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When the dust settles, he is on his knees.
It’s a little funny, he muses, staring at the backs of his hands. There is blood on his hands. There is blood in his mouth. There is blood dripping into his eye.
“Did you really think,” thunders Rex Lapis, looming, like the god he is, high above, “it would be that easy to steal from me?”
It’s funny, because he had thought that. It’s easy to ridicule himself in hindsight, in the middle of the destroyed Golden House; on his knees, blood in his eye. In hindsight, it’s easy to say “what was I thinking?” How foolish of me, he says. How arrogant of me, he says.
The Golden House is destroyed. The ceiling, painted all lovely with the legends of Liyue, lays in shattered pieces around him. Dust hangs in still, stagnant air. He tries not to choke.
You see, it wasn’t a fair fight to begin with.
He wonders how he’d overlooked that fact. No—he’d known. He’ll not spare himself from blame. To put it simply, he just did not care. So what if Rex Lapis is a god? he’d said.
But here he is now, on his knees once again. A fool before a God. A deluded fool, a fool with a Delusion.
How could it have been fair?
You’re strong, the Tsaritsa had said, standing before him in that snowy forest. I’m strong, he’d echoed, shortsword rusted in his hand.
You’re blessed, she said. I’m blessed, he said.
He is strong. He is blessed.
By this, he is blinded.
One, two, three. One, two, three. The rhythm of this battle has already made itself home in his bones. One, two, three. Usually it’s him setting the rhythm. One, two, three. He’s slammed into a wall, and he feels his soul leave him.
“Are you done?” rumbles God.
One, two, three. He sucks in a breath, and gets up. One, two,
Gods have only ever been kind to him.
The Tsaritsa was kind to him. You are not required to save the bloodied child in the forest. You are not required to offer to take him in, just until he’s old enough to work and earn, because his family is poor and cannot afford to feed six mouths with Snezhnaya’s cruel waters. You’re not required to give him a name, an ice palace, power.
Rex Lapis had been kind to him, as well.
You are not required to save the strange foreigner stumbling around your harbor, stumbling over his words. You are not required to offer to take him into your house, just until he’s done with his business in Liyue, without so much as a query as to his reason for being here. You’re not required to give him a chance, your trust, your knowledge, your understanding, your time, your love.
(He’s not deserving of it.)
“I had hoped...” says Zhongli. He trails off. It’s a long moment before he speaks again. “I am not Barbatos. And you are not La Signora.”
I know, he thinks. I know that.
God sets down before him. A pair of shoes, heels clicking against the dark marble of the mint, approaching him. It is always like this.
The fool kneels before God. His oh-so-benevolent god. He bows, he touches his forehead to the floor. He kisses her feet, and he cleans his mouth before kissing her knuckles. He is all too familiar with this game.
He hadn’t thought Zhongli would be this kind of God.
But then again, he hadn’t thought much at all.
The dust settles. He raises his eyes, swallows the blood in his mouth to beg for leniency. When the dust settles, God is on one knee, before him. He reaches out, and tilts his face up. Through a haze of blood, he meets eyes like gold coins. He is not sure what he is supposed to read from those gold coin eyes.
“I am Morax,” begins God. “I am Rex Lapis, the Geo Archon of Liyue. I am Exuvia, the prime of the Adepti. I am the God of War. I am the God of Commerce. I am the God of Contracts.”
“...What are you saying this for?” he asks, hollow. He chokes, and coughs. He spits blood.
“Childe,” Zhongli says, “would you like to form a contract with me?”
It all settles. He sees gold eyes, lined with crimson. He sees a kind God.
“Form a contract with me, and all erstwhile contracts will be made null.” He is haloed by the light streaming in from the destroyed ceiling above. Tears drip, unbidden, from his eyes, flowing into Zhongli’s palm. “You may choose your own destiny.”
What does being God mean?
“Being the most powerful being in the world!” he might’ve said, once upon a time.
“Being the cruellest being in the world,” he might’ve said, another time.
“Being the most unfortunate being in the world,” he might’ve said, more recently.
He nods.
It’s a fraction of a movement, but Zhongli seems to understand.
“I see. In that case...”
(Zhongli always understands him. He’s a God, after all.)
The other half of his Foul Legacy detaches with the wet sound of blood, and crumbles in Zhongli’s fist. The light that floods in fuzzes Childe’s eyes, for a moment. Fingers trail down the side of his face, reverent. Like he is the god, and Zhongli is the believer.
“Innamorati,” he says. “I’ll call you Innamorati.”
And Zhongli smiles, a slight upturn of the lips. “It means ‘lover’.”