Chapter Text
"Lumine, I will grab us some bites to eat together with Paimon. A traveling chef has arrived in the village and guess who made the mistake of telling her..."
His sigh sounded almost defeated and that didn't surprise her one bit. Nothing and no one, absolutely no one possessed the power to keep Paimon away from food, especially when it came to new or unfamiliar dishes.
"If I don't take her to this chef right now, I'm sure she won't chew my ears off with just words anymore...In the meantime, can you keep an eye on the little rascals so they don't do anything unreasonable?" Childes' soft and slightly desperate voice brought a shallow, almost gleeful smile to the blonde haired girl's lips.
"Of course."
"Well then what are we waiting for! Paimon is about to starve to death! Let's go walking purse, uh-... um no, I mean Ajax of course!" whined, the more than obviously quite hungry Paimon, at the poor young man in front of her.
"It's alright, it's alright! We'll go in a minute! But before that, could you stop breaking your promise all the time? Do I have to remind you again that we agreed that you wouldn't call me walking purse anymore, but Ajax, just like Lumine does?"
Lumine just couldn't suppress a quiet giggle. The scene before her was just way too adorable.
Seeing Ajax pouting at an annoyed Paimon was a very special sight that she wouldn't trade for anything in the world.
Still discussing, the two made their way towards the door when Lumine heard a now very familiar voice behind her, "Where's our dear brother going this time? Huh, is that Paimon next to him?"
"Where do you think they're going when Paimon voluntarily accompanies him without me?", Lumine only replied dryly and a little smugly, which also brought a shallow amused grin to Tonia's lips.
"Getting food."
The way Tonia had spoken those words made them both burst out laughing.
"There is only one thing whose power is strong enough to separate Paimon from you, and that's food."
How true that was.
For so long she had been traveling through Teyvat with her little guide and nothing had ever been able to separate them. In the meantime, they had traveled to almost all the towns and villages that Teyvats had to offer and were still on the heels of her brother Aether.
Three weeks ago, they had finally reached Snezhnaya.
After a few days of exploring, they had met Teucer and his big sister Tonia by chance in a somewhat secluded village.
Teucer had immediately recognized them both and introduced them to Tonia, who in turn had invited them to her home.
Before either she or Paimon could even object in any way, they were already standing in the magnificent entrance hall of the large house, which was located about a kilometer away from the village on an even more impressive property.
Even though Diluc's estate, Dawn Winery, in Mondstadt could easily be described as spacious and beautifully designed, it was no comparison to what they had built here.
Tonia led them into the living room and before they knew it, they were sitting at a table with Teucer, Anthon and Tonia, helping themselves to some snacks Tonia had prepared for them.
A few stories, a lot of laughter and certainly a good while later, however, they heard a loud clang from the direction of the living room door that briefly startled everyone.
Childe, alias Tartaglia, had probably expected just about anything when he arrived home, except that one of his rivals, if she could not be called his arch-rival by then, was sitting comfortably at his dining room table with his younger siblings, happily exchanging stories.
The vase in his hand, which he had probably just bought and brought home, fell to the floor resoundingly and shattered into countless pieces.
As if he were petrified, he stood in the doorway and didn't move a muscle for a few seconds
No wonder. Their last encounter had been anything but peaceful and harmonious. A fact of which the siblings could not have known, of course, and neither Paimon nor Lumine had the heart to tell them about it.
He seemed to be calculating all the scenarios that could follow. Obviously, he feared that she would take advantage of his siblings. But Lumine never intended to do that.
Granted, she might have the right to do so after Childe had taken Paimon hostage and threatened to kill her at their last meeting. That was something she would not easily forgive him for, but his siblings had nothing to do with it. Therefore, she would not drag them into their conflict.
Besides, she knew how much his siblings meant to him, after all, she had a brother too. They are more important to him than anything else. No, she would never stoop to such a level, and it stung her heart a little that he seemed to think that she would. She would not take advantage of such a weakness, never.
"A word traveler?" he nearly hissed, having apparently calculated enough and realized that she would not take anyone hostage or otherwise tamper with his siblings in any way. His voice sounded rough, almost as if he was struggling to control his emotions.
She stood up without a word while keeping an icy expression on her face and gave Paimon a look to indicate that she should entertain the children while they sorted this out. She couldn't do anything about it anyway, and her companion knew that well by now.
Childe led her out of the house and into the garden, as far away from his siblings and Paimon as possible. She followed him silently and only realized now that the sun had already set, and night was approaching. They had been chatting with the siblings longer than she had thought.
