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The crackling and sputtering of the fire in the chimney was the only noise in the living room. Certainly, it also seemed like the only noise in the entire little cabin in the middle of the woods serving as a hideout for the Ryba family and their guests.
A snowstorm raged outside, which had encouraged Childe’s, Ajax’s, parents, and elder siblings to head to sleep early. The little ones had instead opted to linger in the lower level with the two adventurers, probing them about stories to be told and secrets to be shared.
While the atmosphere was warm and cozy with the sweltering provided by the fire and all of them having their fair share of hot cocoa, the siblings and their guests were wearing woolen sweaters to help keep the crude snezhnayan cold at bay.
Ajax was having the time of his life watching his younger siblings fawning over Lumine and Paimon. Tonia and Anton already had this great idea of just who the traveler was from Teucer’s tales in Liyue, but meeting her in person was a whole other ordeal. He would feel jealous about sharing the spotlight had the little thief not been her. Ajax could certainly see why her almost literal glow attracted the children like moths to the flame.
For some reason, and not that it surprised him, Lumine was a natural with kids. She knew exactly how much information to say so that the tale didn’t become too gruesome and so that she didn’t reveal too much of Ajax’s (former) job.
As they gushed around her, Ajax looked around the room, regarding the scarce family pictures that were so old Teucer wasn’t in the majority of them. This was the house they had lived in before he was sent to the military by his father. This was the house they had lived in when he had run away in the middle of the night, wanting to become an adventurer like those in his papa’s stories, and instead had fallen into the void of the Abyss. Ajax didn’t get scared easily, and he didn’t believe in superstitions either. However, in their current situation, Ajax was frightened that this place was stained by him. That no matter what they did, it wasn't concealed or protected enough to shield his family from the Fatui.
He tried to keep his thoughts and the anxiety that came with them to himself, but every time Lumine stole a glance at him he noticed her brow creasing in worry. It disappeared as soon as he saw it, surely to not worry the children too, but it didn’t go amiss. She didn’t seem to be oblivious to all his doubts and pain.
Eventually, Paimon and the kids were so worn out they fell asleep on the couches, happily snoozing away the happenings of that day. Ajax looked at his siblings with a certain amount of guilt and regret on his face, worried about the amount of time that they would have to spend hidden away thanks to the rashness of his actions.
Lumine was affectionately caressing Teucer’s hair, the same way a mother would her child when marveling at their otherwise impossible-to-see peacefulness. “I thought they’d never fall asleep.”
Her casual comment pulled him out of his reverie, bringing him back to the present. He smiled half-heartedly. “You’d be surprised at how determined they can be to stay up all night. Not that they’ve made it much past midnight anyways.”
She raised an amused eyebrow at him. “I wonder who they take after.”
Ajax laughed at her jab at him, but his laugh was short-lived. Haunted by everything that weighed on him, it was hard to just enjoy himself with her as he normally would.
“Hey,” Lumine approached him and placed a hand on one of his cheeks, soothing him. “Everything is going to be fine, Ajax.”
He wondered if he was ever going to get used to her saying his real name. She surely had. Lumine was already saying it as naturally as if it was the only name she had always known him by. Ajax loved the way it sounded coming out of her lips.
“I want to think so,” he responded, covering her hand with his. “But what if tonight is when our guards fail? What if they find us? What if we’re not enough to protect them?”
“You? Thinking about defeat?” She asked with a bit of mockery in her voice, just enough to try to lighten the moon.
“I’m serious Lumine,” he tightened his grip on her hand, not being able to see the fun in her joke. “As strong as we are together, there’s no guarantee—”
“I know,” she interrupted him. The flames danced in her golden eyes as Ajax stared intently into them, basking in their warmth. “Believe me Ajax, I’m aware of the gravity of the situation. That is why I am confident that the artifacts I’ve used to hide this place from everyone will do their job. I wouldn’t be so calm if it wasn’t the case. I swear my life on it.”
He knew that he should trust her. He had trusted her with his own life before. It was just… nerve-wracking, to put the lives of everyone he loved on the line. He ended up nodding slightly if only to make her believe that he was holding it together. The lopsided smirk on her face let him know that his attempt to convince her had been a poor one.
With a slight tug of her hand, Lumine led them both to sit on the carpet by the fire. Ajax stretched his body to grab a free blanket from the couch nearby and wrapped it around both of them. Lumine rested her head on his shoulder and he nuzzled his nose into her hair. He was slightly soothed by that lavender and inteyvat scent of hers, something that he would recognize anywhere. She sneakily interlaced their hands together, happy to be sharing this quiet little moment with him.
