally. Not even a minute to catch her breath? Really?

Lumine’s attacks came naturally, blowing down the Fatui’s elemental shields and stunning them with Anemo vortexes. Finally reaching the last enemy, the Pyroslinger Bracer, she took slow steps towards the corner she’d blasted him into. She always soaked up the last moments of her victory for what they could offer: the Pyroslinger’s arms raised to protect himself, muttering curses just loud enough for her to enjoy, and the inevitability of his defeat. Her movements halted, suddenly, though it was neither her doing nor the Fatui skirmisher’s. Her vision was dimming, and she looked around herself to see strange dark mud covering the ground. Her nose was overwhelmed by the bitter smell now, and her legs were leaden.

Three shots from the recovering Pyroslinger now struck her chest, knocking her off her balance. She collapsed to the ground with hands cushioning her fall in the egregious mud. She looked up as the Pyroslinger repositioned his gun to aim again. She couldn’t pull her hands out of the mud fast enough to reach for her sword, which had fallen to her left.

“Stand down, comrade,” a tenor voice said from somewhere behind.

The Fatui skirmisher looked up from her and cocked his head. “Who gives you the authority?”

A second later, two arrows had struck each of the skirmisher’s shoulders, just hanging onto the top of the fur, and a third zipped directly into the feather on his hat, knocking it clean off.

“Her Majesty, the Tsaritsa of Snezhnaya, grants me absolute authority.” Childe stepped into Lumine’s view, giving a cold smile to the skirmisher. “Can’t recognize one of the Eleven Harbingers, comrade?” A dim flash bloomed above his gloved palm in a shapeless lantern of elemental energy, casting an eerie blue glow on his visage.

The skirmisher stood straight, giving an awkward salute. “Forgive me, sir.”

“You’re off the hook, but don’t go aiming your gun at me again,” he chided. “Her Majesty will hear about it.”

“No, sir. But—” he gestured to Lumine “—she took down my whole squad.”

Childe peered into the shadows, noting the unconscious or incapacitated forms of said squad. “I see.” His dim elemental lantern extinguished and he offered Lumine his hand, which she greeted with nothing but an offended stare. “Good work, girlie. You know, you really don’t have to attack ‘em unprovoked, hey?”

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” she spat, getting to her feet without his assistance and dusting herself off. This mud would surely leave quite the stain.

“Don’t I get a ‘thank you’?”

“I had that under control.”

“I’d beg to differ,” he said, leaning over to her to wipe a bit of muck out of her hair. She froze, at first, and then stepped away from him, slapping his hand away. Fetching her sword from the mud, Lumine nearly stormed off.

But then she realized, with much consternation, that she had nowhere to walk away to. Her goal had been to stop him. She wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.

By now he should have prompted a duel, as had happened each time before. She’d interrupted him chatting with (interrogating) innocent civilians in Qingce Village, prevented his discovery of Albedo’s camp, and taken clues for herself. Rumours were everywhere, of course—and yet they had both been acquainted with similar directions to the earthquake zone which had dropped them here. The targeted creature was last spotted and chased away by guards of the Chasm. The guards were the reckoned finish line of their race for intel. But the guards were at the Surface, and they were down here.

Childe grimaced at her movement. His eyes didn’t leave her.

Lumine cleared her throat. “You didn’t, by chance… end up talking to the…”

“The guards? Nah, I didn’t make it that far. You thought I might have come back for you, girlie?” He sniggered.

Lumine stared at him blankly. She wanted to ask him, what now? But she also didn’t want to be confronted about her decision to come down here in the first place.

He turned to the Pyroslinger. “When’s your relay over?”

“Twenty-seven days.”

“Rations?”

“We’re fine. There’s water sources down here, and mushrooms we can roast in the worst case.”

“Good. Carry on, comrade.” He eyed a Fatuus in the shadows, who was groaning in pain. “And… try to take care of your squad, will ya?”

“Acknowledged.”

Lumine almost felt guilt for causing this group all the trouble. But then she remembered. They were Fatui.

And so was Childe. She placed her hand on the hilt of her sword and glared at him. He turned to her with an amiable smile, ignoring her stance.

“Now, then, traveller, whaddya say we explore a little?”

Lumine tightened her hand’s grip on the hilt. “For what?”

“Well, for fun, of course.”

She gave him a hard look. “Okay,” she said slowly, relaxing her hand, “let’s explore. For fun.”

—

Oh, it was excruciating walking alongside her enemy like this. Lumine hated how he walked a little bit ahead, how he pointed out directions they should go, how he made small talk. How he attempted banter and she fell into the trap of responding. How he never hesitated at a single turn, offering light from his vision in case she found the dark to be too much (which she declined, affronted by the preposition that she was afraid of darkness).

“It seems to narrow into a smaller cave, here,” Childe was saying, “why don’t we—”

“You should let me walk ahead,” she interrupted.

He cocked his head at her, Fatui mask in his hair shifting with the movement. “Why? You want to protect me?”

“No, idiot. I don’t trust you.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust his intuition—it was sharp, she could admit—but that she hated being out of control. She was used to the “why don’t we—”s from Paimon, but rather than observant reminders as it was with her pixie companion, it sounded like suspicious schemes. Anything he said sounded like a part of a ploy, a puzzle to unravel. Some kind of evil mission, probably. It always would be with him.

He tch’d, but gestured for her to walk ahead. “You have so little faith in me.”

“I wonder why, Childe,” she spat his codename. “I wonder why.”

With a pause, he sent Lumine a more serious look. He spoke carefully. “I think it would help,” he said, “if you took the time to hear me out a little, girlie.”

Lumine studied his expression. It wasn’t often she got to see his expression reveal anything more than military, wiley, or bloodthirsty. The corners of his lips were nudged back, his brows were slightly gathered, and his eyes were direct. And his Fatui mask was as red as ever.

“I respectfully disagree,” she said, taking the lead ahead. “No amount of explaining can justify your actions. And don’t call me that.”

“I’m not trying to challenge your morals, traveller.”

She threw her arms out. “Then stop acting like you want me to fancy your ass.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it about, Childe?”

He hesitated again, boasting an irked expression. “I don’t need a babysitter, but you’ve been following me for weeks. Why?”

“You have the codename ‘Childe’ for a reason, don’t you?”

He went silent. Lumine looked over her shoulder to see his brows lowering.

“Giving up on your own case already?”

His gaze set into hers. “Do you hear that?”

Lumine listened, and then latched her eyes onto an ominous shape in the darkness. There was a soft, rattling snarl, which she recognized as that of a Geovishap only a second before it was too late. She leapt before Childe, raising her sword just in time to deflect the pounce of the dragonish Creature. Its claws scraped against the stone floor as it fell back, gearing up to leap again. Childe dashed past her and the Geovishap, and aimed a shot right at the nape of its neck, causing it to freeze milliseconds before lunging. It twitched, falling to its curved back.

For a second, Lumine thought he’d slain the Geovishap in a single shot, but it then began to twitch, spin, roll, towards Childe this time. He dove out of the way, narrowly escaping one hit which only seemed to aggravate the Geovishap more, landing directly in front of him with its claws out. Lumine always thought of Childe as rather tall and altitudinally advantaged, but when standing before an adult Geovishap he looked so small. Fleeting fear overtook her mind and with a leap from behind she took a steady blade through its skull.

Childe stepped back as it crumpled in his direction, Hydro blades dissolving into elemental energy as he gave her a taunting look. “You know, I had that under control.”

A proud smile spread across Lumine’s lips. “Ha. I’d beg to differ,” she said, planting one foot on the creature’s back, almost too high to reach, and driving her sword heavily into its back through scales.

His gaze shifted between the hilt of her sword, her overstretched leg, and her expression. A grin bloomed gradually, blessedly, on his own face and he laughed jovially. “Alright, then. You can lead the way.”

Lumine cleared her throat and withdrew her blade, swinging it inattentively before sheathing it. She forced her smile down. “Yes. Good. I will.”

He took to walking behind her, and she hated that more, because she could not see him. After a few minutes, she commanded, “Walk beside me.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Shut the hell up.”

He took to her right side with an expression like a satisfied fourteen-year old who just won a match of cards. “We should find somewhere to set up camp pretty soon, no?”

Lumine huffed. She did not want to set up camp with No. 11 of the Fatui Harbingers.

“Unless you want to go back and find my subordinates. I’m not sure how pleased they would be to host you after your unprompted attack, but I am great at convincing.”

“You’re not always so great at convincing,” she said, still unable to admit he had a point. She had no way to tell the time but she knew it had been late afternoon upon their descent, and they had been walking for several hours. Her legs were in need of rest.

“I’d like to think sometimes it takes longer than other times, but the job always gets done.”

“You’d like to think a lot of things.” The tunnel around them was widening rapidly as they walked. “I’d like to think this is our way out, but how likely is that?”

He pointed ahead. “There’s actually a bit of a semi-cave there, under that overhang, you see? You wanna set up there?”

She squinted into the darkness. “You’re joshing. There’s nothing to see.”

“Come on.” They walked in the direction he had gestured towards, and there was indeed a semi-cave, three walls but a big enough opening on the fourth side that there was no chance of getting trapped. “Is this to your liking, girlie?” he asked, like they were touring a couple’s apartment.

“Could be worse,” she conceded, and dropped her bag against the wall. “Now, by setting up camp, what is it you’re actually referring to?” Lumine crossed her arms, eyeing him. “Fire, food, shelter, and comfort? Or do you just conk out for a few hours on the ground?”

“Do you think I’m a savage?” he asked with a laugh. “I carry a leather blanket in my bag. I can make a fire with wet wood. I know how to turn a snowy tree into a cozy shelter. Hm… But we haven’t got any kindling, so shall we find some cave grass?”

Lumine, slightly insulted that he supposed her straightforward method of setting up camp to be savage, sauntered towards the greater opening of the cave and surveyed the area. There was still a strangely sufficient amount of light, though perhaps not enough for her to pick up on details such as potential grass locales. She squinted, trying to decide quite how far away the other side of the cave really was.

“Let’s walk this way.” Childe waved her over, providing his blue glow with elemental energy. She wished she knew how to do that. But she didn’t dare ask, knowing that sharing any trade secrets with a Fatuus would be both humiliating and disgusting.

“Childe,” she said, instead, and then hesitated. The forthcoming inquiry was terrible, but had to be inquired nonetheless.

“Yeah?”

“What are we gonna… or rather, what are you doing down here, and…”

He met her eyes without a tinge of sass. “You’re really asking your sworn enemy to reveal his plan to you?”

“Uh…” Lumine sucked air through her teeth. This was atrociously painful. “What’s the plan?”

Childe’s face broke into a wide grin and he howled. “You are so cute.”

“Answer the damn question, Harbinger.”

He chuckled some more. “Alright, since you asked so nicely. I already have enough leads that I know the bounty’s down here.” He shrugged matter-of-factly. “Shouldn’t take longer than a few days to reach it.”

Lumine narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you… know the Chasm well?”

He clicked his tongue. “Not particularly, but I don’t get lost.”

“You don’t get lost? Not even in massive, cursed cave systems?”

“Nope!”

“Do you have much experience underground?”

“Oh…” he said. “Yes, a bit.”

For a fraction of a second his smile flickered, and this Lumine noticed with suspicion. However, she decided not to push it, keeping a watchful eye on him as they descended deeper into the cavern.

Wherever they were going, Lumine would have to stay on her guard for the deception that the Fatui Harbinger inevitably had in store for her. She knew how to survive, but she did not know the Chasm. She had not even seen a map of it before, and only had a trifle of knowledge about what had happened here. She was aware that it was related to the cataclysm 500 years ago, but its role was a mystery to her and the reason for its hushed nature in Liyue was just as mysterious. It was unclear whether Childe knew the Chasm, but he was of this world and was therefore at an advantage.

That, and he was the one who had some kind of true motive for being down here.

And Lumine’s only motive was to prevent him from accomplishing it.

author's note. please reblog if you enjoyed. thanks so much for reading! i'm so excited about this series man i poured my soul into it

— table of contents / next chapter

➳ GENSHIN MASTERLIST

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june-again · 10 months

Text

CHILUMI: # a chasmic mistake.

CHAPTER VI: defense.

chapter summary. in which the truth is discovered and a fierce duel commences.

wc. 2.9k. genre. enemies to lovers, action/adventure.

warnings. lowkey psychological manipulation!! dddne!!

