Chapter Text
Smoke wafts from the iron ladle shoved in Beidou's face, breaking her distant stare. "Hello! You're supposed to be my taste tester!" Xiangling whines, wiggling the piping hot stew under Beidou's nose. She's propped against a barrel of wheat, arms crossed, casting daggers upon a Fatui mask that clings to auburn hair above Liuli Pavilion. Xiangling follows her gaze and groans. "That's the weird foreigner who couldn't even use chopsticks. It's bad enough having Fatui lurking about but he gives me the creeps."
Childe scans each passerby scrutinizing man and child alike. Something about him radiates an aura infinitely darker than most of the Fatui agents she'd come across. Uneasiness rooted further in her chest cavity when he brought his chin to his palm and looked up at Ningguang's jade chamber.
It dawned on her then as her nails dug into the pad of her thumb that she had been waiting abreast Wanmin Restaurant for hours. Violet sparks illuminate her fingertips, peeling back her venomous glare heave her claymore and storm off toward the Tianquan's mansion. "Teacher! Teacher where are you going?!" Xiangling shouts exasperatedly, tongs falling to her side as she trudges back to her kitchen.
Beidou barges past every guard and attendant on the premises like a human battering ram. Ignoring every plea and protest, she pummels her fists against the wide jadeite ordained doors of Ningguang's quarters. "It's me. Open up." She calls out but is met with silence. "Ningguang, let me help you." She pleads earnestly.
From beyond the door, Ningguang quietly responds. "I apologize for not adhering to our engagement, but as you're well-aware. I'm extremely a busy wo-"
Beidou kicks in the doors and shuts them behind her with the click of a lock. Ningguang sits startled atop a rug in front of her bed amidst a sea of ink and crumpled paper in her silken robes. "Yes, awfully busy, I see," Beidou remarks dryly but winces upon noticing bloodshot eyes and disheveled hair. "It's the Fatui again, isn't it? You should've come. You should've told me so I could-"
"So you could what exactly? What in the world could a pirate do to absolve this? Those insidious creatures who claw into every nation like parasites, and only know bloodshed as an answer to what defies them... This is my responsibility. Get out of my sight." Ningguang's words that could split the earth like lightning ring in the air between them.
Beidou inches closer and kneels before Ningguang whose pupils and ribs shake like thunder amongst heavy rain clouds. "I didn't say I would protect you because I think you're weak. I said it because I want to free the weight of this burden you have chosen to carry on an island alone. Liyue is just as much my home as it is yours. You don't get to tell me I can't protect it right alongside you. No matter how you try to shove me away, princess." She wipes a stray tear from Ningguang's cheekbone.
The warmth spreading like vines around Ningguang's heart halts and she springs to her feet. "I have to warn Zhongli. If he finds him... If he discovers who he really is..." She frantically paces back and forth until Beidou grasps her by the elbows. "Slow down. Who is Zhongli? Isn't that the funeral parlor guy? What's going on? Why would the Fatui be after him?" Beidou questions with furrowed brows.
Ningguang looks up and answers cautiously, "Zhongli... is the Geo Archon. His human form. I think the Fatui are after him for... for power? Or to kill him? Beidou, I have to see him I-" She attempts to grab her overcoat and rush to the door when Beidou grabs her wrist.
Beidou's stare is stern and Ningguang is unable to shift her eyes or feet away any longer. "I've seen that fox-like man from the Fatui. He's got a sharp face. I think he's surveilling your every move right now. If you act rashly you might get both that god and yourself killed. We need to figure out exactly what the plan is and go about how to thwart it from there."
Knots form in the center of Ningguang's forehead. "Childe is one with the shadows and he loves to toy with his food before pouncing, you're right. But with the Rite of Descension not far away it's too close a call for Zhongli to be completely in the fog here."
Beidou's grip gently tightens, but her expression softens with a phantom smile. "Do you trust me?"
Ningguang blinks in confusion. "What?"
"It's more of a yes or no type of answer." Beidou teases with half-lidded eyes.
Once more, Ningguang pauses before cautiously responding, "Yes, but-"
A rush of blood empties the thoughts in her head all at once drenching her in the scarlet of nothing but the plush lips that part her own. Cinnamon and chili coat her tongue with all the heat absent from the cool jadeite fortress she's stowed herself within. Beidou tastes the salt of loneliness that she swears to kiss goodbye with every stolen breath.
Swollen mouths break away so rosy irises can meet. "But," Ningguang mutters first, bringing a hand to Beidou's right cheek, "Only if you trust me, captain." She carefully undoes the strap on the worn leather patch, revealing the scar over Beidou's clouded eye. On her tiptoes, Ningguang leans upward to place a featherlight kiss just above her lashline.
Beidou grins. "Now let's get to work."
Late into the night, all that remains of Liyue Harbor are the moonlight, strays howling at the stars, and drunkards singing in the alleyways. Whistling down the dampened side streets is the one who does not belong, but feasts on that which thrives in the shadows. Childe is all but ready to call it a night when he stumbles past a flickering light at the funeral parlor.
Caged within iron windowpanes littered with rust, a study was dimly lit, lined with tomes, a writing table stacked with documents and a dusty globe, and one grand turquoise upholstered armchair. But all of these were mere minute details, blurred in the background of what engrossed him entirely.
It was that armchair's tenant that bewitched the tawny man who now stood unguarded from the trickling rain. Eyes of Cor Lapis flashed from behind the binds of a book and melded with icy blues through the blur of unclean glass and raindrops. And it wouldn't be the last time.