#tartaggles | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

archived-kin · 2 years

Text

sharp blade, soft heart

note from kin: i know i said on the gorou piece that everything upcoming was fluff, but it turns out i was lying. anyway in this one childe falls in love with the spirit of a long dead wandering warrior - very loosely inspired by the presence of the iwakura guys and ‘masanori’ in inazuma

this one’s kinda long, so strap in! it's also a bit of a fixer-upper in regards to plot tbh, but i like it even so

fandom: genshin impact

character(s): gn! reader, childe

pairing(s): childe/reader

warning(s): references to death, and also i still haven’t read up on childe’s actual lore so this is not canon compliant at all

genre: uh oh! angst time (not the devastating kind, more the ~yearning~ kind. man i really do love writing this sort of thing for tartaggle huh)

You first appear to him in the distant peaks of one of Snezhnaya’s coldest mountain ranges.

Childe is here on a self-imposed test of courage, one hand clutching the hilt of his sheathed blade, and the other trying to keep his hat from being blown clean off his head. The snowstorm has died down, but the wind continues to roar past his ears in great, howling gusts - it knows that he’s an intruder on this mountain, and it’s determined to blow him away.

If he hadn’t been looking in the right place at the right time, he probably would’ve missed you - but the sun is still high enough in the sky for him to spot your figure, standing there amid the stark white snow. At first he contemplates ignoring you, assuming you to just be another odd Snezhnayan about on their own business - but then he looks a little closer, and realises that you’re translucent.

Now that’s unusual...

“Who goes there?!” You bark as soon as he approaches, yanking his hat off his head and stowing it in his bag to leave both hands free. “I hear your footsteps!”

“Whoa there!” He raises his left hand as you abruptly turn to face him, and he sees the telltale glint of a notched arrow aimed his way. “Calm down, we’re all friends here.”

You narrow your eyes at him, fingers still poised at the bowstring. “You have a weapon.”

“So do you,” He points out in reply, though he does take his other hand off the hilt of his blade, and lifts that as well. “So, have you noticed that you’re see-through?”

“My arrows are not,” You growl, and Childe notes with mild surprise that you’re right. The weapon in your hands seems perfectly solid compared to the rest of your body. “I aim to kill. What are you doing here?”

“It’s a free estate, isn’t it?” He spreads his arms to gesture around himself. The wind immediately bites at his exposed torso; he quickly brings his arms closer to himself again. “No one owns the mountains. Anyway - isn’t killing a bit harsh? Why can’t you aim to incapacitate instead?”

You regard him with mild disdain, then very slowly and deliberately move your arrow to point to his groin. At this, his eyes open wide with horror - only partly exaggerated. “Oh, never mind, killing’s fine, killing’s fine…”

For a moment you don’t move, but then you sigh and lower your bow. “...I will not fire. I have limited arrows as it is.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” Childe observes you for a moment, then continues, “Can we go back to the see-through thing, then?”

“We cannot,” You dismiss almost grumpily, then look him up ad down. He wonders vaguely if you’re checking him out. “...are you an able fighter?”

At this, he practically inflates like a pufferfish with pride, your translucency forgotten in a heartbeat. “Ha! Well, I’d like to think so! Why - are you looking for a brawl?”

You cock a brow at him, drop the bow, then quite suddenly unsheathe a blade of your own - for a second he thinks it’s come out of nowhere, then realises that you’ve deftly pulled it out from your left sleeve. He doesn’t even know how you were hiding it in there without it being noticeable, but… well, all he can think for a few moments is whoa, that’s hot.

“I have not had a good fight in a very long time,” You announce, pointing the sword at him. He notes its oddly thin blade - the style of blacksmithery doesn’t seem local. “Amuse me.”

“Heh…” He pushes down on that familiar rush of adrenaline that always comes with a chance to draw his weapon. “What’s in it for me?”

“A satisfying battle is its own reward,” You reply, and that’s enough to bring a grin to his face. It seems you have similar ideologies. “We will fight to disarm. I doubt you will be able to strike me directly, anyway… if you manage to survive the first five seconds.”

He unsheathes his own blade. “What makes you think—”

Next thing he knows, he’s lying in the snow and staring up at a cloud so white that it makes his eyes hurt a little. There’s a dull aching sensation in the centre of his chest - after some extremely perplexed thought, he realises that you’d slammed the hilt of your sword into him.