— table of contents

“Hurry up and kill me, Ajax! Don’t hold back!”

Lumine would not be very easy to kill, slashing and dodging wildly as she was now, had her opponent been any other than Tartaglia, No.11 of the Fatui Harbingers. He blocked her attacks easily—far too easily for someone who had been acting all weakened for the last two days, Lumine realized—and shot at her in sprinting thrusts. His attack patterns were like those at the Golden House the first time they had dueled, and during times again afterwards when she had ambushed him. Times she had tried to stop him from coming this far. These attacks now seemed like subdued versions, but were still enough to get her blood pumping and her legs moving.

“I wish you would at least tell me what this is about!” he complained. He paused in the middle of the pool, drawing energy so that he could unleash a blast upon her. Lumine braced herself. She managed to dodge most of it, only its final wave causing her to stumble as she charged at him with her sword raised.

“You already know what it’s about, Childe.” She spat a reversion to his Fatui codename. She knew it might bother him and hoped it would.

Lumine managed to break his defenses for a split second, assailing him with a slash to the neck to match her own painful lacerations from the Abyss Herald’s talons just a few minutes before. She had not fought that beast as hard as she was fighting him. She hadn’t fought anything this hard for a very long time.

And that was for a simple reason.

Lumine had not been this pissed off in ages.

“You’re putting up a pretty good game, here,” he praised her. “How becoming.”

She only scoffed, and rolled out of the way to avoid a counter. Her mind was swimming and only knew that it was an unfair fight; that she would not take victory as an end, but he would. And yet there was nothing that would stop her.

This was the Chasm curse. She wasn’t sure whether it was fueling the infatuation or the detestation, but she was so overpowered by it now that she was sure she knew why he’d led her this far. Her only escape would have to start with his death. Then the rest of the Harbingers, if they crossed her.

Her dream had been a warning that she was taking the wrong side with Tartaglia. Perhaps, she thought, heart clenching, it had been a message directly from Aether who had somehow known.

Lumine felt a pressure to her shoulder and she fell back onto the edge of the pool with an inelegant splash. Childe loomed over her. One of his Electro blades pressed through the fabric of her—his—jacket. She couldn’t move or pull herself out from under it. He leaned further, supporting his posture with the tips of both blades pressed into the ground.

“Look at you,” he cooed. His eyes were crazed with vigor as they always were in battle. “The price of a single slip. You still have much to learn.”

She struggled, straining a hand for her sword.

“It was fun!” he declared.

He traced one of her wounds ever-so-lightly with the electrified point of his other sword. It hurt like hell. She screamed.

“Now, won’t you tell me what’s the matter? I’m dying to know.”

He sure was.

Lumine managed to reach for and grasp the hilt of her blade. She swung it at the weapon touching her neck, successfully knocking it away. But he stopped her from swinging it a second time. It then became clear that he had grabbed her sword by the blade.

Still unprepared to give up, she propelled her foot at him, managing to knock his knee in just the right way that caused him to stumble. “This only ends when you’re dead,” she insisted, pushing herself and the jacket out from under the other weapon’s pressure. Her hand curled around it as she went, pulling it right out of his grasp.

He could have killed her right there, she realized. He’d seen an opening and driven the blade right through the jacket a centimeter above. But now she bore one of his weapons, and he bore hers.

Lumine had not up until this point wielded any Electro infusion or ability. She found it to be exhilarating. It seemed to act with a mind of its own, with a haste to kill. Even as a creation of Childe’s, it seemed to want him dead just as badly as she did.

She did not waste time. Against the combination of environmental Hydro, his Electro, and Lumine’s Anemo, the Harbinger stood no chance. She soared at him, propelled by focus and loathing. And Childe, still recovering from the kick, was at her mercy.

Lumine could not help but relish in the feeling properly pinning him down, blade at his neck.

Finally.

“This isn’t you, Lumine,” came a remark from the winded Childe. This was the first true protest he had given, and she wanted to hear more.

The only issue she found was the mask, which he had pulled over his face in the beginning of the fight. She needed to see fear in his eyes. Lumine reached for the top of the mask, dragging it off his face harshly.

“Any last words, Harbinger?” Her voice was deep—hoarse—breaking. Desperate.

Finally seeing his flushed, spirited visage, she felt a twinge of something that was not hatred.

“None today,” he replied, reaching an arm to his chest. “I’ll save you from this.”

It wasn’t blind infatuation, either.

Lumine pressed the Electro blade to his pale neck, drawing beads of crimson. “One more move and you’re dead.”

Childe ignored this, grasping something at his collar and wrenching it out of place.

A new feeling came over her as if her very mind was being ripped out of her skull. Shattering her spine, clouding her sight, plugging her senses. Her strength faltered immediately. Her ears rang. It was like standing in that Abyss mud, only worse and much faster. The hatred, the infatuation, the passion—all were gone.

It was only the remaining feeling—worry. She felt worry, only worry. Pure, pristine concern for the protest in Childe’s eyes which—which she saw no more, her vision going dark as her posture fell limp and she collapsed on top of the Harbinger.

After a few seconds of feeling as if she was made of stone, Lumine panickedly regained consciousness of her senses—humiliatingly comforted by Childe’s warmth as she tried to regain her mental balance. Were those his hands holding her back?

Her sight and strength returned to normal and she pushed herself off of Childe.

She could not remember why she wanted to kill him, or that she did. But something was wrong, or had been changed. And it had to do with whatever Childe had ripped from his neck. She looked over at him.

He was sitting up. The chain necklace she had noticed earlier dangled now from his fingers, swinging gently. The charm was as irresistibly beautiful and eye-catching as it had been earlier. There wasn’t anything particular she could tell she liked about it, only that she liked the looks of it. She liked them very much.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Childe asked, rousing her to his presence. She’d almost forgotten about him in a moment.

She nodded. The sweat and enervation of an abruptly terminated duel still held her mind in a fuzz, but something else seemed to be causing a thicker fog. She did not want to look away from the necklace.

To her disappointment, he pressed it and its chain into his palm, watching her reaction. She finally looked him in the eye.

“What was that?”

He laughed coldly. “You… don’t know?”

She glanced down at his closed palm again, shaking her head no.

He put his hand behind his back, and her gaze followed it.

“Lumine,” he said softly. “Would you back up so that I can explain? Please?”

She noticed then that she was leaning towards him rather intimately. She must have moved unconsciously to get a closer look at the charm. Lumine checked herself and did as he said.

With the charm fully out of sight, she found that she was able to recall the exact context of the situation. They’d defeated an Abyss Herald who had beckoned Childe to kill her. She had been referred to as his target. The bounty he’d been hunting. The prey he’d been luring.

It was still a terrible thing to be aware of—but she wanted him to explain himself.

“You know, Lumine,” he said as if reading her mind, “I’m shocked, really. It took you quite a while to catch on.”

She did not know what to say or think. Was he confirming it?

“You know exactly what I am,” he continued, “and you’ve known it the whole time. I never hid my mission from you. Not really.”

“You said it was… that it was world domination,” she said, stumbling over her words.

He looked like a different person right now. A dear friend, but not a villain, and not a warrior. Just a friend, apologizing and explaining.

Childe shook his head. “That’s my end goal. There are a lot of steps to that, you know. It’s no easy process.”

“What are you saying?” She selfishly hoped that he would be able to justify everything that he’d done.

“I’m saying that one of those steps is serving the Tsaritsa. And, in the least offensive way possible, you were in the way of that.”

“That was on purpose.”

He laughed again. “And that’s what made you so damn easy. Once I had your attention, distracting you—which was, of course, my mission—was simple as sight-seeing the nation, acting like I was after some rare animal.” He paused and the silence was louder than the screaming in her mind. “I’m hardly proud of it, but my goodness have you ever made it a pleasure, Lumine.”

Lumine’s mouth was dry as she stuttered, “But…”

Childe looked apologetic—and, after all these days she had spent by his side, she was fully inclined to believe it was sincere. He reached his hand to her face, gently rubbing a thumb on her cheek. “I’m sorry. I really am. I will admit that I was forced to use… alternative methods to grab your attention.”

She understood before he showed her. The necklace in his palm drew her focus almost immediately, despite her semi-frantic emotional reaction to the tenderness of his touch on her cheek.

“It’s a Snezhnayan Charm of Mild Entrancement. Nothing fancy, but works like a…”

Lumine had snatched the charm from his hand, cradling it in her palms. It felt like it was drawing in her thoughts, her emotions, her will. “Can you destroy it?”

“I—”

She tore her gaze away from it with great effort. Tears pooled in her eyes as she forcibly latched them onto Childe’s face. “I thought I was falling in love with you. Then I wanted you dead. Please destroy it, Ajax. I hate it.”

He didn’t wait another moment, taking it from her grasp. He hurled it onto the rock floor and lifted her sword from where it lay at his side. “May I—”

“Do what you have to.”

He stood and brought the edge of her blade down upon it heavily. A shing came from the impact, as both the charm and the blade shattered. The sound echoed down the cavern, and the charm was no more.

Lumine was flooded with insurmountable relief. Her unnatural edge had been destroyed with the charm and she knew it had been the cause of her madness, not the curse of the Chasm. Her wits returned, finally, and she understood.

She got to her feet, looking to Childe. “It only amplified interest, right?”

He nodded. “That sums it up. It was tuned specifically to affect you. And since I wore it, well…”

“I really did want to kill you just now, with or without that Charm.”

“I know.”

“And I really think…” She paused, noticing a moment too late that she was about to say something humiliating. “... That I…”

“Lumine, please don’t.”

She didn’t.

The cool glow from the cavern highlighted how Childe’s eyebrows were gathered, how his teeth were gritted, and how his head was tilted solemnly. “What you’re feeling right now… it may be an effect of the charm.”

Lumine’s eyes fell on the chain on which the Charm of Mild Entrancement had been. In the Charm’s place, all that remained was shattered glass-like material and substance resembling clear blood. The gold shimmer was gone.

She looked around the cave. The pool of the small cavern opened up into a larger area. In the center was something that could only be described as an immense mushroom. It had a long, thick, white stem and a cap shooting out from a thing that resembled branches. From the higher, largest cap dangled blue strings of lights. It was a beautiful, strange sight, one that she definitely would have seen before if she hadn’t been under an Entrancement spell.

And yet, looking back at Childe, she still found him as dazzling—as enticing—as he had been before… if not more than ever.

Childe’s gaze softened. “I really am sorry. And I’m sorry for how much I enjoyed it.”

She took a step closer to him, gauging her capacity to say what was on her mind. “It was scummy of you,” she declared, “and I want to hate you for it.”

He nodded again, sighing.

“How long were you supposed to be distracting me for?”

Childe took a sharp breath and clicked his tongue. “Until further notice.”

“Seems like a bothersome mission for you.”

He laughed, running his hand through his tousled hair. “As if you care about what bothers me, girlie.”

Lumine fidgeted with the sleeves of his jacket, which she still wore. She knew it had been ripped and scuffed in a few places from that fight—the same would have happened if he had been wearing it, of course. And her hair felt like it had been pulled out of place. Her neck stung, still. She put a hand to the scarf and saw her blood on it.

Childe, on the other hand, looked like he ought to be cold. They had been splashing about in the pool in the cavern, dousing each other in cave water. His hair and clothes were damp and his skin was glistening. But he looked right at home in the cool water, smiling at her like that.

“What if I do?”

The words came out of her mouth before she could think. They kept coming at the same rate.

“What if I was really falling in love with you? What if the Charm was only playing on feelings that already existed? What if the infatuation wasn’t entirely false?”

“You don’t even like me,” he said. He looked a little hopeful, but as if he was repressing. “I’m kind of a bad guy. I’m a Harbinger. We have different lives, you and I, and you don’t exactly favour mine. You know, almost killed an entire city—”

“ —Almost.”

“Yes, but I’ve murdered many others without hesitation. That’s who I am.” His voice fell to a whisper. “You know I’m not quite of this world, Lumine.”

She was becoming more confident, now that she was in her right mind. It was only becoming clear to her how it had possessed and manipulated her attention. But now that her will was her own again, she wasn’t particularly motivated to look away.

She shrugged at him, voice breaking. “Neither am I, Ajax.”

