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Azhdaha was not always a dragon.
He was, once upon a time, just a small, simple rock spirit beneath the many mountains that dot the landscape of Liyue.
But on this particular day, someone brings him out from under the earth. Azhdaha feels warmth against the surface of his skin, feels something else—later, he will know it is called wind—chilling it slightly.
“You are free,” the person whispers to him. He presses Azhdaha against another surface, a large piece of rock, and Azhdaha gratefully makes his way into it. This body is larger, but it is still immobile, and he is still trapped in darkness.
“Ah, right.” The person says. “I almost forgot. The eyes.” Azhdaha feels a hand press against his face, and suddenly, his world becomes illuminated, flooded in blues and greens and yellows. He looks downward, and a figure stares up at him.
“I am Morax,” he says. His eyes are glowing and golden, and he radiates power. Azhdaha knows that he is the man who has granted him this body, these eyes. Who has freed him from the earth.
Azhdaha attempts to speak. “Azhdaha,” he rasps.
Morax looks pleased. “Welcome to Liyue, Azhdaha.”
Azhdaha spends most of the early days traversing the land with Morax, fighting what battles he can with his claws and sheer bulk. Morax, too, transforms into a dragon at times to fight alongside him, and teaches him as they go along—pointing out a rare ore here, a beautiful flower there.
Azhdaha meets the people that Morax fights alongside as well. There is the aloof Cloud Retainer, the serious Mountain Shaper, and the five Yakshas, each of them so different in temperament and personality and yet, seemingly inseparable, as if all of them were only part of a whole.
Azhdaha does not mind being a dragon, but part of him wonders what it would be like to be more… normal. To be able to walk among the humans that Morax seems to care so much about.
“You wish to have a human form?” Morax asks with a frown.
“I know it’s asking for a bit much, but—“
“It’s fine, I can teach you,” Morax says. “I am just worried about the stability of your soul.”
“The stability of my soul?”
Morax looks thoughtful. “You are a spirit born of rock. Just like stone erodes over time, from wind and water, so too will your soul. It will happen to me, as well. It is an inevitability. But for you… it may come sooner than you hope.”
“It’s fine,” Azhdaha jumps at the opportunity. Later he will know that he was young, and foolish, and that though soon for them may not be as short of a timeframe as it is for humans, it is still too short. “I wish to learn.”
His time as a human is wondrous. He spends much time at Liyue Harbor, ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the trinkets that the humans produce, the way they refine the rough-hewn stones Morax showed him into polished, glittering gems, or the way they take clay from the earth and form it, fire it into delicate plates and teaware.
He purchases a set for Morax once, a beautiful porcelain set of drinkware, white and blue with a coiling dragon motif.
“Shall we have a drink?” Morax smiles at him, and brings out the osthmanthus wine. The others notice too and bound over, clamoring for wine, and it turns into a rambunctious affair, spearheaded by that one Yaksha who could never hold her liquor, despite being a Hydro user.
But amidst the rowdiness, the loudness, and Morax’s fondness, for him, for all of them—Azhdaha feels that he is home.
He makes it through the War, and the aftermath, too.
But soon after, the changes start. It’s brief at first, when he vanishes from his mind for a mere second and finds himself in the middle of an upturned table, porcelain shards crushed underneath his bleeding palms.
“I warned you of this,” Morax says, when he sees what has happened. “Do you remember the terms of our contract?”
Azhdaha swallows and nods. “That when I become a danger to Liyue, I will be returned to the earth.”
Morax’s eyes are solemn as he nods. He gestures toward the doorway, clearly indicating that Azhdaha should follow. “I had a place prepared for this day. I hope it will bring you some more peace of mind.”
Azhdaha continues to feel himself splitting, rending apart. Sometimes he is happy where he is, settled under Nantianmen, where Morax has prepared for him his own stone chamber. It is under a grand ginkgo tree, close to the earth. Azhdaha emerges regularly for fresh air, sometimes even trekking up to the nearest peak to survey Liyue Harbor, the people milling about small as ants. He smiles, then, knowing that they are still alive, still well. That the people Morax loves continue to love him, as he deserves.
