primojade

His gaze darted between the ice then to you, slight panic glazing in his eyes. Though some relief sets in when you skate over to him, he gives you an irritated glare and an embarrassed flush of his cheeks when he sees you stifling your laughter at his pathetic state. 

You hold out your hand to him once you’re close enough and immediately he clutches tightly to your arm like a lifeline.

"The audacity of you to leave me behind, you heartless dunce." He huffed angrily, leaning against you as he tried to release the tension in his muscles, clearly tired from the effort of standing on ice even for a short period of time. "I can’t believe you almost left me alone to rot here!"

The way that extreme embarrassment tends to turn the fennec hybrid into a petty drama queen is so amusing. Especially when he still seeks you out despite how irritated he is.

"But you were doing okay," you said, though both of you know that he was the exact opposite of being okay. "It's your first time so don't be so stressed about it," you continue when his disgruntled scowl deepens at your unconvincing tone. "At the very least, you didn’t cry, 'Nari, I’m so proud of you."

He groaned in irritation when you patted his ears teasingly, brushing off your hand almost immediately. "I did not fall, thank you very much. And I don’t cry over such petty things."

"Oh? I'm confident your eyes were misty when I skated over to support you earlier."

“I did no such thing,” he scowled, though his long ears started dropping in defence. “Skating is rather hard, okay? I believe you were forgetting I have lived in the rainforest all my life. This is my first time.”

“Don't worry, I got you.” You said with a reassuring smile, nudging his waist lightly with your elbow. The action made him stumble and cling tighter to your arm in response. The absolute shock that crossed on his usually stern face makes you giggle, and it takes you a while to calm yourself so that he’ll stop glaring at you. 

You pried his hand away from your sore arm, and instead, intertwining his fingers with yours. "Don’t worry, 'Nari. We’ll hold hands, so don't let go."

Tighnari's brows shot up in the hairline, not comforted in the least by your reassuring smile. “I swear to all Archons in Teyvat, [Name], I’ll make you regret this if you let me go or pull weird tricks to make me fa—”

"I won’t! What kind of lover do you take me for?” You pouted.

Before he can come up with a snarky reply, you start pulling him across the ice rink. You have to bite the inside of your cheeks to keep your laughter to yourself when you hear him release an undignified yelp before tightly latching both his hands onto yours.

Come to think of it, despite his ungodly snarks and overall clumsiness at skating, your favourite scholar really isn’t too bad for a first-timer. He merely fell once so far. 

That first time was because you let his hand go for staring too long at that person who was executing a beautiful spin and statingstating bluntly that you skated like a "circus snake" compared to them. So rude. 

Though it wasn't that unusual when Tighnari insists on taking a break.

“What are you looking at?” His lips were curled downward in displeasure while seated on the bench.

“Nothing~"

"Sometimes, I really hate you.”

“Hehe. Love you too, 'Nari.” You respond in a sickeningly sweet, but mischievous voice. You bark a laugh loudly when he makes a move to get away from you but slips on the icy surface of the ground and lands squarely on his bum instead. That's twice now, you thought with a snicker.

After attempting for several minutes to convince Tighnari that you would stop harassing him for another hour and then failing spectacularly, you are left with little alternative but to drag him there. Back on the ice rink, you make the decision that you should definitely try to make your grumpy partner smile once more.

When he asks suspiciously what you're "plotting" this time, you refuse to say anything and gingerly take his hand before skating slowly toward the center of the rink. His misgivings and distrust towards you make you want to pout, but they aren't entirely unfounded given how you almost made him lose his sanity and completely drove him insane in the past hour.

“What are you doing?” He questioned in confusion.

"Dancing with the music while on ice!" You answer with a grin. "Since you're still new to this skating thing, just thought we could use a change of pace. And so that you would stop glaring at me already."

His brows furrowed. “And you didn’t think that I could use something like this earlier instead?"

You shush him, pressing a finger to his lips. "Shush. Just enjoy the moment, 'Nari."

He grumbles something incoherent under his breath, probably more complaints but nonetheless, his grip on your waist tightens to pull you closer to him, and he allows you to pull him along in slow circles. The both of you sway in time to the mellow beat, and after a while you hear Tighnari humming along softly to the carol while the ghost of a smile plays on his lips. His shoulders begin to loosen as he eases into the dance, the creases on his forehead fading away the more he loses himself in your eyes and in the faintly playing music.

Wordlessly, you felt your heart swell with affection. Tighnari has been so busy these past few weeks, and you both barely saw each other, if not at all. It makes you feel a little lonely, but you understand that his job requires his full attention and that many people rely on him as their leader.

