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He stared at the flower, the gently swaying stalk and slender, chalk blue petals, fluttering incessantly in the wind.
“These are my favourite,” she informed him, the teasing gleam in her eyes telling him that she expected him to remember this, if nothing else. “They’re called Glaze Lilies.”
“They only bloom during the night though,” he pointed out amicably, poking one of the buds that remained firmly closed at his side. “They are the most beautiful in the darkness, when no one can witness their divine gifts.” He had spent many an afternoon wandering amongst the swaying buds, imagining how magical the rocky slopes would be if the flowers ever opened under sunlight.
Guizhong smiled. “Normally, yes. But like any shy creature, they can be coaxed into bloom with just a bit of song.”
He tilted his head, confused, and she began to hum. An ancient melody, old as the cliffs of the mountains and the birdsong of morning, an oath of lovers and of a parting, sure as the raging storms of the sea. It was delicate and tender and bold, a promise, spoken without words, a contract, signed without ink. It was a vow, unbreakable as the deepest metals of the ground, yet fragile as new frost in the fall.
The lily turned to her slowly, and as if by magic, began to unfurl, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. Blue petals reached slowly outward, revealing shivering golden stamen, blinking up for the first time at the brilliance of the sun.
Guizhong curled a hand over it protectively, shading it from the brightest light, a soft smile dancing on her lips. “You can try too, although I doubt any would open for your horrid singing.” Her voice was teasing, and he feigned offense.
“If you were any other person who dared speak to me that way, you would find yourself encased in a lovely coffin of stone.”
“Well then,“ she mused, fingers twirling through her hair. “What’s the point in being privileged if one does not exploit it to its fullest potential?”
He scowled, heart light. “Why must you turn all my words against me?”
She laughed quietly. “Call it a talent.”
He missed that laugh.
He missed the warm feeling of being the cause of that laugh, of smiling silently as they sat side by side, waiting for morning yet reveling in the exotic beauty of darkness.
He eyed the flower warily. The melody hung like scraps of fog in his mind, too heavy to ignore, too hazy to recall. It was painful - trying to remember the song Guizhong had taught him, but perhaps no more painful than the knowledge that it would one day fade from memory because he was too much of a coward to keep it alive.
He sighed, leaning back. That all could wait another day. He had time.
It was perhaps the one thing he would never run out of.
Footsteps sounded lightly behind him and he closed his eyes.
“Hu Tao.”
She beamed, sitting down beside him uninvited. “Rex Lapis.”
He opened his eyes to peer at her curiously, tilting his head. “You know.” It was not a question, merely an observation.
She giggled. “You don’t exactly keep it a secret, y’know. Doesn’t take a detective to figure it out.”
He sighed. “Have you come simply to bother me about that fact?”
She rolled her eyes. “Aiya - you think so little of me!” She pouted for a moment before continuing. “No, I’ve come because I have had enough of you sulking on this terrace, poking these flowers and staring off into space. I know exactly what you need!”
“What,” Zhongli quipped lightly, “a coffin?”
Hu Tao scowled, no real displeasure behind her expression. “No, silly! You need a little trip to the border!”
“And what,” he began, “might that be-”
“Guizhong,” Hu Tao interrupted, cutting him off in full seriousness. “I can bring you to Guizhong, for one last goodbye.”
"Hmm," Paimon frowned, facial features scrunched up adorably in thought. "Is it just Paimon, or does Lan look a little bit stressed?"
Lumine tilted her head to glance up at the Guild member who was shaking her head, muttering something unintelligible. "Hey, Lan!" She waved her arms for emphasis and Paimon squeaked in alarm, dodging frantically.
The Guild member let out a sigh of relief at the sight of them. "Traveller! You've come at just the right time - we have a commission for you."
Lumine blinked, a little taken aback. Normally she just took whichever commissions there were, usually involving beating up a wide variety of monsters.
"Oooh what is it?" Paimon leaned closer, rubbing her hands together, eyes sparkling. "Oh wait no, let Paimon guess-"
"It's Hu Tao," Lan burst out, and Paimon gave an indignant squeak.
"Paimon was about to guess that!"
Lan paid her no attention, and Lumine allowed herself a moment of amusement at Paimon's pout.