Lumine felt fingers grab her chin. She felt pressure from a hand on the back of her neck. She felt soft lips against hers; she felt warmth in her cheeks as she caught onto the situation. Childe didn’t kiss her hesitantly; it was frantic and heated. He kissed her like he had wanted to do so for a very long time. An excruciatingly long time, evidently.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, letting one hand dive into his curls. He pulled her closer.

The two paused. Lumine watched Childe slowly open his eyes and smile at her. He looked absolutely starstruck, eyes hooded and sparkling—but his hand had settled on her jaw, the other snaking firmly around her waist. It was like he wanted badly to hold her, but he could not believe that he had the opportunity to do so.

Lumine had something occur to her then. She grabbed his wrist and held it up so that she could look at the palm. Sure enough, the glove was blood-stained and cut through to his lacerated skin.

“Why the hell did you grab my blade like that?” she scolded, inspecting the injury.

“Ah—Lumine, that hurts!”

“Idiot.”

“Come on, now. You gave me no choice. You were trying to kill me.”

Lumine gazed up at him. “And you were having too much fun, Harbinger.”

He pouted.

“Fine… Ajax.”

“Lumine,” he mimicked her, tilting his head with a grin.

She finally, finally smiled at him. And in the darkness of the Chasm, in the pool swirling with a bit of each of their blood, she had one more question left in her mind.

“So. What the hell are we gonna do now, Ajax?”

fin.

author’s note. so. there we have it. i am without words because i'm just excited about the fact that i've finished posting it now, but i really must say that it has been wonderful receiving feedback on this fic over the last five weeks and i see all of you that kept up and read the whole thing. thanks for being patient and reading through to the end. i am always sincerely grateful when people take the time to read my works.

without further ado, this has been A CHASMIC MISTAKE.

comments are valued and appreciated.

➳ GENSHIN MASTERLIST

#a chasmic mistake.#chilumi #favoniuslibrary #genshin fanfic #tartaglia fluff #genshin series #childe fic #genshin impact lumine #tartaglia x lumine #childe x lumine #tartaglia x traveler #ajax x lumine #genshin x traveler #childe #lumine #tartaglia #ITS DONE IM DONE GOODBYEEEEEEE #i am so satisfied with this. i had a ball writing it #YIPPEEEE

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june-again · 11 months

Text

CHILUMI: # a chasmic mistake.

CHAPTER II: establishment.

chapter summary. in which neither childe nor lumine are willing to admit that they care. in which they may break some bones.

wc. 5.1k. genre. enemies to lovers, action/adventure.

table of contents / next chapter

“It’s not like I usually care how others see me. In fact, unless it affects my plans in any way, I simply do not think about it.” Childe’s voice was cheery, matter-of-fact.

“That explains a lot.” Lumine rolled her eyes.

They sat next to each other on the ridge of a cliff, legs dangling into the vague darkness. She didn’t much like making small talk with him, but it was better than uncomfortable silence as they rested.

“But like I said, there are exceptions,” he continued.

She asked herself for the hundredth time why she chose to get stuck down here with him. The Chasm was far too dangerous for her to wander alone. There was nowhere for her to step away to, and she had no choice but to hear him out.

“Of course there are,” she muttered, masking no venom.

“Ah... Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get you to change your mind about me.”

She could hear what would be some semblance of remorse in Childe’s voice, if he was the kind of person whose tone you could trust. Which, as far as she was concerned, he wasn’t.

“That’s all, girlie.” He stretched his arms behind his head with a sad little smile.

“Oh, yeah, you gonna cry?”

He sighed. “What then?”

“I’ll laugh at you.”

“And? You’re already laughing at me.”

Lumine felt her betraying heart sink, a bit of guilt defying her attitude. “Well, thanks for sharing. Now I know how to piss you off.”

“You’re also already doing that.”

“Mission accomplished.” She paused, wanting to ask something but being unsure whether he would give it a straight answer. “What’s your mission, Harbinger?”

“Hm! Why should I tell you?” he said with a smile in his voice.

Lumine shrugged. “You sure as hell don’t have to.”

“Well, since you’re so desperate to know,” he simpered, “my goal is world domination. Simple as.”

Lumine eyed him. “Fine, don’t tell me.”

“No, I’m serious. That’s my goal.”

His look seemed to be sincere, but of course she still didn’t know how sincere that actually was.

“Someday I’m gonna rule the world. All will know my name and despair.”

He still looked sincere and she couldn’t believe it. Lumine snorted, and then guffawed, and then roared with laughter. “There’s no way. That’s so childish!”

Childe’s mouth fell agape, offended. “What’s the matter with it?” he whined.

Lumine wiped her eyes and shook her head. “Nothing at all, Childe. Nothing at all.” A yawn overtook her as she caught her breath. It felt good to laugh that hard. Maybe he was good for something, even if he oughtn’t be so proud of it.

She pushed herself to her feet, marching herself to the concave in the wall in which they’d set up a tiny camp. It consisted of a briefly functional fire pit, a stash between two boulders for their packs, and one leather blanket. She yawned again and sent a cross frown at the rock-hard floor. This would be less than enjoyable.

“Hm? Callin’ it a night? I can keep watch if you like.”

“I’m a light sleeper. It’s unnecessary,” Lumine replied, adamant. She hated the idea of Childe trying to protect her in any way.

He acquiesced. “If you say so.”

Initially, Lumine tried to take a position on the other side of the smouldering fire pit. It was uncomfortable, but she’d rather that than share a blanket with a Fatuus. This sentiment lasted until she began to feel suspicious that he was up to something across from her.

“Scoot over, Harbinger.”

“Getting cold, are we?”

“Shut your mouth. You better not snore.”

Childe simply laughed, stretching his arms behind his head and then moving himself over to allow her room. She lied down at his side, making an unprovokedly nasty face at his back. Then, she turned her shoulders away.

The whole time, she kept one eye open and one hand on the hilt of her sword. She was not aware that Childe was doing the same. By the time their fire had burned out, she’d dragged the blanket a bit further over her shoulders in response to the chilly air of the cave threatening shivers down her spine. Her mind was running through all the ways this could go, all the regrets she may have if she wasn’t careful.

It was, perhaps, true that sticking next to a warrior who claimed to want to protect her would be safer than facing the cursed caverns by herself. And it was also true that she liked to keep her enemies close when possible, and that this appeared to be the perfect opportunity. But Lumine couldn’t shake the dread in the pit of her stomach every time her eyes had met his during their travels, and the unrelenting chill that seemed to radiate from him. There was something terrible about him, something that was exaggerated in its concealment. Something that was deeper than his association with the Fatui and his hailing from Snezhnaya. There was something that, at his core, denied him hesitation in his bloodthirsty pursuit.

There was no true tenderness in him, unlike all the rest she had met in Teyvat. It was as if he, also, was of another world.

What calamity could have borne such a monster?

She did sleep, eventually—dreaming of dark worlds and cold, soulless oceans—but awoke within the reaches of an hour to a slight rustle of the blanket and a clamour of beastly cries echoing against stone. She took to her feet after only a moment, sword drawn.

A flash of blue light reflected on the grey cavern walls revealed the Eleventh Harbinger’s usage of his vision upon what Lumine understood to be now defeated hilichurls. She dashed out from the small camp to greet Childe’s side once again, just in time for the two of them to be surrounded by reinforcement of several mitachurls and samachurls.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” she spat, rushing towards a larger enemy.

“Oh, I figured you wouldn’t mind my dealing with it.” He slashed Hydro at two mitachurls, dispelling them immediately.

“You figured wrong.” Lumine gave the mitachurl a frustrated kick.

“My bad, girlie.”

“And don’t call me that.” She dodged a swing of the monster’s weapon with a duck of her head.

“You really are a light sleeper, huh?” An arrow came from his direction and struck it in the head. It fell to the ground with a grunt and dissipated. “And not much of a morning person, it seems!” he added.

Something seemed to be different about the energy these Hilichurls seemed to have. They had a dissonant glow to them—a black agony holding their attacks steadier and harsher than usual.

Lumine shook off the unsettling feeling, shouting instead, “That one was mine!”

He ran past her, raising his Hydro-infused daggers at the remaining hilichurls. “You know,” he said, voice quite casual for someone in the middle of slaughtering beasts, “you really seem to talk a lot more without that imp Paimon speaking for you.”

“She makes things easier.” Lumine cleared her throat. “Usually.”

“She makes it a whole lot harder to get to know you.”

“What do you think this is, a candle-lit dinner?”

“If you like.”

Lumine gritted her teeth and cut down the last monster, twirling her sword and sheathing it with force. She promptly walked back to their little camp, grabbed her bag, and continued in the direction from which the hilichurls had come. She ignored the peevish smirk on Childe’s face as he followed her actions.

“You hungry? Shall we hunt ourselves some breakfast? Perhaps light ourselves a few candles to go with it?”

She scowled and shook her head. “No. I can go days without eating.” With brutal timing, her stomach growled.

“Is that so?” he replied with a smug tone. “Well, I’d rather not eat alone, anyways. Don’t worry, I won’t have you lift a finger; I’m built to provide for women.”

“Oh, what, you can sniff out your food?”

Childe seemed a bit surprised. “Well, yes, I can.”

Lumine let a laugh slip and raised her brow at him incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”

“You must be an awful hunter yourself.”

“I’m a woman, not a bear.”

“You’re calling me a teddy bear? I’m flattered. Perhaps my sweetness has finally reached you.”

“Shut up.”

Childe mimicked zipping his lips and throwing away the key, and seconds after, his eyes latched onto something. He met Lumine’s gaze, gave a sarcastically long sniff, and proceeded to aim his bow.

Zwip.

“See? Breakfast.” He jogged forward to finish off his prey.

He’d shot a Hydro fungus right through its center; the poor thing was still writhing in the stream he’d spotted it in. “And we’ve got water to boil it in! Marvelous. We shall eat like kings and queens.”

“Yeah, kings and queens of fungi pisswater.”

“You’re just upset that I told you so.” He lifted the fungus by the tentacles around its head, dangling it before his own face with a wide, toothless smile. It was downright creepy, the way his eyes darkened and his smile shone.

“And what convenient cooking utensils are you gonna use to boil the brute?” Lumine asked.

Childe’s gaze latched on her, some remnant thirst for blood sending shivers down her spine. “Fire.”

She resigned not to ask any more questions. His useless response and acute expression dissuaded her from saying acknowledging him at all, for the moment. His gaze was so intense, like a hawk’s while catching a rodent in its beak. It didn’t suit his soft features, with the exception of those eyes of his. Those cold, empty, blue eyes.

Sometimes she needed a reminder that she was tagging along the side of a sadistic Snezhnayan killer.

—

Apparently, Childe’s idea of procuring proper cooking utensils was to simply locate a Fatui camp further into the Chasm willing to allow use of their resources—which, honestly, Lumine wished he had done much sooner, even last night. She hated Fatui but she hated going hungry more.

He had led the two of them into another, wider area, in which there were structures along the walls that seemed to be out-of-commission mining constructs. On and around them, enemies of Lumine patrolled—but many of them were comrades of Childe and of the Cryo Nation. The camp they came across had two Legionnaires sitting around a fire, apparently gossiping up a storm. The distorted conversation became easier to hear as Lumine and Childe drew nearer.

“I heard that The Fair Lady went over to Inazuma. I’m thinkin’ she’s trying to rizz up the Electro Archon.”

“You’re kidding! Lucky Archon. She could rizz me up any day.”

“Bold of you to assume she’d even want to look at your ugly ass face.”

“Hey! Just a hypothetical, man.”

“Hello, boys,” Childe interjected, marching into camp. Lumine held back, letting him flaunt himself until they offered their resources and paychecks and livelihoods to him.

They both started as they noticed him. “Oh, it’s the Eleventh!” The Hydrogunner said, relatively less shocked than Lumine expected. “What brings you all the way down ‘ere?”

“Harbinger business,” he said with a smile in his tone. “You boys got rations?”

The Cryogunner nodded. “Yup.”

“Mind if me and my companion use your cookware?”

“Sure…” The Fatui Skirmisher eyed him. “Why don’t you got your own?”

“Slipped my mind on the way,” he said casually. “C’mon, girlie, let’s feast.”

Lumine took a step into sight, and paused. All three Fatui were watching her without trying to kill her, and she hated it.