You understand that, yes, still…it doesn't mean that you have to like it.

Perhaps Tighnari felt guilty about leaving you behind for so long either, and he felt it was his fault that he wasn't by your side at your lowest time when you needed him the most, so when the news of a new skating rink reaches his ears in the nearby country of Fontaine, he latches on the chance to take you along, knowing how you loved such excursions but have no time nor place to enjoy doing so. 

And even though it was his first time ice skating, and he wasn't even that used to the cold climate, Tighnari still took the effort to bring you here and you were grateful for his thoughtfulness for that. Whether he regrets it now or not because of your mischievous 'plotting' that almost made him senile remains to be seen.

When he appears to be less wary of the ice, you slowly skate backwards to pull away from him so you can lift his arm over and do a twirl along with him. The childish action pulls a chuckle from his lips, which causes your own to curve upwards as well.

"I supposed this isn’t half bad anymore," he remarked lightly.

"Right? I told you you would love this.”

He clarifies his sentence. "Correction: I like it when you don’t push me or make me skate like a Rishboland Tiger on incense."

Chuckling, you start skating and pulling him along with you. "It was your fault that you fell twice."

"You pushed me the first time," he argued.

"That was your fault, too."

"It wasn't, you lummox. I was doing fine until you—hey, look out!”

Before you can even process what he is saying, your left leg smacks against something hard, throwing you off balance. As you recoil and drag Tighnari down with you, all you can see is his gaping mouth and frozen expression of dread.

Your bottom takes the majority of the impact as your body crashes to the hard ice, and something sharp and unpleasant is jabbing at your side. Tighnari slammed directly on top of you, his immense weight knocking the wind out of you. He tries to get off of you as quickly as possible, but accidentally slips and falls on you again, this time, crushing your ribs.

“Ugh. I'm so sorry,” he muttered hurriedly, moving to get up so his weight is on his forearms that are resting on either side of your face. "Are you okay!?"

"I'll live." You replied with a grimace. "What was that?"

"A snowboard," he replies, looking over his shoulder where a blue overturned snowboard is lying. "Who in the world left that lying in the middle of a skating rink? That's highly dangerous! I would love to get some words with—"

"Probably a child," you stopped his tirade before it escalated to something close to a full-blown lecture. "Oww…"

Tighnari carefully crawls away from you so he has sufficient space to get back on his feet and once he’s up, he holds out a hand to you. "I'll help you up,"

You clasped his hand and allowed him to pull you up. But about halfway through, he manages to tip over—possibly because you put too much weight on him—and falls backward, dragging you with him.

You both crash land in a jumbled heap of limbs for the second time today. Perhaps the pain has finally reached your mind, but when you shift so that your weight is off of him and gaze down at his dumbfounded face, you can't help but laugh out loud. You know the people around you are giving you strange looks, but you can't help it.

You manage, struggling to recover your breath between laughs, "Today has been such a mess."

Tighnari is just staring at you like you've finally lost it, but before long the corners of his chapped, dry lips are also curling upwards and soon enough, he's laughing along with you at the ridiculous situation the two of you are in.

He sighed, blowing out a puff of breath and lightly flicking your forehead good naturedly. "You better make up for this later to me, you big lummox."

"Heh. Of course. Anything else you want as compensation?" You asked, brushing the viridescent strand of his hair from concealing his lovely face. He deserves this after all the terrorising from you today.

As he mulls over the query, his features settle into a thoughtful expression, and his lips pursed. Very cute, the way he’s almost pouting with his lips pushed out like that. Looking at him from this angle, with his dark hair splayed out around his head like a halo, lying on the shimmering ice beneath the bright rays of the sun in winter, you can’t help but feel your chest swell with affection. The loneliness you felt over the weeks apart from each other slowly, but surely unveiling itself little by little until it becomes nothing but a bittersweet memory.

He takes so much time to decide, and you feel impatient. So, with a mischievous smile, you lean in, catching him completely off guard when you press your lips to his. You pull away quickly after leaving a gentle peck, but his hand is quick to press on your back to keep you from moving away too far.

“One more time.” His tone is serious, but his face is well on its way to matching the colour of Nilou's hair as his gaze remains on your face, attentive olive eyes tracing the lines of your features and lingering on the changing colour of your heated cheeks. “As...compensation, that is.” he added, by way of explanation.

You smile brightly, ignoring the sting of your cracking lips when they spread too wide, and you lean in, more than happy to comply and compensate, while you’re at it.

This sweet moment is more than anything you could take home as a holiday keepsake.

