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[it goes like this.]
[the fourth, the fifth.
after that, you lose count. after that, you stop dragging yourself into the cold night air when everyone is asleep, gasping into your hands on a rooftop and watching your tears hit the ground far, far below.
after that, it's easier to convince yourself that you're a monster and you deserve the crushing guilt, the delicious taste of someone else's pain.
you'll never be able to eat sweets the same way again.]
"is this correct?" moon carver asks, and - what is he doing near the pot, anyway? you swear you put mountain shaper in charge of the tofu - mountain shaper, who is now nowhere to be seen - and when you turn to rex lapis with a raised eyebrow, he merely stares back at you owlishly.
figures. he always did take longer to wake up in his dragon form.
"looks good so far," you end up saying. "call me when the water is about to boil, i'll take care of it." we don't need a repeat of last year's mountain fire hangs in the air unsaid, but moon carver remains blissfully ignorant, and you don't have the heart to say it to his face.
your spear rests against the makeshift dinner table. grab it. give it a twirl. dismiss it into pure anemo energy.
head northeast. you're running low on sugar.
[there's something different about today.
if your master were here, they would be smiling, laughing, drinking in the sight of near immortal armies tearing each other to shreds on the battlefield. surely they'd have something to say about weapons singing as they clash against each other, the melodies of people's dying screams -
well. you were never fond of music, anyway.
so maybe it's a good thing that you walk alone. your footsteps are silent against the dirt as you avoid every living thing you come across.
your target is rex lapis, the geo archon.
this is a suicide mission.
you can't bring yourself to care.
one heartbeat. (your spear forms in your hand)
two heartbeats. (you break into a sprint)
three heartbeats. (he sees you, seemingly at the last second)
"is this what you want?" he asks you.
a silly question. there is no "want."
you level the spear at his chest, and you charge.]
the slimes melt before you, exploding in little bursts of flame.
strange, that they would be gathered around a crop of sweet flowers of all things.
you should probably look into this.
…
you will. later.
for now, you pick every single flower, tucking them neatly into a pouch at your waist. a breeze picks up, ruffling your hair and bringing a sweet scent to your nose.
it brings back memories. good ones, of a gentle hand in your hair and the blossom of a glaze lily and -
["oh? who have you brought back this time, morax?"
there's a voice in your head that has been hissing at you incessantly. (what is this? replacing one master with another so quickly? what of the freedom that you used to dream of?)
it goes silent at the sound of this woman's voice.
who is she?
"i'm sorry, i should introduce myself first. i'm guizhong, goddess of dust. nothing particularly special about me, unlike morax here - "
she turns to look at rex lapis, and a light appears in her eyes.
you...haven't seen emotion like this in centuries. decades. it makes you feel young, makes you feel something that you don't have the words for anymore.
lost, a little.
(want.)
and then those eyes land on you, and you're frozen. "what's your name?" she says gently, so gently, and you open you mouth to answer, alatus,
except the word never makes it out of your mouth. even thinking about what you're leaving behind makes you choke and want to heave until every last bit of it is gone, out - what you wouldn't give to be that innocent yaksha again, only killing to protect -
"xiao," a voice cuts through the spiral. "his name is xiao, now."
demon.
you want to laugh. what else had you expected to be seen as? but at the same time…
this is a name you can carve for yourself. a name that people won't pray to be delivered from. if you can't run, you might as well try to make things right.
"morax," you can hear guizhong chide, and rex lapis sits there, baffled as to what he's done wrong. "i did not mean it that way - "
you raise a hand. cut both of them off.
"my name is xiao."]
"alright then, mister xiao, i'll have your ingredients ready in no time!"
you blink and incline your head in acknowledgement. you weren't expecting to bump into any travelers so far out into the guili plains, but humans continue to surprise you.
you watch as she takes all your raw materials from you and starts working on them with practiced ease. something about the whole interaction feels off, though, and you can't help but open your mouth,
"aren't you afraid of me?"
she looks back at you, long hair and delicate figure outlined by the fire, and smiles so brightly that any external light seems irrelevant.
(you think you catch the faint scent of glaze lilies)
"why would i? you protect us, don't you?"
[you feel bad for not remembering this little girl's name now.
she stares back at you, wide-eyed and sparkling, as if you had just handed her all of teyvat on a platter instead of just her battered, dirty doll. "but!!" she beams up at you, "do you want to come eat dinner? i'm allowed to bring friends home, and you saved my doll so you're a friend, and baba makes really, really good veg...veteble...vegetable soup!"
...oh.
you want to, you really do (and if you didn't, the look on the girl's face as she states at you pleadingly would seal the deal). the thing is, you don't know how her parents would take the second most infamous adeptus showing up to dinnertime.
"look over there," you say instead, as gently as you can. a distraction. "there's a glaze lily bud."
"really??" she squeals and whips around. "we should pick some! and we could bring them back, to baba and mama - "
she turns back around to talk to you, to drag you along -]
"don't just disappear on us like that, xiao! rex lapis here was worried about you."
i could say the same for you, you want to say, but you like not being trapped in amber.
instead, you just set down the sugar and meat and vegetables that you gathered. "help me out, then, if you missed me so much," you retort.
mountain shaper squawks in indignation.
a corner of your mouth turns up in a smile.
-
adeptus' temptation. calla lily seafood soup. almond tofu, cold noodles, jade parcels, and some jueyun chili chicken that rex lapis had supposedly picked up from wanmin earlier. it's a full table, and an almost-full seating arrangement - they always, always leave a seat for guizhong.
even if, well. she won't be coming back.
"let us raise a toast, then," rex lapis begins, raising his cup of baijiu in his human form. one by one, they all do - moon carver rears his head back, mountain shaper and cloud retainer spread out their wings, and you...also raise your cup.
a toast, then.
[would you ever be graced with liyue's warmth again?]
to no longer feeling as cold, and -
[would you ever be whole again?]
to no longer feeling as broken.