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There’s nothing they can do to help it, really. Both of the twins are blushers, for a variety of reasons, usually ones only they can decipher. Aether, the sweet boy he is, flushes at any and every compliment, refusing to accept any of them out of humility. Archons only know what shade he’d be with Lisa calling him cutie rather than his name. When they’re together, Lumine will usually speak to the complimenter, thanking them on his behalf as he turns pink. Lumine, on the other hand, is usually more composed when receiving compliments. It takes a lot to catch her off guard. Instead of flushing from compliments, it’s often a result of her blood beginning to boil when angry or annoyed, and Aether usually has to advise people to run.
Without Aether around to help, the people of Teyvat have had to figure that out for themselves.
:::
“Paimon remembers when Paimon first met the Traveler. Lumine insisted on walking for three more hours instead of going to sleep, and when Paimon kept chatting to help keep her awake, she swatted at Paimon! After that, Paimon learned to watch her and keep quiet after about 8 o’clock.”
“A little while after I met the Traveler, she helped me fight a camp of hilichurls. We’d just about finished them off, when the mitachurl made another shield. If you thought I was a red flash, you should’ve seen Lumine. I almost feel bad for the mitachurl.”
“Hm, Lumine? She’s never gotten mad at me, but there’s been a few times I’ve seen her at the Cathedral picking up Gunner’s medicine, red as a tomato and muttering about a ‘stubborn old man’, and all the other commissions she could be doing. Maybe a song would calm her down next time? There is one I’ve been working on…”
“The Traveler? One time I asked her to grab the wheel of the ship and steer port while I was with one of my crew members. It’s a good thing I came back up when I did, we were about to hit rocks along the shore as she yanked and yanked on wheel, out of breath and as red as the sails.”
:::
There was, however, one person who hadn’t quite cracked the code yet. Poor Childe, for how sharp he was, he had yet to learn that interrupting Lumine in the middle of a quest, waking up a Ruin Guard in the process, to beg for a rematch was not a good time. She’d flush red and hurl herself at the machine, and when she was finished, Childe was next. Her steam wouldn’t finish blowing off until about three quarters of the way through their fight, yet she beat him every week. By the time she had him on the ground, foot on his torso and tip of her sword to his neck, she’d be over her anger, extending a hand to the defeated, weakened, devilishly grinning man as he started chattering about their next match.
These days, rather than picking up on the fact that a red Lumine meant a sorry defeat in the arena, he only became worse. Hunched in some bushes, surveying a gathering of abyss mages, he strolled directly in front of her bush. “You missed our sparring match last week, Lumi! I was waiting, and waiting, and waiting for you, and you never came. Scared I’d finally win? It’s ok, you can admit--” And like that, the mages all popped over to where she had been well hidden, until a certain Harbinger showed up. After they’d defeated them, he did get the fight he was after.
Maybe he had begun to catch on.
:::
At some point, someone must have told him, likely Zhongli. She and Paimon were strolling along the harbour at nighttime, battered after a nasty fight with some Treasure Hoarders earlier that day. She’d broken the decorative flowers Aether had given her, holding them tight in her fist while the glue dried. In their place she’d stuck a glaze lily from Qingce Village. Childe approached quietly from behind them, making Paimon jump in midair.
“Hey, Traveler! Say, did you do something different with your hair? That lily really looks good on you. I know a place that sells clips that look just like it, what do you say? My treat, of course.”
It had been a while since she’d tried anything new in the looks department, and she ducked her head, pink creeping up onto her face as if she was Aether. When Childe looked over, expecting a response, his eyes widened.
“Sure-- huh?”
“Where’s he going?”
A hundred feet ahead was Childe, booking it across the harbour, one piece of advice ringing in his ears: run.