"Hu Tao requested you, specifically, by name,” Lan explained breathlessly. “She wouldn’t tell me why, but she said she needed help with something only you would understand - and could help with.”
Lumine blinked. “Sure, I’ll take it.”
"Oh, thank you." Lan sighed, looking as if they had just removed a hilichurl - no, scratch that - an entire hilichurl camp from her shoulders. Smiling, she handed them the commission sheet, Paimon making a point of swooping down and grabbing it from Lan before it was handed to Lumine. Lumine rolled her eyes, but didn't protest.
Paimon began reading it and Lumine sighed, exasperated. "At least float a bit lower, I can't see!"
The little fairy giggled. "Oops, Paimon forgot you were short."
Lumine gasped, a hand clasped her chest over her heart, eyes widened comically. "You take that back!"
Paimon laughed again, sticking her tongue out, but obligingly lowering herself to eye level with Lumine.
“There is nothing of value on this commission sheet,” Lumine observed, standing on the tips of her toes, Paimon edging ever so higher mischievously. “It just says to meet Hu Tao on Wuwang hill as quickly as possible.”
Paimon shrugged. “Paimon thinks we should do that then, instead of lazing around.” With that, the little fairy flew over to the nearest teleport waypoint, nearly crashing into several pedestrians on the way.
“Who are you calling lazy,” Lumine retorted, chasing after her. “Hey! Get back here-”
If Lumine hadn't known better, she would have thought Hu Tao was joking. Unfortunately, she did know better, and judging from the gleam in the pyro visionbearer's eye's, she was fully serious.
"Summon Guizhong?" Lumine pressed. "Really?"
Hu Tao laughed. "You don't have to sound so incredulous. We've done something similar once, did we not? This process will only be a little different."
Lumine sighed, glancing sideways at Paimon, recalling how much the little fairy was terrified by approaching the border. Paimon paled.
"Paimon would love to, really! But Paimon just remembered Paimon left the stove on in the teapot-" She yelped as Lumine grabbed her out of the air.
"Oh no you don't, get back down here!"
Paimon pouted dramatically, attempting to fly away almost as soon as Lumine let go. The traveler sighed. This was going to be a long day.
Lumine paused. "You're saying we need a memory of Guizhong?"
Hu Tao nodded cheerfully. "Preferably one associated with strong emotions, because the stronger one feels, the stronger the memory. And I'd rather not ask Zhongli, because convincing him to part with even a single memory of Guizhong does not sound like fun."
The traveler frowned lightly. "Why a memory though? What power lies in a memory?"
"Not power," Hu Tao corrected, "but more a path. A passage. A key to a lock. Those in the spirit realm - the dead - are connected to us through only one thing: memories. When none of the living remember you, you might as well have never existed."
Paimon shivered. "That's scary, Paimon hopes none of us will ever be forgotten."
Lumine smiled fondly at the little fairy, and Hu Tao shook her head.
"To be forgotten is inevitable," she informed them with the sort of casual tone one might expect when asking what dinner would be. "But I digress - to find Guizhong, to call to her, specifically, amongst the countless other souls in the spirit realm, we need a clear memory of her. And even then," Hu Tao admitted, suddenly looking lost in her own memories, "we might not succeed. Not if she's already moved on to the realm beyond."
Lumine nodded. "I do have a name in mind," she admitted slowly, "but I can't say if he'll agree to this. After all, I'm sure the memory is important to him too."
Hu Tao spun a tiny pyro butterfly between her fingers absentmindedly, sparks flying off its wings. "Might as well try."
Paimon made a muffled sound from her spot in Lumine's hair, eyes wide. "Oh let Paimon guess - you're talking about Xiao!"
Lumine smiled. "Precisely."
A soft breeze rushed past her, and in a flash of green and white, the familiar Yaksha stood at her side, spear in hand and lowered in a battle stance, aggravation radiating off his concealed glare in waves.
"What is it," he questioned, voice muffled slightly by his mask. "I heard my name." He raised his weapon, eyeing Hu Tao warily, trying to determine if she was a threat.
Paimon squeaked, happily oblivious to the tension that tends to occur when an armed yaksha appears ready for combat. "Hi Xiao!"
Lumine facepalmed mentally. "Hello Xiao," she echoed. "We called your name because we need help. Not with fighting though," she added quickly, seeing Xiao's eyes narrow as he studied Hu Tao, who stayed wisely silent.