“The first moments of a fight are some of the most important.” You lean over him - against the sky, your face is barely visible. You’re shimmering, like some sort of desert mirage. “You can win in a flash if you simply make your move swiftly enough.”

“Wh—” He sputters in outrage, sitting up quickly - you don’t move back in time, and his head phases through your torso entirely. “—oh, that’s not nice…”

“I suppose not,” You observe as he hops to his feet, wearing a marginally disturbed expression. “You were saying?’

“Huh...? Oh, right!” He points at you accusingly. “You didn’t tell me the fight had started yet!”

“Will your enemies do you the honour of warning you before they strike?” You ask in reply. Childe opens his mouth, then slowly shakes his head in defeat. “...this should be common knowledge to you. It is the first rule taught by any master worth their salt.”

Now that he thinks about it, he has heard something along those lines before. It’s just that he’s usually the enemy striking without warning - not the one being struck. “...well, I’ll concede. I let my guard down. Will you let me fight you for real now?”

You respond with a deft jab of your sword. Had he not kept his grip on his own weapon even as he went down, he’d have been skewered in seconds - but, thankfully, he manages to deflect the blow. As you draw your blade back to your side, he takes several long steps back, cursing the snow obstructing his boots.

“Good reaction time,” You note, then suddenly aim a slash at him that he only just parries. “Hmm. Your technique is sound.”

“Yours isn’t bad, either,” He replies, shifting his stance and tightening his grip around his blade hilt as he prepares for an attack of his own. “This’ll be fun.”

It’d probably do him well to be less arrogant next time. He attacks with the same deftness of movement that has been more than enough to fell countless opponents before - each move calculated and swift, almost mechanical in their accuracy. But you counter each one by a hair’s breadth; it almost takes his breath away, the way you match his every blow.

It’s as if the two of you are engaged in some kind of deadly dance, set to the tune of clashing steel. Your expression is muted and flat; the only hint that you’re engaged in the battle at all is the subtle spark in your eyes. Childe, meanwhile, feels his grin grow wider with each passing moment, heart thumping louder and louder each time your blades cross.

The thrill of an equal opponent is such that, when you finally knock the blade from his hands and send it spinning into a nearby snowdrift, Childe can’t do much other than throw back his head and laugh. He laughs for a while - long enough that he’s sure you’ll think he’s gone crazy when he finally stops. But he just can’t help it! He feels too good!

“...you enjoyed the battle, I assume,” You say drily as his laughter finally dies down. “Was it worth it?”

“Worth it?” He brushes away a tear. “Oh, it was worth it alright. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“I learnt a little from every nation I visited,” You reply mysteriously, stowing your blade back in your sleeve. “From the masters I met, and from the many defeats I encountered along the way.”

“I’d expect no less,” He sighs with a smile, trudging over to retrieve his fallen blade. “So where’ve you been ‘along the way’?”

“All over the world,” You say, sweeping your arm out theatrically. Then you pause, looking around at the snow, and frown. “...my journey was not supposed to end here.”

“No?” Childe looks you up and down. Your clothes are hardly suitable for Snezhnayan weather. “Well, it’s true you don’t look like you’re from around here...”

You follow his gaze, then scowl a little. “I assure you, this is not my usual attire. I was not wearing my armour when I passed.”

“Oh. Oh.” He should probably be more surprised by that, “So you’re a ghost, then?

“I prefer spirit,” You say grandly.

“Spirit, right. How did you die?”

“...straight to the point, I see.” You give him a look, folding your arms. “...a once-friend murdered me. I had assumed they were as honourable as they appeared… as you can tell, they were not.”

He raises an eyebrow at you, intrigued. “...care to elaborate?”

“I suppose.” You pause for a moment, then begin matter-of-factly, “They had a little green stone that they used to aid them in battle. They used it to create a plant of poison, and used it alongside another herb to brew me a sedative tea. I lost consciousness within minutes and died in my sleep.”

That’s an… unorthodox way to use Dendro. Childe feels his own Hydro Vision burning a hole through the pouch hanging from his waist. “...how long ago was this?”