Ajax appreciated everything that she had done for him— from saving him from the clutches of his coworkers in Natlan to making sure that they got to his family on time and helping to hide them and keep them safe. It was more than he ever could’ve asked from her. They surely had come a long way since the day they met in Liyue Harbor. He couldn’t believe he had actually left the Fatui, left her Majesty, for Lumine.
“Thank you,” he said suddenly.
Lumine reincorporated herself to gaze into his eyes, his comment seemingly having come out of nowhere. “Huh? For what?”
“For… everything. For treating my family as if they were your own.”
A sad smile made its way to her lips. Surely she couldn’t help but think about her lost twin brother with that comment, not like Ajax had wanted to bring that memory to her. “Hey, they were already treating me like I was a part of them already. Your mom even started to call me dochka… which I don’t know exactly what it means, but she was also calling your sisters that, so it can’t be that bad, can it?”
Ajax's cheeks flared bright red at her comment. They hadn’t been too explicit to his family when explaining their… uhm… relationship. Not that he had a good word to describe his current situation with Lumine. There hadn’t really been much time to label it, but on the other hand, he knew his mother. The woman was as perceptive as the best Fatui scouts that had been under his command.
“She’s only making sure you feel at home,” he said as he averted his gaze, not sure that he had the guts to tell her that his mother was already calling her daughter.
Lumine laughed at his nervousness, but if she picked up on the exact source of his distress she didn’t say. “How could I not? They have all been so nice to me, I would already give my own life for any of them.”
She meant it as a lighthearted joke, but it didn’t sit well with Ajax. He was terrified about the possibility of the situation coming down to that. The mere thought of losing Lumine froze the blood in his veins and made his heart feel empty. Lumine must’ve caught up on that because she quickly changed the subject.
“You know, it’s not hard to imagine a life like this one,” she said as she glanced back at the kids passed out on the couch. “Just staying at home, providing for your family. Not going on endless journeys across the world, doing favors for the Archons only for the mere chance of talking to them.”
With a wistful look, she returned her eyes to the fire, but her gaze looked to be lost beyond it. Ajax imagined that life for them— he imagined Lumine pregnant with their child, a couple of kids running around her skirts while he came back from a hunting trip with their eldest son. His heart started to beat faster.
If only… “I can’t imagine the hero that traverses across Teyvat leaving all her adventures only to settle down with just some guy.”
Lumine rolled her eyes at his mockery, even if it was directed at himself too. “Maybe the hero gets tired of being exactly that every so often. But maybe there’s no escape from being that hero.”
A serene silence enveloped them. Ajax was at a loss for what to say, but he wanted to make her feel better no matter what. He found that he was more and more worried about her the more time they spent together. When had that started?
“Well…” he bit his lip, unsure of how she would take his next words. “I never thought that I’d leave the Fatui. As a matter of fact, there is no leaving the Fatui. At all. Yet, here I am. I never would’ve made that happen by myself. I have you to thank for that.”
She pursed her lips into a thin line. “Yeah, but I’m also the reason why you got into trouble with them in the first place. I know how proud you were of… belonging with them. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you to make the choices you had to.”
Ajax berated himself when she hugged her legs close to her body. Those had not been the right words to say. “Do you wish I was still with them?”
“No!” she answered quickly, glancing back at the children to make sure that she hadn’t woken them up with her sudden outburst. “I still think that they’re horrible and their cause doesn’t justify the means they use to achieve them. I… I still have nightmares about the way I found you in that cell in Natlan.”
Ajax blinked a couple of times, speechless. They’d arrived at Snezhnaya a few weeks ago, and this was the first he was hearing of this.
“But I know that you enjoyed being a Harbinger, I know you liked the perks that came with the position and the opportunities it brought for you. So I’m sorry to be the one who made you lose all of that. Sometimes I wish that we’d never—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” he cut her off, turning her head around to look at him. The soft glimmer of tears shined at the corner of her eyes, a soft pink hue colored her cheeks. “Don’t you ever think that my life would be better if you weren’t in it, because that isn’t true. I don’t know how… but we found each other, through time and space. I don’t know what the odds were, but we beat them, and we are here. Together. I wouldn’t change that for anything, Lumine. I’d rather die tomorrow than live to be a hundred years old without having met you.”