He cocked his head. "If not with fighting, what else would you require my presence for?" He spun his spear idly in his hands, standing up straighter.
"We need your memories!" Paimon informed him enthusiastically, clapping her hands together. "So that we can summon Guizhong!"
Xiao froze suddenly, as though he had abruptly stopped working, and it took him till the count of three to process the information.
"You're attempting a summoning ritual," he said slowly, "for a goddess who died centuries ago?" He stared at Hu Tao as if she had just slapped him.
Hu Tao nodded thoughtfully. "That's about it."
Lumine clapped a hand over her own mouth to stop herself from laughing at the stark contrast between Hu Tao's nonchalance and Xiao's clear agitation at the plan. "Hu Tao has faith it'll work," she informed the yaksha. "She knows a lot about the spirit realm, and the border that lies between it and our world."
"We need a memory to activate it though," Hu Tao added, "and Lumine and I here have never interacted with Guizhong, which is why we called you."
Xiao froze like a statue of ice, eyes glittering in the gloom. "Ah."
Paimon smiled sweetly - the same smile she used whenever she asked Lumine for a snack. "Pretty please?"
Xiao scowled, then paused, rubbing his thumb along the shaft of his weapon. "Any memory?" He asked at last.
"No," Hu Tao admitted, with the decency to look slightly abashed. "Preferably one associated with strong emotions towards the spirit we want to summon - in this case, Guizhong."
Xiao frowned. "And all of you will see this memory?" He glanced sharply at Lumine, and she gave him a reassuring look, knowing much more about his past than most others.
Hu Tao fixed him with a serious look. "Only I. And you have my word, my lips are sealed."
The yaksha paused, considering. Lumine watched with bated breath, Paimon hovering with so much energy she practically hummed.
And then Xiao shook his head. "No."
Hu Tao frowned. "Please-"
"I said no," he repeated forcefully, hints of anger bleeding into his voice. “I refuse.”
Hu Tao opened her mouth then closed it again, clearly knowing better than to argue with a yaksha.
Lumine sighed, but she knew from experience arguing with an irritated yaksha who could disappear at will was something she could never win. Paimon pouted.
"If that’s all, I’ll be leaving now," Xiao said sharply, turning away, blue green anemo energy swirling around the shaft of his spear.
"Do it for Zhongli!" Paimon burst out suddenly, her tiny hands clenched into fists, glaring right at Xiao. "Think of everything he's done for you-"
Xiao jumped, startled, hissing like a cat as he turned around before the words registered in his mind.
"This is for Morax?" he questioned, bewildered, caught too off guard to resume being angry. None of them pointed out that the man in question preferred to go by Zhongli now.
"Yes," Paimon snapped back. "Do it for-"
"I would have agreed if you had told me that earlier," he said to them flatly. "I owe Morax too much to turn this down."
"Oh," Hu Tao managed, breaking the silence awkwardly.
"Well,” she started, shuffling her feet, “ whenever you're ready. The memory will be lost in this though, so please choose something you can live without."
Xiao blinked slowly. "I have chosen a memory."
Hu Tao smiled. “Good,” she commented, “because Zhongli has arrived.”
At the mention of him, the man in question raised his hand in a tiny wave, gaze flicking from Hu Tao to the traveler to Xiao, glittering with unasked questions.
Paimon waved back, beaming. “Ready to see Guizhong?”
“Yes,” came the reply, without hesitation, without pause. Zhongli’s expression was unreadable as ever, but behind his carefully maintained facade, a storm of emotions brewed in the amber depths of his eyes.
Hu Tao smiled. “Then let us begin.”
Xiao grimaced as he was forced to revisit the worst and yet best day of his life. The day where everything changed, where he met those he loved for the first time, and yet it hurt too much to think about now to be considered a good memory.
He was not Xiao.
He was Alatus. He had to return, master would be waiting, master would be furious he was late-
No. Master was dead. His new master, Morax, seemed much gentler, much kinder. He didn't order Alatus to kill, didn't hurt him when he hesitated, didn't snap at him with sharp blades or an equally grating voice whenever he paused to rest.
He glanced up at the mountain. Morax was perched gracefully on a ledge only a little higher than the ones Alatus was on.
