My Dear Friend | Chilumi

The Ties Between Us

A slight rumble shook the ground.  Lumine and Childe's eyes shot wide open and they stumblingly got up from their slumber.

A powerful breeze lifted the sand from the beach , blinding them partially from the bright elemental orb that was causing such chaos. Lumine tried to shield her eyes from the irritating particals that were seeping through her ears, her mouth , her scalp, scratching every inch of her exposed skin.

Childe tried to shoot an arrow immediately, but it was simply blown away by the powerful gusts of wind.
He conjured up his swords and tried jumping towards the orb, only for it to double the force it put in the wind, and pushing him away further.

Lumine summoned her dendro pods and sparked some lighting through her fingers and towards her pods , blasting the pods open with energy. The elemental energy she created destabilized the Orb, and Childe was able to land a few sword hits.

It wasn't long until the orb regained it's balance and started picking up boulders in it's whirlwind, missing their heads by inches.

Lumine kept trying to destabilize the Orb, but her elemental attacks seemed to have little to no impact on the thing. She grunted as she dodged a rock and rolled herself backwards. The sand kept creeping up her nose and burning her eyes.

She saw a glimmer of electro in the corner of her eye and she knew it wasn't hers.

Childe had traded his water swords for an electro polearm, and his usual grey suit had tainted to a black uniform. His jumps were higher, he seemed stronger. On his belt, his blue vision seemed insignificant next to the glowing purple trinket right next to it.

Oh no he didn't.

He dashed as fast as lightning around the orb, leaving but a trail of electro in his wake. He pierced the elemental orb enough for it to plummet to the ground in a large thud, causing a shockwave to the ground. Lumine ran to the fallen foe, embued its life force with dendro and Childe struck its core with his spear in a deadly , highly reactive strike. The Orb crackled as the elemental reaction destroyed it from the inside. It exploded in a blast of Sandy wind and sent the two fighters flying off the island into the shallow waters of the beach.

Lumine rinsed out the sand in her eyes and watched the orb disintegrate slowly. On the other side of the beach , Childe rose from from the waters , his black suit slowly loosing it's dark pigment, and turning back to a medium gray. He pushed his fatui mask back to the side of his head and splashed his face with sea water before walking out of the sea towards Lumine.

"Paimon, you good ?" He yelled, his face pointing towards large boulders.

"Paimon is fine ! Can Paimon come out now ?" A squeaky voice responded. 

Childe was about to yell something, but Lumine intervened.

"Not yet Paimon , wait a bit before coming out " She yelled, her eyes were fixated on Childe. He seemed confused.

With a fierce pace, she walked towards Childe and starting rambling before he could even put in a word.

"What were you thinking using your delusion like that ! We've talked about this , it's going to kill you, Ajax ! You think I wanna see you get killed cause you're still so stubborn on using your delusion , risking your life ?" She felt like a boiling pot of water about to explode. She had her fingers pointed at him like a mother reprimanding her child.

"C'mon we weren't getting anywhere with our..." He tried to fit in a couple of words before she cut him off again.

"No. you shut up and listen to me right now. You maybe don't care about your life force draining but I do. You always have an excuse to put your life on the line , to risk it all for a fight, I'm not having that today. You're not invincible, it's going to catch up to you, it already is." She could feel her cheeks turning red, burning from the fire in her stomach.