#he gave the reader the princess mononoke treatment

[ofoceansandtombsanew]

please go gentle into that good night (childe x reader)

tags: primordial!reader (she/her), reader is death personified, is annoyance to lovers applicable here??

The 11th Harbinger has seen death, there is no question about it among the agents of the Fatui. Scarred from battle after battle, always thirsty for more, death is a familiar friend of the Harbinger.

He’s delivered death to many in his endless pursuit of strength.

Has been on death’s door more times than anyone could hope to count.

“Oh, I’ve seen death and I don’t mean metaphorically,” Childe has laughed, sitting with his men drinking firewater around a fire indulging pleasantly in the friendly chatter. That’s all that is needed for the discussion to divulge into enthusiastic regales of his conquests, mostly regaled by his enthusiastic men while the newest recruits listen in awe. Yet no one will notice how their Harbinger falls silent, peering into his reflection with a light grin.

Ajax has seen death.

Felt her cold fingers caress his face, thumbing away the blood that dripped down his cheeks. Saw her eyebrows knit in concern and frustration in equal measure. Took in her cloak, black as the void. Could feel the fatigue in the heavy bags under her eyes.

Death is a woman and she is undoubtedly the most beautiful woman Ajax has ever seen.

They first met when he was simply a recruit, a far cry from the Harbinger he is in the present somewhere off the border of Fontaine and Liyue. The mission was a success, though the casualties were great in number. 

There you formed from out of water, void-black cloak and all, taking in the sight of the bloodbath. Then your eyes rested on him, expression unreadable.

He knew who you were immediately.

“Humans,” you scowled, tone bereft of resentment as you kneeled to touch his face and he shuddered from the chill. Death looked at him and he looked back, all while feeling the gentle reverence in your touch with a voice like the night, soft yet coarse. Comfort enveloped in an instinctual fear.

An unending juxtaposition.

Ajax now knows you enough to know how you likely felt that day, staring at a bloody Fatuus crumpled against a large rock. They were your foolish but beautiful, endlessly aging humans.

“If you keep this up,” you told him, staring into his blue eyes unshakingly. “You’ll end up being one of my passengers.”

“You’re beautiful,” Ajax saw you balk in confusion, his reply unexpected.

“Fool,” you all but hissed as you stood and Ajax found it adorable. It’s another accomplish that he, Tartaglia, holds alone. He flustered Death itself. “Cherish your life, Fatuus,” you told him, summoning your oar to your side. “Cherish it so it is a long time before we see each other again.”

“My name is Ajax,” he laughed and he coughed painfully. “And I hope the next time we see each other again, it isn’t much longer!”

Your head shaking in exasperation was your only response as you took to the corpses, gathering the souls of the lost. Some left with ease, others sobbed in despair and others resisted you in their entirety. Yet all were eventually sat on boat you fashioned out of water, resting atop of the river that you would ride to take them home.

With a sparing glance to the living, to Ajax, you drifted away thinking this to be the last time you would encounter Ajax of the Fatui.

Much to his pleasure and your chagrin, it was not.

“You have a death wish,” Arlecchino told him once, chock full of contempt and vinegar.

“You’re not wrong about that one, comrade,” the 11th Harbinger grinned with a barking laugh. “It’s just that with all my wishing, she can’t seem to stand me.”

You had met each other countlessly, taking in that foolish Fatuus’ battle scars. Each time he learned something new about you and in turn he happily gushed about himself. He had many tells to share of his homeland, his family and the Tsaritsa he follows and you always listened.

“Keep this up and I’ll kill you myself,” you told him one particular encounter after a stint in his Foul Legacy form.

“Wouldn’t that be cheating?” Ajax grinned, ignoring how you flicked his forehead in annoyance.

You glared at the redhead sharply, “who would there be to tell?”

Ajax’s grin only grew wider, “I knew you wanted me, Death, but I didn’t know you wanted me that much.”

If looks could kill, Ajax is sure in that moment he would have been killed ten times over. “Can you not ask your god for jobs that won’t leave you at my door? Can you at least attempt to refrain yourself from violence?”