“What’s the hol’ up, stranger?” The Hydrogunner Legionnaire asked her, putting his large hand on the handle of his gun.

“Mm, nothing.” Lumine sighed, walking into the camp.

As they cooked up the Fungi—which yielded a terrible smell, and a confounding taste—Lumine couldn’t help but notice that neither Legionnaire was taking his eyes off of her for long. Childe was jolly and friendly with them, asking about their work and how they spent their time. From what she gathered from their conversation, a huge aspect of their job was dedicated to waiting for things to happen.

After a “nice rest,” as Childe put it, the two cavern travellers set off from the camp further into the maze of mining infrastructure and stalagmites and cold, open cave air. She could make out some parts of the cavern’s ceiling thanks to the murky indigo glow splayed across sections of it. She recognized the substance to be similar to the mud she’d been trapped in earlier, only this was much thicker and more potent. Such substance also littered the cave floor and even the wooden pathways they took along the mining structures.

Lumine wondered where in Liyue they were beneath now. Perhaps they were under the harbour, or the mountains, or the islands. If they somehow made a tunnel straight up, would they end up in the sea? How did these pillars of stone hold up such a great land?

After another hour or so of walking they came across another camp with two scruffy Fatui Geochanter Bracers pacing its outskirts. Childe greeted them respectfully. And greet Childe they did, but the mutual respect was nowhere to be seen.

“Who does this guy think he is?” one asked. They both scowled at him, holding their weapons at the ready.

“I’m No. 11 of the Harbingers.”

“Sure you are, pal,” the same replied, sending his colleague a sickly smirk.

Childe, in turn, frowned. “You don’t recognize me?”

“Why should we?” the other asked in a drawl, cocking his head. “We haven’t caught word of any Harbingers for ages. Even if you are whichever Harbinger you say, it’s frankly meaningless.”

Childe and Lumine met eyes, and Lumine quirked an eyebrow. He shrugged, facing them again. “Alright, boys. We’ll leave you be.”

As they walked away from the camp, they heard the skirmishers laughing to each other. “That kid expected us to believe he was really a Harbinger. A Harbinger!” The roaring laughter echoed down the chamber as they walked further away. “Chasm must have gotten to them.”

Lumine noticed Childe clenching and unclenching one of his fists, brows furrowed. She was about to tell him to shake it off, when she heard a bit more.

“What a damn riot. Who was the bitch with him? Didn’t know Harbingers had girlfriends…”

Before she could think it through, her sword was suddenly in her hand and she was turning on her heel to teach them a lesson. It would be oh so satisfying to crush their voice boxes under her heel. But she felt a hand on her shoulder, and at Childe’s imploring expression, she sighed.

“I don’t think they’re in their right minds. No need for unnecessary bloodshed.”

Lumine nearly spat as she replied. “Drunk or not, I don’t let Fatui talk about me like that.”

One corner of Childe’s lips lifted, threatening a smile, but he instead pressed his mouth into a line. “I know, girlie. But I don’t think it’s just alcohol.” His eyes wandered into the darkness around them, settling on a patch of black mud on one edge of the cave.

She followed his gaze. “What the hell is that stuff, anyways?”

“It’s sort of…” He clicked his tongue. “I don’t really know.”

“What were you going to say?”

Childe ran his right hand through his hair, apparently thinking very hard. “It’s nothing your type wants to be around, that’s all.” He shrugged, and at last started to walk again. “Or those skirmishers, believe it or not.”

They continued to walk for what felt like hours. Lumine was becoming more shamefully comfortable with him leading the way. She found that she couldn’t stop thinking about him stopping her from attacking those men—those men whom she normally would wipe the floor with, and who had equally pissed him off. He didn’t want “unnecessary bloodshed.” What did that mean, by his terms?

—

There was something about the image of Childe that she had in her mind that suited this kind of environment. Running in the shadows, searching for what she did not understand. His perpetual energy and smiles, but his pale, insipid gaze.

“How… How do you see so well in the dark?” she asked him, barely aware it had been out loud until he turned to her with a raised brow.

“What do you mean?” he responded. He tossed the Hydro glow between his hands like it was an insignificant playground ball. “Are you referring to my vision lantern?”

She squinted at him. “No. You’re only using that for me, aren’t you?”

He gave her a smile that seemed a little too genuine for her comfort. “How’d you know?”

Lumine crossed her arms. “I asked you a question first.”

He grimaced. “Well, alright. You’re no fun.”

“Mhm. You gonna answer it?”

Childe paused, peering at her for a second with a smile still faded onto the corners of his lips. “Alright. You really want to know? Fine.” He took a deep breath. “Although, I will warn you, it’s not a… per se… charming story. Nor have I… told it many times.”

Lumine didn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue.

“Well… there was a time,” he said, “when I was young, about 14 years old. I ran away from home one day. Schneznayan winter forests are not forgiving to young folk out and about, and soon enough I was being chased by the beasts of the land. I escaped, but only by the fluke of,” he extinguished the Hydro lantern, throwing both of them into the haunting pitch black of the Chasm, “...darkness.

“It was then, in that darkness, that something… took me in. I was not my fathers, nor my own, nor the Tsaritsa’s. Something gave me a new home. Something taught me the ways of that darkness. Something… or someone… changed me.”

Lumine then realized that Childe was gripping her arm, a fierce look in his eyes. She could not see anything but the pale blue of his irises. Fear crept up her throat, though she knew not quite what it was of.

“She taught me all I know. Anyways, I got out alright and went back home after that.” He released her arm and relit the lantern. “All’s well that ends well, and now I can see decently in the dark! My eyes just adjusted over the time I spent there.“

Lumine noticed her heart speeding and she took a shaky breath, hoping it would calm her. “I see.”

He appeared to notice. “Are you alright, there, girlie?”

“I’m fine…” she mumbled. Yet another reminder, it was, that this was no ordinary man, that evil dwelt just behind those clear blue eyes. Yes, it suited his behaviour, but in a way it still shocked her. There seemed to be moments when he was just a rival to her—a rival, but someone she would not like to live without. “And don’t call me that, Harbinger.”

Childe simply laughed. “I’d like you to meet my master someday. She’d get a kick out of you. You’re feisty enough. I think you might even be able to hold your own in a duel against her, for at least a few seconds.”

Lumine tried to shake off her chills. “You say that like we’re ever going to get out of this hell-hole.”

“You still don’t trust me, huh?” Childe directed his gaze into her eyes, appearing a bit bothered by her sharpened glare right back. “I see,” he resigned, talking as if to himself. He began to walk again, heading towards a suspended bridge across a dark gorge. “What more shall I do, hm?”

Lumine recovered herself and dashed a few paces to catch up with him. Until he had slivers in his palms from repairing the boards of the houses that were destroyed by Osial’s wrath; until he mourned the lives of the innocent nearly lost by his reckless choices…

“Traveller, will you ever stop blaming me for what happened in the harbour?” he asked, as if hearing her thoughts. “I was only following orders from the Tsaritsa; and the people of Liyue triumphed, didn’t they? Someday, maybe, you’ll stop villainizing the Fatui just because you got roped into the Adventurer’s Guild before meeting me.”

“But you are villains.”

“How many treasure hoarder families have you forced into hunger by intercepting their plans? How many innocent soldiers have you bruised and broken simply because they opposed you? Traveller, don’t you wonder what drives you to follow someone like me?” An unwelcome shiver went up Lumine’s spine. “Is it not because you, as well, desire the thrill of battle, the flourish of power, the breeze of narrow escapes?”

She could not respond, for she neither had the words nor the time.

Childe and Lumine, during this discussion, had been walking under a rock overhanging the mining passage right before the bridge. A low growl—initially ignored, but succeedingly telling—has come from above it, and a scamper preluded a deep scraping sound of a giant rock against a massive wall. Whatever creature had been disturbed by their conversation had somehow caused an overhang the size of a ship to crumble from the wall and freefall straight towards them.

With only a moment to think, Lumine sprinted to the ravine bridge ahead, crossing it faster than she had known her legs to be capable of carrying her. She could only hope that Childe was close behind. The boards beneath her feet seemed to falter—and then there were no boards beneath her feet. She was falling—reaching—grasping and pulling herself up the bridge whose ropes from the direction she had come from had no posts left to be tied to. The planks became makeshift ladder rungs for her to hang onto, but some great elemental force behind her made any effort to do so futile. Securing her position as best she could with an uncomfortable placement of her legs on the hanging boards, she looked over her shoulder only to be utterly baffled by the sight.

Beneath the enormous rock which appeared to be frozen in time, the scrawny young man was gone, and the cycloptic beast of an unleashed Electro delusion posed instead. This was Tartaglia, the Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers, and he was shrouded in black and purple as he channeled Abyssal energy upwards. Lumine could only watch as the swirling darkness of Foul Legacy grew at his command.

It was then that his head turned to face her for a moment, perhaps meeting her gaze. As his face was entirely masked, she could not fathom why he looked at her, but she was now convinced she’d imagined it. He was flying around the overhang fast enough that she could not see the motion itself, only a black blur between positions. At the increments where he stopped, he was slashing violet energy upon the rock. Then, he stopped in the air over the ravine with a final stroke, and the immense rock exploded and fell to the ground as amassments of dust and pebbles.

In the aftermath of the detonation she could just barely see, through the dust, his limp figure falling fast into the ravine. She scrambled down the rest of the bridge with her pack weighing heavily on her back and her heart weighing heavily in her chest. Reaching the bottom of the hanging bridge after what felt like an eternity, she breathed in what faith she had that the ravine floor would be close, and lept from the last “rung.”

Her feet hit the ground a bit later than expected and she lost her balance, teetering onto her hands, which were raw from climbing. She could immediately feel the unsavory mud-stuff between her fingers as she tried to push herself to her feet—and failed, finding her energy to be rapidly decreasing. It was as if her very life force was being claimed from her body as she crawled through the mud to reach Childe’s fallen form.

Before she made it to him, he slowly sat up. Lumine watched as he gazed at his own hand, heaving and trying to catch his breath.

“Ch-Childe—”

He seemed to surge from his daze, facing her in the darkness with his pale eyes. They seemed to still glow with a little purple from his prior Foul Legacy transformation. “Traveller…”

She sighed with relief and exhaustion at the sound of his voice. “What… what the hell was that?”

He tried to catch his breath. “That was me preventing the rock’s impact from bringing down the whole cavern on top of us. Not with much proper preparation though… yeah, that’s gonna have me pretty drained for awhile.”

“I think this mud stuff’s not helping.”

He gazed around them to where she was gesturing. “You’re right.”

Childe made to rise and Lumine marvelled at his strength. She hadn’t been using all her strength to destroy a colossal overhang, and she had found the mud had already sucked away most of her physical energy. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to follow suit. But she wouldn’t have to; without another word, the Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers scooped her up into his arms and carried her until they were out of the mud. Lumine couldn’t muster the energy to complain or resist. She was shocked by the warmth of his body and tenderness of his grip, even amidst his heaves of exhaustion. She could hear his racing heartbeat in his chest, where her head involuntarily rested. To her relief, he promptly set her down against the ravine wall and crumbled to the ground next to her.

Neither of them spoke for a few minutes.

Childe was first to break the silence. “Well, we survived.” He stretched his arms back behind his head with a huff. “Wasn’t that fun?”

Lumine, feeling a bit more energized, dropped her jaw at him. “I thought you were going to die.”

“Isn’t that all you’ve ever wanted?” he chuckled, looking a bit wistful.

“No,” she snapped, and immediately regretted it. “I mean, I’d rather I never saw you or any of the Fatui again, I don’t care whether it means you have to die or not.” At his smug expression, she tried to change the subject before he could tease her again. “Anyways, I wouldn’t like to be down here by myself. I feel like I’d go a little insane.” She did mean that.

Childe laughed and then started to cough, leaning forward. “Yeah, not possible,” he managed to get out. “Girls like you are as insane as they come, comrade.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” She watched him clutch his chest, more worried than she thought she ought to be. And yet her pride was no longer as pressing as her concern. How had he known what to do, up there? How had he known destroying the rock before it touched the ground would save them? “Hey, why the hell did you call me ‘comrade’? I’m the furthest from it.”

“It’s that or I get to call you ‘girlie.’ Besides, we’re stuck down here together whether either of us like it or not, so I think that makes us comrades in some way. And, well… you haven’t tried to kill me yet, comrade.”

