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In the boxes and storage of the Qixing—or at least, the many that were backed up and kept safe in the hearts of Liyue and the Golden House rather than the ones that were lost at sea with the fall of Ningguang’s pet project—there were many that were marked with the same notation:
Open only in the instance of the Death of Rex Lapis.
While there were many who would assume this to be sacrilege, the suggestion that their god could have died at all, the Tianquans of the past had carefully arranged the responsibilities that had fallen heavy on Morax’s shoulders in neatly categorized jobs and information and scenarios of ‘what ifs’ that now required tending to. Their Archon was dead, and it was the people’s Liyue, now.
It was a massive operation, truly something that required an ‘all hands on deck’ approach; Keqing did not mind lending her assistance, because ensuring the careful and incorruptible procedures of their government was her own, personal role. The boxes included everything from Rex Lapis’s guidance for the market surge and crop rotation for the next thousand years (granted, those records were four hundred years old, so they were only goo for another six hundred), to a trinket that needed to be cleansed in Adepti-blessed water once every twenty.
One box, perhaps one of the oldest, was what she eventually came across in helping clear, categorize, and field that information. In simple script, still shining with the gold touch that Rex Lapis wrote his most important decrees with, stated a single message followed by a recipe:
To be delivered to the Yaksha that resides at the Wangshu Inn, once weekly. The ingredients can be provided by the most trustworthy local pharmacy, or, preferably sourced fresh from a trustworthy source.
To anyone with any sort of medicinal knowledge, it would be obvious what the list was for—an herbal medicine known to sooth the troubles of the heart, or the chaos of the mind. There were a few aspects of it that Keqing didn’t immediately recognize, ingredients that were rare, and startlingly unique.
“Oh, we have an agent in the Wangshu Inn looking after him,” Ganyu admitted, upon being questioned, though her voice dropped in speaking it aloud. As a member of the Qixing, Keqing was privy to all secrets among her fellows in such notions, though it was something she had paid little mind to before. “Is it something you would like me to add to my workflow? Though I am not overly familiar with Adeptus Xiao, I could perhaps-”
“...Verr Goldet, right? I had my assumptions, but it was never a pressing issue before… it’s fine,” Keqing answered, perhaps a little too quickly. “I have business to take care of in the Marsh right now regardless, so I can handle this. Can you sort through the rest of these with the other Qixing, and place any relevant ones on my desk for my return?”
If there was anyone that could get them done in the same measured pace as Ganyu, or even faster at times, it would be Keqing upon her return—and she was already off to drop a little more Mora than what was necessary at the Bubu Pharmacy for a faster turnaround. It had taken them five days to get through the worst of the boxes in the store room, and she didn’t like to think of how long it might have been since the Yaksha had had his prescription.
---
Ten hours later and a fast pace found her at the mouth of the entrance the front desk with Verr Goldet—perhaps a little more breathless than she anticipated, given the lift had been down, and the fact that she only walked faster when her brain settled on ‘nervous’ as the air for this first encounter.
She did not fear meeting an Adeptus, she did not hold the same, terrified reverence that most mortals did, but…
The Vigilant Yaksha was hardworking. She wanted to pay some sort of respect to that.
“He’ll usually come back to the balcony when he gets back, though I can’t say when that’ll be. He comes and goes—somewhat like a cat, if I dare to be a bit disrespectful.” Verr Goldet’s smile betrayed some semblance of fondness, and… Keqing found herself incredibly relieved that Xiao seemed to be in such soft regard to the woman.
“Thank you,” Keqing offered, offering a polite bow. While she normally made sure that such notions as her identity weren’t widely known, Verr Goldet was a member of the Qixing herself, and a smart one, at that. She had recognized Keqing by virtue of the task she had carried with her alone, something that both acknowledged without needing to speak it aloud. “...Is there any way, maybe...”