The Fatui led her deep into the forest that surrounded the property, probably following a familiar path that she could not see. Each of his steps gave the impression that he had traveled this path hundreds of times before. Childe did not stop until they had walked for several minutes and had entered a clearing well hidden among the trees. Only a small frozen pond and some larger and smaller boulders adorned the spot, the rest of the open forest floor was covered by frozen grass and hard, dark earth.
The Fatui kept his back turned to her, but his body language spoke volumes.
She could guess the words that would follow.
"What do you want here traveler? Are you trying to seek revenge because of what happened the last time we met? You must have grown a lot stronger if you have the courage, or rather the audacity, to wait for me in my own home next to my siblings. But don't worry, we'll soon find out if you haven't overestimated yourself! Since our last meeting, my strength has also increased again significantly!"
With these words, he turned around while both his Delusion and his Vision began to glow intensely.
She had just enough time to summon her sword before Childes' hydro-blades collided with hers, sparking a fierce battle.
But it was not as fierce as it might have seemed at first glance.
Childe clearly dominated the fight, but that had nothing to do with the fact that he had suddenly become so much stronger than Lumine. No, he would probably even succumb to her if she gave everything, after all, she had done everything but stand around idly for the last few weeks.
The only reason for this was the way Lumine approached this fight. She just defended herself and did not attack even once.
Despite the circumstances, she did not want this fight, because it was the result of a misunderstanding. The Fatui in front of her had simply not given her a chance to explain herself yet.
Besides, she neither wanted to put his siblings nor Paimon in danger.
"What's the matter traveler? Don't feel like fighting? Don't disappoint me now after all this time! What happened to your monumental strength and unwavering fighting spirit?" sneered the Fatui, who had fallen into a battle frenzy, in his typical cocky tone of voice.
Quite some time ago, she had learned not to respond to such taunts from the ginger haired man. It would only spur him on more than he already was, and her instincts unmistakably whispered that she should not and could not afford to do so this time.
Something felt wrong, something wasn't right here.
As they waged a fierce duel of strength over their blades, Childe managed to bring Lumine down to one knee. The longer the fight went on, the more something deep inside her stirred.
What exactly it was she couldn't make out in the heat of the battle.
Compassion?
Guilt?
Surely not worry?
Mentally, she shook her head in an attempt to dispel the realization.
The more she thought about it, though, the more certain she became. It had to be worry.
But why the heck was she concerned about one of her enemies? He had already done unforgivable things in their last encounter alone. So why was she worried about him now?
Again, perhaps the answer came to her more quickly and easily than she might have hoped.
His eyes may have been hidden by the red mask, but she could still feel the madness behind it. In their first fight she had felt nothing of the sort, only his pure fighting spirit, but after their second encounter she had begun to perceive this feeling.
Something began to change in his nature, his character, replacing his fighting spirit with pure madness. With every fight they had against each other, she felt this madness stronger and more intense, while his actual fighting spirit disappeared more and more into nothingness. He was swallowed up by it. Piece by piece he was devoured by this madness.
The fact that she knew him before the whole process had started allowed her to see the extent of it, and that was probably why she was worried about him despite everything.
If she didn't stop him, it was only a matter of time before he lost control and even harmed his own siblings.
She would not let that happen. His siblings didn't deserve that.
They had hearts of gold and loved their brother more than anything just like he loved them, she knew that after talking to them.
In their eyes, there was no better big brother than him.
No, she would not allow this to be taken from them.
There had to be another solution than his death.
His reaction when he had caught sight of her earlier, obviously fearing for the lives of his loved ones, showed that there must still be something of his old self left in him.
At the same time, it also proved that this old self was about to disappear, because never before had he attacked her without at least briefly hearing her out first.
Also, they were nowhere near far enough into the forest that his siblings would not be involved in case of a serious fight. If he still had full control over himself, he would know that for sure.
With a creak, cracks began to form in the forest floor at her feet and her limbs groaned painfully.
Childe began to overwhelm her in strength, but at the same time she was as close to him as she would ever be in a fight.
Their heads were separated only by their blades.
She had to try.
Maybe his fighting spirit was still just strong enough to end this madness.
"Do you really want your siblings to learn the truth like this? Is this really what YOU want? Haven't you always given your all to prevent them from knowing, to keep them out of this mess? If we fight without restraint, this forest will not stand for much longer and we are not too far off from the house. They will see it and maybe even be involved in this. In any case, they will know. Not through your mouth, but with their own eyes! Do you really want that?! Damn it Childe, this isn't you, wake up already!"
Childe faltered in the middle of his efforts to push her to the ground.
Her words seemed to have awakened something in the Fatui, perhaps he was beginning to realize what was happening to him?