His empty smile shut Lumine up as she wondered to herself what would be next.

As it turned out, darkness was next. Childe had exhausted himself to save the both of them—excessively, Lumine thought, and necessarily, Childe assured her—and he could not muster a hydro lantern for the time being. She bothered him to teach her how but he could not offer significant instructions. It seemed that yet again, vision bearers did not quite know how to relate to her visionless abilities however similar they appeared.

She wanted to go on still, and Childe said the only way they were doing so would be together. Lumine agreed, until he clarified.

“I mean we have to physically stick together. You don’t know what lurks at the depths of the Abyss—what can snatch you and drag you further into the darkness.”

“You mean the Chasm,” Lumine corrected him.

“Yes, that’s what I said, isn’t it?”

Lumine responded with silence, unable to make out his expression through the lack of light.

“Besides,” he continued, “I need your help if I’m going to walk very far.”

“And you think you can lean on me.”

“Yes.” He was rather confident.

Lumine thought for a moment, huffed, and linked her arm around his. “If it’s the only way, then fine.”

Childe seemed to hesitate, his body stiffening at her touch, as if he hadn’t been the one to suggest it in the first place. After a second, however, he relaxed, and she could almost feel the warmth of the smile glaring from his face. It was a victorious smile, no doubt.

The two started to walk through the ravine.

Their fates were suddenly very much in each other’s hands, Lumine realized.

The truth was, as she had seen Childe’s figure fall out of the air, that Lumine had imagined many scenarios. The first, of course, had been a fearful vision of her attempts at exploration all by herself. Before Childe, before Paimon, she had always been travelling with Aether. Rarely had she been truly alone, especially while in such damning circumstances. She thought about the fact that, had Childe not lived through the fall, she would have been stumbling in the darkness without someone to blame it on. Without someone to lean on her. Without another’s life to protect.

The second vision was of a world without Childe—perhaps a safer one, but in some dreadful way, an emptier one. Yes, empty of a life that ought to carry on. As much as she would claim to hate him, she was unable to even conceptualize his death being a good thing. She’d had opportunities to kill him herself. Really, she’d rather she had taken those opportunities herself before she had grown attached to him, rather than being unable to protect him from death.

The third vision was seemingly not her own. For as she watched him fall, she had felt herself falling. She had felt the wind racing past her face, her body growing limp, and her end approaching.

She had known dread.

author’s note. wowie! chapter two! this was one of my favourites to write for sure; finishing this chapter determined me to finish the whole fic.

please consider leaving some thoughts so far. it would be greatly appreciated.

— table of contents / next chapter

➳ GENSHIN MASTERLIST

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june-again · 10 months

Text

CHILUMI: # a chasmic mistake.

CHAPTER V: notion.

chapter summary. in which, inevitably, the darkness fights back. in which the hunters locate their bounty.

wc. 2.5k. genre. enemies to lovers, action/adventure.

warnings. lowkey psychological manipulation!! dddne!!

table of contents / final chapter

Lumine was sure he really had fallen into slumber, after what must have been hours of her narration. She whispered, “Sleep tight… Ajax,” before lying back on the wooden floor of the mining construct.

He was really pretty, she thought. Cursed or not, she found herself fascinated with the curve of his lips, the length of his lashes, the shape of his jaw. She thought about when she had first met him all that time ago.

He hadn’t necessarily saved her life, then, because she would have been fine defending herself from the soldiers in Liyue. But he had protected her. How much of what he had done for her had been purely for Fatui purposes? How much of what he said to her was to be considered a lie? How many of the perceived sacrifices were underhanded violations of her trust?

Lumine was aware that he fancied her in some way; he’d never really hidden that from her with his needless flirting and charming. Despite her attraction to him—which was growing more undeniable—she could not allow herself to admit anything further than it to herself. But she wanted to. She wanted to act upon the feelings she had for him without feeling like a traitor to all things good and decent.

Lumine had only planned to rest her voice and her body, which was growing sore from sitting. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, thinking about what she might do if she edified her moral standards for Childe’s sake.

She regained consciousness to the sight of Childe’s face, still, only a foot away from hers, but he was very much awake.

For a moment they held eye contact. Childe studied her face with a growing smile on lips and Lumine tried to differentiate dream from reality. Again, she thought… He had such a nice face. Had he always had so many freckles?

He looked kissable. Lumine’s ears caught fire at the thought.

“Morning, Lumine” he said, baring his teeth in a grin.

It would be nice to hear him say that every day, she thought.

Damn it.

Lumine rolled to her back and pushed herself up into a sitting position. She stretched, praying that her face hadn’t gone too red. This Chasm curse was going too far. “Did—did you sleep at all?”

He sat up and shrugged. Lumine noticed the chain under his collar shift. For a moment, the charm, a translucent gold-red diamond like his earring, dangled within view for just a second before he absently adjusted his shirt. It disappeared beneath the burgundy of his button-up but her gaze lingered, feeling overwhelmingly curious about it.

Was it a gift from his family? His father? Or a Fatui charm?

Had it been given to him when his name was changed to Tartaglia?

What was it made of? How long had he had it?

“Let’s get going, shall we?” he recommended, breaking her out of her trance. He sounded far too cheery to have just woken up, she thought.

Lumine frowned, getting to her feet. Her neck and back were still aching from the wooden floor and she stretched her arms across her body to get her blood circulating. “Down that tunnel? How?”

The method Childe had in mind was one she would not have guessed, but should have. Knowing Childe to be relatively reckless should have prepared her for his straightforward and simple plan.

That plan was jumping.

With only a charged shot or two of his arrow to find a ridge to land on before each jump, they stepped off of the edge and plunged into darkness. At first Lumine went to use her glider, but since they jumped at the same time, she realized landing after him would make her look bad. Pride was what she had to blame for her equal recklessness as the air swept past her face and her dress fluttered and her eyes threatened to close—as they threw themselves further and deeper down.

As they landed the first time, she landed steadily but began to shake immediately after. Childe put a supporting arm around her as she braced herself. Then, they went on.

The last jump was the hardest because she hadn’t known it would be the last. Though Lumine might not admit it aloud, this was the most fun she had had since the last time she had dueled Childe. The exhilaration was almost too much for her to handle and yet she didn’t want it to end. Those smiles exchanged with No. 11 of the Fatui Harbingers, the landings making her appreciate the solidity of rock beneath her feet, those shouts of, “And… jump!” each contributed to her elation. It did end, however, and it ended just in time. She felt like fainting.

They landed in a small pool in a strange, dimly lit cavern. Lumine’s legs were shaking too severely for her to pay any more attention to her surroundings, and so she tread to the edge of the pool to sit down and catch her breath. Tartaglia, landing next to her with a small splash, looked ahead in the cove.

“Oh,” he whispered. “Lumine?”

He kept his back to her. She followed the implication of his gaze.

An enormous figure of a faintly blue creature too man-like to be an animal but too cruel to be a man crept in the shadows of the other end of the pool. From its masked head two spikes like sharp, cornered devil horns shot, a third creating a fiendish crown in the center. Its limbs were long, and at the end of each finger were blue vile talons. No face was visible, but its intentions were clear: to kill.

It was, undoubtedly, an Abyss Herald.

Lumine had seen one before in the ruins she had explored with Dainslief. Fending off such a demon had been ghastly. She had hoped she would not have to repeat the experience.

And yet now there seemed to be no choice. She drew her sword.

“Lumine,” Childe whispered again, “don’t move.”

She stood, her feet steadying, but remained still behind the Harbinger. “My sword follows yours.”

He hesitated, and finally looked back at her over his shoulder. He looked… almost afraid, but more so worried for her. Then, he grit his teeth in a reassuring half-smile, nodded at her, turned back to the Abyss Herald, and drew his bow.

The Abyss Herald did not make a sound, but its high head twitched and turned in their direction. They had been noticed.

“Ah… A surrogate of the Abyss,” it growled. “Winter hails you.”

Childe held his ground in front of Lumine. “I am no friend of the Abyss.”

She stared at the back of his head, confused. What was he doing? Didn’t he spend months there?

“Darkness has no friends,” it said, creeping towards them. The distorted voice pierced Lumine’s ears. Her head would start hurting soon. “But there is no escape once you become one with it.”

Childe drew his Hydro blades, stepping forward so that he again blocked Lumine’s view of it. “I won’t let you hurt her. Prepare to feel pain.”

The Abyss Herald laughed. It was an atrocious, screeching, panging sound, one that Lumine thought should never be heard by a mortal’s ears. “She is the mortal. She will feel pain.”

Lumine charged forward with her blade raised, but Childe stopped her with his arm. “Easy, now.”

She ignored him, running past and swirling the water around them into an Anemo blast. The Abyss Herald was only mildly knocked back, and began chanting Abyssal curses at her, readying the blade in his talons. Her blade did not rest, striking rapidly as she tried to find the demon’s weak spots.

The Abyss Herald attacked once, and she dodged it. The second attack, however, struck her coldly and she fell against the wall, momentarily drained of any stamina for recovery. This was when Childe swept in, bombarding the creature with attack after attack. It bore the attacks all too well, laughing again, and ignored him to lunge at Lumine. She managed to dodge this by a hair.

“You cannot evade the darkness!” it shrieked.

She could certainly try. Ducking under another attack, she grasped Anemo into another vortex, battering it consecutively with swirling Hydro. Childe struck it with an aimed bow shot from behind, finally managing to stagger it.

It was finally beginning to look like they could win this fight. Lumine took the opportunity to gust it with a tornado, and Childe hit it with a signature melee strike. The Abyss Herald’s vitality seemed to be declining quickly. Lumine wouldn’t even have to break a sweat.

She wouldn’t need to, because an attack from above them both managed to catch them off guard and douse them in ice. They were knocked back harshly, and the Abyss Herald received an icier glow than before. It was an indication of a shield. Lumine could not get up in time as it surged at her again, and so instead she braced herself for a second painful impact.

It came again, and again. Her vision went black as the pain overcame her. She could hear Childe shouting and panting and trying to fend the Abyss Herald off of her. And failing.

“Lumine! Lumine! Get out from under him!”

“You cannot defeat us,” the Abyss Herald snarled, grabbing Lumine by the neck in its razor-edged talons. It turned its head towards Childe eerily. “This will only end when we kill her. You may die too, unless you choose to end her by yourself. Hark, cold shall claim all!”

Childe hesitated in his next attack. He looked at Lumine, who was choking and wrestling under its terrible grasp. He did not speak.

“Make your choice, Youngling. The mortal will die, but by whose hand?”

Lumine struggled wildly, eyes fixed on him.

Wasn’t she supposed to be able to trust him here? Why was he hesitating? He would do something, right? After all this time, they had grown to protect to each other—to depend on each other—to keep an eye out—to—

“Will you really relinquish your own life… in a sad attempt to protect this bounty?”

Both Childe and Lumine’s eyes widened.

Bounty?

“The prophecy will prevail. Death is calling from the darkness.”

Lumine would not wait for him to decide. The strength that was pinning her down was unearthly, but so was she. Bracing her hands against the metallic nails at her throat, she conjured a vortex of Anemo. It would hurt her, using it this close to her body with shaking hands, but she hoped it would hurt the Abyss Herald too.

A sound akin to windmill rotor blades striking an object repeatedly came, and after that, the scrape of sharp talons against her neck overwhelmed her as she fell back. The Abyss Herald was knocked back from her with a shrill cry, and Childe swept in to finish it off. Lumine pushed herself with trembling arms into a sitting position, her neck ablaze. She watched the Fatuu deal the final blow with a Hydro blade.

Neither of them spoke as they watched the Abyss Herald crumble to the ground and disappear back to wherever it belonged.

At last Childe walked over to her and knelt by her side. She still had not gotten to her feet, only able to wince and groan as he put a few gloved fingers to her neck to gauge the severity of the wound. He withdrew his hand and stared for some time at the blood on it, a crazed look on his face. Lumine watched.

His mouth slowly opened and he wet his lips, glancing up at Lumine. “Are you in much pain?”

She tried to shake her head “no,” but gasped in pain as turning her neck ever so slightly managed to strain the wound.

He curled his lips at her apologetically. “Careful,” he whispered. “It looks bad.”

Lumine only stared back at him, something screaming in the back of her mind. Childe took the scarf attached to his jacket and wrapped it gently around her neck. He was saying something about how she had better keep it covered.