Tongue in cheek, she found herself tongue-tied in a way that she hadn’t been in a long time. The Innkeeper tilted her head a little, inviting her to elaborate wordlessly. Keqing took a sharp breath, folding her hands formally in front of herself, the picture of polite business.
“Is there anything that might smooth over a first meeting with him?”
Verr Goldet couldn’t help the little laugh of disbelief that slipped out, but she managed to mask it as something equally polite. “Ah, you mean you want to make a good impression…?”
“I… simply wish this to start off as a cordial endeavor, if I am going to be the one handling this matter until the next Yuheng takes it over.”
For how it could be easily accused that she may have been wanting to curry favor with an Adeptus, Keqing wanted to be perfectly transparent, and her sincerity was hard to misconstrue. Verr Goldet’s smile softened, and she gestured to the stairs that would lead to the kitchen. “Ask Smiley Yanxiao if he would be so kind as to whip me up a batch of Sweet Almond Tofu. I take a bit of bitter medicine, you see, and it soothes the taste.”
The message is not missed, and Keqing lowers herself in a respectful bow, offering her word of thanks, before she slipped down the stairs.
By the time she made her way up to the balcony, she bore a plate of tofu, and a few hopes that this would go well. The Adeptus in question was not yet present, but… that would allow her to set things up a little, beforehand. She placed the plate neatly on one of the wider edges of the banister so it wouldn’t fall, though her ‘set up’ was quickly interrupted by the light sound of boots touching the weathered wooden floor of the Inn’s balcony.
Out of habit, it seemed he had returned to his place of comfort without anticipating that someone would be there, but it also made Keqing jump at his sudden appearance, nearly knocking the plate off of the wooden railing entirely—narrowing saving it by biting her on her lower lip to keep herself from making that startled noise, and straightening her back.
His gaze flicked up, meeting her own, and judging from the fact she removed herself entirely from the vicinity of the tofu, taking a few steps to the side, it was clear it wasn’t for her. His second clue was the way she dropped her gaze, like she’d been caught in the act of something a little more debatable.
“...You,” he started slowly, narrowing his gaze. Immediately, she got the feeling she’d done something wrong, but unable to know what it was, she felt a little… defensive. Xiao didn’t leave it there, but it seemed it took him a moment to think about it. “You were present for the fight against Osial. You fought alongside us.”
It had been such a moment in passing that she would have assumed it insignificant to any other Adeptus, but he had recognized her from just that?
“I- yes. I wanted to make sure that Liyue would be safe.”
“A noble endeavor, but one wasted. We would have been able to handle an errant god with little more than the Traveler’s help, given the presence of the Qixing. I hope you won’t consider putting yourself in a situation like that again.”
Keqing didn’t necessarily think that Xiao needed to know that it was the Yuheng herself that had taken on this task—but she also believed that if she were to express who she was, it might make this… awkward, which was the last thing she actually wanted. If need be, like every other disguise she had worn for Liyue’s sake, she could avoid bringing it up.
He had no way of knowing her involvement, after all. The Qixing came and went with the years, and to any immortal apart from perhaps Rex Lapis himself, or Ganyu for her involvement, she would not be surprised if they were otherwise insignificant. But why did it fill her heart with just a bit of joy that she had been recognized as one among those brave enough to defend their home?
So instead, she offered a strained smile, but a stubborn one, none the less. “If the need calls for it, and if Liyue is in danger, then I will rise to the call. For now, I’m here to make a delivery.”
His brows furrowed, suspicious rising to his gaze. “A delivery?”
“...With Rex Lapis gone, many of his duties fell to the Qixing and those who work alongside him. With it, came this.” She reached into the folds her belt, where she pulled out a small, twisted pack of wax paper. He recognized it, but he tensed slightly under the realization that such a thing was no longer information privy only to the Archon who devised the recipe on the first place to make such little things easier on him.
It was not a matter of pride as much as it was the danger of such a human getting involved with him.
Scowling now, he extended his hand, yet she only tightened her grasp around it.