You ruminate on this for a long while. “If I have observed the seasons correctly, then it should have been at least one hundred and fifty years by the next thaw.”

“One hundred and—” He chokes on an inhale, and has to spend the next minute or so doubled over coughing. Meanwhile, you just stand there and watch him with a mildly concerned look on his face. “...why have you stuck around for so long?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” You reply. Now that he thinks about it, the way you talk makes a lot more sense when he considers that you’re from more than a century ago. “I do not wish for vengeance. Even if I did, my once-friend will be long-dead by now.”

“Probably,” He agrees, then pauses. “...why did they poison you?”

“I won a precious artifact during my travels,” You say, a distant look passing over your face for a moment. “A beautiful goblet. I suppose they coveted it… or else I wouldn’t have watched them steal it from the pack strapped to my cold corpse’s back.”

Childe winces a little. He’s not afraid of death himself, but it’s odd to hear someone talk so casually of their own demise. Not least because you’re the first (and only) not-yet-departed soul he’s ever met.

“...well,” he starts, rubbing hesitantly at the back of his neck, “I hope I… made your afterlife a little more interesting.”

You quirk an eyebrow at him. A transient smile passes across your face. “You did, indeed. You are the first person I’ve met since I passed.”

He feels an odd little throb in his chest. Sympathy, he supposes. “Does it get lonely?”

“Perhaps. It has been too long for me to remember the difference between isolation and company.” You pause. “...but I would welcome another visit, if you ever have the time.”

He offers you a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

And so he does. At first, he only comes by sparingly - to have a word, and exchange a few blows. But then, more and more, he finds himself making the long trek, not just to fight you, but to see you again. He hadn’t quite realised how easy you were on the eyes the first time he met you; he hadn’t quite realised how soothing your voice was, either.

The cold stops biting as much soon enough, and the bracing exercise does wonders for his stamina. Which is a good thing, because the lengths of your fights are getting almost ridiculous… even though you always manage to best him in the end. That’s alright, though; it just means he can keep getting stronger. It helps that it’s really quite alluring when you smirk at him after yet another defeat, too.

He gets questions from the other Harbingers about his constant absences, most of them accompanied with ill-intentioned jabs questioning his loyalty. He ignores all of them - until he’s given a mission to complete, he’ll spend his free time however he likes, and at the moment he really quite likes spending his free time with you.

The only problem would be that it reduces the time he gets to spend with his family, but there’s a silver lining to that cloud, too. Soon enough into his series of visits, you begin to tell him stories - of the landscapes you have traversed, the battles you have both fought in and witnessed, and the endless amount of other lives that you passed through like a leaf on a stream. And those stories most certainly go down well with the kids back home.

It’s clear that, even though it was cut short prematurely, you still lived an impressively full life; even after almost half a year has passed, you don’t seem anywhere close to running out of experiences to recount. Childe’s grateful for that; his siblings have gotten so accustomed to having your thrilling tales relayed to them that, were he to go back to telling them his own poorly-improvised stories, they’d be extremely disappointed.

Childe himself enjoys your stories greatly, too. In fact, he’s hiding something about that - there is one story that he never re-tells to his family, that he keeps close to his chest like a precious childhood toy. He can’t quite put why he does it into words, but he keeps doing it, anyway.

And, out of the many you tell him, it’s only that story that he asks to hear again. It isn’t one about conquest and conflict, as would be typical of him, but a fairly mundane one about your time in the nation of Liyue.

In it, you speak of a distant peak in Minlin - Mount Hulao, which towers over the Huaguang Stone Forest, and is hell to climb if you don’t know where to put your feet. You describe the amber crystals - prisons of the purest colour, locking everything they incarcerate into an eternal stasis that lasts for as long as the stone remains unshattered.

Above all, though, you talk of the view - of cloud-shrouded peaks, distant blue waters, and rippling green grass. You talk of how the sunset would cloak the trees with the most vivid golden glow you’d ever seen, and of how the pale sunrise and chilled morning dew served as a far better wake-up call than the sound of an ambushing enemy. Rather unusually, your favourite time to go gazing on the mountain was deep in the night - at the right time, it’d seem like the moon and stars had cast a silvery shroud of gossamer over Liyue.

This, above all others, is Childe’s favourite story of yours.