She remembered, then, what was bothering her, and struck his hand away from her neck.

He frowned. “Am I hurting you?”

Lumine struggled a bit, and stood. He followed suit, eyes falling to her hand on the hilt of her blade.

“Lumine?”

“What did it mean?” she spat, ignoring the pain in her neck.

“What are you talking about?” Childe replied. He sounded half-confused, half-defensive.

Lumine drew her sword and sliced it towards his chest.

He blocked it with a Hydro blade, giving her a curious look. “You know, Lumine,” he said, voice strained, “I’m always more than down for a duel, but I must ask you to explain the suddenness.”

She said nothing, swinging her sword at him again. He blocked each with one blade, standing far too calmly for her liking.

Childe seemed to notice that something was different. During each of their duels, she had only ever been going for victory. She had only ever wanted him beneath her heel, to force him into defeat. By her relentless attacks now, however, it became clear to both of them that she was going for more. She was going for blood; for her blade through his heart.

If he even has one, she thought.

“My, my, girlie. Your attacks are sloppy. Won’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

Lumine flashed her sword to his side, cutting a bit of fabric off of his shoulder. “Didn’t think you ever needed a reason to kill.”

His eyes widened. Quickly his expression changed. Childe’s expression turned dark, a strange grin spreading across his face. “I see.” The charm had left his voice, giving way for malevolent jeer. “Well, alright then!”

It was as if he had caught aflame from the fire she wielded. His haunting blue swords disappeared, ones of purple lightning taking its place. His mask appeared on his face. Childe was playing the part of someone who was going to try to kill her, too.

And yet she still felt that he was holding back, and it infuriated her.

The whole thing made sense to her now. The chasing—he’d known she’d chase him, somehow, and he had lured her into the trap of this accursed cave. The Chasm’s psychedelic effects had been known to him, too. He had weakened her and beckoned her into a place she could never escape, into feelings of love that were false but overpowering. He was sick. He was sadistic, crooked, and Fatui. She should have known.

She had known. How could she have made such a mistake?

But it was clear now. For whatever sick or perverted reason, the bounty was on her. He had been hunting her. Luring her into his despicable nest with his childish quips and puppy eyes. And now he was holding back while fighting her. Was she wanted alive… and docile?

She refused.

“Kill me, Ajax,” she snarled. “Kill your precious bounty, before it kills you.”

author’s note. goodness gracious, somebody is mad! madly in love, perhaps? (i don't condone manipulation/lying but also like. this is childe, he lied to us on a huge scale the day we met him, let's not be shocked)

all will be explained in the final chapter ....

— table of contents / final chapter

➳ GENSHIN MASTERLIST

#a chasmic mistake.#favoniuslibrary #chilumi #genshin fanfic #tartaglia x lumine #chilumi fic #childe x lumine #ajax x lumine #genshin x traveler #genshin x reader #genshin angst #genshin enemies to lovers #genshin impact imagine #tartaglia x traveler #childe angst #childe fluff #manipulation tw #mind control tw

22 notes · View notes

june-again · 10 months

Text

CHILUMI: # a chasmic mistake.

CHAPTER IV: envy.

chapter summary. in which Lumine has a nightmare, and discovers the source of her abrupt romanticism. in which tension builds and Childe is told a very personal bedtime story.

wc. 4.2k. genre. enemies to lovers, action/adventure.

table of contents / next chapter

In her dreams, Lumine had been reunited with Aether.

He was shrouded dark, haunting Abyss fog, a dark look in his eyes. They were in a dark ruin similar to the one she had last seen him in, but this time by her side was, of all people, Childe. In this dream, she understood that she had been travelling with Childe for some time. She had been to Snezhnaya with him, had seen wonders of the world with him, and had risked her life for him. And he, evidently, had helped her find her brother.

But in the haze of the dream the only thing she was sure of was that Aether did not want to return to her. She also knew from that look in his eyes that it was because of Childe.

“You’ve chosen the wrong side,” he seemed to say, and the Abyss Heralds on either side of him shrieked piercingly enough to shatter glass.

Waking firstly brought with it an ache in Lumine’s chest, feeling the scalding look from her twin upon herself and Childe from her dream. Secondly, she became conscious of the heavy warmth over her shoulders, where the Harbinger’s coat was still draped. Thirdly, she found that her chest was aching more now that a final realization had come over her.

Childe was gone.

She did not know how she knew this, since it was still so dark that such a conclusion could not be drawn by sight alone. Nor did or know it by scent or warmth, because wearing his coat shrouded evidence of his presence. It was a strange, frantic feeling in the front of her mind, in her throat, and in her chest.

Indeed, he was gone, she was quite sure. Logic stated that there was no audible sign of breathing other than her own. She reached out her arm to where she remembered him being as they fell asleep, but her hand could only reach cold air and rock wall.

Trying to shake off the initial fear of this, Lumine put her arms through the sleeves of the coat and fumbled with one of the clasps so that its oversizedness would not cause it to slip off of her. Again she was aware of its breezy, boyish smell. This time it did not put her off, but rather it comforted her. Thinking about it any further would change her mind on the matter, though. She set forth on the way down the ravine towards the purple-ish glow she had noticed before, using her hand on the wall as a guide forward.

Lumine was not sure why she was feeling this way. He was Fatui. He was disgusting. He was evil.

She recalled something he had asked her, right before they’d fallen further into this hell hole. “How many innocent soldiers have you bruised and broken simply because they opposed you?” he’d asked her.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, but he had made an interesting point about how the order in which she had met those of the world would have affected her political alignment in this world. Certainly she wanted peace as much as anyone, but at the same time, she felt restless in it. This was one of the reasons she travelled the stars and the multiverse; this was her nature, to never sit still and never be comfortable.

It was true that Childe lived the same kind of life. It seemed that sometimes his actions were based upon instructions from the Cryo Archon, but other times they seemed to be of his own volition. He didn’t like to be used and blindsided, much like her.

Lumine rounded the corner, and now she could just barely hear the sound of distorted speech and scuffling shoes on gravel somewhere in the expanse of the violet rocks jutting out beneath the overturned tower ruins. There was enough light as she stepped out of the tunnel that she could see the steps before her. She welcomed the ability’s return and swore she’d never take it for granted again. It had been too long since she last ran and so she embraced the opportunity as she passed crumbling stone pillars and small clouds of black smoke. She was drawing closer to the sound of battle, and where battle was, she anticipated Childe to be too.

Wicked laughter from a Hydrogunner alerted her of the affair’s specifics, and she hastened to its source. She saw no camp, but only a stunned Pyroslinger lying on the ground of a path, and a Hydrogunner firing at, to her slight relief, a jacketless, jaded Harbinger. The Fatui Skirmisher either did not understand that he was ruthlessly attacking one of the near-omnipotent Harbingers, or he didn’t care. He clearly wasn’t holding back, in either case. Childe, on the other hand, was dodging more than Lumine had ever seen him do, and he seemed to be quite out of breath. He fired the occasional arrow, seeming only to be barely holding on as he kept to the ridge just above the path through the stalagmites.

Lumine realized that the Hydro shield was preventing him from making any progress. His vision was rendered useless in this duel. He might have used his Electro Delusion, but with his strength as diminished as it was, Lumine knew that wasn’t an option.

Lumine pushed up the right sleeve of the jacket up her arm, which had been hanging obtrusively due to its oversizedness. Then, she wasted no time in drawing her sword, summoning an Anemo tornado, and blasting it in the skirmisher’s direction. As the Hydrogunner took the hits, she finished him off with a Palm Vortex and a few slashes of her blade.

“Thank you, comrade!” Childe hopped from the ledge and hesitated, giving her a strange look as she gave the Skirmisher a rather spiteful blow across the mask with a swing of her heel. He stared at her, catching his breath, for several seconds before Lumine finally called him out for it.

“The hell you looking at, Harbinger?” she demanded, approaching him. With some effort she tore her eyes away from him. She had not seen him without his jacket before, nor ever nearly this disheveled. The shirt he wore was clinging to his torso, dampened by sweat, and he wore several belts across his midsection that were rather flattering to his figure. From under his collar peeked a chain of a necklace whose charm was hidden beneath the shirt. His hair, ruffled out of its usual place, had a few stray strands clinging to his glistening forehead.

“My… coat,” he said, and a smile finally reached his face. “You’re still wearing it.”

“Well, you’re the one that put it on me.”

“I know. But I certainly did not expect you to keep it on when you woke up, nor did I put your hands through the arms and clasp the front.”

Lumine fiddled with her sword, attempting to resume a natural composure. “Okay… and?”

“And? You look dazzling, comrade. You’re adorable in it.”

Lumine felt her ears catch fire and she quickly put her hands to the scarf’s tie to undo it so that she could return the jacket to him—and so that he would have no more opportunity to say such a thing. But Childe placed his hand over hers, stopping her.

“Ah—” he said, “you should keep it; I have a high tolerance for the cave chill.”

Lumine found herself to be frozen, only able to think about how much bigger his hand was than hers. The fear she had felt earlier about his absence was now replaced by comfort and significant gratification with his hand on her shoulder. And, well, she couldn’t argue with him, especially because she didn’t want to take off the coat.

He noticed her gaze and apologized with a brief smile, smoothing out some wrinkles in the scarf as if that’s what he was doing all along. His eyes were slightly wide, and averted.

“Why did you leave me?” she asked him, rather accusatively. When he didn’t respond, she continued. “You left me in the ravine. I could have stumbled back into the mud and died. I didn’t know whether you were going to come back.”

He gathered his brows. “I couldn’t sleep.” He looked up at her from under his lashes and tilted his head, looking no different than a pleading puppy. “I didn’t mean to go far..”

Lumine could feel her mouth form a pout as she held back a sudden surge of despair. “Don’t do that again, Harbinger.”

“I’m really sorry, traveler.” His voice was so soft, so genuine, that it was making her chest ache all over again. It was both an unwelcome and desperately needed sound. “I meant to come back in time for you to wake up, so that I could give you a plan for what direction we should take. Falling down here wasn’t part of my plan so I was hoping to give you something to go on.”

Lumine huffed, swiping a tear from her eye as nonchalantly as she could manage. “Why were they attacking you like that?”

Childe shrugged, leaning against the ridge on the side of the path. “Like earlier, these boys didn’t believe me when I had to tell them who I am, and in this pathetic state of frailness, it was really hard to prove it. Something was off with them. It was like they barely knew who they were and what they were fighting for.”

“Is it because of how long they’ve spent down in this pit?”

“But they haven’t spent very long. Only a few weeks, maybe a couple months. My thinking is that it’s…” He gestured to the immense ruined towers hanging from the cave ceiling, and the purple decay beneath them. “The Chasm. Specifically what happened here years ago.”

“Whatever that was.”

“Yes, whatever that was. My thinking is that it’s cursed—or at least, infectious—to the point where reason gives way for radical confusion in the minds of those who linger.”

Lumine let the words settle in her mind, and then her eyes widened.

It was the Chasm, she thought.

The Chasm was causing her to feel all these things for the man who was her enemy, causing her to worry for him and feel empty without him. The Chasm, she realized, must be simulating her feelings of infatuation that she would not reasonably feel.

Initially she felt relieved by this idea, knowing that she was insane to be looking at the Eleventh Harbinger in this way. But terror quickly replaced it, for a plethora of reasons. She realized now that she had become infatuated with the Harbinger, very much and very quickly. Such emotion, however unwelcome, was hard to control and harder to ignore. This implied that the curses lurking in the depths of this wretched cave had that much power over her very own motivations.

“Do you think that makes sense, comrade?” Childe asked her, seemingly unaware of the implications he had released upon her mind.

Lumine nodded. She wondered, from both her actualizing understanding and her overwhelming curiosity, whether it was affecting Childe in the same way—but quickly remembered that he had already favoured her in a way she had not him; whether fancying her or not, he would not have had as far to go to feel the severity what she was feeling now. If it was affecting him, was he experiencing… more infatuation than her?

She could not bring herself to imagine it. She both hated and loved the idea.

“Either way,” Childe continued, still talking of the Fatui’s behaviour, “I do think we should avoid any incidents like that as we’re on our way. Until I’ve recovered more of my strength, of course.”

“And how long will that take?” she asked, still unable to meet his eyes.