“I will be delivering this, from now on. Once a week,” she announced, without hesitation now. “While it would be more convenient for you to swing by Liy-”
“I will not enter the city without extreme cause,” he snapped, firmly, and she raised her chin a little.
“Let me finish.”
Her sternness took him by surprise, the words making his eyes widen just a bit. His lips folded into a thin frown, but when he did not reply, she took a breath and forced the same smile. “As I said, I will be delivering this, once weekly. Preferably with my schedule, around this time would be the best for me.”
The audacity of this mortal!
Xiao had never been held to anyone else’s schedule in his life, nor had any human being dared to suggest it. His surprise wasn’t noticeable in anything other than his silence and the intensity of the gaze that felt like it might ignite Keqing to flames on the spot. But still, she let out a quieter sigh, now that she had stated her case.
“...The pharmacist said that the medicine will be bitter, and as such, I hope that this will make it easier on you.” She concluded, leaning close enough to the tofu to place the medicine gingerly next to it, before she stepped back entirely.
Xiao wasn’t entirely sure how to feel.
He stepped in his own silence forward, pointedly taking the medicine and untwisting it to open it, displaying the ground powder within. Never breaking eye-contract, he grimaced, and tilted the medicine up to his mouth to drain it in one swallow. He did not look to the tofu, but in a slow, stubborn tone, he ground out: “You can leave it with the owner of the Inn.”
“I cannot. This is a duty that I wish to fulfill to the former seat of Rex Lapis direct, without accepting third party involvement.”
“You must think yourself important to take on such a task as this,” Xiao murmured, harsh in his own, inexplicable way. It was a defense mechanism. It always had been.
She was not one to be so dissuaded though, and as she turned her back and held her head high, she looked away simply to save face. “No. I am simply the most adept to handle stubborn people without getting my feelings hurt. I will see you next week, Adeptus Xiao.”
Xiao, who had never been implied to be either ‘stubborn’ or ‘people’ or certainly not ‘stubborn people’ could only gape after the woman, watching the gentle bob of the woman’s twin tails sway with her step. She had delivered her ultimatum, and she had told him exactly how things would go from there on out. In her own way… she was strangely intriguing, this unnamed mortal.
Now that she was gone, he didn’t feel the need to be quite so prideful about taking the medicine, and he sliced into the squares of sweet tofu, lost in the drift of his own thoughts.
---
Like clockwork, as promised, the visits continued. Sometimes Xiao would find her sitting on the edge of the banister instead, the same serving of Almond Tofu next to her, alongside the little sachet of herbs and medicine. Sometimes, he would take them wordlessly, and they would sit in silence after their greeting, enjoying the breeze that carried in from the sea over the marshes.
Neither had to speak, much, but when Keqing asked questions, he didn’t outright refuse to answer.
It was easy enough to pick up that she was more deeply involved with the Qixing than he might have initially suspected. She asked what routes were the worst affected by the corruption of the land, so that they might increase patrols, despite his annoyed insistence that it was something that he alone could handle.
She went quiet, for a few moments after that, before she frowned in his direction. “And if, one day, if it is not something you can handle, then should I not know how we should learn to adapt to a Liyue without the last Yaksha to guard us, as well?”
His grip simply tightened on the wooden railing, and he averted his gaze. “Whatever happens to the Liyue of tomorrow, when I am gone, is no longer my concern.”
“You don’t believe that. If you did not care for the Liyue of tomorrow, you would have long stopped fighting by now.”
“It is my covenant, with Rex Lapis.”
Keqing, not one to be dissuaded, lowered herself to stand on the balcony. “It is a covenant where one party can no longer uphold their side of the contract. I would invite you to embark on a new one, with the people of Liyue, instead.”
It was clear that the conversation was making him tense; these were such things that he had not had time to process himself. He had grieved countless of his other Adepti in passing, but never the one that had looked after them all.
