Chapter Text
When Hu Tao wakes the next morning, it’s to Boo Tao tugging their hair
They grab it by the tail, tugging until the ghost lets out a short cry, and they release it, sending the spirit flying from its own momentum.
They snicker and laugh when the spirit turns and disappears.
Few rays of sunlight, warmth sent by the sun, reach through the thick curtains covering their windows.
Their floor is cool to the touch and barely anything is visible through the foggy haze of darkness and dust. Half this stuff is their deceased parents, and Hu Tao hasn’t touched any of it since their death.
Heavy and thick books, scrolls about embalming methods piled in dark wood cabinets.
Hu Tao does what they always do and stretches this way and that.
Puts on their heavy coat. Dark pants, dark hat. Dark undershirt.
(Everything in this house is so dark. Perhaps this is the real place where the stars don’t shine.)
The stars… Hu Tao thinks about the girl, the girl who had slapped them with water and who had treated them to a meal. The girl with stars in her eyes.
Hu Tao was born under a combination of stars. A butterfly of stars.
Fluttering, flittering, which world would it grace and land upon next?
(Like the stars, butterflies only come to those with a gentle touch.)
(Try as they might, Hu Tao has never been gentle enough for anyone, their humor and brashness driving away everyone.)
(They can only touch their own, flame made butterflies.)
(Blistering heat expelled from each wing flap.)
The thoughts flutter away when they forcefully open the door, the creak of its hinges a telltale sign that yet again, they were too brash.
(One day the door will break. Everything will break)
The hard click of the soles of their shoes makes everything fade away, like burning edges of paper curling away.
Hu Tao’s feet pound against the cobbled streets, and their feet will hurt next morning but that doesn’t matter much.
All that matters is the wind rushing past their ears, past-
Past Mona?
Hu Tao screeches to a stop, kicking out one of their feet.
It’s an ugly noise, much unlike the voice that speaks to them.
“Hello Hu Tao.” Mona waves, a small wave, barely a small back and forth of the hand. She steps forward and Hu Tao stands still.
Stock still.
One step forward. Two steps. Three steps.
And Hu Tao can breathe again.
“Fancy seeing you here!” Hu Tao brushes imaginary dust off their clothing and winks. “Come here often?”
Mona simply raises an eyebrow in response. Silence spans like the starry skys Mona can hold in her hands.
Then Mona covers her mouth with her hand and rolls her eyes.
(A silent laugh?)
She makes the come hither motion with her fingers.
“I’ve heard the funeral parlor consultant will do guides around Liyue for spare cash.” Mona shoots Hu Tao a barely concealed stare.
“So. How much would it cost me to take the funeral parlor’s master around for a guide.”
Hu Tao taps their foot against the ground. “Ten hundred thousand mora! Take it or leave it!”
At Mona’s quickly panicked expression, Hu Tao shouts, much too loud for the hushed early morning streets of Liyue. “Kidding!! Jeez, Mona you should really know better than to just trust whatever you hear!”
Mona gives them the flattest look Hu Tao has received in a long while. She pouts and frowns.
Mona finally takes the bait. “Then how much really, jackass.”
Her tone is lilting at the end, which Hu Tao takes as a sign of fortune. (Amusement perhaps?)
Hu Tao puts on their cheeriest smile. “None at all! As long as you buy me dinner again! In fact, I’m lucky to escape the paperwork Zhongli is sure to be doing!”
(They’ve been so lonely the past days.)
(Eating alone, Eating alone on top of the dead’s possessions)
(The dead have their hands all over Hu Tao)
(Their family too.)
Mona taps her chin in mock thought. “Will this Zhongli you’re talking about be mad?”
Hu Tao smiles wildly. Hands on hips. They try to ooze confidence. “Well yes, but I’m his boss so it will hardly matter!”
Mona mimics their posture. Hand on one hip. She waves a hand and stars appear at her fingertips.
“Well we shall see about that hmmm?”
And Hu Tao gets the experience yet again to watch Mona read the stars, fingers gently tapping and prodding the wheels of fate.
(Would you trust her if your fate was in her gentle hands?)
(Yes)
Tap. Tinkle. Twinkle.
Hu Tao watches as Mona pulls one of the weirdest faces they have seen her make, and Hu Tao can’t not pass up the opportunity for a little teasing. They laugh, voice echoing like the church bells in Mondstat, but the laughter is chaotic and comes in random spurts unlike the orderly chimes of the church bells in Mondstat.
Hu Tao points accusatorily towards an unplussed Mona.
Mona’s eyes are flat when she addresses Hu Tao. “What’s so funny.” Her voice is as flat as her eyes, attitude as if she was entertaining a rambunctious child.
(Is that not what everyone sees them as?)
(A lost and irritating child?)
