Chapter Text
Life, Death, Space, and Time are the natural law that defines the world we live in. All living things are subject to death, all space is subject to time, so on and so forth. There are four gods that rule over these four domains. These four ensure the natural order of Teyvat. Originally, they were created to fight against the Seven Dragon Sovereigns. Yet, once that battle was over, they still continued to serve an important purpose to Teyvat and The Primordial One. Aside from him, they were the strongest currently in Teyvat. Inconviently, despite their immense power, they are also subject to quite a few inconvenient traits found in naturally occurring organisms.
One of them being boredom.
Sometime after the Archon War, when all the nations were at state of fleeting peace, the “shades” of life, death and space (as they were called) found themselves immensely bored. There were no real conflicts occurring, and that meant very little for such important rulers to do. Lovely as that was for the mortals down below, it was very dull for those in the heavens.
And so it was that Ronova, Naberius, and Asmoday (Death, Life, and Space) found themselves sitting around in the Temple of Space. The faces of people frozen in sand seemed to stare at them, begging to be released. Not that they would find such mercy in the callous gods before them. If they were to wish for peace, they would be better suited to place their hope in the wind of time hurry up and erode them away.
Whilst pondering the sandy faces staring at the trio, it occurred to Naberius that none of them had seen Istaroth, otherwise known as "Time", as much as they used to before. Subsequently, none of them knew where she was at the present moment.
“Say, have any of you seen Istaroth today?”
The God of Space glanced over to Naberius, thought for a moment, and glanced back over at whatever she was staring at.
“I haven’t. She’s not in the temple, I know that much.”
“Surely looking for her would be more entertaining than sitting idle?” Naberius would’ve appreciated a reply, but she supposed that getting up and moving in the general direction of the exit served as one.
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The Lord of Anemo was surely an odd one.
Before his death, Barbatos never seemed to care much about the ways of the world. Indifferent were they to gods and mortals alike. They seemed to only to care about the frivolous things they found amusing. Such as apples, music, mortals, bards, a certain bard. Now, however, they had become a completely different entity. He, as the spirit had now taken the form of his fallen friend and now had assigned a certain gender to his appearance, had found meaning in ensuring Mondstadt would always remain as the deceased bard had wanted it. This same oddness may be what's kept Time so interested in him. That bard had been able to surprise her, time itself! She couldn't help but continue to follow up on the last remaining thing in Teyvat that remembered him, except for herself, of course.
This meeting had originally started because Istaroth, like her fellow shades, was bored. The anemo god tended to stay away from Mondstadt for fear of becoming a tyrant, meaning he was free to chat aswell. Istaroth found that conversing with Barbatos was rarely ever dull, as he had an interesting way of updating her on the mortal world. Everything from trivial conflicts between a small, inconsequential, group of humans (most of which had some alcohol in their system) and meetings between fellow archons could be the most captivating stories when told by the god-bard. It was in the middle of one of these stories when Barbatos was interrupted by the previously mentioned gods.
Upon hearing Barbatos stop speaking, Time turned her head and caught sight of her fellow shades walking towards them.
"Is there something you need help with? I was in the middle of catching up with the Anemo Archon here about recent events in Mondstadt."
Barbatos quickly chirped in, "Not that much is really happening anywhere in Teyvat."
"Coincidentally, that's exactly why we're here. Ronova, Naberius and I had gotten... what's the word for it again?"
"Bored?"
"Yes, thank you Barbatos, we had gotten bored of sitting around. There's little to do in an age of peace like we're in now. I'd be willing to assume The Primoradial One himself has gotten tired of this silence and lack of activity. It's not like we could assist the seven nations and their development, sorry Barbatos, and there's no active threat or evident room for progression up here. We were simply interested in what you were doing."
The Anemo God paused a moment before continuing, "I was just finishing an update on a new play I'd seen gain popularity throughout Mondstadt. It's rare to see theater really gain traction, that's more common in Fontaine. Trivial things like that! Anyway, I was about to say that I needed to excuse myself and join the other archons in our routine meetings! Ehe, my apologies to be leaving so soon."
He wouldn't admit it, but the meeting didn't start for another 2 hours.
Unfortunately for him, the mention of a play had given the god of space an idea. As soon as Barbatos left, Asmoday found herself midway through planning the worst idea she may ever have. By the time the God of Mondstadt was back in his nation, she had already convinced the other three shades to help her with the most foolish plan to ever come from the heavens.
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"Hm."
These meetings for each of the archons had become commonplace at this point. They were started with the Anemo God's incessant bothering of Morax, which then lead to regular meetings. Before long, said regular meetings started being joined by the Electro God from Inazuma, the Dendo God from Sumeru, and all the other nation. It was in no way "formal" or otherwise necessary, but even Morax would agree that they were enjoyable. He enjoyed meeting with those who felt no intimidation by him, those who felt free to poke fun and laugh. Even if said poking fun was mostly initatied by Barbatos and Xbalanque.
Which led to the current predicament, where exactly was Barbatos? He usually showed up a few minutes late at most, not A WHOLE- pardon his language-CELESTIA DAMNED HOUR. Had the wind not failed to show any signs of change, he'd be worried the drunkard finally paid for his bad drinking habit. But the breeze remained gentle as ever. Meaning that wherever he was, Barbatos was unharmed. For now. That may change when Morax found out why exactly he was so late.
The Dendro Archon interrupted his train of thought, "Morax, are you sure Barbatos didn't tell you that he'd be missing this meeting? It'd be a shame to waste time waiting for him if he hadn't planned on attending in the first place."
"No, I'm sure he planned to be here. I distinctly remember having to talk him out of pilfering a bottle of wine from the Ragnvindr winery to bring. I even lent him some mora to ensure he wouldn't."
It looked as if Xbalanque was about to open his mouth to make some kind of snarky remark, unfortunately he was cut off by a series of cubes enveloping his body.
A series of screams and "OH MY SWEET CELESTIA" and "GETITOFFGETITOFF" followed. However, before long, they had all been enveloped in the red cubes.