“What would you know? Your life is too short to encompass one of our contracts, much less-” His temper had spiked, and with it, the weight of the souls that screamed for their vengeance. Xiao’s gaze blurred, and he lurched forward with a frustrated, pained sound. The swirl of shadows rose around him, and though Keqing moved to reach out immediately, he snapped quickly: “Don’t touch me if you value your uncorrupted soul. The medicine’s effect is not as suitable as it used to be. Leave me.”
“It’s not-?”
“Leave me!”
It was impossible to miss the strained desperation in his tone; it was not a matter of pride. There was no desire to keep this weakness hidden—his demand was not to save face, but to save her. Biting her lower lip, her fingers curled into a fist, and she turned to depart. He was gone from the balcony before she’d even hit the doorway.
Feeling as if he’d broken something fragile that could not be repaired, he sank into the depths of that agony for yet another night, letting the voices scream at him for something he fully deserved, this time. He should have never dared to grow accustomed to that company in the first place.
He should have never dared to allow himself the joy of the little, wry smiles she offered him.
---
Xiao was not surprised when she did not appear the following week. She had come close to seeing the worst of him, she had come close to seeing the ghosts of the monsters that clung to his soul. He had scared her, he could only assume. It was reasonable. She should be scared.
But he stayed at the balcony longer than he would have liked to admit, waiting for her to come for their normal, short talk, or their normal, comfortable silence, watching the set of the sun and the rise of the moon before she would set back off to make it to Liyue before midnight, where she likely wouldn’t sleep without finishing more paperwork regardless.
He wasn’t surprised when someone else came in her place, either—but the little half-Qilin was not the one he anticipated to stand there, hands empty, and face concerned. He addressed her with the same, impassive severity, though. “What are you here for?”
Ganyu almost flinched at the tone, searching for the right words, before finally settling on, “Miss Keqing, the one who has been bringing you the medicine…”
“The nosy one,” Xiao acknowledged, though it was only then that he realized that he hadn’t once asked for her name. Lives came and went in the blind of an eye, but he… He should have asked. He should remember someone who had ventured to want him to know kindness, however briefly possible.
“I-… it would not be appropriately for me to speak ill of the Yuheng of the Qixing,” she replied, with the start of some hesitation. “But Miss Keqing can be very steadfast in the things she decides to do. There has been an incident.”
He had been in the middle of turning, already surprised to hear that one of the stars of the Qixing herself rather than one of their workers had been delivering his medicine personally, to lean against the railing to look at her directly. Her words made him stop, and one, sharp brow raised slowly. “An incident?”
“I believe… that she was working on a formula alteration to the recipe that Rex Lapis left behind, to sooth you. But she has never been one to use others in things that she’s uncertain of, she’s more direct than that, and she...” Ganyu grimaced, finding her resolve, because Keqing deserved better than her own uncertainty. She could give her better. “She was testing it four days ago. She has not woken since. The pharmacist looked her over, and-”
“It’s not a medicine that any human should have taken in the first place,” Xiao snapped, stepping forward. “You said she’s sleeping? She’s lucky to not be dead-”
“The magical properties of it were designed for you, though....You were once known as the dream eater, weren’t you?” Ganyu asked, rising from her hesitance. “If you were to eat the dream that keeps her sleeping, it may wake her.”
“If I do, then she will never dream it again,” Xiao murmured, gaze dark and distant. How long had it been since those abilities of his had been used to torment his last master’s enemies? How many sweet dreams had he stolen away, for their dreamers to never enjoy again? How precious of a dream would it cost the Yuheng of Qixing to rejoin them in the waking world once more?
“I think the sacrifice of one dream to have her back is a worthy endeavor, don’t you?”
When had this little half-Adeptus grown so bold with her words? Either she had fully learned to have a little more faith in the humans she worked alongside, or she saw something else in the importance of the mortal in question.
Maybe he did, too.
“Take me to where she sleeps, and I will see what I can do.”