“Oh, at this rate… a few days.”

“A few days,” she repeated. She paused. “How long have we been down here?”

“By the cycles of the sun, three days,” he said. “Approximately. Just a guess. Maybe four.”

“We’ve slept twice.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve slept once.”

“And I none,” he said with a small laugh.

Lumine raised an eyebrow at him.

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” He waved his hand at her. “I’ve gone much longer without sleep on other missions.”

Lumine scoffed. “You call this a mission?”

He blinked at her, and then ran his hand through his hair. “I think the Chasm is getting to me.” He gave a short laugh, but Lumine was unsure whether he was really joking. She hoped he was. She did not want to discuss the possibilities.

“Or your lack of sleep is,” she reminded him, gazing down the path to a place it seemed to narrow into a lower-roofed corridor. “Do we have to stay long in this area? It’s giving me the creeps.”

Childe stretched and stood. “We’ll go that way. If I’m right about where we are, then that should actually take us in just the right direction.”

—

Lumine found that for several hours she could not speak. Her mind was muddied with confusion. Partially, she was caught in a loop of questing which of her thoughts were her own. But she also felt, again, unsafe at Childe’s side. She was debating the possibility of him leading her down here on purpose—for whatever reason, wanting to scramble her mind so that she could not think straight.

They had entered the smaller passage, which seemed to be a road once popular in ancient days. Along the sides of it were stone pillars made to decorate and perhaps support the cave roof. On some of the walls, she could see, though not understand, some forgotten murals of a strange script, lit by the dimly glowing vines growing over them. The whole area was dimly lit, but lit enough that she could trust each step.

The Chasm was beginning to feel more oppressing with its shrouded histories and unspoken curses. Darkness was more than a haze; it was obscurity mocking her thoughts and feelings and time slipping through her fingers as they walked step after step and hour after hour.

She did not try to make conversation with Childe. She feared that she would say something to give her emotions away. She did prepare for attempts he might put forth into conversation—but was slightly shocked that he made none. They were as silent as the cave around them.

Lumine wondered if she was imagining some hesitation from Childe. As they came across a hilichurl camp—the monsters of which seemed notably overpowered and had an ominous glow—he fought without a word and without a laugh. She did not even see him crack a smile. At first she thought it might be because of the pain he was in from transforming and expending so much power, but knowing Childe, there was more to it. She hated it. It was like he was plotting, or demoralizing, in unnatural silence.

Again she thought it could be the curse of The Chasm. If The Chasm could make her infatuated with her arch enemy, perhaps it could shut him up for a few hours. And yet this explanation did not satisfy her. Concurrently, though, she refused to ask and refused to comment on it.

—

Childe and Lumine passed through an area with a higher ceiling and some abandoned mining structures and crates. Not too much further along the passage, the floor disappeared. A tunnel drove deep into the ground. They could not see any sign of a floor, even after Childe conjured his elemental lantern. Lumine thought it looked endless.

“Well! That’s our road,” Childe declared.

Lumine could have easily trekked down to its unperceived depths with her glider had she not been with Childe. The idea of doing such a thing alone was intimidating. How strange it was to have a companion that didn’t float!

“It feels like we’re just going deeper in,” Lumine muttered, crossing her arms.

“Fear not, comrade! I think we’re getting close!” He brandished his finger out, pointing into the cave’s expansive darkness. Though she knew he could see a bit more than she could, the statement was neither encouraging nor comforting.

“‘Close’ to the lowest point in all of Teyvat?” she sneered. Finally, she was feeling capable of talking to him without her words somehow giving her away. Maybe she had been overreacting earlier, but she was glad she’d held herself back while in that condition.

“Hardly! No, but we’re close to the target. But we had better rest here.”

As they set up a place to rest on one of the abandoned mining structures, Lumine sighed. “You better gimme a cut of the reward.”

Childe leaned against the cave wall and stretched his shoulders against it. “If you want Mora, you could have asked me for it ages ago. I have quite the savings, you know.”

“I know that. I didn’t think it was Mora, Childe. But there’s something up with this bounty, and I intend to get involved with it.”

“Didn’t know you were that kind.” Childe smirked. He still wouldn’t meet her eyes for long, she noticed. “You after some rare treasure? Is that the influence of that imp you travel with?”

She shook her head. “Nah, I just think I should be compensated for my time.”

He laughed heartily. “Oh, comrade. Ha! If only that was how it worked. You know, you weren’t forced to come down here with me. You can be responsible for your own choices. Though I can’t blame you for seeing an opportunity for adventure and taking it.” He paused. “I think you should stop calling me by my codename, by the way. You calling me ‘Childe’ is… it’s stiff.”

“Why should I care?”

“I just don’t like hearing it from you, traveller. It doesn’t suit our relationship, you know. Especially with how you feel about the Fatui.”

“It doesn’t suit our relationship?” she asked.

“You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“Well,” she considered, adjusting the red scarf of the jacket, “should I call you Tartaglia instead?”

“Yes, I suppose you could. Though that isn’t my name, either.”

“It isn’t?” She shouldn’t be surprised. But there was little she knew about him, and of this she had needed the reminder.

“Would you… like to know the name my father gave me?”

Lumine told herself she was not curious, but her facial expression gave the truth away to him.

He smiled. “My father used to tell me stories of heroes. Sometimes they were about himself, and sometimes about others that he, and later I, admired. I was named after one of the latter.”

“And what is that name?” She studied his face, part of her wondering what “heroes” were to Snezhnayans. Furthermore, she found herself speculating on what name could suit him better than Tartaglia.

“The name’s Ajax.” He took a deep breath as if he was preparing for her response.

Lumine turned the name over in her mind. “Ajax,” she repeated slowly. He didn’t respond immediately, and so Lumine turned her head to see his expression. She had not anticipated seeing his eyes widened back at her and his cheeks dusted with a little more pink than usual. “It’s Ajax, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I—” He broke into a wide smile. “I like how you say it.”

“Am I saying it wrong?”

He shook his head, still smiling to himself. “Not at all. I just haven’t had someone call me that in a long time.” She wondered if he was thinking of his family. “Please refer to me as that from now on, comrade.”

She sucked air through her teeth, tentative about her response. “Then—then you should stop calling me ‘comrade.’ I’m no Fatui.”

“Ha! Then you’ll tell me your name too, mysterious traveller?”

“I guess so.” She found herself also taking a deep breath. She met many people on her journeys and not all of them were willing to ask for her name. In this case, however… she was the one who was hesitant to give it. “My name’s Lumine. And my brother is Aether, though you didn’t ask.” She felt obligated to add on the second part following the dream she had last night. She must not forget her twin in all of this.

Tartaglia did not speak for a moment. His mouth fell open, and then curved into a curious smile. “I should have known,” he finally mused.

She gazed at him, waiting for him to continue.

“Your name is beautiful, Lumine. I have not heard it before, but it suits you.”

Lumine nodded. “Thanks. I think.”

“But Aether is a name I have heard before.”

“It is?” Lumine sat up straight. She had been desperate for any sort of intel on her twin, and even after being disappointed over and over again in her journeys through Mondstadt and Liyue, she had hope. She also thought that both The Chasm and the Eleventh Harbinger were very disconnected from the rest of her quests, and so maybe, maybe, he would know something. Or perhaps the dark of the Chasm had revealed it to him…

“Last night, while you were sleeping, you started crying. I couldn’t get you to wake up. You started saying his name—Aether’s name—and… you were yelling ‘no’.”

Lumine’s heart stopped.

“I’m really sorry if I crossed a line last night, but all I could do was just hold you and try to soothe you. You did calm down eventually, and that’s when I left the ravine to clear my head. I’ll admit… I was sort of wondering who he was. I didn’t put two and two together.” He laughed, seemingly to himself. “Thought he might be a lover of yours.”

Her eyes were huge as she tried to form a response. Her lips felt dry, and she wet them with her tongue before she finally said, rather simply, “I was having a nightmare.”

“Yes, I thought so,” Childe said with a chuckle. “Do you… want to talk about it, Lumine?”

“I’d rather not.” Lumine did want to talk about it, but she never spoke of her nightmares to anyone, and the Eleventh Harbinger wouldn’t be an exception. This was necessitated by his involvement in the dream’s circumstances… and the rather humiliating sleep-talking, too.

“I promise I won’t judge. I get a lot of nightmares, too.”

“How do you get a lot of nightmares if you barely sleep?”

Childe laughed. “I think you know the answer.”

Lumine fumbled with the sleeves of her coat. “You’re not going to recover any of your strength if you don’t sleep.”

“Nah, I will. It will just take longer.”

She huffed. “I can stay up this time if that will make you feel like you can sleep. You need rest, Harbinger.”

Childe’s lips curled mischievously.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop thinking it,” Lumine demanded.

“Hey, I was only going to ask you to tell me a bedtime story! Tch, girlie. You really think I’m that much of a scumbag?”

She scoffed. “A bedtime story? Are you five?”

“Here, look.” He leaned back, crossed his arms, and shut his eyes. “Promise I won’t interrupt. Tell me something exciting.”

Lumine eyed his persisting smile and sighed. He had mentioned that his father used to tell him stories when he was young, so it didn’t feel like the request was out of nowhere. Still…

“Okay…” she acquiesced. “I’ll… I’ll think of something.”

She racked her brain for something that wouldn’t be dangerous for a Fatuus to know about. She wondered if she should tell him about her adventures in Mondsadt with Venti and the knights—or maybe the battle of Osial following the duel in the Golden House. But she realized she could be sure of nothing of her journey through Teyvat being safe to explain, and so instead she started to tell him of her adventures with Aether in the adventures before Teyvat.

She spoke of battles, magic, Gods, and men that nobody in Teyvat knew of. She spoke of loss, of hope, and of progress. Of worlds in which they had been honored as heroic kings and queens, and worlds in which they had been looked down upon and shut out. And she told him that Aether and her had always managed to find each other if their exploits separated them.

Lumine finally went quiet, realizing how much and how long she had talked by the dryness of her mouth. The last time she had spoken this much was distant in her memory. She also realized that Childe now knew the most about her of anyone in all of Teyvat. Perhaps he knew more about her than her own brother, if he indeed hadn’t fallen asleep.

He hadn’t.

“Tell me more,” he whispered, eyes still closed, but comment suspiciously immediate in breaking the silence.

So she told him more.

author’s note. what do you guys think she told ajax? :) also oopsies i can't have them sulk for too long because when the only two characters in a story aren't talking to each other it is very hard to write anything at all as i have learned

— table of contents / next chapter

➳ GENSHIN MASTERLIST

#a chasmic mistake.#chilumi #favoniuslibrary #genshin fanfic #tartaglia fluff #genshin series #childe fic #genshin impact lumine #tartaglia x lumine #childe x lumine #tartaglia x traveler #ajax x lumine #genshin x traveler #childe #lumine #tartaglia #im so normal about this fic (crying screaming throwing up)

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june-again · 10 months

Text

CHILUMI: # a chasmic mistake.

CHAPTER III: protection.

chapter summary. in which Lumine tries not to think about some very specific things. in which Lumine and Childe are faced with darkness, but still take their opportunities to quip.

wc. 2.8k. genre. enemies to lovers, action/adventure.

table of contents / next chapter

Childe and Lumine eventually found the ravine floor to start slanting further downwards, and with no other option, they continued to trudge along. The ravine floor wasn’t exactly a path like before and it made each step a risk for tripping, or even falling into an unseen hole. She tried not to think about it too hard.

Lumine found herself adjusting to holding onto him shamefully well. She would not think about how much thicker and more muscular his arm was than expected. She would not think about how he smelled—a scent best described by the howling wind over a lake at dusk—or how her occasional glances at his face offered her more comfort than revulsion. But there was no way for her to stop thinking about the warmth of his clothed arm against her own bare one, like a furnace in the dead of winter casting heat, uncontained by the wilderness around them.

Though it was unspoken, it seemed that neither of them wanted to be the one to suggest they rested; they were both exhausted, but they were both even more proud. Even as damaged as the foundation of Lumine’s pride was by her current physical contact with No. 11 of the Fatui Harbingers, she would not allow it to crumble just yet.

Eventually, Childe began to talk. Though his breathing was still ragged and his voice somewhat hoarse, Lumine got the idea that he wanted to pass the time.