He’d be lying if he was saying he was still paying complete attention to the words, though; rather, he likes to watch you. It’s when you describe that view that you look the closest to corporeal that you’ve ever been, when a true smile comes closest to actually lingering on your face. The sparkle he sees in your eyes then is different to the one he spots in the midst of a fight, and though the latter was bolstering enough to warrant several returns, he thinks that it’s the former that keeps him coming back to you now, over and over again.

Is it possible to love someone across so many years? He’s not sure - but he’s also not sure what other word he could apply to how it feels to be near you these days. And it’s not the sort of term that Childe throws around lightly, but somehow it feels right.

He’d never say it, of course. 'I love you’ - he can’t even touch you; he doubts that you’d believe him if he suddenly made that confession. But he thinks it to himself, practises whispering it into the night when he’s about to fall asleep, and shouts it silently - a thousand times for each smile that passes across your face.

Childe doesn’t do things by halves. Like his thirst for battle, his feelings are all-consuming, and sometimes it’s all he can do to keep himself from screaming with the intensity of it all. It’s such an odd thing, something straight out of a folk tale - to have fallen in love with a piece of the long-forgotten past. Those stories never end well, nothing that brings the living and the dead too close does… but Childe allows himself to dream.

In many of your stories about Liyue, you talk about a so-called adeptus who lives upon that Mount Hulao that you love so much - an adeptus named Mountain Shaper. Somehow you earned the honour of being able to call him your master for a short while, and it was he who gifted you the bow that you aimed at Childe when he first met you.

“It was buried by its first master,” You tell him, holding it out for him to take a closer look. “Mountain Shaper presented it to me just before I left Liyue, and I have wielded it since. It fires well, even if it is rusted. Perhaps you could learn to use it one day… after all, I have no use for it.”

“Sounds fun,” He agrees, reaching out, then pausing when his fingers pass straight through the bow’s handle. “...that’ll be a bit of an obstacle, though… and I warn you, I’m hopeless with anything long range at the moment.”

You don’t seem fazed. “Ah, the instrument is never as important as the one who wields it. As long as the bow you find is sturdy, it will serve well as a weapon - and, as long as you polish your craft, you will find your aim is true before long.”

He agrees with you then, but the topic never quite seems to crop up again after that day. The two of you fight with your respective blades, as always, and as always you send his flying away in the end. Somehow, though, the idea of finally being able to hold that bow of yours nestles at the back of his mind, and never quite leaves.

Maybe it’s because you don’t seem to place much sentimental value in your blade - at least, not nearly as much as you do in your bow. Maybe it’s because of the link it shares with your story about Mount Hulao. Or maybe it’s just a matter of principle - if he were able to touch the bow, he might be able to touch you, too.

Childe has grown soft, it seems. He’s let his guard down. He becomes too comfortable with you, too comfortable in your existence, too comfortable in this routine he has fallen into. He forgets himself and the position he has been given; a position that is flimsy as it is, recent as his appointment has been. He supposes that what follows is some kind divine retribution for forgetting his place.

Precisely two years to the day he met you, he finally bests you in battle. He doesn’t register it at first, but then he catches it - the shine of your blade as it’s flung skywards. In the sudden burst of excitement that follows, he doesn’t realise that your sword does not return to earth - it fades away in a cloud of mist and dust.

“I did it! I beat you!” He drops his own blade - it sinks into the snow with a muted thump - and pumps his fist in the air, suddenly feeling like a little boy again for the first time in years. “Oh, wow— I really have gotten stronger, huh?”

“You have, indeed,” You agree, and he realises you’re smiling at him - properly, without it fading within seconds as it always does. “Congratulations, Ajax.”

He feels an odd little shiver shoot up his back. It’s been a long time now since he told you his birth name, but he hadn’t expected you to suddenly use it so bluntly. “Well— it’s all down to you.”

“Perhaps.” Your smile is the brightest he’s ever seen it - but, for some odd reason, he feels his own falter. “Ajax - take this for me, would you?”

You’re holding out your bow. His smile truly drops at this; a cold sense of dread steals over him. “...what? You know I can’t touch it.”

“I have reason to believe that that might have changed.” You push the bow forward, and he takes a step back, hands held stiff by his sides. “...what’s wrong?”

