Chapter Text
"Left! Left! Left!" Paimon shrieked. "Stop! Slow down! We're gonna cra-aaahhh!"
Lumine immediately strapped on her glider, grabbed her emergency food and the irresponsible sailor, and ejected the three of them out of the waverider. Paimon gasped as the boat crashed into the hilichurl tower on the shore, making it fall straight to the bombs in their camp, creating a series of explosions that obliterated the camp and massacred every single creature that had been chilling there. It was quite the picture of hell in the middle of the peaceful island.
"You!" As soon as she let them go, Paimon flew straight to his face and fumed, "We could've died! Are you insane?"
Childe merely chuckled, "But we didn't," He nudged Lumine, "did we?"
"It was a close call," Lumine nodded, her expression neutral, "but we didn't."
Her agreement made him smile wider. "Right. With that out of the way, what do you say for round 2?"
"Sure."
Paimon, who had been watching their exchange, gaped in utter shock. "You're both insane!" She squeaked, "Paimon's getting out of here and Paimon's not going to be responsible if you're hurt!" With that, she huffed and disappeared.
"And she's gone." Childe chuckled once more, "Are you still up for round 2?"
Lumine shrugged, "Yeah."
It's been almost a month since they discovered the dodoco islands; three weeks since they uncovered the mysteries of the dodoking and Barbara, Jean, Albedo, and Diluc had a vacation (because archons and Alice know they need it); two weeks since they discovered the secrets and history of the islands; and a week since everyone decided their vacation was over and left to get back to their daily routines, leaving Lumine with a whole series of islands for herself. Like the others, she probably should go back to Teyvat and find a way to Inazuma, but they learned that dodoco islands are going to sink anytime this week and decided she should make the most of it.
Lumine wasn't sure how Childe fell into the picture, but here they were anyway, up in the air with no foothold. She was the one holding on, and he was dangling in the air with only her hand gripping his wrist as the sole reason gravity hasn't brought him down. But he knew she couldn't last long, he could tell from her trembling arm that her stamina was running out and he was sure his weight was a major factor to its rapid decline. If this went on, they were both going down.
"Drop me."
"What?"
"You heard me. Come on, Lumine, you've got to let me go."
"No!" She yelled back, horrified, "Are you crazy? I can still-"
"Lumine!" He shouted back, and she flinched. "Let me go."
"I-" Lumine gulped. She knew what he was doing, and he was right. She wasn't sure she could hold on any longer. "I'm sorry." She whispered.
She let go and he plunged down, his eyes never leaving hers as went down with a smile.
..
The loud splash was expected as he had dived straight to the sea. Not too long after, he emerged with a boisterous laugh. They had been rather dramatic, too.
"You okay there?" She could easily infer his answer from the huge grin on his face, but she asked anyway.
"Yeah!" As expected, "We've got to do that again!"
She's rather not. He had just driven his fifth waverider straight to a whirlpool that they had to glide all the way back to shore. But it turns out she had overestimated her stamina to carry both herself and an additional baggage back to land. Truth be told, she had been considering dropping him to the ocean. After all, it was his fault in the first place.
"I'll grab another waverider to pick you up!" She was just gliding in circles around him now. With her passenger gone, she suddenly felt so light she could fly back to Teyvat on her glider, "Don't move, okay."
"It's fine, I'll swim!" Well that was just insane. They weren't that far from the nearest island, but he was still in deep waters. "Race you there!"
She could tell a challenge when she hears one. Lumine gripped on her gliders, with both hands this time, and brought a gust of anemo to give her a boost. She really thought she had the game. After all, she was flying and he was just swimming. There was no way he could even match her speed whilst fighting off the waves. Except if he used his vision to push him towards the island instead.
It ended up being a close game with no clear winner. Lumine was slowly starting to descend when Childe suddenly sprung up like the whale he launched on her every week, grabbed her ankles, and brought her down to the sea.
Lumine squeaked as saltwater soaked her. She was so shocked and unprepared that she had snorted and choked on some of the water. After a series of coughing, she was about ready to give Childe a piece of her mind when she saw him laughing. It was unlike his usual mirthless chuckle or that mocking exaggerated laugh back with the cocogoat incident; it actually sounded so pure that it surprised her for a moment. She didn’t even realize she had lowered her fist until it reached the body of the water.
Still, she had to exact her revenge.
He was still laughing so loudly when she used her skill to blast off saltwater at him. Some of the water got caught in his throat and he ended up coughing on them. A splash fight came not long after, her anemo and his hydro being incredibly useful in their battle. Lumine sent a tornado of water his way, and he dumped a seawater whale on her. It wasn’t until Paimon came back from her sulking and was welcomed by the seawater-whale that they stopped.
…
“Okay, Paimon, it’s ready.” Lumine offered the bowl of adeptus temptation to her travelling companion as a peace offering. The little pixie scrutinized the bowl before huffing and accepted it. She had been in a terrible mood ever since Childe’s whale drenched her. Well, that day as a whole was probably a bad day for her. Meanwhile, the source of her bad mood seemed like he was having the best day of his life.
Lumine had seen Childe in a good mood, their weekly battles being one of the most prominent examples she could think of. But this was on a whole other level. He had this permanent grin on his face that hadn’t disappeared ever since he crashed his first waverider. She suddenly recalled the face he made after nearly drowning her. He seemed like he was having so much fun it was almost cute.
The image of him in all his foul legacy glory swinging his weapon around entered her mind and she frowned. This man almost committed genocide and she just thought he was cute. Although, it was probably hard to believe when he was smiling like that. Then again, he is smiling while crafting harpastum bombs, so maybe it is believable.
Lumine brought another bowl of the soup and approached him. “Here,” she set it down to the crafting table.
“Thank you.”
“You look happy today.” She commented suddenly.
His hand suddenly stopped moving for a moment, before resuming, “Do I?”
Lumine hummed affirmatively, “You’re smiling so much I think Paimon was creeped out.”
“Hey, I’m a pretty friendly guy, wouldn’t you say?”
Lumine snorted.
“That was rude.”
“And yet you’re still smiling.”
He couldn’t deny that and there was a momentary lapse of silence. Then, “Do you know what Snezhnaya is like?”
With the number of times he had told her about his hometown, it was hard not to have any impressions on what it may look like. “You’ve told me some things”
He chuckled, “Yes, it’s a beautiful place, really.” He paused his work to gaze upon the shores, “But it didn’t have anything like these beaches.”
He had said it so quietly that Lumine almost wanted him to repeat that. “So you’ve been in a good mood because you like beaches?”
That made him sound so simple-minded he couldn’t help but retort. “Well that, and..” he trailed off and it was at that moment that she realized he was staring at her so intently.
Lumine suddenly felt nervous. “-and..?” she asked almost breathlessly.
“The waveriders are fun.” With that one line, she felt silly for being nervous.
Lumine shook her head and chuckled, “You crashed five waveriders today.”