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There is a single massive spear of stone plunged deep into the pure and perfect expanse of the Sea of Clouds. It reaches from the seabed all the way above the surface of the water, stretching high enough that it does not fully submerge even in the worst of storms, natural or otherwise.
The unnatural storms skirt around it, in any case. The lord of these waters does not seek to damage it, though its craggy surface is an eyesore to his many eyes, who find beauty in little but the perfection born of flattening and crushing and smoothing away all blemishes under the pressure of the waves. He restrains himself. He has made a bargain, you see, and he does not wish to break it. Not yet.
For there is one who makes a perch of that stone pillar, coiling around it until Osial can almost forgive the abhorrent, unsightly texture of the rock, once it has been hidden under the perfect golden symmetry of that being's scales.
He is called Morax, and he is the overlord of the land in the way that Osial is overlord of the sea. He bends stone to his whims, building mountains as easily as Osial can raise typhoons. It is he that threw down this spear here in the midst of Osial's territory, as part of the terms of their agreement. A neutral ground, where they might speak. Morax cannot swim or hover long above the waves without landing, and Osial mislikes leaving his comfortable depths to wade into shallow waters. Allowing this encroachment of god-wrought land into his sea is a compromise he is willing to make. For now.
But the ocean is a changeable, capricious thing, and Osial is its embodiment.
---
When Morax first parleys with Osial—a strange affair, with the gilded god arcing off of a cliff face and the aqueous one surfaced begrudgingly some distance away—Morax is seeking permission to bring humans to the border of Osial's domain, to build for them a home on the shore of the inlet at the furthest reaches of the Sea of Clouds.
It is of no consequence to Osial what Morax does with his humans, so long as they stay on land, and he tells the golden dragon as much.
But Morax shakes his head and says his humans must have docks, and boats.
"Docks? Boats?" Osial asks, for he has no familiarity with the concepts. Though, when Morax explains, he dimly understands. He has crushed many such things into splinters for encroaching on the perfect, empty symmetry of his territory. But he does not interrupt as Morax pushes his explanation further, using many more words than he needs to. He speaks of the necessity of trade and transit and communication, and how the ability to do this by ocean is particularly necessary for a human settlement nestled amidst mountainous terrain. He elaborates on the complex plans he has for the nation this little inlet might grow into, plans he'd made long before seeking Osial's permission. He is so very confident that they can reach an accord. That all people can reach an accord—make an agreement, a contract.
He has a voice that rumbles like thunder, vibrating through Osial's being.
Osial speaks but little. He is not practiced at conversation. Few among even the gods brave the waters of the Sea of Clouds, and rarely is it with the intention of encountering the sea's mercurial overlord.
When Osial does speak, Morax's gaze snaps to the head that has spoken, as though that head were all of him. It is the clearest sign there could be that the two of them do not understand each other.
Osial finds himself wishing that they could understand each other.
"For what reason do you believe I would agree to this?" Osial asks, truly curious. "Why should I allow humans to encroach on my domain, which I have guarded since time immemorial?"
"Why did you agree to meet me here?" Morax counters. "Why venture so far from your abyssal plain to this rocky shoreline? Why hold back your howling storms, that we might speak? There must be something you desire that I might provide. Tell me what it is, that we might bind ourselves to our word, to mutual benefit."
Osial considers this awhile. The waters churn around him, sensitive to his uncertainty.
When the ocean creatures that act as his servants had brought him Morax's message, Osial had been dozing beneath the waves. It had been some weeks since he'd last stirred, and that had only been to lazily flick a wisp of his essence into a slow-growing tidal wave before submerging himself once more. Early in his reign over these waters, Osial had bent himself to the task of wearing away the coastline and flattening the seabed with a fervent and untiring purpose, but he had been finding less and less interest or pleasure in his workings of late. The seabed was a featureless expanse of sand and darkness now, and the coastline was crumbling away, bit by bit, on its own. There was nothing that needed Osial's attention anymore, and thus the overlord of the vortex had been left aimless and adrift.
Morax's message had stirred an interest in him.
Beyond the borders of the Sea of Clouds, Osial was vaguely aware that this world was experiencing an era of upheaval. He had heard whispers of warring gods, but none had dared challenge Osial for his territory. This sea, with its torrential storms and maelstroms, was tranquil in its way. Undisturbed by the outside world.
Stagnant.
Osial might have remained content in that equilibrium for many years, decades, centuries to come, had Morax not cast his stone into the waters to plumb their depths, sending ripples every which way and displacing the water god hence.
Osial finds that he might prefer this state of affairs.
"Company," he says, the roiling waters stilling with his new clarity. "You must come tell me of the progression of your plans. At length. That is what I desire."
