The World Looks Glorious in the Snow

Chapter 7: "the world looks glorious in the snow"

But the if the young man was bothered by or even aware of their fear, he made no indication of it.

Childe stopped in front of a stall selling fresh crabs, and the shiny shells instantly caught the boys' attention. When Anthon tried to touch one, Childe gently pushed his hand away. "Don't touch them," he said. "These are going to be our dinner."

"Really?" Anthon recoiled.

"Yup." When he saw the boy's disgusted expression, he laughed and added, "Don't worry. I'll be making lots of other stuff that you and Teucer will like." Anthon seemed to relax at his brother's promise.

Childe flew by the different stalls and purchased a wide assortment of ingredients: mint, spices, frozen calla lilies imported from Monstadt, and even a whole octopus. Nothing about any of the ingredients gave any hints on what he was planning to make, other than something that had to do with seafood—his choices, quite frankly, made no sense whatsoever. Still, the others tagged along, chatting and joking and laughing as Childe grew his collection. Then, he announced that they were all heading home, and the group trotted back down the path towards the forest.

The snow on the forest path had been shoveled away at some point, but any snow that was removed had been replaced overnight by a new, thick layer that no one had bothered to tackle yet. It was much deeper than on the village paths, which made trudging through it much more difficult. Most places were soft enough that Lumine's legs fell knee-deep with every step. Then, every once in a while, she would run into a particularly solid patch of snow, and the sudden change would throw her off-balance and send her toppling over. She was panting when the group finally reached the house.

Childe immediately set to work, starting with the initial preparations, and leaving the others to entertain themselves. Lumine picked a spot on the couch next to Cassandra and tried to convince Paimon to entertain the boys. The three-foot travel companion, who was in a particularly sour mood after following people around in the cold, vehemently protested.

"Just because Paimon is small doesn't mean she wants to play with kids!" she argued.

"Aw, but look at them. You wouldn't turn down faces like those, would you? They'd be awfully sad."

"Are you guilt-tripping Paimon?!"

Cassandra giggled. "It's okay, Lumine. It's not like we're talking about anything secret anyway."

Lumine would have pointed out Paimon's incessant habit of dominating conversations and steering them towards topics that interested her—food and mora—but she bit her tongue.

"Hey, is that a Vision?" Paimon promptly turned the subject to something shiny on Cassie's belt, hiding under the sides of her jacket.

"What, this? Oh. Yeah."

"I didn't know you had a Vision," remarked Lumine.

"I didn't until pretty recently. I would brag about it to my brother, but to be honest, I'm in no hurry to get added to his list of people he needs to beat."

This prompted a laugh. "Good point."

"Do you have a Vision?"

"No," replied Lumine, suddenly wary of the direction of this conversation.

"Really? You seem like you'd have one, especially if you've caught my brother's attention. He only associates himself with strong people he wants to defeat."

"Who says you can't be strong without a Vision?" Paimon cut in.

"Never said you couldn't. That just makes Lumine extra impressive."