#dealucem

     Him lying to her? It happened often about what he was doing, his intent, other things at that. Her anger wasn’t uncalled for, none of it was with how he was beneath her at this point with a sword directly pointed at his throat. He hated to admit it but playing house with her, a happy couple at that, was just what he wanted without interruptions from the other Harbingers much less the Fatui. They were annoyed by it, by him doing such things with the enemy.

     Those lifeless blue eyes seemed to have a tinge of pain reflected in her golden given he didn’t wish for it to go this way. “Listen, Princess...” She was agitated, reacting as if she won’t by how the tip of the blade was pressed against his throat though he needed to act fast or else she may indeed honestly kill him. “Princess, I don’t lie about everything, I never once lied to you about my feelings toward you even.” He can’t lie about the passion, the kisses, the romance of all of it. Lying and pretending on that scale for someone like him is impossible.

      It was obvious he can’t lie about his own heart in this matter. He needed to do something more to defuse the situation since it seemed he was getting a bit closer to it, come on Ajax, now isn’t the time to be Tartaglia or Childe as he also went by. “Prin-... Lumine,” a first for him to even use her name instead of his pet name for her, how foreign it sounded off his tongue. “there are many things I can’t involve you in, not just because I don’t want to but because I understand how dangerous it will be. I don’t lie willingly to your face.” The lies were only to keep the other Harbingers from discovering more on her like Scaramouche who hated him with a passion. From taking her at that from him.

     “I’ll say it for you now, I don’t lie to you to act as if that’s the right thing to do. What would you do if I saw the things I did? How horrible I actually am at that?” His job left no room for mercy, she didn’t need to be tainted by seeing it with how she was slowly faltering in holding him at blade point. “Would you be able to still feel the same way you do toward me like you do now? This isn’t a matter of it being classified only, but a matter of, would your feelings stay unchanged?”

     Indeed, it did reach him with such ease it wasn’t even a surprise by this point. He heard all of it down to Signora attempting something with the shogunate like the fool she was, he didn’t know if she were still there yet since no word came of her leaving the palace but this would solve two problems for him. Lifeless blues directly taking in the gold of her own as if thinking, debating now. “I still want to have a few words with the shogun.” By how they glowered, darkened, it was obvious what he intended by words. He was going to fight her himself. 

     Scarred arms on both sides of her, he was close enough that it was going to be impossible to escape if she desired to do so without distracting him. “I’m not going to stand for it, if she wants a duel that badly I’ll be sure to give it back to her full force.” His tone hardly was that of the cheerful man who would speak fondly of his siblings, speak so lovingly toward her when they were alone at that. The one thing on his mind was crushing that woman.

There was silence during this run of Moonchase between them, though he wasn’t the least bit surprised knowing that she had changed. Princess was starting to go further ahead of him was his main thought, flying faster, spreading those wings of hers to the point that it made him want to rip them off her back. But, that of course was a thought for another time. They were alone, wandering the streets of Liyue which was gradually rebuilding since his little stunt in an attempt to drag out Morax to fight him.

Even if he didn’t get to fight the archon, he got to fight her, the object of a newer obsession that was starting to fester, grow at that whilst keeping beside her. Her tiny traveling companion wasn’t there, the fireworks were preparing to launch even so he wasn’t going to just sit idle and waste this opportunity. Gloved hands soon taking her by the waist and tilting her head up to face him just enough. Much to his delight Lumine was surprised, caught off guard, that perfect act of hers slipped as he held her like a lover or would-be-lover.

Since nobody was at this spot he chose carefully, he could drop his little charade of pretending and hiding it all. “Say princess, I hope you don’t miiind... but I have a change of plans due to it being such a long time since we last got to do this.” Especially since he’d prefer spending his precious time with her aside from his siblings, not running around for the Harbingers whenever he was starting to hate them more. Cutting into all of it against his will.

Yet that wasn’t the point of him doing this, within mere moments of him saying that, he soon had captured her lips with his own. The kiss this time was deep even from him of all people, those dead eyes of his just faintly filled with a bit of life and a tiny spark of light that nobody else could drag out of him.