| [They meet every week. Which is a funny state of affairs, for a traveler who claims to hate the Fatui, and a Harbinger who ostensibly ought to have other things to do — but they meet every week in the Golden House to fight, clashing like steel on steel, snarling like beasts. They show each other no mercy save for the fact that they usually try not to kill each other.
They leave the stone tiles wet with water and blood, but it's always cleaned up without incident, week after week. For some reason, Ningguang hasn't seen fit to resume the mint's normal activities, even though she clearly has staff on the premises. Privately, Aether suspects that she already knows what he uses it for, and has politely decided to turn a blind eye to it as a means of settling her debts to him. It'd be the only recompense he's willing to accept. It's just the sort of thing she would do.
For Childe, maybe, these meetings are just fun. Aether, for his part, is running an experiment, one where his own treacherous instincts are the subject. He hasn't quite managed to get himself to a point where he can swap between Anemo and Geo at will, but it's easier to try when adrenaline is racing through his veins, and he's angry, and he can tell Childe is sneering at him past the red mask.
Not that he's pushed the Harbinger to the point of using his Delusion just yet. The traveler's doing well, for the most part; he's parrying Childe's knives and lances blow for blow, meeting every Hydro-infused edge with the cold starlit iron of his sword. Aether never stays on his back foot for long; one sweep of his blade takes him into a counterattack, which Childe evades, falling backward like a dancer, his coat fluttering open, all well-defined muscle underneath his jacket, obliques twisting like cords, flexing with the movement —
Aether's mind goes so absolutely blank that he doesn't react to the counterblow that catches him under his ribs and sweeps him clear across the floor.
Right.
Not the time to get distracted.
Aether hits a marble column with his shoulder, hard, but it's nothing he won't recover from; he'd hardly make a proper "playmate" for Childe if one hit or two was enough to shatter him. Worse than the pain is the embarrassment, actually. He's hoping his face isn't as pink as it feels. Without even waiting for Childe's response, his mind is already supplying its own: the mocking way he always says Something else catch your eye? like he knows...]
...I — [he coughs, staggers to his feet] — had a lapse in judgment.
[And you'd better not say a godsdamned thing about it goes unsaid.] |
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}