Morax seems startled at this. Osial wonders if perhaps he has asked too much. He has only just learned of the concept of trade—the ocean takes and gives as it pleases, without consideration—and he is unsure if he has applied the principle correctly. But Morax recovers quickly and says, with a resonant warmth that makes the surface of Osial's essence shiver, "That is a price I am happy to pay." His gaze goes from one of Osial's heads to each other one in turn, making Osial feel for the first time that Morax might be seeing all of him. "And in exchange, you agree to allow the construction and use of docks and boats by the people of Liyue Harbor?"
Osial hesitates. He recalls the potent annoyance he has felt whenever he's seen one of those rickety human structures ruining his carefully-eroded coastlines. The irresistible urge to destroy. He wonders if he can hold himself back from it. He has never tried before. "The docks and boats must be beautiful—smooth, and symmetrical," Osial specifies, thinking that might be enough. "They must shine, like…" He pauses. One of his heads is gazing at the glittering surface of Morax's scales, enraptured at the strange ideal they represent, so different from the reflective glint of water, yet so alike as well. "…like gold," another head pronounces.
"That can be arranged," Morax agrees, one lip curling upward.
"And I will not protect them from the ocean's whims," Osial adds. "I will only refrain from seeking to do them harm myself."
"That is all I ask," Morax agrees, bowing his single great head.
"And you must come to me for our meetings. These waters are unpleasantly shallow; I cannot abide them with any frequency."
Osial expects that Morax will placidly agree once more, but the golden god instead demurs. "I regret that I am not a creature of the ocean. I must have a place to stand, and the Sea of Clouds is a vast expanse of water with no islands within."
"It had islands once," Osial says. "I wore them down to dust."
Morax closes his eyes. "Dust," he repeats, so quietly that only one of Osial's heads catches the sound. Then he shakes his golden head, and opens his eyes, newly determined. "I do not wish to make you suffer in the shallows. With your permission, I could plant a pillar in the sea, somewhere far from shore, where I might land and speak to you. Would that be acceptable?"
Osial reflexively balks from the idea of this intrusion, but he does not immediately refuse. The thought of such a blot in the midst of the sea he has spent millennia honing is anathema to him. But coming here to the shore again and again like Osial is a tide rather than a vortex… this also is anathema. And one that takes aim at his pride, rather than his sense of order.
The pillar will wear away, with time. Nothing built of stone can last forever. One day, there will be no trace of it left.
"It must be in the very center," Osial says. "I will show you where."
"Very well." Morax holds out a clawed limb, open and inviting. "Let us solidify a contract, then, you and I."
Osial, fluid as he is in both body and mind, cannot hope to understand what it means to be solid. One more way in which these two gods differ in the core of their being—a rift that cannot be bridged or filled.
But Osial agrees to the pact nonetheless.
---
Every seven days, Morax flies out to that lone spur of rock in the middle of the Sea of Clouds.
"It is a day of rest, among the humans of Liyue," he explains. "There is much work to be done, and will be for many years to come, but all must take the time to rest their bodies and their minds, that their strength might be sustained."
It is strangely pleasant to think that Morax chooses to spend his days of rest here with Osial.
If asked, Morax would furrow his mighty brow and say that these are the terms of the contract, that he could do nothing else.
But he must be making the choice to adhere to it, each time he comes here and calls out Osial's name. Just as Osial makes the choice to adhere to it each time he sees a fishing boat, glinting with golden plating in the sunlight, and holds himself back from lashing out at it in a temper.
It is a struggle each time, but he has not failed yet.
---
The thought comes to him gradually, so slowly that he cannot say when it began brewing, only when it finally permeates him completely.
Mine.
Several of his heads are cresting above the waves, their necks wrapped around the pillar of stone that is the two gods' customary meeting spot. Morax is wound serpentine around the monolith in the other direction, murmuring his stories intimately into Osial's ears. As usual, he speaks of the triumphs and foibles of his humans, with a deep and unwavering fondness.
He has always spoken thus. But, today, the thrumming joy Osial always feels when hearing that tone from Morax—the joy he still feels, nevertheless—turns icy in his chest, like a steady current has inexplicably turned in the other direction.
It is the humans that Morax's affectionate voice is meant for, even if Osial is the one it is directed at. He has known this all along, and yet he has allowed himself to get swept away in it. To believe Morax entirely Osial's own, rather than the humans'.
"Osial?" Morax's voice calls, as if from a great distance. His tone has shifted. To worry, maybe, or concern.
No, fear, Osial decides, as he comes back to himself to find his coils clinging to the stone column with a dangerous strength, forming cracks under the pressure of his tangled necks, while the waters are swirling high above their heads in a turbulent whirlpool, this pillar at its very center.