"You're almost there", the god told him softly. Alatus blinked at him with wide golden eyes.
Just hours ago, he had still been in the hands of his old master.
But now, the old god was dead, his blood staining the spear Morax held, and Alatus had a new master.
He scrambled up to the ledge and Morax made a soft sound of acknowledgement. "Yes, good."
And then suddenly, footsteps, and a new voice.
"Morax," a feminine voice scolded, "you're an entire day late! And why are you inching your way up this mountain like a disabled goat - I've seen you run up this thing without running out of breath-"
Xiao glanced upwards, startled, and properly terrified. Anyone who dared spoke to the God of contracts in that way could not have been any less powerful.
A goddess met his gaze, her own eyes wide, mouth parted in a perfect O.
"Who are you?" She asked him, and she won his loyalty instantly. Because she asked him what his own name was like he was a person - she didn't ask Morax (who was standing right there, looking like a stray puppy under his goddess's sharp gaze), didn't speak to him over Alatus' head like everyone always did.
She saw him, and he almost managed a faint smile.
"Alatus," he said quietly, "but that is just what my old master called me."
"Do you want me to call you that?" She questioned gently, winning over his heart for the second time in that minute.
He paused. "No," he admitted. That name - Alatus, that was not him. That was a demon, one forced into the darkness and bloodshed by cruel hands and scarred by blades that had carved him in two. He was broken, and would always be, but perhaps this was the beginning of another eternity, one where he could heal. "I don't have any other names though."
The goddess studied him slowly, with such scrutiny he was convinced she could see right through him. And at last, she opened her mouth to talk, and he prepared himself for her harsh sentence as she undoubtedly recognized what a terrible monster he had been.
"Can I touch your hair," is what she asked instead, and he blinked, startled.
"I- yes." He stared at her.
She beamed, reaching out slowly, running her fingers through his knotted hair and patting his head slowly.
"You're so tiny," she whispered excitedly. "So small - like a flower bud, about to bloom." She grinned. "What do you think about 'Xiao'?"
Her happiness was almost infectious - Morax was smiling at his side, a real, glowing smile, and even Xiao was tempted to laugh. Laugh at his own luck and at whatever terrible claws in fate that had inflicted so much pain upon him in the years prior.
"Xiao," he repeated, the word forming slowly on his tongue. "I like it." And he meant it.
She smiled at him with the brilliance of a hundred suns. "I'm Guizhong," she told him. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Xiao."
It was only later that he found out Guizhong knew about his deeds the moment she laid eyes on him - his demonic karma was so great any god powerful enough could feel it when they were near him, but she had faith in him, had faith that he could change and heal and harbour goodness in the place of the evil.
Morax had brought him home, but it was Guizhong who made it feel like home.
Hu Tao smiled as she recognized the familiar hum of power in her mind of the doorway to the beyond opening at her demand.
"Until sunrise," she reminded Zhongli. If he stayed past his welcome in the spirit realm, he would be trapped there forever, deity or not.
He he nodded in her direction before vanishing into the darkness, his footsteps echoing loudly. He did not hesitate, did not pause, and she respected him for that.
Xiao stared after him, something akin to concern in his eyes. "You're confident he'll be alright? It is, after all, my duty to protect my lord." Xiao's amber eyes bore into Hu Tao like spears, pinning her in place.
She nodded reassuringly. "He'll be fine, of course, unless he stays past sunrise, but that's hardly something I can control," she huffed. "The most we can do now is sit and wait."
So sit and wait it was.
He nodded and stilled himself, focusing on his breathing.
Breath in. Hold.
Exhale.
Inhale.
The world began to blur.
Hold.
An odd shade began creeping up around the edges of his vision, brighter than white and darker than black. The colour of nothing and everything and all things in between.
Exhale.
He opened his eyes, and found himself standing in nothing.
Pure white, stainless and unblemished. He doesn't understand depth anymore - the nothingness could be as wide as a bedroom or all of Teyvat.
But not nothing. Slowly, like blood soaking into fabric, the landscape bled into his vision. Mountains, majestic most shrouded peaks, adorned with ancient, gnarled trees and crystal waterfalls that cut through the land like silver veins.
Even the air smelled familiar. He wasn't sure why, but he was utterly confident that the wind carried the scent of two thousand years prior.