As if he had been struck by lightning or if she had hurt him badly, he instantly moved a few meters away from her. With each passing breath, breathing seemed to become more and more difficult for him.
She didn't take her eyes off him even for a moment, following his every move and keeping herself ready to fight. She couldn't trust that there was enough of his true Self left in him to fight the madness.
Suddenly, Childe began to tremble violently and his weapons dissolved into thin air before they could fall to the ground.
Seemingly powerless, he sank to his knees while his hands clawed into his tousled orange hair. As he did so, his red mask also fell to the floor, revealing his features.
A few lonely tears streamed down his cheeks, his eyes held convulsively closed.
Only a few seconds later, the Fatui cringed and his head collapsed on the ground in front of his knees. Agonized screams escaped from his throat, while his Delusion began to glow strongly,
"What-..., is this-?!No-, no-...I don't want this!"
The glow of the delusion suddenly spread further onto the Fatui's body. It resembled the activation of his Foul Legacy Transformation, but the type of energy he had always emitted when doing so had been quite different. Something else was probably happening and she could only guess that it wasn't good.
Obviously in great pain, Childe opened his eyes and looked at her pleadingly.
"Traveler-...please,...please help me...Make it stop!"
If the wind hadn't shifted, she probably wouldn't have heard Childe's desperate whisper.
Was Venti trying to get her to help him? No, after all, the old alcoholic wasn't responsible for every single gust of wind in Teyvat, and anyway, the guy was probably lying in some bar again, sleeping it off or warbling a little song to himself.
Her words must have triggered a really awful chain reaction.
Something deep inside her urged her to believe Childes' words without hesitation, to run to him and help him.
A more than unreasonable thought, she knew that very well, but her helper instinct tried to change her mind by all means.
Maybe he reminded her too much of her own brother in this moment?
But what if this was just a farce, a twisted trap of his? If that were the case, then she would definitely not get out of there without serious injuries.
But could she take the risk that Anthon, Teucer, Tonia and Paimon would be dragged into this fight should Childe completely lose control of himself?
Although she had already faced so many overwhelmingly powerful opponents, she could not begin to estimate the extent this battle could escalate to.
The thoughts just raced through her head, almost tumbling over each other.
Hell, she didn't even know if she could defeat a Childe gone mad, let alone keep him at bay while protecting four people! Not to mention that the siblings certainly wouldn't sit still and quiet behind her.
No sibling could, each of the three would try to bring their big brother to his senses in their own way, no matter what danger they would expose themselves to. In the worst case, they would all die in the process.
No, she could never allow that.
The three of them did not deserve to see their brother fall into madness, let alone die at his hands.
She looked again into the dark, pain-distorted sea-blue eyes of the Fatui and searched for any sign that he was trying to trick her. But she found nothing of the sort.
She found one thing above all. Fear, real fear.
Cursing under her breath, she made up her mind. She would not let anyone die today, and anybody included Childe.
"If this is a trap Childe, then I'll incinerate you with my own two hands!"
She dropped her weapon and ran towards the kneeling Fatui.
The glow of the delusion had already enveloped his entire body and was now spreading to his head. Increasing waves of energy emanated from Childe's body, which began to lose more and more of its human contours.
She knew what she had to do.
She had to remove the delusion.
She had known since Teppei's death that it was draining his life force and that every transformation was harming him more and more.
The more power it gave him, the more it took from him.
Proof of this was his white strand of hair, that had grown wider and wider over the time they had known each other.
Unless she did something, he would turn into a monster of unprecedented strength and then lose his life just like Teppei. In the worst case scenario, she would be unable to do anything against him and he would ravage the entire area while putting the lives of more than just his siblings at risk.
Slowly and painstakingly, she fought her way through the waves of power that Childe's body was emitting, the last few steps of which she could only approach very cautiously and gradually as he had been surrounded by a mixture of water and lightning, forcing her to use some of her elemental energy to protect herself.
She searched the body of the increasingly deformed and purple-blue glowing man for the now very familiar accessory which seemed to be trying to take over Childe. But the purple-blue glow had become so intense that she could no longer see anything with the naked eye.
So she closed her eyes, summoned her version of elemental vision and searched for the familiar energy of the delusion.
She discovered that there was a dark shape on the young man's chest, at the height of his heart, emitting incredible amounts of unknown and strange black elemental energy.
There was hardly any trace of the dark electrical energy, which the devilish eye normally emitted, left.
The eye must have evolved in some way, but whatever it had become, it had to be removed, otherwise the Childe that everyone knew would soon cease to exist.
She gathered all her strength, mixed all seven elements in her left hand and rammed it into the suspiciously dark purple, almost black, spot on Childe's body.