"Osial? Can you hear me? Please say something," Morax says, inching himself closer. He does not touch Osial, he never has. But Osial can feel Morax's breath against one of his many snouts, and it sends ripples all over his form.
It is too much, and not enough.
Osial releases the pillar and plunges himself into his comfortable, familiar depths. He bends his will to the task of slowing the gyrating waters, until the vortex finally fades away.
He can hear Morax calling his name, though the sound is muffled and distorted by the water. The surface is still choppy and bedecked with foam and Osial can't quite calm the sea completely, so he cannot see the golden dragon, but he contents himself with the fact that Morax cannot see him either.
He curls himself up beneath the waves and does not surface until long after the sun has set, when Morax must return to land or else frighten his subjects with his absence. They cannot live or thrive without him.
In this, Osial feels a kinship with Morax's humans for the first time, but it is a jealous sort of kinship, an understanding that sparks only rage. Like seeing a distorted reflection of one's self and needing to obliterate it.
He understands that those weak, pathetic mortals have a hold on Morax's heart that Osial does not. He knows that it is only for love of them that Morax sees Osial at all. He is fully aware that the moment he lifts a tendril to harm any of them, it will mean the end of these treasured meetings. No longer will Morax go to him and tell him stories in that deep, warm voice that he adores. So it is in his best interests to hold his rage in check.
But the ocean is a covetous thing, and what it claims, it does not like to return.
And one cannot bind the waves forever.
---
It is not a day of rest when Morax comes.
Osial surfaces a distance away from the pillar, chest tight, wary.
Morax casts something into the waters between them, something he'd carried there in his claws. It is a fragment from the hull of a boat, plated in gold.
Other boats have sunk since their compact began. The Sea of Clouds has always been treacherous, even without Osial's influence. It is a perfect match for him, in that respect.
"There was a single survivor," Morax says, razor-edged teeth grinding together. "I spoke with him, once he awoke. He told me that the gale that sank this ship came out of nowhere. From perfect calm to a deadly tempest in the span of minutes." Glowing amber eyes lock with a set of Osial's. Only one set. "Did you do this?"
That chosen head holds Morax's gaze. And then, as one, all heads turn away and begin to descend beneath the waves.
"Osial!" Morax thunders at his back. "Did you do this?"
Osial says nothing in reply. Today is not the day for their conversations, after all.
---
Storms rage throughout the Sea of Clouds. Osial is at the center of it all, but he is not orchestrating the chaos. He is consumed with throwing himself at a stone pillar again and again, until finally he topples it, roaring triumph and despair.
When Morax next returns to their meeting spot, he finds nothing there to land upon.
It is as good as an answer.
In Osial's mind, it is a gift, of sorts. An offering, to return to the way things had been before their bargain. Osial would not hold him. They could both be free of what had been, in the end, a mistake. The ocean would wash it all away, with time.
To Morax, though, it is a provocation.
A contract with the Lord of Geo cannot be dissolved without consequence, after all. There is a reason that the god of contracts is also the god of war.
---
A new stone spear is hurled into the depths. A warning shot, and a summons. Morax does not land upon it. "Osial!" he howls from high above, where he circles amidst a gathering storm.
Osial emerges slowly from the waters. He could hurl his own element at Morax in return, but he does not. Yet.
"Osial," Morax hisses, "you have broken the terms of our contract. You will suffer the consequences." And then he plunges into a dive.
Osial has always thought Morax's golden scales looked warm, sleek, inviting. In truth, while they are warmer than the ocean is, where they rasp against Osial's viscous flesh, they cut like shards of ice.
Osial lashes out instinctively, striking at Morax with his other heads. Morax flares Geo energy, fending off the attack, and sinks his claws in deeper. The sea is writhing with them, whipped into a frenzy, forming into a maelstrom around the combatants.
But Osial is not bringing his full strength to the fight. They are surrounded by Osial's element, after all. If Osial brought that to bear, Morax would of course be destroyed. He could not possibly hope to win, at such a disadvantage. Already, the wounds he has managed to inflict on Osial are closing, and his attacks are flagging in strength. And yet he persists in this futile effort. He is such a stubborn thing, like the stone that he embodies.
Osial plunges deeper into the waters, dragging Morax down with him, twisting his body and attempting to shake his passenger off. But Morax tenaciously clings on.
He is a creature of the land. He cannot stay long below the waves and survive. He must release Osial and swim back to the surface—and, in so doing, let Osial escape to the bottom of the ocean—or else he will perish in vain.
Morax is no longer attempting to strike at Osial. But he does not let go, and he does not pull free to save himself.
He has stopped moving at all, in fact.