(It was the smell of Glaze Lilies, blooming on warm nights that added the extra sweetness to the air.)
He was on a peak - this one familiar to him. Many an afternoon had been spent perched on the windswept boulders that made up the mountaintop, amongst the fluttering wildflowers and bunches of Glaze lilies Guizhong had someone coaxed to grow and flourish and bloom in the harsh unfamiliarity of a cliff side rather than gentle slopes. Below him, spread in all its beauty, was the Guizhong Assembly.
Gleaming stone buildings, intricately carved temples, glinting paths paved of cobble and fine, silvery fountains shimmered like a mirage, sprawled out below him like a map to a cartographer.
Because this was his creation, his city. Well, his and Guizhong's. The Guizhong assembly, they called it. It was whole and beautiful and he wished he could convince himself that it would never fall to ruins, crumble like castles of sand in a rising tide.
"Morax?"
He turned, and he saw dark hair and brown eyes and a beautiful smile and his breath caught in his throat.
Hu Tao actually did it.
Guizhong beamed at him. His mouth curved into a smile in response automatically.
(He'd lose this all when the sun came up.)
"It's getting dark," she said cheerfully. "So I thought you might like some company!"
"I would like that," he agreed, flashing her a smile, and she sat down beside him, smoothing out her pale, cream coloured dress as she did so.
He stared at her face in the sunset, and tried to push the image of the last time he had seen her out of his head.
(She lay on the battlefield, bleeding from one too many wounds, dying of one too many blows. He had ceased his attacks when he saw her fall and ran to her, and she had drawn her last breaths in his arms.
She had tried to speak, but he had shushed her, knowing it would half the precious few moments she had left.
He had vowed to remember her, but in the end, to the world, she was but one casualty in a war, one fallen soldier on a battlefield of hundreds. He remembered her, but the world did not.)
Guizhong tapped him on the shoulder and he stared back unblinkingly.
(He had never gotten closure. No last words, no will, no plans. He would have given the world just to hear her talk again, to reprimand him about tracking dirt into the house, or almost stepping on a Glaze Lily.
Immortals planned for many things, but death wasn't one of them.)
He could stay there forever, under the gentle taint of moonbeams, the fragrance of a thousand glaze lilies in full bloom and the quiet company of an old friend. But at the same time, hesitence gnawed at the edges of his mind like wind against the cliffs - immovable, and singing endlessly.
"Guizhong," he began, and she turned to face him, reverence shimmering in the amber depths of her eyes.
“Are- are you real?” His voice was so quiet he could hardly hear it himself.
“Does it matter?” Her voice was just as he had remembered, echoing softly in his head for the past hundred years, whispered in the wind and hidden in every flower. Beautiful as the golden Cor Lapis that dotted the mountainside, light at the hawks that soared above it.
“Of course,” he answered in a heartbeat, “for how can those who seek truth stand the thought of ignorance?”
“You’re a terrible liar,” she told him affectionately, tapping him on the forehead. “You and I both know that in a moment shared only by two, only two need believe it to be true.”
That silenced him for a moment and he regarded her fondly. “I could never win any argument against you - I think if you wanted to, you could have me convinced of anything.”
She laughed. “You are just as I remember.” She met his gaze warmly, and there was no need for more talk - more than could ever be put into words passed between the two immortals on a spirit mountain.
He fell silent for a moment, staring off into the clouds. "There was so much I planned to say," he finally admitted. "But now that you're finally here, it all feels so trivial.”
She hummed. "So don’t say it then.”
With anyone else, that could have been a sarcastic suggestion, but Guizhong’s voice held nothing but gentle sincerity. “Tell me the things that do matter instead.”
He paused, trying to decipher her words. “The things that do matter-?”
The smile never left her lips. “How is Xiao?”
Oh . Zhongli smiled. “He sings the song you taught him sometimes, when he thinks so one is watching.”
Guizhong laughed softly. “Sing it for him,” she suggested. “My request.”
He blinked at her. “I - I suppose I shall. Oh, and Guizhong.”
A single question burned like fire in his mind, searing through his thoughts. He had to know.
"What is it?" She smiled complacently at him and he could not help but return it with one of his own, despite it dropping just as quickly as he remembered what he was about to ask.