“But then how would I see you again?”

“When it’s finally your time to-”

“That could take forever,” Ajax whined and you groaned in disbelief. “How about this. Tell me your name and I promise to at least give it half a year before you have to see me again.”

You fixed him with a look, “you already know my name.”

With a shake of his head, Ajax clarified, “I don’t mean what everyone else calls you.” Death is what you are, not your name. “No one calls the Tsaritsa ‘Cryo’ or the Lord of Geo ‘Geo’. You have some sort of personal name, don’t you?” When you say nothing immediately, his expression morphs into a sad curiosity. “Is that really all anyone ever calls you?”

You hesitated only a moment longer before you finally answeredー “The ones affiliated with Celestia call me Pursan,” Ajax leaned forward in anticipation, blue staring into [color]. “But you may call me [First].”

[First].

[First].

“[First],” he relished the sound of your name. What would he give to hear you say his name? He would promise you kingdoms, entire nations at your feet. Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long for it, no promises of conquered nations required.

“Keep your promise to me, Ajax,” his name dripped from your lips like honey and he wished you would say it again. “If you’re determined to continue this fool’s errand, I don’t want to see you any sooner than what you’ve promised.”

All of this leads to now, Ajax nursing a moderately sized cut on his stomach whilst sitting along the banks of Yashiori Island nine months later. Despite the hard-to-use cutlery, Ajax is fond of Inazuma. The duels permitted by the land is one he favors, it isn’t something he expected from the Nation of Eternity.

It is a perk that a duel a foolhardy coward challenged him to would lead to something that would surely catch your attention. He can hear you scolding him already, nursing him back to health all the while.

“You’re there aren’t you?” He asks the waves lapping the shore, welcoming the cool evening breeze brushing against his skin. You’re Death, you’re never too far. You’re everywhere at any place at any time. It’s part of your charm.

When he sees the waves falter, he knows he is correct as streams of water raise to create your form. The ferrywoman donned in black, Death in the flesh. Even with your tired reproachful look, Ajax can’t bring himself to regret his actions.

He’ll gladly do them time and time again even for a hint of you.

"Don’t you get tired of this, Ajax?” There’s nothing to be tired of, not when it allows him the thrill of battle. When it allows him to further his strength. Your arrival only sweetens the persistent battle he chases.

“Of seeing you?” Ajax drawls, pleased to take you in before you left him once more. “Never.”

You’re scowling, just like when you first met him, and yet all the same, your touch is gentle as you brush your fingertips against his cheek. Despite the chill that touches him to the bone, he leans into your touch and places a hand against yours. “You’re a fool,” you tell him and he smiles lazily in return. “Chase someone in the land of the living. There are plenty that would be taken with you.”

Ajax ignores that request promptly, “are you here to take me?”

“I am not,” you reply without missing a beat.

“But one day you will,” he sighs, almost dreamily. In any other context, he is sure the sentiment is frighteningly morbid. “There’s some bandages in my supply bag,” he motions to his supply bag nonchalantly and you part away from him. “Of course, it would be a win-win situation to the both of us if you would visit me more often. No wounds required,” he isn’t disheartened by your lack of response. “The cuisine of Inazuma is quite nice. But if you’re not one for Inazuman food, I know quite a few places in Liyue Harbor.”

Supplies in hand, you kneel in front of him. “Remove your shirt please.”

He considers joking that you should at least take him to dinner first, but instead he removes his shirt quietly. The cold of your hands feel reminiscent to the cold of his homeland. He wonders how much of it you’ve seen in the past. If you’ve ever truly seen it. You mentioned before you’ve never had a day off in the eons of your existence. How could one truly see the beauty of the land if they never stopped to appreciate it? 

I hope I can take you to Morepesok. Ajax burns something fierce akin to freezer burn. (Strange when what runs in your veins is the same deep blue of his Vision.) During a holiday when he’s guaranteed time to go home and visit his family. He burns for you to see it, to take any time for yourself to dance alongside the hearth alongside Tonia and to play games with Anthon and Teucer.

