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Another Monday had finally arrived, and Childe lay waiting inside the Golden House, hardly keeping himself from bouncing off the walls. Monday was a special day since Aether, like clockwork, came to fight him every week. Childe had once asked him why he always chose that particular day for their fights and Aether had replied something along the lines of the loading screen told me you get your strength back, which was… huh. Weird, but Childe didn’t have the right to question Aether’s choices as long as a good fight was handed to him on a regular basis.
(The alternative would be terrorizing his subordinates, who had recently started to entertain the idea of unionizing against him and asking the Tsaritsa to assign them to Capitano instead, so Childe had to take what he could get.)
“I wonder just who he will bring with him today,” he said out loud.
His answer came a few seconds later, when the heavy doors of the Golden House opened with a cavernous moan that spoke of well-oiled hinges, and four people stepped in.
Aether was at the head of the quartet with Paimon. He was talking quietly with her, sword already in hand and earring gleaming golden with Geo energy. Behind him came Rosaria, the nun from Mondstadt. Childe liked her not only because she was ruthless and unforgiving in combat, but also because Aether had once told him that she was the only person, besides Childe himself, to have offered him manslaughter as a birthday present. She was discreetly trying to walk at a safe distance from the third member of Aether’s group, Bennett, who was nearly tripping over his own feet in excitement. Clumsy kid. But Childe liked him too; he felt a certain kinship with those people that, much like himself, were always ready to throw themselves into danger. And the last member of Aether’s party was…
Childe felt a grin spread slowly across his face.
Red hair, cascading down a strong back and glowing warmly in the dim light of the Golden House. Crimson eyes, already eyeing him with distrust. A perpetual scowl that promised fire and fury.
Diluc.
This is going to be good, Childe thought. He couldn’t really fathom why normal people hated Mondays as much as they did. Best day of the week, honestly.
“… I could have given it to another claymore user, but Diluc was the only one that managed to wield it without laughing himself silly.” he heard Aether tell Paimon, before he noticed Childe waiting at the center of the room and waved a hand to him.
“Comrade! I have no adequate words to tell you just how happy I am to see you and your… entourage,” Childe shouted. The large space made his voice boom ominously; he loved the theatrical effect. “I swear a single week doesn’t pass fast enough.”
“Tell me about it,” Aether groaned in response, gesturing to his companions to fan out behind him and tightening his grip on the hilt of his sword. “Rosaria here needs one of the pieces of your stupid weapon, it can’t wait anymore.”
“No, it can’t.” Rosaria confirmed, materializing a spear made of a material that looked suspiciously like bone and pointing it at Childe.
But Childe wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were already trained on Diluc, who was in turn staring at him with his best expression of homicidal displeasure. Excellent.
“Shall we begin, then?” Childe drawled, bowing slightly at the waist like a seasoned actor.
Aether nodded. It was all the confirmation Childe needed.
He sprinted forward with savage joy.
He could have realized, in retrospective, that something was out of place long before transforming into his Foul Legacy form. He could have noticed that his whale wasn’t the only… Piscine being on the battlefield, for example. Or he could have paid attention to the way Bennett was even clumsier than usual because he kept stealing glances at Diluc and twisting his face into a strange, agonized expression, like he was trying his hardest not to laugh.
He had been occupied, okay? Aether and Rosaria had kept him on his toes for most of the fight, especially the latter with that tricky way she had of appearing behind his shoulders in a burst of Cryo. But the only one that had really made his blood sing in ecstasy had been Diluc. He was fighting with twice the fury he usually had in him, which was… Well, an awful lot to begin with. So Childe hadn’t really had the time to concentrate on his surroundings, too busy trying to land a hit without getting himself incinerated in the process.
It was only when Foul Legacy gave him a little more room to breathe that he realized exactly what Diluc had been attacking him with.
A fucking fish. A magnificent, humongous fish, all sharp fins and gleaming silver-blue scales.
“STOP.” He roared, twirling his Electro-infused polearm and embedding it in the floor with a force that shook the entire chamber.
Everyone froze.
Childe pointed a clawed finger at the… claymore? Clayfish (no, wait, that was a real thing)? Diluc was holding, gripping it tightly by its tail.
“WHAT IS THAT.”
“It’s the Luxurious Sea-Lord,” Aether answered like he was stating the obvious. Childe could almost hear the unspoken duh at the tail end of the sentence.
“THE… THE WHAT.” he spluttered before the bewilderment he was feeling overcame him and his control on Foul Legacy slipped. The transformation dissolved, leaving him sitting on his ass on the floor, flushed and panting and desperately trying to squeeze his legs together.
“W-where did you even acquire something like that, comrade?” he asked, eyeing the Luxurious Sea-Lord, raised above Diluc’s head like the weirdest executioner’s axe.
Aether shrugged nonchalantly. Paimon appeared beside him in a burst of starlight and started shaking her head and making shushing noises.
“Oh, it’s just one of the new free weapons. I think it’s thematically related to the addition of a fishing mechanic… I swear, why does there always have to be a fishing mechanic…”
“Aetherrrrr you have to stop doing that!”
“… I get it, I get it, it’s a weird weapon! But it’s insanely powerful, if wielded by the right person. That’s why Diluc volunteered to use it for this fight.”
Childe looked at Diluc, who was staring at the floor with incredible interest. His face was red from exertion, or from something else.
“Master Diluc,” he whispered, awe seeping into his voice “did you perhaps volunteer to fight me with a fish because you know I like fishing? Were you hoping to distract me with that… big catch?”
Diluc regarded him with a raised eyebrow, embarrassment temporarily forgotten.
“No? I was simply the only one that could keep their cool while swinging around a giant fish, thank you very much.”
But Childe was having none of it.
“You know me so well,” he purred, standing up and dusting himself off. “You know, if you had brought something like that to my house in Snezhnaya my father would have immediately married me off to you. But it’s not too late to make your proposal.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Childe threw his head back and cackled, willing two Hydro blades to materialize into his hands and raising them in front of himself in his signature battle stance.
“It’s an unconventional dowry, but I’ll take it. Pound me into the floor with that thing, and I’ll be yours.”
Diluc shook his head and shot a look over his shoulder.
“Hey, Aether, let’s finish this qui—”
But Aether, Bennett and Rosaria had slipped off silently towards the door at the opposite end of the room, where they now stood.
“I’m sorry, Diluc! The atmosphere was starting to get a little bit too… Uncomfortable for us!” Aether shouted, hands cupped around his mouth. “You finish him off, alright? Remember to pick up what he drops!”
“Hey, wait a minute—”
Aether closed the door, cutting off Diluc’s scream and Childe’s maniacal laughter.
A few minutes later, when they were back into the light of the sun and walking the paved road that would bring them to Liyue Harbor, Bennett finally decided to ask the one question that had been hanging in the air.
“What even is a fishing mechanic?”