"Tell me, do you feel any sense of . . . regret? For leaving?"
She stared at him pensively.
"No," she decided after a moment, with the jarring finality of a wilting flower - quiet and noticed all far too late.
He tried to swallow back the bitterness of her words, for once losing his dignified tongue. "Oh."
She sighed. "Oh I don't mean it that way - of course I feel bad about leaving you; leaving everyone I cared about. But to put it simply: I have no regrets."
He couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze, staring off at the horizon instead.
Guizhong exhaled softly, as if preparing her next words.
"Like there," she said suddenly, raising a hand to point, and he turned to her, realizing that she was gesturing at a faraway cove of rocky cliff faces and misted waves.
It was the future site of his beloved Liyue harbour.
"You lost your gnosis, your title of archon, did you not?" Guizhong asked gently, and he nodded silently.
"I did it willingly, as a final test to my people."
"I know," she hummed, "and I admit, it seems certainly like a very you thing to do."
"What are you implying?", he shot back lightly, prompting a quiet laugh from Guizhong.
"You made a sacrifice," she said finally, "to help your people move on. You recognized that the age of gods and adepti was waning, thus you brought it upon yourself to prepare your city."
He shrugged. "So I did. That does not answer my question though."
Guizhong smiled earnestly. "I think it does."
When he still didn't respond, she sighed gently and continued. "Really, Zhongli, are you really this dense?" She rolled her eyes playfully. "Fine, let me spell it out for you then."
She cleared her throat, looking like crystal in the moonlight. "My sacrifice wasn't at a good time, I admit that much. But through it, you learned to move on. I have no doubts that if I were here today, you and I would still be atop this mountain, seeing the exact same peaks, tending to the same town. You never would have ventured farther into the mountains, never would have met Azhdaha, never would have founded Liyue."
She exhaled, then took in another breath. "All things are made of dust, Zhongli. And all things return to dust. I taught you this."
"And really," she added, like an afterthought, "what better way to go, than surrounded by friends, giving oneself to protecting everything you love?"
Her genuine eyes met his, and he had no answer.
She tilted her head. "Do you understand now?"
She looked more beautiful than Celestia at that moment, Zhongli decided, framed by moonlight, kissed by the stars. But he couldn't ignore the fact that behind her, the rim of the horizon was beginning to lighten. Their time was running out.
"I believe I do," he said at last. "And I too have made up my mind on another rather pressing matter."
If he left now, he would never see her again - not in this life, at least.
"And what might that be?" She leaned closer to him in curiosity.
"I'm staying," he announced quietly. "I will not leave when the sun rises. I wish for nothing more than to stay here. Stay here with you." He gave her the tiniest sideways glance and she stared back, dumbfounded.
"I couldn't bear to leave you again," he added softly, amber eyes glittering. The mountains in the distance glowed faintly - the sun was coming up.
Gods did not cry, but sometimes he wished that he could.
"Morax," she began steadily, "no."
He flinched, as if stung. "Do you wish not for my company?"
She sputtered. " That's what you think- nevermind. Of course not! I would wish for nothing more than to spend the rest of eternity with you as well - as blockheaded as you apparently are," she added fondly. "But that would be selfish. I couldn't do that to you."
He frowned. "But not if we both wish to."
She shook her head. "No," she said gently, shaking her head. "Because all things return to dust. You wish to right now, but in a millennia, when eons have passed, when you will no longer recognize the outside world if you could see it then - would you feel the same way?"
He opened his mouth to answer, to tell her he would , he would do anything for her, and she cut him off. "You would not. You would resent me, resent yourself. Me, for keeping you here, yourself, for staying."
"I've seen so much," he mused quietly, amber eyes glittering. "I think I would be quite content to settle down here."
"The world is changing," she reminded him gently. "The world is changing, and there is much you are yet to see."
He opened his mouth to protest again, and she shushed him.
"Morax," she started, her tone shifting from what had felt like a gentle wind to a sharp gust, the tone she used when she wanted no nonsense. "I did not die so that you could mope about it for a few thousand years, then give up your physical form entirely for an eternity spent in a spirit realm."
Her bluntness was like one of his meteors, crashing down upon him in a shower of unyielding stone, and he was reminded of how stubborn she always had been. How much he had loved that particular trait of hers, and how he still did.