And, realizing this, Osial cannot help but change course. He swims for the surface, choosing mercy where he never has before, and never will again.
Even above water, Morax is still motionless against his back. It is an intolerable feeling.
Osial slams Morax's limp form into the new stone pillar once, twice. There's little else he is capable of doing, other than dragging Morax under again. None of his heads can bear to look, until he hears a choking noise, and feels talons slip loose from his skin. When he turns, Morax is moving again, clawing his way up the column, dazed and waterlogged.
"Morax?" Osial says. He has not spoken aloud since before he struck down that boat and started them both on this path, and the sound of his own voice is unfamiliar in his ears. The emotion he can hear in it is… troubling.
"Why?" Morax croaks out. His eyes wander, struggling to focus on Osial, more than they usually do. "Why did you… break your word?"
Now he asks why. Now, when it's clear he has lost. "I simply couldn't hold back any longer," Osial says. "It was foolish of me to try. But I tried, for so long, for you."
Morax bares his teeth. "Is that… supposed to exonerate you?" he says, quivering with fury, and likely also with the chill of the water. He has not wrapped himself around the pillar he created, and is instead just clinging to it with his claws, like he cannot bear to truly rest in Osial's presence any longer. "You murdered those under my protection. I cannot forgive that."
"It was meant to explain," Osial says. "I thought you wanted an explanation."
"It explains nothing. What changed your mind? Why did you turn your back on our agreement?" Morax demands.
Changed… Nothing had changed. And everything had, the way the ocean always moved and shifted and was never the same twice. Morax, god of the earth, could never understand. The element he ruled over, the land beneath his humans' feet, was forever stable until the moment Morax chose to move it. He could not fathom a change simply happening, a balance shifting without an underlying cause. He could not fathom Osial—he never had, and he never would. Osial could not help but hate him for it. "Nothing 'changed my mind.' I am as I have always been and will always be. This was all inevitable, from the very moment we made our pact," Osial says, holding fast to that hate, to gird himself against the stricken look on Morax's face. "You bought your humans a stay of execution, that is all. It was never going to last forever."
"Then why did you agree?" Morax persists. To him, one's word is one's bond—inviolable, and absolute. To him, a contract is something that you see through to the end, no matter what it costs you. And if you realize it demands something impossible of you, that is not an excuse.
Osial had not understood this about him at the time they sealed their bargain. There was much he hadn't understood about Morax at that time.
A multitude of lips curl into a multitude of sneers. "Why shouldn't I?" Osial says, voice cold. It is the truest answer he can give—the best way he can explain the vast and irreconcilable difference between what the two of them feel and think. "I am the ocean, Morax. I cannot be bound."
Morax has closed his eyes. His head falls against the stone to which he holds. And then his amber eyes open again. "Bound…" he repeats, softly.
And then, without moving, and with Osial caught unwillingly in his gaze, Morax strikes.
Perhaps Morax's first volley would have been able to pierce Osial through, catching the water god as unaware as it does, but the spear of stone goes wide, slicing only into his flank. A minor injury—and even a direct hit would not have been irreparable. But that matters not at all. Morax would not be able to strike him again. Osial is ready for it now, deflecting each following spear with all the artless force an ocean wave carries with it. The projectiles plunge into the deep, and do not even graze Osial.
Morax has exhausted his body uselessly grappling with Osial, and now he is exhausting his power, with just as much futility. Osial looks at the god whose favor he's spent so much effort courting, and wonders what it was he'd so admired about Morax. All he sees now is a being stuck in the past, consumed with something that has ebbed away. A pathetic creature, who cannot move on from a slight.
But Osial does not realize Morax's true plan. In many ways, of the two gods, Osial is the more straightforward and direct in his devices.
He has turned aside a dozen of Morax's attacks, knocking them every which way. They are nothing individually, but they encircle him now, a bristling pen of stone shafts hemming him in.
It would take seconds for him to smash through them, but he does not have seconds, in the end. Osial cannot move fast enough to avoid getting caught in the blast radius of the invocation that Morax has been holding back, waiting for the right opportunity to deploy it.
Osial feels Geo energy binding with his divine essence, petrifying him, climbing up his body and locking him bit by bit inside a shell. Like a stone rime spreading across still water.
But he is not frozen yet. And Morax is within his reach.
He looks weary, weak, clinging to that pillar.
Osial surges forward, roaring.
But… No.
He can't bring himself to kill Morax. But there's something else he can do, that would hurt Morax more.
With the limited mobility he has left to him, Osial twists in the water, turning his heads toward the west—toward Liyue Harbor—as he sinks beneath the surface.
The last thought Osial has for an age is this: that he will break free of this prison soon enough.
And when he does, Morax will have to be there, to stop him.