His gaze darted between the ice then to you, slight panic glazing in his eyes. Though some relief sets in when you skate over to him, he gives you an irritated glare and an embarrassed flush of his cheeks when he sees you stifling your laughter at his pathetic state. 

You hold out your hand to him once you’re close enough and immediately he clutches tightly to your arm like a lifeline.

"The audacity of you to leave me behind, you heartless dunce." He huffed angrily, leaning against you as he tried to release the tension in his muscles, clearly tired from the effort of standing on ice even for a short period of time. "I can’t believe you almost left me alone to rot here!"

The way that extreme embarrassment tends to turn the fennec hybrid into a petty drama queen is so amusing. Especially when he still seeks you out despite how irritated he is.

"But you were doing okay," you said, though both of you know that he was the exact opposite of being okay. "It's your first time so don't be so stressed about it," you continue when his disgruntled scowl deepens at your unconvincing tone. "At the very least, you didn’t cry, 'Nari, I’m so proud of you."

He groaned in irritation when you patted his ears teasingly, brushing off your hand almost immediately. "I did not fall, thank you very much. And I don’t cry over such petty things."

"Oh? I'm confident your eyes were misty when I skated over to support you earlier."

“I did no such thing,” he scowled, though his long ears started dropping in defence. “Skating is rather hard, okay? I believe you were forgetting I have lived in the rainforest all my life. This is my first time.”

“Don't worry, I got you.” You said with a reassuring smile, nudging his waist lightly with your elbow. The action made him stumble and cling tighter to your arm in response. The absolute shock that crossed on his usually stern face makes you giggle, and it takes you a while to calm yourself so that he’ll stop glaring at you. 

You pried his hand away from your sore arm, and instead, intertwining his fingers with yours. "Don’t worry, 'Nari. We’ll hold hands, so don't let go."

Tighnari's brows shot up in the hairline, not comforted in the least by your reassuring smile. “I swear to all Archons in Teyvat, [Name], I’ll make you regret this if you let me go or pull weird tricks to make me fa—”

"I won’t! What kind of lover do you take me for?” You pouted.

Before he can come up with a snarky reply, you start pulling him across the ice rink. You have to bite the inside of your cheeks to keep your laughter to yourself when you hear him release an undignified yelp before tightly latching both his hands onto yours.

Come to think of it, despite his ungodly snarks and overall clumsiness at skating, your favourite scholar really isn’t too bad for a first-timer. He merely fell once so far. 

That first time was because you let his hand go for staring too long at that person who was executing a beautiful spin and statingstating bluntly that you skated like a "circus snake" compared to them. So rude. 

Though it wasn't that unusual when Tighnari insists on taking a break.

“What are you looking at?” His lips were curled downward in displeasure while seated on the bench.

“Nothing~"

"Sometimes, I really hate you.”

“Hehe. Love you too, 'Nari.” You respond in a sickeningly sweet, but mischievous voice. You bark a laugh loudly when he makes a move to get away from you but slips on the icy surface of the ground and lands squarely on his bum instead. That's twice now, you thought with a snicker.

After attempting for several minutes to convince Tighnari that you would stop harassing him for another hour and then failing spectacularly, you are left with little alternative but to drag him there. Back on the ice rink, you make the decision that you should definitely try to make your grumpy partner smile once more.

When he asks suspiciously what you're "plotting" this time, you refuse to say anything and gingerly take his hand before skating slowly toward the center of the rink. His misgivings and distrust towards you make you want to pout, but they aren't entirely unfounded given how you almost made him lose his sanity and completely drove him insane in the past hour.

“What are you doing?” He questioned in confusion.

"Dancing with the music while on ice!" You answer with a grin. "Since you're still new to this skating thing, just thought we could use a change of pace. And so that you would stop glaring at me already."

His brows furrowed. “And you didn’t think that I could use something like this earlier instead?"

You shush him, pressing a finger to his lips. "Shush. Just enjoy the moment, 'Nari."

He grumbles something incoherent under his breath, probably more complaints but nonetheless, his grip on your waist tightens to pull you closer to him, and he allows you to pull him along in slow circles. The both of you sway in time to the mellow beat, and after a while you hear Tighnari humming along softly to the carol while the ghost of a smile plays on his lips. His shoulders begin to loosen as he eases into the dance, the creases on his forehead fading away the more he loses himself in your eyes and in the faintly playing music.

Wordlessly, you felt your heart swell with affection. Tighnari has been so busy these past few weeks, and you both barely saw each other, if not at all. It makes you feel a little lonely, but you understand that his job requires his full attention and that many people rely on him as their leader.