He gaped at her like a fish out of water.
She smirked. "That's what I thought."
She looked like fire, the sunrise painting streaks of flame through her hair, across her cheeks. Her eyes shone like comets and he met her gaze evenly. His heart was lodged in his throat - he couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell her how much he loved her, how much he missed her, how much he wanted to stay forever.
The sun slipped over the horizon, and the land faded from his sight like frost thawing in the spring, slipping between his fingers until only Guizhong remained in an eternity of emptiness.
She smiled at him, and raised his hand in a farewell.
He couldn’t speak, only stare at her face as if he could stop her from vanishing with sheer willpower. And then slowly, her form began to shimmer.
A heartbeat later, she was gone, and he was sucked backwards, expelled from a realm he had no place in.
Hu Tao smiled to herself as Zhongli thanked her briskly, mind still occupied by whatever he had seen. He shared a few words with the traveler too, before heading back to his city.
Zhongli walked with a new sort of purpose. He was a man with a future, not one lost in the past.
Her work was done.
Xiao had vanished, slipped away some time between their last conversation, and she was looking forward to wandering the forest alone, breathing in the fresh air and admiring the misty mountains - until someone tapped her on the shoulder and she whirled around, startled, Lumine peering at her curiously.
Paimon beamed, a floating ray of sunshine in the gloom. “That was amazing!”
“Yes,” Lumine agreed slowly, voice lowered. “Except for the fact that it was fake.”
Hu Tao could detect the underlying challenge in her voice, fueled by her push for answers and anger at being lied to. She sighed, meeting the traveler’s bold golden gaze. “What gave you that impression?”
Lumine hummed. "Guizhong has always struck me as the type who lived without regrets. Everything Zhongli has ever said about her described her as such. And besides, he just told me that she told him she regretted nothing. She understood what had to be done. Her spirit would have had no reason to linger in this border. If that was really her, she should not have stayed. Something doesn’t add up."
Hu Tao smiled mysteriously. "You're a sharp one. You're correct - this ritual was real, in that it did bring Zhongli to the border. And what I did with the memory was real too. But it failed, because Guizhong had already moved on. What he saw was what his mind conjured - a last image of what he wanted to see, of what he remembered, of what the threads of this world could weave in a realm where anything is possible."
Paimon frowned. "So what he saw was fake?"
"I never said that," Hu Tao grinned, a butterfly of flames dancing in her palm. "Belief is a strong force - nothing that is believed with absolute conviction can be labeled as completely unreal. Reality is a delicate thing, and really, in the end, does it matter so long as your head is clear and you hold your dreams close?"
Paimon opened and closed her mouth. "Paimon supposes you have a point," the fairy admitted reluctantly. Lumine nodded slowly, considering the implications of Hu Tao's words.
"I'll leave you to puzzle over that," Hu Tao smirked lightly, stepping away, and the traveler dipped her head in response. Another mystery in a land of wonders.
Another job well done, another soul rekindled.
That afternoon, a man sat down upon the rocky slopes of Liyue and sang a song he had not dared to utter for the past few hundred years. In response, a glaze lily bloomed beneath the sun.
Under that same sun, a yaksha tried to remember the memories he had lost, but to no avail.
When he hears the singing of his lord drifting through the mountain air though, it brings back long buried echoes of a certain goddess of dust, singing to him the very same song as she ran her hand through his tousled hair, pointing to hazy mountains in the distance and telling him the stories that lay behind the peaks and slopes.
"My flower bud," she would call him, voice soft with affection.
Quietly, alone on the balcony where no one could see him, he smiled.
And in the land closest to the border, where few dared venture and fog coiled like a venomous snake through the shadows, Hu Tao hummed to herself alone, but also never so.
With delicate precision, she carved a butterfly out of flame in her palms, weaving its silky wings out of nothing. It twitched its antennae, wings fluttering, before leaping out of her hand, dancing through the forest.
What a beautiful creature, with such a fleeting life.
Was mankind not the same? Even those who had attained godhood, those who called themselves divinity were no more than a fragile butterfly upon an ephemeral flower. They too would bid farewell to the world one ill fated day, a butterfly spiraling to the ground, wings torn.
She watched it go, her heart light. It would live another day, and that was all it cared for.
A butterfly of fire, upon a flower of ice.