He’s silent for a long while, staring at both you and the bow warily. The realisation had hit him as soon as he saw your smile, he thinks. When he speaks again, his voice is small - almost child-like. “...you’re leaving.”

“I don’t have much of a choice in the matter,” You chuckle, and he curses the fact that he can’t appreciate the sound. “Besides - I left a hundred and fifty years ago. It isn’t quite a recent development.”

“But you didn’t,” He says, and he hates how petulant he sounds. “You’re still here. You’re… you’re still with me.”

“I was never going to stay around forever, Ajax,” You say gently. “I died a long time ago.”

You reach forward again, with your hand instead of the bow, and this time he does not move away. When your hand meets his cheek, it doesn’t pass through it - for the first time, Childe feels your touch.

“You fight well,” You say gently. “And you’ve grown stronger.”

“There’s no point to it,” He mutters bitterly, fighting the urge to turn away. “I wouldn’t have bothered if I knew this would happen.”

You give him a stern frown“That’s a foolish thing to say and you know it.”

He looks at you. Everything rushes in on him so quickly that, for a fleeting moment, he feels as if he can't breathe. Something inside him aches, keens, whimpers - it wants to grasp your hand, hold on tight, and never let go. But... he can’t move. He can’t do anything but stare at you, drinking in your face greedily, as if he’ll never see it again - because he won’t.

Slowly, you draw away from him. He follows your motion; in that split second before your hand leaves his cheek, he thinks a million words - but he can’t find it in himself to say any of them aloud.

“It isn’t fair,” He murmurs finally, face crumpling. “We didn’t have enough time.”

“Of course we didn’t. It’s cruel - that I had to remain here for over a hundred years, and only spend two of them with you. But my time has always been stolen. You have to remember that.”

You hold your bow out to him again. This time, he doesn’t reject it. He only looks at it, then back at you. “...so this is it, then?”

“This is it,” You repeat back to him, and take a small step forward. “Take it. I know you will wield it well.”

He reaches forward, agonisingly slowly - hoping that, if he can drag this moment out for long enough, he can make it last an eternity. But time stops for no one; finally, his hand closes around its solid handle.

You smile at him, one last time. “Thank you, Ajax.”

The bow weighs heavily in his hand. Childe’s breath catches. All he can do is stand and watch you disappear.

Everything after that feels like an echo. He takes the bow back home with him, trudging through the snow, feeling the bitter cold for the first time in a long while. In the months that come, his fellow Harbingers question his sudden obsession with the weapon he’s neglected ever since he joined their ranks, but he has no answers for them. He only practises harder - until the string of your bow is as familiar to him as his own palms.

He goes back to keenly awaiting the next outpost to take, if only to avoid the too-familiar Snezhnayan snow. Eventually, a mission comes up - and he receives several disparaging looks from his fellow Harbingers when he practically jumps at the opportunity, but he couldn’t care less. Within a week, he’s on a boat bound for Liyue.

His first move upon arriving in the Harbour is not to scout around for info regarding Rex Lapis, as he was advised to do. Instead, he stops a passing local, and asks for directions to Mount Hulao.

The golden-eyed gentleman is detailed in his instruction, and kind in his warning about the adeptus who will surely strike this insolent human down for daring to enter his abode. Childe barely hears his talk of sigils and permissions; his mind is already set on one track, and by the time he sets off, the only thing he remembers is the route that has been dictated to him.

Funnily enough, he meets no obstruction on his way up the mountain. No crystal comes to swallow him up; no adeptus comes to smite him. Perhaps it is the presence of the bow that he has carried since the day he lost you, or perhaps it is something else entirely, but it seems Mountain Carver will allow him passage on the mountain for now.

It’s dark by the time he reaches the peak. He barely feels the exhaustion weighing down his legs - only the relief as he finally sits down, and breathes in the cool night air.

He looks out across a sea of mountain peaks, the tips painted silver by the moonlight, and smiles. The view is every bit as beautiful as you said it was.

#unedited #so very unedited #folks i am Insane at 4AM again #genshin impact #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact x reader #genshin childe #genshin tartaglia #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #ghosts #angst #uhhh #pining #yearning #childe x you #tartaglia x you #oh that reminds me i got my tartaggle to crit 300k the other day #it was on a bounty but still

128 notes · View notes