(Has Hu Tao truly grown up?)
(yes…)
Mona finally answers Hu Tao’s burning question. “Well, the stars tell me that Zhongli is sure to be annoyed at…” Mona does a strange motion with her index and middle fingers.
Up and down. Up and down.
“Boss’s reckless usage of time and skipping work hours.”
Hu Tao flaunts their signature, too wide grin. “That does sound like him! Now, nevermind that! Let’s go!”
Hu Tao links their elbows and drags a confused Mona along.
They know they haven’t given enough time to the astrologist to understand but, as Hu Tao has repeated in their head many times, Not my problem!
(It is, isn’t it though.)
(It’s always Hu Tao’s problem when the dead arrive.)
There’s buzzing in their head, like a swarm of crystalflies beating their wings against their muddled brain.
“First stop!”
Hu Tao stops, leading Mona to the very edge of Liyue harbor first. The waves of a barely calm day slap the docks angrily.
Palmfuls of water like what Mona hit them with.
Lanterns hang in nearby shops.
Reflections of the Mingxiao lantern ripple across the bumpy sea.
Mona steps forward, closer, closer to the ocean. Heels click in sync with the lapping and frothing of waves.
Mona waves her hand above the water’s surface.
“Almost stormy days like these are not preferable for hydromancy.”
A whisp of water floats above the surface, following Mona’s touch as she leads it forward.
(The water is simply a tool for her antics. Are you not a tool, a worker for the dead in the land of the living, Hu Tao?)
“The desire in the clouds muddles my scryglass. The clouds and rain block my sight from the stars.”
The wisp flattens and swirls back into a chart, which Mona turns and twists. Twirling reflections of constellations and stars dance in Hu Tao’s eyes.
“Hmmm… I cannot ascertain whether my reading about Zhongli is correct.”
Mona lifts the brim of her hat with a hand and glares up at the clouds.
“Mona! Mona do the trick again!!” Hu Tao has joined Mona on the edge of the dock and is jumping far too recklessly for someone that close to the edge.
Hu Tao watches, Mona’s confused expression, a wrinking of the nose, her eyes squint.
Mona rolls her eyes at their request but obliges,
And oh. Oh Hu Tao was not here last time to witness how Mona manipulates the water like a dance, tracing circles in the air.
(Flames dance and bite at her legs. Hu Tao has destroyed their newest friend.)
Sharp turns of the wrists and rolls of her thumb, and Mona extends a silk flower to Hu Tao.
Hu Tao takes it, cradling the creation in their palm, strangly gentle.
More tender.
(Do you wish your mother would still hold you in this way?)
(Instead of in frigid cold arms that garb and strangle?)
Hu Tao hardley even notices the saltwater dampening their hands, holding up a translucent flower to their sparkling eyes.
Hu Tao oohs and ahhs over the gift for a couple moments, before asking, “How did you know what my favorite flower is?”
Mona looks proud at the question, glowing with smugness.
“The flowers are on your hat. Perhaps be a little more aware next time, no?”
When Hu Tao whips their face around, their expression is akin to someone who has recently ate a whole pyro slime.
Hu Tao glares daggers at Mona, flame red eyes burning like their hotter counterparts.
Like flame to water, Mona’s shit eating expression ignites and suddenly cools something in Hu Tao, and their glares don’t seem so forceful anymore.
Mona’s heels are the only sign of her coming closer, and she leans forward, flicking a butterfly in-between Hu Tao’s eyes. Hu Tao is stock still, a blue, wet, butterfly sits on their nose, fanning it wings.
The silk flower deftly held in one hand is snatched, Mona reaching down a little to grab it from their hand, much less gentle than Hu Tao’s previous cradling of the flower.
Everything in Hu Tao’s life is eclipsed in this one moment, in a the quietest moment they’ve had in a while.
The whispers of the dead go (dead) silent.
Nothing lasts forever, and when the butterfly loses it’s form, melting right back into saltwater that drips and slips off Hu Tao’s nose.
They should not be so sad, so disappointed at the death of something so small, something unalive to begin with when Hu Tao has smiled while mourners wail and grieve. When they have stared apon corpses with no emotion, yet the death of some butterfly has left them a wreck.
Nothing lasts forever, and when the butterfly loses its form, melting right back into saltwater that drips and slips off Hu Tao’s nose.
They should not be so sad, so disappointed at the death of something so small, something un-alive to begin with when Hu Tao has smiled while mourners wail and grieve. When they have stared upon corpses with no emotion, yet the death of some butterfly has left them a wreck.
(Flutter by!! Bye! Bye! Little flutter bug!)
Gathering themselves up in arms again, Hu Tao shoots back.
“Is that a challenge? Watch this.” And it brightens something in them when Mona smiles, like embers relighting.