You understand that, yes, still…it doesn't mean that you have to like it.

Perhaps Tighnari felt guilty about leaving you behind for so long either, and he felt it was his fault that he wasn't by your side at your lowest time when you needed him the most, so when the news of a new skating rink reaches his ears in the nearby country of Fontaine, he latches on the chance to take you along, knowing how you loved such excursions but have no time nor place to enjoy doing so. 

And even though it was his first time ice skating, and he wasn't even that used to the cold climate, Tighnari still took the effort to bring you here and you were grateful for his thoughtfulness for that. Whether he regrets it now or not because of your mischievous 'plotting' that almost made him senile remains to be seen.

When he appears to be less wary of the ice, you slowly skate backwards to pull away from him so you can lift his arm over and do a twirl along with him. The childish action pulls a chuckle from his lips, which causes your own to curve upwards as well.

"I supposed this isn’t half bad anymore," he remarked lightly.

"Right? I told you you would love this.”

He clarifies his sentence. "Correction: I like it when you don’t push me or make me skate like a Rishboland Tiger on incense."

Chuckling, you start skating and pulling him along with you. "It was your fault that you fell twice."

"You pushed me the first time," he argued.

"That was your fault, too."

"It wasn't, you lummox. I was doing fine until you—hey, look out!”

Before you can even process what he is saying, your left leg smacks against something hard, throwing you off balance. As you recoil and drag Tighnari down with you, all you can see is his gaping mouth and frozen expression of dread.

Your bottom takes the majority of the impact as your body crashes to the hard ice, and something sharp and unpleasant is jabbing at your side. Tighnari slammed directly on top of you, his immense weight knocking the wind out of you. He tries to get off of you as quickly as possible, but accidentally slips and falls on you again, this time, crushing your ribs.

“Ugh. I'm so sorry,” he muttered hurriedly, moving to get up so his weight is on his forearms that are resting on either side of your face. "Are you okay!?"

"I'll live." You replied with a grimace. "What was that?"

"A snowboard," he replies, looking over his shoulder where a blue overturned snowboard is lying. "Who in the world left that lying in the middle of a skating rink? That's highly dangerous! I would love to get some words with—"

"Probably a child," you stopped his tirade before it escalated to something close to a full-blown lecture. "Oww…"

Tighnari carefully crawls away from you so he has sufficient space to get back on his feet and once he’s up, he holds out a hand to you. "I'll help you up,"

You clasped his hand and allowed him to pull you up. But about halfway through, he manages to tip over—possibly because you put too much weight on him—and falls backward, dragging you with him.

You both crash land in a jumbled heap of limbs for the second time today. Perhaps the pain has finally reached your mind, but when you shift so that your weight is off of him and gaze down at his dumbfounded face, you can't help but laugh out loud. You know the people around you are giving you strange looks, but you can't help it.

You manage, struggling to recover your breath between laughs, "Today has been such a mess."

Tighnari is just staring at you like you've finally lost it, but before long the corners of his chapped, dry lips are also curling upwards and soon enough, he's laughing along with you at the ridiculous situation the two of you are in.

He sighed, blowing out a puff of breath and lightly flicking your forehead good naturedly. "You better make up for this later to me, you big lummox."

"Heh. Of course. Anything else you want as compensation?" You asked, brushing the viridescent strand of his hair from concealing his lovely face. He deserves this after all the terrorising from you today.

As he mulls over the query, his features settle into a thoughtful expression, and his lips pursed. Very cute, the way he’s almost pouting with his lips pushed out like that. Looking at him from this angle, with his dark hair splayed out around his head like a halo, lying on the shimmering ice beneath the bright rays of the sun in winter, you can’t help but feel your chest swell with affection. The loneliness you felt over the weeks apart from each other slowly, but surely unveiling itself little by little until it becomes nothing but a bittersweet memory.

He takes so much time to decide, and you feel impatient. So, with a mischievous smile, you lean in, catching him completely off guard when you press your lips to his. You pull away quickly after leaving a gentle peck, but his hand is quick to press on your back to keep you from moving away too far.

“One more time.” His tone is serious, but his face is well on its way to matching the colour of Nilou's hair as his gaze remains on your face, attentive olive eyes tracing the lines of your features and lingering on the changing colour of your heated cheeks. “As...compensation, that is.” he added, by way of explanation.

You smile brightly, ignoring the sting of your cracking lips when they spread too wide, and you lean in, more than happy to comply and compensate, while you’re at it.

This sweet moment is more than anything you could take home as a holiday keepsake.