Those shimmering tears finally won the battle against their owners, successfully running down Lumine’s face. She mumbled a very soft “I love you” before leaning in to kiss him. Ajax met her halfway, caressing her face with his hands, his fingers tracing small circles where her tears had left a wet trail. Their kiss was tender and slow, so unlike the quickness by which they had both been living their lives until now. They grounded each other, helping each other see the simplicity in the small things where they could only see a web of complications before.
When they broke the kiss, Childe brought Lumine closer to him, encasing her with his entire body and then draping the blanket around them both. She angled her head away so that he could pepper kisses along her neckline, a small detail he had quickly learned that she loved.
“Having a family doesn’t sound so bad,” Lumine said out of the blue, breaking Ajax out of his daze.
He wondered how her mind had circled back to that specific topic. “I’m sure we could make it work.”
“‘We’? Who said anything about ‘we’?” Lumine teased.
If Ajax had been drinking any water, he would’ve spitted it out. “What do you mean by that? Who else is there? Please, comrade, tell me so I can send them a strongly worded letter.”
She let out a giggle of amusement at his very obvious threat. “I’m only teasing you! No need to get so serious!”
“No need? Lumine, this is our future you’re joking around with! What will I tell the kids if their mother runs off with another?!”
The fake dramatic tone in his voice made Lumine roll her eyes as she kept laughing. “We need to be able to provide for those kids before actually having them! And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’ve recently been left out of a job.”
Ajax’s blue eyes opened up like saucers at the remark. He was beginning to doubt where the line between the jokes and the truth currently stood. “I mean… I have some backup funds— not like I can access them in the forest. So I’m sorry to say that I’m not going to be able to spend as much mora as I did before.”
“That surely is a letdown,” Lumine faked disappointment. “The abundance of mora was a perk that made it more bearable to put up with you.”
The ex-harbinger raised his eyebrows in surprise. “So rude, comrade. What about my good looks?”
“You’re impossible,” Lumine rolled her eyes again, trying to suppress a giggle from coming out of her mouth. “I guess there’s that. The sex isn’t bad either.”
The oxygen in Ajax’s lungs evaporated in a split second. He had not seen that coming. At his distraught face, Lumine couldn’t help but let out a laugh that she had to cover with her hand to not wake his younger siblings. She was struggling to do so.
The grandfather clock at the end of the hallway marked twelve o’clock. Midnight. Lumine’s giggle ceased as she figured out what was happening and then looked back at Childe with an earnest expression painted across her features.
“Ha! I get to be the first one to say it! Happy birthday, Ajax!” Lumine said with the cutest smile on her face Ajax had seen in his entire life. Heat rose to his cheeks, and he wondered for the millionth time how he got so lucky.
He leaned down to give her a peck on the lips. “Thank you, lyuba.”
“Of course!” Lumine said before lowering her gaze to the ground. “I would’ve loved to get you a present, but—”
Ajax leaned down to kiss her again. She didn’t have to complete the sentence. The reason why she hadn’t been able to just walk out to a store to get him a gift was more than evident.
“Having you here with me is enough of a gift for a lifetime, Lumine,” he whispered to her ear when the kiss ended. This time it was her turn at getting flustered, ears and all.
“Even when I’m… an outlander?” She asked dubiously, her shoulders slightly trembling. There were so many things left unsaid in her question.
Ajax let out a soft laugh. “You had me as a Fatui Harbinger.”
Lumine took offense in his comment. “But that doesn’t define who you are, Ajax. You’re so much more than that.”
Positively stunned by that, he opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out of it.
For the longest time, Ajax had been nothing other than a Fatui Harbinger. It was what defined him, what he was proud of. Everything that he had cared about. And now…
“Marry me,” he busted out without a second thought.
Lumine was visibly taken aback, but she brushed the awkwardness off with a nervous chuckle. “Don’t be silly, Ajax.”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life,” he said as he looked into those golden eyes of hers, those specs of daylight that had brought him out of the slumber he had been immersed in. “I— I don’t have a plan. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I don’t even have a ring to offer you. But I am certain that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Lumine.”
She looked up at him, scrutinizing his expression carefully, making sure that he wasn’t playing a poor tasted joke on her. Ajax wasn’t sure of what she saw in him, but it finally convinced her to relax and smile back at him. “Ajax… I don’t need any of those things. I only need you. I’d marry you with paper rings.”
A soft smile. A hair tucked behind an ear. The soft brush of lips against lips.
Lumine had mentioned before that her love for him was burning red, but he honestly couldn’t say that he agreed with her. As Ajax closed his eyes to kiss his lover, all he could see was her golden glow.