The whole procedure was neither pleasant for her nor for Childe, who began to resist fiercely and whose cries of pain became even more intense and desperate. But she didn't let it bother her, instead gritting her teeth to ignore the burning pain on her arm and clinging to his gray jacket with her free hand.
Bit by bit, she pushed her way forward until she felt a terrible chill on her hand.
She grabbed it, as painful as it was, and pulled at it with all her might.
Time began to drag on as if dipped in honey and every second robbed her of more strength.
Using more than two elements at the same time alone proved to be complicated, but using all seven at once played in a completely different league. She hadn't used her ability to wield different elements at the same time that often, so she had no way of knowing how much energy it consumed.
All her training and experience left her with a huge energy reserve, but even that was limited.
However, without all the elements, her hand would surely begin to deform just like Childe, so she had no choice but to push past every limit she possessed.
Suddenly, unfamiliar images flooded into her head. Memories that were definitely not hers filled her mind and nearly broke her heart. She couldn't grasp a single image and yet she felt every single action that they contained.
Within seconds, her head was filled with grief, fear, hatred, anger and joy, leaving her incredibly confused and with a terrible headache.
Only one name kept echoing in her head:
"Ajax".
Her arm and the object she was pulling on now felt even heavier and more unruly than before, almost as if both had been dipped in glue or concrete again or as if she was pulling on a mountain.
Her arm only moved nerve-wrackingly slowly out of his body, even when she pulled on it with all her might.
The fact that the young Fatui struggled relentlessly during this whole procedure didn't make things any easier.
If this continued, she would suffer far more and worse than bruises, but her will remained steadfast.
He had asked her for help and she had agreed.
She would not let anything happen to the little ones and to ensure that, she had to stop this transformation, whatever the cost.
Just before she could pull her hand all the way out of the man's chest, he launched a barrage of unparalleled blows at her. More than once her eyes went black and she thought she heard a few bones crack alarmingly.
But she used this pain as an impetus to tear her hand out of the purple-blue glowing creature with one final pull.
The moment her hand with the delusion in it left the still deforming body of the young man, the energy around him disappeared completely and he returned to his normal human form.
She pushed herself away from him without any strength left and the Fatui, still kneeling on the ground, just collapsed to the side, almost lifeless.
She landed on the ground face first, as she had lost all the strength in her arms and was unable to catch herself.
She had realized too late that the Delusion had now started to drain her life force.
As she was unable to estimate how much energy was actually being consumed when using all the elements at once, she had noticed this too late.
She wanted to let go of the monstrous accessory, but she couldn't. As if it was glued to her hand or as if someone else had taken control over her hand, the Delusion remained in it.
She couldn't open her hand or let go of it, she had to watch, as if paralyzed, as it robbed her of more and more of her life force.
Her vision began to blur and she thought she heard a taunting, feminine-sounding laugh in the distance.
Was that the Tsaritsa?
Was she making fun of her because she had helped her enemy and would now pay the price for being too compassionate? Could the whole thing really have been a trap?
Bit by bit, her senses failed her and the cold pain emanating from her left arm drove every other feeling out of her body and every thought out of her head.
Suddenly there was no more fear, anger or panic, just one thing, cold pain.
She had never experienced anything like it.
Never before had pain felt cold. Up to this point, every pain she had ever endured had run flaming hot through her veins.
A cold pain like this turned out to be so much worse. She felt as if all her warmth was being sucked out of her and in exchange a coldness was being channeled into her veins that made the chill of the Dragonspine look like a hot summer breeze next to it.
Before long, her vision clouded and blurred completely and she could only vaguely perceive her surroundings through the many dark spots that were floating in her field of vision.
Moments before her vision disappeared completely, she noticed a dark figure approaching her.
But although she was plunged into darkness, she had not yet completely lost consciousness, as if her subconscious knew that unconsciousness would mark the end of her life at this very moment.
For probably several minutes, she heard only a faint hint of background noise alongside a loud, unpleasant beeping sound.
Through the pain, she felt her whole body being pushed further and further towards collapsing, but still she couldn't move it a bit.
She could only suffer and endure.
She couldn't even react with verbal protest when she was roughly turned onto her back and shaken vigorously.
Far away, she thought she heard a soft shout.
Wait, did that just happen to be her name being called?
No, it couldn't be, neither her brother nor Paimon were in this clearing and no one else knew that name.
Her body seemed to be so close to breaking apart that she was hallucinating with pain.
Suddenly, the pain in her left arm intensified slightly before disappearing completely out of nowhere, leaving behind a deep, gaping void into which her consciousness immediately plunged and willingly withdrew.