“Fire!” Flames gather at their fingertips, and its pure skill, hours of this trick done by themselves, that Hu Tao’s finger’s don’t catch alight.
“Butterfly! Fly away little bug!” And out of the corner of their eyes, Hu Tao can see Mona hiding a smile behind her fingertips.
Mona coughs loudly, and if not for Hu Tao’s proximity to her, they would’ve misheard the growl of her stomach as the growls of the waves before they smash into the dock.
“Hungry?” Hu Tao links elbows with Mona again, forcefully herding her along to a nearby street merchant. Ignoring Mona’s cries of embarrassment and denial, Hu Tao successfully achieves buying them lunch. (Brunch? Breakfast?) Hu Tao shrugs off the unneeded thoughts.
(Mona was too light. Like a man starved of everything)
The loud voice telling (yelling) Hu Tao that their food was ready to go, snatched the sudden concern out of their head.
As Mona finally started on the dish Hu Tao had bought and paid for her, and Hu Tao themselves slurped up noodles with an apparent greed,
Mona thought it the perfect time to start up the conversation she had been really dragging Hu Tao along for.
“I know you wouldn’t be most people’s first choice, considering… your job as funeral master, but…”
Mona twirls her star earring between thin fingers.
“Would you perhaps like to come to the lantern rite with me?”
Hu Tao watches as Mona tilts her head slightly, her giant (monsterous) hat shifts slightly.
Hu Tao’s brain catches up a few moments later, mostly focused apparently, on becoming the same texture of the noodles they were eating.
They suck the noodles up hurriedly, letting out a (embarrassed) hopefully cool sounding laugh.
“Why not? Not like I have anything better to do! Such a boring job around this time of year anyways! Not enough people dying anyhow!” They chirp, uncaring of how cheerily they said the last words, and the surrounding citizens turning to stare at them.
(Surely…)
(Surely Mona was unknowing of the… hm…. The connotations of inviting someone to release lanterns with you?)
(“When two lovebirds release lanterns together, fate ties their wishes together.)
(“Lantern rite is held at the beginning of the end of winter, and the beginning of the new year, when luck comes in swathes to those prepared. Lantern rite is a great time for one to test their love luck.”)
(Now, many songbirds come in pairs to nest. Many say that humans too around this time are the same.”)
Mona clasps her hands and lets out a pleased hum.
She goes back to eating her stir-fry, seemingly unperturbed at Hu Tao’s selection of a spicy stir-fry.
Hu Tao eats faster, for some reason, noodles now flavorless compared to the looks and words Mona has said to them.
(Are you so easily charmed by honeyed words?)
They duck their head to eat, flustered cheeks a dead giveaway. They can’t even blame said flush on spicy food either, the noodles are rather plain.
Mona places her bowl down, now empty, with a light clunk. Hu Tao catches the self satisfied look on her face after finishing a spicy meal.
Mona is flushed, a brighter pice dusting on her nose and cheeks.
She catches wind of Hu Tao’s staring and sticks her tongue out.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” She teases in a singsong voice.
And Hu Tao nearly bites their tongue off in faint but friendly aggravation at being poked at.
They try to inhale their noodles, placing the bowl down with a heavier clunk and a much more self satisfied smirk.
Mona rolls her eyes at their antics, settling her head on her hands. “So. Now what?”
Hu Tao, still all too cheery respondes back. “To the western docks! You have to see the mingxiao lantern!”
Mona closes her eyes and smiles like a pleased cat. “Lead the way.”
And Hu Tao links their elbows again.
(It’s becoming a habit.)
And leads Mona onwards.
When they reach the lantern, it’s about late morning, the damp and dark clouds now allowing the mingxiao lantern to shine in the dim light.
Mona stares up, up up. She cranes her neck to far it hurts, and by archons this is a huge lantern.
In the shape of a celestial stag, the blues and golds of the lantern wash the docks in a mottled light.
The entire dock is bathed in light like the sun rising over a sea.
She smiles.
To Hu Tao, perhaps the smiling girl next to them is more golden than any light the great lantern could hope to produce.
(She shines with the golden light of a hundred stars)
Hu Tao, growing bored already, weaves their flames into spring flowers.
(Scent of the blooms in thaw)
There is a certain delicacy to flowers, much like the Inazuman symbolism of the fragility of their sakura blossoms.
While not every flower blooms for only a day,
Many only bloom once.
Perhaps that is why Hu Tao keeps flowers whereever they go.
They are the ultimate reminder, to them, that you only live life.
(So by the archons, you better live it right. Their grandfather’s words echoing in their skull)
(How would you live a life right?)
(Does might make right in this instance?)
(Does oneself live like a dragon, mightily and proud, and then have they lived right?)
(None of their ghosts will answer.)