discrepancy | genshin impact | lumine & childe

discrepancy

In the land of immovable stone, two unstoppable forces meet.

She is a warrior. He is a fighter. In many ways they are the same. In many more they are not.

They are both travelers, constantly moving. If they were to stop, they would be consumed.

She is a warrior. Her heart may resonate with love and protection, and she may not lust for blood and exhilaration the way he does, but she is made for the battlefield. Her very essence calls to defend, to destroy, to war. Her battles are almost never her own, but that is true of all good warriors.

He is a fighter. The blood that runs through his veins courses with the yearning to spill that of another. He wishes to taste the scent of mingled blood and sweat in the air, a physical testament to a physical feat. He craves an unattainable rush.

He does not belong on the battlefield.

He belongs on a beach, a mountaintop, and in the vertex of a valley. He belongs at someone's side, arm in arm, back to back against the world. There is more than enough bloodshed to be found in pursuit of peace.

But he was always too clever for that.

She is also clever. The world, harsh and unforgiving as the creatures from its depths may be, has never been enough for him. but she is clever. She is swift as the wind and strong as the stones. For once, it's a challenge. For once, his mind gets the workout his body has long since grown used to.

And then he looks her in the eye.

For a split second, everything is reversed. Instead of mania bursting from its hiding place in a delicate frame, he sees a warrior shell, an angel encased within. The aggression that prickles so evidently throughout the rest of her body has little hold over her expression. Her eyes are sad, and kind, and she's staring at him. She's staring at him, and for the briefest of moments, he stares back.

And then she charges, slashing her sword across his stomach at breakneck speed. He lets it happen. After all, she's now put herself in close quarters, her sides left vulnerable. There's battle in his veins, pumping furiously through a hardened heart. He barely feels his own wound as he throws her across the room. He feels very little shock as she unleashes the power of Geo. He is in the moment now—he will not be fazed.

There's a curious expression on her face as she watches him plunge his hand into the heart of the Exuvia. Were they not at the edge of a precipice, caught between a steady world and a free fall into the unknown, he might have recognized it as regret.

But then rage swallows him whole, anchoring him to that known world. As his delusion engulfs him, he catches a glimpse of true fear on her face. Interesting. He's never seen that before.

They don't speak, in the aftermath. They part ways at the bank only to return to that same spot much later, the wounds from their battle far from fresh but the memories far from gone.

She is a warrior. He is a fighter. But they are both siblings, and they both hold steadfast in the belief that someone is waiting for them, looking to them, and missing them. His younger brother's childish wonder awakens something in them both, though neither bothers to acknowledge it at the time.

And then there he is again, battered and bruised with her standing over him, just like their fateful first clash. Both times, he notes she could easily kill him. Both times, she considers it, if only for the most fleeting of instants. Again, he saw fear written across her features before his transformation consumed him, but the fear this time was unlike that which he'd glimpsed only once. This time, she was not looking at him but to him. This time, her fear rode a wave of desperation and determination.