𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐞 - 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐢

10

Stunned, Lumine could only watch Childe emerge from the shadows. A cocky smile was planted on his face, but his eyes were cold and steadily watching her reaction.

"What are you doing here?" she asked defensively, a foot planted back and a hand ready to grab her blade. Paimon quickly flew behind Xinyan and squealed.

Poor, clueless Xinyan, chuckling nervously, spoke up. "Nice to meet you, mister. Eheheh... No need to get so worked up, right?"

Paimon, recovering, peeled out from Xinyan's shoulder. Scowling, with the most venom that the emergency food could summon, she said, "You should leave."

It almost seemed like Childe didn't notice the traveler's new companions. "We can set aside our differences for now," and with a brilliant new fake smile, "but I'd like to meet your friends!"

"Now that's better!" Reaching out her hand enthusiastically, Xinyan had no problem with the dangerous eleventh fatui harbinger, who had practically fallen into the pits of hell and came back to tell the tale. "I'll call you Red." A stiffly polite handshake was exchanged.

Red? Lumine thought. What an innocent, simple name, completely unsuitable for a man like Childe. Retracting the series of emotions she felt wash over her earlier, she extended her arm to shake his gloved one. Paimon, horrified, watched as Lumine tried to put what she knew had happened behind her. But soon enough, she would have answers.

"Who's this... other friend of yours?" asked Childe, gesturing towards Shiki Taishou. Before Lumine could answer him, Xinyan cut in and told him about the current predicament.

Childe, unreadable, nodded his head. "I see. So, we have to fight through this domain, huh?"

• • •

Lumine managed to get through the first battles without completely wanting to cut off the harbinger's head, but every glance towards him made her angrier and angrier. Childe had betrayed her to the Tsaritsa. He was withholding information from her. He wanted her captured and brought in to Snezhnaya for questioning. All Lumine wanted was to find her brother, but she constantly found herself being sidetracked with, as an example, fighting through an unknown domain for a little paper figure Xinyan and her found and trusted on a whim.

During the third battle, Lumine got thrown back from the fireballs thrown by a Pyro slime. Her left sleeve caught on fire, which she quickly waved out. Unfortunately, the arm was still burnt through and she could see red, raw skin underneath, blistering and hot. The pain from her burnt arm rendered it useless, so she steeled her nerves and brandished her trusty dull blade and charged back into battle. Adrenaline coursing through her veins, she used the power of both Anemo and Geo.

Little did she know, a certain someone was watching her wince in pain as she examined her arm. Childe felt a little guilty, because he was quite fond of the Traveler, but he had to be loyal to the Tsaritsa; to his homeland. He knew that he had to keep that clueless blonde girl safe, not only for his queen, Snezhnaya's archon, but also for himself. He thought that if only he could have been there to stop that slime.... all he could do at this point was to keep her from further injury. Another thing Lumine did not notice at all was how many times Childe had kept her from being killed—or maybe she did, she was simply too prideful to admit she needed help from him.

Once all the enemies were reduced to piles of their remains, Lumine's vision blurred. Her eyes rolled up in her head as she collapsed from exhaustion. She had scored more minor burns on the other parts of her body from the hard-won battle and had used all of her stamina on the tricky business of dodging and weaving hordes of specters, slimes, and whopperflowers. Her world turned dark as she, embarrassingly enough, fainted in front of Childe for the millionth time. 

Childe didn't notice it when Lumine was knocked out. He knew this was his opportunity to glean as much intelligence as possible from her in this chance meeting. It wasn't the most chance as chance got since he questioned several people of the Traveler's whereabouts, but they were in the same place at the same time in Inazuma.

He knew his relationship with his fellow Fatui members was straining, as it became increasingly more difficult for recruits to ignore how long it took for Childe to get the responses the Tsaritsa asked of him. But soon enough, he would have answers.