---
It was difficult to not allow his own words in their first meeting to haunt him. He had implied that she would be otherwise useless in that battle, that she should allow those with more importance to risk their lives for the sake of Liyue. Practically chewing on his entire foot by the time they arrived, it really did sink in that one of the most important people in Liyue had carefully carved hours out of her schedule every week to do something to look after him; unfortunately, remembering this made him particularly short of words for the journey into the main city.
Keqing’s apartment was not the grand, lavish affair that one would expect from a member of the Qixing. It is not a floating palace—it is not even the home of what one might expect from a young woman who had the impressive family history to her name.
It had also seen more footwork from people who do not live there in the last three days than Keqing would ever be comfortable with. There were things out of place, papers shuffled on the desk next to the herbs arranged carefully. He recognized most of the components that wound up going into his medicine, as well as a few things he didn’t expect to see at all. Books on medicine for the spirit, and for the heart. She had been doing her research. Pinned neatly above everything, was the note in Rex Lapis’s careful script.
He did not miss the neat shelf of Rex Lapis figurines, nor the incense she had burned to honor them. Out of respect, he does not focus on them, and instead, followed Ganyu to her bedroom.
Even in sleep, the woman seemed strangely composed, her expression peaceful, but there was not a hair out of place—it was as if, even in rest, her body and mind seemed to agree that any more time wasted in getting ready or making herself presentable in the morning would simply be a waste on time where she could have otherwise been working.
It would be a shame to wake her, because she looked beautiful without the stress of her job, and her responsibility to Liyue worn on her features.
“The herb she was mixing was used by Adeptus to sleep after the worst of our wars. She must have read about it from the records of the war—if a human takes it, it’s enough to sleep for fifty years, if she doesn’t die of starvation during the duration,” Xiao murmured, drawing a look of concern from Ganyu.
“Can you help her?”
“...leave us.”
It was an unsatisfying answer, but she knew it meant that he would try. Ganyu dropped her gaze, before she turned to leave. In the silence of the room between the two left in it, Xiao pulled up a chair next to the bed, and tentatively took Keqing’s hand in his own.
---
When he opened his eyes, he was in Liyue—but it was not the late afternoon, past the set of the sun with the moon overlooking the paths that he and Ganyu had taken through the nigh empty streets, with Xiao’s skin crawling with the worry of what he could do to such fragile little buildings in one of his worst moments. A soft morning sun hung overhead, and he could nearly feel the warmth on his skin; he had not traversed dreams in many years. Almost as many since he’d last eaten one.
To his left, Mooncarver took careful steps past a stall selling fruit from Sumeru. It was enough to make Xiao double-take, not only for the sight of one of his fellow Adeptus, but for the sheer amount of detail in Liyue that she seemed to be able to conjure from a single dream. Most people would only be able to recreate a direct scene from memory. The Yuheng of the Qixing was proving more than just her love for the city by dreaming it up in such perfect detail.
It was what made it a little more difficult to find her, but it gave him more time to take in the subtle differences of the city Ganyu had brought him through, and the one of Keqing’s ideals. There was a certain… happiness that seemed to linger in the air. It wasn’t cheesy, but…
In a way that Xiao had never known, the city streets felt like home.
He found her on a balcony similar to the one at the Inn, but this one overlooked far more than empty marshes and stretches of a land that was changing in ways the naked eye could never see. Keqing looked out over this dream of Liyue, a place where the Adepti served not as the outer rings of protection around a city of vulnerable mortals—but lived among them.
She was smart, though, and she seemed to recognize easily that this wasn’t a reality. She had had this dream for as long as she could remember No one ever spoke to her, looked at her, or even acknowledged her in this reoccurring. Xiao’s appearance made her aware that he was not part of it, too. Still, she didn’t quite look at him, not wanting to tear her gaze away from a future she knew was childish to hope for. His appearance was not a burden to this Liyue, but… it may have been a threat.