How alive would you be then, you who cherishes life more than anyone in the land of the living?

“I don’t think many can say they’ve had their wounds tended to by death itself,” Ajax starts and when you say nothing, he continues on unperturbed. “Isn’t keeping me alive cheating?”

You glance at him from your work of lightly dabbing his wound with your water. “Not cheating,” you answer at last. “It isn’t yet your time.”

“Do you know when it will be?”

“Yes,” you begin to ravel the bandage around him.

“Will you tell me when that is?”

“I will not,” and he sighs something along the lines of ‘I suppose I won’t be receiving any spoilers as to when you can stop avoiding me’ in Snezhnayan. You look at him and he wonders how much of his tongue you understand, if at all. He hopes to teach it to you, should you ever ask. “There,” you finish your bandaging in record time. “I can at least say I’m pleased you kept your promise to stay out of major trouble. Nine months is a record for you.”

Your smile is small, barely visible under the light of the moon and stars as silence falls over you. You’d insist that one like you is at home in the darkness, Ajax argues that one like you is a child of the sun.

“[First],” he rests a hand on your cheek, wanting to imprint every feature into his palms so that he won’t forget what they’re like. When you don’t reject him, he leans hoping to catch your lips with his own. Instead, he feels your finger tips and he opens his eyes to stare into the unknowable look yours hold.

“Live, Ajax,” you murmur like you’re telling him a treasured secret. He truly loves the way you say his name. “This fascination borders obsession. Whatever you want, you won’t find it in me. Find someone else to chase and live. Live long and live it well. Your life is precious.”

Love, obsession, it’s the same thing no?

He wonders if one can truly put an age on Death. You are one who has lived eons, definitely older than Zhongli. Probably as old as Teyvat itself. He wonders what it must be like for you, feared by many and only wanted by one. Ajax wants you deeply. Perhaps you think he lost his mind those three months in the dark realm he stumbled into as a child. 

You will never call it love no matter how much he begs to differ.

We’ll have to agree to disagree. Finally, Ajax moves back from your fingers, “Is it precious to you?”

“Your life is precious to many people,” you tell him, resting your hand in your lap. “To your mother and your father, to your siblings in Snezhnayaー”

He asks again, “but is it precious to you?”

In spite of his Hydro Vision, he burns. He burns to know your answer, burns for your acceptance. It’s a burning that can only be sated by the chill of your being pressed against his.

Death looks at himー you look at him and he looks back.

Ajax’s eyes flutter shut when you lean forward, and he feels your breath ghost his lips. Yet nothing follows and when he opens his eyes, all that remains of your presence is the damp sand where you once knelt.

You’re a cruel woman, [First], Ajax laughs humorlessly, wondering how long it would be until your paths crossed once more. He sets camp close to the beach, the rhythm of the waves lulling him to sleep and the dull ache of his wounds remind him that he’s alive.

Ajax will see you again, it’s only a matter of when.

Will it be when he’s on your door once more? Frustration in your eyes as you insist he let go of his feelings you won’t allow yourself to return?

Or will it be the end of his time roaming Teyvat, unable to continue his endeavor to become the strongest? When that time comes, will you greet him warmly or with a look of melancholy as you hold out your hand for him to board your boat?

Or perhaps the next time he sees you, you’ll accept his outstretched hand and follow him out of the dark and into the light. You’ll follow him to appreciate the seven nations, saving his homeland for last. You’ll dance with his siblings and smile widely, accepting the reprieve from your grim duties as his mother insists you eat more of her solyanka.

Nor will you run from his lips when they seek yours.

Death brought to life.

He’ll live long enough to see the day, that much he can promise.

“Пока мы не встретимся снова,” Ajax thinks before sleep takes him for the evening. Until we meet again.

#look she's writing #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #ajax x reader #writer's block works hard but i struggle harder #he gave the reader the princess mononoke treatment #death!reader au