The World Looks Glorious in the Snow

Chapter 9: "bring my son home"

Instead of replying, Childe froze up and lost the ability to form words for a time, before finally, he managed to croak out a pathetic "Too far."

"What does that mean?" It was his father again, continuing the interrogation in his wife's stead.

"I..." Lumine saw it, the split second of spiraling before everything in him collapsed. "There was nothing I could do! There were too many of them...I just needed more power, it was only for a bit...but...Cass, she...I tried to chase him but I couldn't, I... Cass, she...I couldn't...they..."

"Cass? Cass was part of this, too?" barked Kostya incredulously.

"Is she not home?" Natalia's head whipped in either direction, an instinct, as if her daughter would suddenly appear if she only looked to the side. "Where is she?" When Childe only stared at the floor, she gripped his shoulders and repeated, "Ajax, where is she?"

"I..." A shudder of breath, a catch in his speech. "There was nothing I could do..."

Lumine looked away. She couldn't bear the sight of fresh tears spilling over Natalia's cheeks—she was fearing the worst. Lumine's ears caught Childe barely spitting out the truth, that Cassandra was not dead, that she was merely captured by the Fatui, but that alone sealed her fate. Everyone knew it.

"I'm going out." It was Childe, his voice low and cold, his brows knit in an icy glare as he turned and made his way to the door.

"You're not going anywhere, young man!" declared Kostya as he grabbed his son's shoulder, but he was quickly shaken off.

"Watch me."

"Ajax, no!" Natalia's anguished cry was the only thing that stalled him as he ripped the door open, and the cold flooded in with an unusually hasty gust of wind. "Just look outside. There's a storm coming! If you go out there..."

"I'll be fine."

"No one can survive in these storms, Ajax! Please, don't do this!"

"I have to."

"No—"

Childe slammed the door.

Never in her life had Lumine witnessed something as heart-shattering as Natalia's sobs as she crumpled to the floor. Her husband was quick to kneel by her side and take her into his embrace, but she resisted, clawing towards the door, screaming at him to let her go so she could chase after her son. Lumine hurried towards her, dropped to her knees in front of her, and shoved away her inhibitions as she grabbed the woman's wrists. "I'm going after him."

The mother's wet lashes lifted to reveal her glistening blue eyes. "Are you sure? It's...it's dangerous in Snezhnaya during a storm..." Every facet of Lumine's existence melted into a throbbing mess. This woman had only known her for a week or two, had effectively lost three of her children in one night, and still reserved a tiny fraction of her heart to worry for Lumine's safety.

"I'll be okay," she assured before she lifted herself to her feet and grabbed the doorknob. She wasn't dressed properly for the outside, not even wearing shoes, but she couldn't let Childe go too far away, so there was no time to properly dress. Whether fortunately or not, the parents were too distraught to notice. She took one last glance at them, at Natalia, sobbing in Kostya's embrace, before she plunged into the darkest white imaginable.

The cold on her bare feet stung. She had to move fast. "Childe!" He hadn't gotten far, his fatigue obviously affecting him as he scrambled his way through the thick blanket of ice. "Childe, where are you going?" She realized he wasn't going to respond to her if she only yelled at him from behind his back. Besides, it was difficult to hear with the quickening winds. Swallowing her discomfort, Lumine took the first step off the wooden porch and into the snow. Her leg plunged down to the knee, her foot enveloped by ice, her skin starting to throb even from a few seconds exposed to the cold. She had to move even faster. Step by step, she trudged her way towards the struggling young man, until he toppled over for the seventh, eight time and Lumine caught up to him. "Childe..." She grabbed his arm, desperate to go back into the house and free herself from this miserable environment.