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It is said that each year in Liyue, the lanterns float to the feet of the adepti, guided by the firelight. On the mountain, a thousand burning wishes and crumpled prayers, all nestled inside a light, find their rest in the wake of the towering crags. Every person, from the children to the elderly, carries the tradition on, generation through generation. It is a symbol of hope and a reminder of a powerful hearkening; now, it is the escorting of an uncertain people to a future brighter than the one promised before. It is as if the lights that glimmer on the Sea of Clouds, that float through the cracks of mountains, and that drift over the flaxen plains of the past, shout a lost people's dream to the corners of the earth. It is an unspoken contract—the scattering of this dream to wherever a lantern may land.
This year, it was no different.
Xiao leaned against the red railing of the watchtower on the outskirts of the city. With Mount Tianheng at his back and the blazing city before him, it was the perfect spot to see the lights. The perfect place, that is, without the jubilant cries of celebration. None of the making of the sky lanterns, the laughter of children. That was for someone else. Everyone else, but him. Each year, he convinced himself that the lights were more beautiful from afar; small, glowing, crafted stars gliding into the sky. At first glance, they were nothing like the people that made them, but with closer inspection, the lanterns were just like them. Burning with desires and laments and wishes and dreams, yet so delicate. Drifting off into the night and over the ocean only to land somewhere as a trail of ashes in the wind. Dreams forgotten, prayers unanswered. Yet in the sky, they burned like suns.
Perhaps if you looked hard enough into the dark, you could see the form of a stag prancing through the mountains before perching on a jutting cliff to see the burning dreams. His eyes try to glean each and every wish before each one burns to dust. On another mountain—a much steeper and taller one—the slender figure of a crane emerges from an abode sealed away. She mourns the loss of a friend and glides by the table they used to feast on.
For Xiao, the sting in his chest had long become a dull ache. But on the night of the sky lights, it festered into something a bit more. He could never watch the lanterns as they departed for long. The ones who had once surrounded him as they'd watched had all disappeared. Some were bewitched by the voices of the shadows, some drank too deeply of their bloodlust, some faded into the dusk until they became hollow husks of their former selves. For him, resistance from that temptation had delivered him to this day. But it had cost him.
"Alatus."
Xiao closed his eyes. The name prodded at his heart eerily. It was spoken only by those who were no more, another history written in the rocks of the land. But a gentle hand rested on his shoulder.
"You have done well, Alatus."
Xiao swallowed. It was the voice of Rex Lapis, his former master, watered down into something more brittle. Something mortal. A bitter taste filled his mouth.
"You have surpassed them all, my faithful Guardian Yaksha."
A lump coalesced in Xiao's throat. He could feel himself slowly cracking under the gentle touch of his master, breaking into small pieces. His hands trembled and he took off his mask, clutching it in his hands. Each lantern released was another reminder of a future that would never be, and a past too tainted to move forward with the others. Although the god of contracts had left them all, Xiao was still bound to the contract by his own conscience. The chains of the contract had started weighing him down a long time ago, digging into his skin like hot iron and pressing him to the ground until he could barely breathe.
"My faithful Xiao," Zhongli whispered. "You are released from this service."
Here he was, the very words uttered from his lips. It was freedom, freedom granted by the prime of the adepti. Yet somehow, Xiao knew that if he allowed himself the freedom he had earned, he would live that life forever with the broken chains of the contract bound around his heart.
"Stubborn Alatus." Zhongli chuckled. "They don't know you when they call you uncaring. But you cannot protect Liyue forever, Xiao. One day, even if you are still here and so is Liyue, they will fight to tear away your grasp much like a child fights for independence from their parents. See how the Qixing has even agreed to sign the contract with me? It is much like that, Alatus. Even if you would fight tooth and nail to keep the city safe, they will wish for naught but that."
That's right. You care for Liyue, love its people. You want to protect them. That's why you feel so bound to the contract. Xiao swallowed, training his mind on this seeming reality, ignoring the other part of him that gnawed at his conscience. The truer side, the part raw and tender, the part he tried to keep shielded away.
Or is it because this is the only life you've ever known? Gazing in from the outside, watching the lights from afar? Cold steel in your hands, the heat of battle in one minute, then right back to an enclave of solitude like it's the only life you've ever lived?
He wasn't used to it, not to this type of life.
"I'll leave you tonight, then," Zhongli said after a moment of comfortable silence. "Enjoy the night, old friend. Please don't feel burdened of your duties anymore." His soft footsteps retreated into the background.
As soon as the sounds of human activity faded into the distance again, Xiao withered. The glimmering lights converged into blurry golden spots across his gaze and he collapsed on the railing, his chest heaving. Silent sobs racked his body. His face and arms were warm and wet, but for once, he didn't care. As they celebrated tonight, indulging in ridiculous luxuries and incomprehensible delights, he could indulge in the loneliness and incomprehensible pain. Between the mountains or atop the clouds, he could not feel it as deeply. But surrounded by cheers and laughter below, he was excruciatingly aware of the fact that he
was
alone.
As he had been for millennia.
One by one, they had left him, each taking a piece of him with them as they faded away. Now, there was nothing left but a shadow who knew how to wield a spear, a shadow who found no other purpose in the never-ending torture of life besides protecting a people who had turned away their eyes.