He was welcome, none the less, because this was a Liyue where every Adeptus had a home.
“I thought often, when I took medicine to you, that our positions are not that different.” He couldn’t say he was surprised that she spoke first, given her brazen nature already, but the comment did make him pause.
“Our positions?”
“That of the Yaksha, and the Yuheng. While I don’t presume to know the weight of your burden, are our responsibilities not similar? You cleanse the corruption lingering from Liyue’s past. The Yuheng fights the corruption of the city, to prevent the corruption from building in the future. We’ll both bear great hatred from others, living or dead, for our responsibility... but things will never change for the better if we neglect those duties.”
It was not something he considered, before. He hadn’t thought her pressure to assist him had been made under the notion of kinship, and once upon a time, under Rex Lapis’s rule, he might have scoffed at the notion of human comparing themselves to any of the Yaksha.
But weren’t the Qixing simply their human equivalents after all? They were chosen by Rex Lapis himself. They were as much the force of his guidance in the world as his spear was.
His lips folded into a thin line, some semblance of guilt rising in the back of his mind. “I…. appreciate the notion you were concerned over me, but-”
“Before you show too much gratitude, you should know that it was… perhaps a bit selfish, too. I hoped to maybe relate to you, in a way. To see if there was ever a time when the loneliness lessens when those around us can no longer keep up,” her smile was gentle, in a strange way, but he recognizes the sadness in her eyes.
Xiao had never thought he’d recognize that sadness in anyone other than his fellow, fallen Yaksha. It was but a seed compared to the roots of grief that had taken them all—the same, vine-like plant that had wrapped so tightly around his own heart. Before he could stop himself, he straightened. “That’s not selfish.”
“It isn’t?” His conviction surprised her, drawing eyes that he didn’t want to think about the detail of—those diamonds in her gaze were far too similar to Rex Lapis’s own for him to not think of the connotation of how much he’d heard of how hard she worked, or how vehement she may have been about the strength of humans, too.
“A burden borne under solitude feels heavier than one carried with others. It has just been… a long time since anyone has sought to shoulder responsibility alongside me.” A dangerous one, at that, but if he voiced that reminder then he had no doubt she’d be stern at the thought of him trying to chase her off, at this point.
Still, he made sense in a way that made Keqing laugh, a little embarrassed. “It’s probably a little silly, but I was growing fond of our meetings. I always work ahead of my schedule, and I always finish things before they should be done that something scheduled… something regular felt like an anchor in the present rather than the future. It is not uncommon for me to work on things three or four years before they are meant to be implemented, but… this could not be skipped ahead. This was something I had to do in the moment.”
The thought was strangely endearing.
Something that they had become used to, regular with one another. When she put it to those words, he found himself missing it more than he had ever known he would. He came to stand next to her, instead of behind, and overlooked the dream she would never dream again.
“Is this what you think Liyue should be?” He asked, knowing it would soon come to an end.
She paused, and finally turned her attention to him fully. “It is what I want Liyue to be, one day. Free to humans and Adepti to travel as they please. Open for Liyue and all of its people.”
Now that she faced him, he could tilt forward, taking her chin to press his lips to her forehead. Though he did not part his lips, the taste is sweet on his tongue. It is flavored with the saccharine of her devotion. Part of it, something that has the touch of almond on his tongue, is familiar and foreign all at once. He had never had the taste of love, but it was there, new, and all but addictive in a harmless way he would never properly understand.
Keqing woke in his arms, breathing heavy with tears burning the corners of her gaze, but his grasp soothed the terror of the loss of a terribly beautiful dream, and his murmur was gentle against her temple, “You will see it again. I promise you. There is no one that can create that sort of Liyue but someone who can dream of it in such detail.”
He had long ceased to have dreams of his own, but hers was a dream he wanted to fight for. It was a dream he wanted to bring into existence, because it would be a part of him forever, now—and it would be a Liyue that would finally have a place for him in it.
It would have a place for both of them.