But there are other times, when, having lost his ability to be human, he strains to leave the earth. Those are the times when his home feels like a prison, when the only thoughts that fill his head are those cursing the person who left him behind.
It is during these times that Azhdaha knows the end is coming.
“Morax,” he says, the next time Morax comes to visit. He’s brought osmanthus wine and Azhdaha’s gifted set of porcelain, as he always does. “You must do it. If not today, then soon.” He holds out his hand, showing the golden veins that run up it, the fingertips that look closer to claws. Azhdaha knows that his transformation is only staved off by his and Morax’s sheer will. But just as any rock can be eroded over time, there too will come a day when he no longer has control. “There is only so much longer that we can keep this up.”
Morax pours the wine in a smooth unhurried motion. Two cups, one for each of them, Azhdaha’s just slightly more full. The same as always. (Except once, when there were three.)
Sometimes Azhdaha is jealous of it, how Morax has managed to stay the same for thousands upon thousands of years. But some part of him pities him. Azhdaha has lost many through the years, and he knows that the burden of memory is one that only gets heavier.
Some part of him is grateful for the day he knows is coming.
“There is still time,” Morax says, and his tone brooks no argument. I will not lose you too. Perhaps that is his meaning. Or perhaps it is something more selfish, more insolent—I refuse to lose, even if it is to time, to fate.
Azhdaha bows his head. Far be it from him to tell Morax how to grieve, how to move past grief, or what battles to choose. Morax, among them, has always been the most stubborn, the most caught up in his own righteousness.
When Morax grips the cup and brings it to his lips, his hand is shaking.
But for once, Azhdaha is right.
When he comes to, the memories of the last few hours a total blank slate, Morax is standing in front of him, covered in wounds. All around them is rubble and stone, glowing faintly. The name comes unbidden to Azhdaha’s mind. Dragonfall. But so too does the realization that everything around them—the destruction, the cracks in the cavern, Morax’s injuries—is his fault.
“Please, Morax,” Azhdaha barely manages. He is tethered to his sanity by just a thread, and the plea comes out as a low grunt, more a growl than any kind of speech. He was always bad at speaking, both as a human and as a dragon. Always so bad at saying what he really felt, the fear, the worry. But he is so tired of being afraid of what he is capable of. “I am asking you to do this for me. So that I may protect the people that you love… so that they may live.”
Morax’s hand tightens around his polearm. Azhdaha can see how difficult this decision is for him. He knows what happened with Guizhong—all of them do, how could they not, with how much Morax changed, in the before and after—and part of him feels a deep regret that he must make Morax make the same choice again.
“Ashes to ashes,” Azhdaha begins.
“Dust to dust,” Morax chokes out. Azhdaha closes his eyes and lays himself to rest against the bedrock, waiting for the final blow.
But it doesn’t come.
Azhdaha cracks open an eye. Around him a shimmering wall has been erected in a hexagon, each corner stabilized by a familiar pillar. Shining above each pillar is a mark, a seal. A cage, meant to contain him.
“What is the meaning of this?” Azhdaha demands.
Morax lowers his arms and looks at him. His eyes are cold, crystalline; like the cor lapis that Azhdaha was carved from. They are beautiful.
“I did not say that I would kill you,” Morax says. “I said that I would return you to the earth, where you belonged.”
“Morax! You—!” Azhdaha thrashes about, trying to knock over the pillars, to bash through the wall. It’s hopeless; the seal is firm as bedrock. It will last eons.
“I’m sorry, Azhdaha,” Morax says, as he turns away. And then quietly, just before Azhdaha slips again into darkness—“Thank you.”
Thousands of years pass. Azhdaha’s memories fade; the weight on him grows lighter. He does not remember the other dragons who fought alongside him in battle; he does not remember the others who fell in war. Time flows past him like water, eroding his memories in its wake, leaving behind only pure, clean nothingness.
The memory he keeps is the last one: Morax, striding away from his underground cavern, leaving him behind.
But also Morax’s final mercy: deeming him worth saving.