Chapter Text
Liyue was home to many a savvy businessman, deals signed and completed along dotted lines and in the closed palms of a handshake. But for every starry-eyed youth with dreams of riches, there were others who made their worth from swindling the blindsided out of their money, lining their pockets with a simple sleight of hand.
While Zhongli had never been deceitful, he was not above bending the rules of a contract when it best suited him. Loopholes were there to be exploited, after all.
The mysterious traveller from Mondstadt was no ordinary girl, and Zhongli had known who she was even before their fateful meeting. Stories of an outlander looking for their lost sibling travelled quickly, perhaps because of her verbosity in declaring her plans to travel to the ends of Teyvat in the search. To the average person who met her, she was a wonder to behold, but to Zhongli, she had been an elegant chess piece to play within his own machinations.
Yet, even the best laid plans could be waylaid by unanticipated complications.
Humans could not escape their own mortality. To Zhongli, they smelled of their own demise, their death and decay. It lingered in the back of his palate when he interacted with youths, still with many more years ahead of them than behind, and near assaulted his senses when he passed the elderly whose bodies were falling apart before his very eyes. Working as a funeral consultant was the perfect opportunity to use his wealth of knowledge, but in doing so he had grown so used to the unpleasant aroma of humanity and their mortality that he barely registered it anymore.
Childe was swathed in the bitter tang from his time in the Abyss, unable to escape his own past despite his charming guise. It had made the girl who followed him stand out even more than she perhaps would have. Her subtle scent was sweet, almost...floral. Like windwheel asters from Mondstadt, and the rarest breeds of silk flowers.
While Lumine may have been fated to play the role he set aside for her, he had never foreseen her companionship.
The low, simmering burn that seemed to be building somewhere within him was even less expected.