He raised his face. The warm night breeze sliced against his wet cheeks cold. He wiped his eyes and shook his head, silently laughing at his current state. Guardian Yaksha, Conqueror of Demons, a Vigilant Adeptus weeping at an unreclaimable history that had seeped through his fingers and out of his grasp. The glowing city had long since been reduced from a pinnacle of seduction to an unattainable treasure on a pedestal, much like the stars in the night sky. He yearned for it and the life it brought, but there was no way he could wallow in the euphoria without time stripping it away.
Perhaps immortality is more of a curse than a blessing.
Something pressed into his back, and someone's arms wrapped around his waist.
Xiao stiffened, fumbling with the mask in his hands. He swallowed his pride and turned around, his face blazing.
Lumine smiled up at him. "You're missing the real party, Xiao. But the view is pretty nice up here."
Xiao blinked, frozen. "Leave me alone." Even though it came out in his usual, perfunctory manner, he suddenly realized how cold he sounded. The pounding in his chest protested the words that had spilled out of his lips. He was aware of how he probably looked, with red-rimmed eyes and swollen cheeks.
Lumine snorted. "Come on! You've spent, what, the past couple of millennia gloating and brooding up here? I think you deserve a break."
Leave me aloneemerged at the tip of his tongue again, but he quickly gulped it down. "L-Lumine..."
What's wrong with you? You don't stutter! You're the Conqueror of Demons, for Celestia's sake!
"You know you want to." Lumine grinned.
His throat was dry. Part of him longed to accept. The words were ready to burst out of his mouth. But the other part of him cautioned his lips and held his heart back with reins of his history, of the warning tales of getting too close to an adeptus. How was the small blonde girl with golden eyes going to be any different than the rest? While the rest had faded, would she survive, weaving around time with him? Xiao's hands shook. Fear crept into his gaze and clouded his eyes.
"Xiao," Lumine whispered, "I know...that everyone you...you cared about...I know you had to leave them behind." Her voice was low and steady. She took his trembling hands.
It feels like they left me behind.
"And I know to you..." she took a deep breath and laughed, "we must be just...so insignificant. With our limited time and our weak, mortal bodies."
The memory of zipping through the air through the tumbling walls and cracked floor resurfaced. Even though Osial had been vanquished, the world was falling apart around them and the wind and ocean were about to devour them. He had seen her fall first, and the sight of her toppling into the churning waves had spurred his mind into overdrive. Before he knew it, he was diving after her, ignoring the other screams and cries, his vision tunneled on the small plummetting figure like a shooting star.
"Maybe we have limited time. Maybe our bodies areso much weaker. Maybe...you will one day leave us behind."
Her words struck him like arrows hitting true.
Lumine smiled. "But...when we don't have all the time in the world, we mortals learn to use the time we do have the best we can. We burn...as bright as we can, we fight as hard as we can. So in the end, we can look ourselves in the eye—even if we're bleeding out in the Mare Jivari—and tell ourselves that we did what we could, with the time we had." She reached up and brushed away a tear, her fingers sending tingles down Xiao's spine.
"At least, that's my philosophy. So if I do end up doing something stupid enough to land myself in the Mare Jivari, I can die sane." She shrugged, a playful grin on her face.
Xiao's throat was hot and his voice rough. "What you...don't have in time, you do make up in...living." A helpless feeling engulfed him, like the ocean swallowing him. Slowly, he could feel his life slipping out of his grip again, like oil seeping through his ravenous fingers as he kept grasping at it, hoping to come up with a handful. He was one of the lanterns released, floating into the air before drifting out of reach forever from the sender, unwittingly carried by the wind into the night sky to some unknown place. For once, he set down his worries one by one and focused on the small girl's eyes. There was an anchor in her, even if it was just an anchor for the small trove that was her life in his eternity. Even if it was just this year, this month. Even if it was just tonight, even if it was just this one second he caught himself lost in her gaze.
He let himself learn that it was enough.
Because if it wasn't, he would forever be trapped in the Mare Jivari that held him in place to the city outskirts, the one that closed his mouth and turned away his stare.
"I mean, you could live forever," Lumine remarked. "You might as well enjoy at least tonight."
"I've always enjoyed the Lantern Festivals, Lumine!" He suppressed a snort at that halfhearted lie.
"Whatever you say, Xiao. We're taking you down to that party we have going on at the docks soon. Childe sponsored everything, of course, so you don't have to worry about a cent. Apparently, Kaeya is trying to see how many bottles of osmanthus wine he can drink before he gets wasted. But Zhongli, of course, was complaining that Kaeya would taint the memory—"
"Lumine? Could we stay here a bit longer?" The request felt foreign in his throat and tasted strange on his lips.
"I don't mind. The view is pretty." Lumine's eyes were focused on Xiao. He took a deep breath and put his arm around her. The simple gesture sent his mind up in flames, throwing at him all the similar memories he'd had before. But somehow, they all felt different than this. None of them were as free as this, none of them as weightless. For once, he felt the lightness of the lanterns, the faith the sender needed to have before releasing one into the sky. The lantern was miraculous. Despite carrying the weight of a human wish, it lifted into the air and left itself at the mercy of the summer breeze alone.
Xiao's heart thudded as Lumine settled into his embrace, leaning her head against his shoulder. For once, he didn't mind.