He told stories of Schneznaya and of his family. Lumine had only ever met Teucer, but after a few minutes of his fond rambling, she felt like she’d met them all. It had always been hard for Lumine to think about what his family must be like; did they hate what he did? Or did they honour it? Was he a hero to them? Did his family really think the Tsaritsa and the Harbingers were doing the right thing?

She asked him these questions, and he answered them. His answers were not entirely satisfying, but they were… interesting. In some ways, she could not help but think of Aether as he spoke of them. Any of her doubts of his capacity to have familiar love as he described the letters he sent home and anticipated responses to.

She recalled, when his younger brother appeared in Liyue, Teucer saying he recognized her based off of Childe’s descriptions of her in his letters.

“How much have you told them about me?” she asked.

“Oh, well. Only a bit. I’ve described what you look like and what you do. And what a welcome inconvenience you’ve been, of course.”

“That doesn’t sound like ‘only a bit.’”

“And what would? What dry details was I supposed to mention instead?”

“I might have expected you to mention my name once or twice. Maybe Paimon, too. But not a full description of my appearance. That’s already a lot. Did you also tell them about the duel in the Golden House?”

“Mhm. It was an exciting occasion. Made for a great story.”

“Bet you made me sound like the villain.” She scowled. “Did you at least say anything interesting about me? Other than the fact that I kicked your ass?”

He chuckled a bit hoarsely. “Not really.”

Lumine also recalled Teucer saying that Childe had written that he’d wanted to join Lumine on her travels if he got the chance. She could not bring herself to ask him about this, having a feeling he’d deny it.

She wasn’t sure why he’d deny it, but she was sure that it offended her somehow.

“You have family too, right, comrade?”

Lumine paused. “It’s complicated.”

“Ah. Quarrels?”

Lumine pursed her lips. She was hesitant to tell him anything truly personal, and with Paimon not here to speak on her account, she realized she could keep the truth to herself. He would have less to use against her.

A voice at the back of her mind told her that he wasn’t the type of person to use such personal things against her. He may be Fatui, but he wasn’t a total jerk. Jerk or not, though, the less the Fatui knew about her the better she decided. “Yeah. Quarrels.”

“If I may ask, what caused them?”

Lumine sucked air through her teeth, her chest feeling heavy. “Oh, you know… we spent every second together for quite some time… We travelled together, so…” So much for keeping details to herself. She found that she couldn’t get more words out. She was rather out of breath from all the walking and the added pain to her chest wasn’t doing her any favors.

“It must be hard to talk about.”

Lumine did not reply.

“I’ve had some issues with my own family. Namely, with my father, though I don’t hold it against—” Childe cut himself off to turn his face into his other arm, coughing. He groaned. “Against him,” he finished after some effort.

“You sound like you’re recovering well,” Lumine said.

Childe sighed at her sarcasm. “I think I may need to rest, unfortunately. The Foul Legacy Transformation does a number, but any more walking might seal the deal. You…” He paused to catch his breath. “You wouldn’t want that, now, would you?”

The two stopped walking and, to Lumine’s disgraceful disappointment, unlinked arms. Tartaglia took to the ravine floor sitting against the stone wall with another round of groaning and coughing. Lumine wandered a bit further down the ravine towards a purplish glow she had not noticed before. She noticed that, without the Harbinger’s physical contact, she was rather cold. Quite cold, in fact; it must be becoming colder the further down the Chasm they travelled.

“I think I see something ahead,” she said, becoming more sure of the dim light.

“Don’t go too far, girlie,” came Childe’s voice, which she ignored.

After a few more steps, the ravine took a slight corner. The sight as she turned it was baffling.

The ravine opened up into a large area—at first glance, Lumine thought it was the overworld. But from the sky of stone hung an upside down city of dark, corrupted ruin of towers. Below them was a sea of black mud and violet decay. Lumine found herself lost in the immense view, as fire to her eyes after so long in the dark.

She finally stirred herself, walking back. It had only been a few paces, but the darkness was again blinding and she held her hands out in front of her.

“Um… Childe?” She was unable to eliminate the quiver from her voice. “I can’t see where you are.”

“Right here, comrade.” His voice came from only a few feet away, and she faced its presumed source. “I thought you might not come back, haha…”

A pang of guilt seared through her chest. He was incredibly weakened right now, and she was wandering off into the dark with no regard for either of their safety. She felt her hands touch the ravine wall, her eyes slowly adjusting to what faded shapes they could distinguish in the darkness. Already—yes, already, she was starting to acclimatize to it. It may never be a home to her as it seemed to be for Childe, but she felt its numbing blackness become like an inviting host to her guesthood.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” she managed to get out, sinking down the wall to the ground. She expected to hear a sassy remark. She expected him to leave a bad taste in her mouth, just because she could muster her own venom.

But instead, he just said, “I’m glad you didn’t wander off after all.”

He sounded terribly weak, and she couldn’t even bear to gloat in it. His voice was hoarse, just like it had been after their duel in the Golden House. But it was also the same as it had been after he had destroyed all those ruin guards for Teucer in the factory, protecting his sibling with all the strength he had. Lumine could recall the moment she looked not on him as an enemy or rival, but as a hero to his younger brother. As a man who looked past himself. As a man who understood family.

Again, her chest clenched as she thought of Aether. What had become of Aether?

Childe knew just how to get under her skin. Sometimes it was through snark or politics, but other times—unforgivable times, it was through showing humanity she did not believe could exist past those eyes of his.

Lumine could see them now. Despite the darkness she could not miss him peering over at her. He was not as far away as she’d guessed. She knew not where the light with which they shone was coming from. Dull blue irises sent her into a wordless daze.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

She did not heed this inquiry, only… staring. She was so exhausted from walking. From walking and hating and… and worrying. She was tired. So… tired.

“It wasn’t anything important around the corner, was it?”

She thought to herself that perhaps it was. But exhaustion was overtaking her and she was fading. Her body felt wet and cold and numb all over. She was submerged in a black sea and all she could see were his blue, blue eyes.

“Comrade!”

But Childe was now far away. Her mind was blank. She did not dream, or think, or breathe.

Lumine knew no more.

—

Lumine opened her eyes and saw no more light than had been behind her lids. However, she became acutely conscious of the fact that she was leaning against a certain Harbinger’s warm, broad chest.

She opened her mouth, which felt dry, and pushed her voice out. “Childe?”

He gasped. “You’re awake! Thank goodness.”

“I’m…” She tried to move but her entire body felt like cement. She was immobile, and thus her head remained against Tartaglia’s chest. “What… happened?”

“You had sat right in a patch of that mud. I hadn’t realized. You started to daze off and then you slumped over. I had to drag you out and… pray that you would wake up.”

Lumine was afraid.

What lived in the dark would never be her friend. She might not have lived had she been alone. However, she was becoming aware that Childe was what lived in the dark. He had barely been affected by the mud; he’d hardly noticed it until it had begun to influence her. He was exhausted, instead, by his Delusion which preyed and fed on his soul.

Whatever soul her had left, that was.

As feeling slowly returned to the rest of her body, she realized that the pressure on her side was from his arm wrapped around her back, his hand on her waist holding her close.

She hesitated, and then asked him, “Could you move your hand?”

Childe reluctantly did as she asked, apologizing. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

“You haven’t been crying, have you?” she asked.

“Of—Of course not,” he denied. “And—if I was, what’s the matter with that? Can’t a guy shed a tear or two?”

“I don’t see why you would. Unless you somehow think you won’t be able to survive without me, which we both know isn’t true.”

“No, it’s just…”

He trailed off, and she waited for him to continue. When he did not, she sat up as much as she could so that she could look into his eyes. They were still there, somehow visible in the pitch black of the ravine. Hooded, a bit, squinting back at her as if he was studying her.

“It’s just,” she mimicked.

When he spoke, the words came quickly, as if he was trying to get it out all at once. “The darkness has taken many things from me, and I’m not quite prepared to lose another. That’s all, comrade. That’s all.”

Lumine thought on this for several seconds, soaking in the weight of it. She chose to respond indirectly, feeling the dissonance of her hatred for him with the empathy she was overcome with. “I wasn’t yours to begin with. You have nothing to lose.”

“That’s what you say, my friend.”

Lumine could still feel the remaining warmth in her clothes from where he had been holding her. She pressed her eyes shut and forced herself to forget how it caused her heart to race. But she could also tell, now, that there was a physical weight over her shoulders: Childe’s jacket. She only knew it by the weight and excessive size. She thought about its smell. Like a warm cabin on a winter's day. Like the wind on a lake. A cradle of excitement.

Now, disliking the direction of the conversation, she chose to change the subject. “So,” she said. She cleared her throat. “What the hell are we gonna do now?”

“Well, comrade, I hate to say it, but I think we should call it a day. The Chasm has not been kind to us. I think we’ve gotten up again one too many times.”

“Never,” Lumine posed. She was, perhaps, disagreeing just to disagree. She knew she would not be getting back up again for quite a few hours, at the least.

“At least a bit of sleep—of true sleep, not near-death from some Chasm goo—should do the both of us some good.”

“I got plenty of sleep when we set up camp before,” Lumine protested. She was lying. She had gotten less than an hour at the most.

“Sure, and so did I.” And she became aware that maybe, just maybe, he was lying too. “Still, I can’t do anything in this state, and you… well, just try to get up and then argue with me, alright?”

She didn’t have to try. She knew she wouldn’t be able get to her feet, and so she finally yielded. “Fine. You win. We’ll explore ahead later.” She pulled on Childe’s jacket so that it better covered her shoulders, wondering whether she should thank him for saving her life. Again. “Sounds like something Paimon would say,” she muttered, leaning her head against the ravine wall.

“That pesky fairy.”

“Yeah.” Lumine thought again of Aether, though she could not tell why. Nor could she tell what made her say what she said next. “By the way… about my twin…” She allowed a sigh. “I didn’t fight with him. Much, anyways. We were separated by other forces out of our control.” A pause. “He’s what I’m looking for. He’s why I’m travelling all over Teyvat. He’s the only family I have.”

“So there’s another mysterious traveller from another world somewhere else in this one, huh?” came Childe’s response.

“Yeah,” she said, “I guess so.”

“Is he as cute as you?”

Lumine tested the function of her arm and then, satisfied that it was mobile, jabbed it as hard as he could into where she guessed his ribs were. His yelp of pained surprise was her welcome reward.

“Ah, o-ow, what’d I do?”

“Try listening to me make a weird comment about one of your siblings, and then ask me that again.”

He laughed, and then coughed, then paused to catch his breath. “Alright, alright, I get it. I thought the problem would be that I called you cute, but apparently that part doesn’t bother you, hmm?”

Lumine huffed. “How about you stop talking?”

“Make me.”

“I can elbow you again.”

“I don’t mind.”

She elbowed him again and he let out another cry.

“But I don’t see how either of us are going to sleep if you break my ribs,” he complained.

“I don’t see how that would be my problem.”

“Might as well leave me to die!”

“Mmm,” Lumine hummed, considering this option. “No, I’d rather be able to see the defeat in your face when I crush your ribs and snap your neck.”

He only laughed again. “I look forward to it,” he sighed, sounding genuinely delighted, and neither of them spoke for some time after that. The silence was warmer and sweeter than it had been before.

Lumine did not think she would be able to fall asleep next to Childe. A killer, she reminded herself. He was a Fatuus. He was one of the Harbingers, for crying out loud. A selfish, power-hungry, bloodthirsty man’s coat was draped over her shoulders; an eccedentesiast killer’s scarf was round her neck, each for no reason but to keep her warm. She decided that she must not and could not fall asleep in what logically could only be the open jaw of a lion.

However, once again, she felt her body defiantly prove her wrong.

author’s note. wowie! the plot thickens! is that lumine... growing attached? stay tuned to find out what happens next! p.s. sorry for the late post. i was in the middle of nowhere for a week.

please consider leaving some thoughts so far. it would be greatly appreciated.

— table of contents / next chapter

➳ GENSHIN MASTERLIST

#a chasmic mistake.#chilumi #favoniuslibrary #genshin fanfic #tartaglia fluff #genshin series #childe fic #genshin impact lumine #tartaglia x lumine #childe x lumine #tartaglia x traveler #ajax x lumine #genshin x traveler #childe #lumine #tartaglia #slay i am so not coming back to tumblr yet but i must finish posting this series

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