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We in Celestia watch as our Geo Archon disappoints.
The sands of time turn back, scooped up by the fingers of the divine, and the leaves that rustle on gnarled trees fall and grow back again as the years change. The past is present, and Morax was a whirlwind on the battlefield--- crimson blood and eyes of shattering amber.
His sword was steady in his hands as he bared his teeth, canines sharp as his lips curled upwards in fury. The earth burned, soil turned to dust beneath his feet. Cold metal found the beating hearts of gods, plunging forward into their chests with a vicious slice, and the God of War and Contracts sucked in shuddering breaths.
The battlefield was blanketed by grass turned crimson. Nearby trees crackled with flames, and the moon peered down on the carnage with a watchful, deceitful eye. Light--- white, from the night sky, and orange, from the blazing inferno that ripped through the valley around Morax--- shone against his battered skin. The trembling god pulled in a breath of rattling air, and let it out, feeling pain sink its claws into his ribs.
His polearm was clutched in one white-knuckled hand.
He had not yet begun to erode--- he wasn’t yet worn with age, with the amber cracks that now ran like rivers down his arms.
And he gritted his teeth, sweat standing out on his hardened face, hand pressed to his chest. Wearily, he sank down against a nearby tree, watching waves lap at the shore one hundred feet away. His weapon was discarded nearby--- for he was the last alive on the field.
The fallen formed a garden around him. And he gazed up with glittering eyes at the false stars.
A contract had been signed with us.
Celestia stared back at him, and he felt icy fingers on his neck.
When Morax took his place among the seven, he did not say a word. Barbatos spoke with sentences stained by the wind, his tone was high and lilting and laced with a puzzling, faint sadness. Yet Morax, still in his seat at the table, was quiet as he glanced down at his cup of steaming tea.
The clouds swirled below his eyes.
He signed his contract with trembling fingers--- and he hoped we did not see it. He wished fervently that we did not notice.
The sands of time shift, and it was a beautiful, bright day.
The one who called herself Guizhong--- the Goddess of Dust, the thorn in the side of the divine--- had rolled up her sleeves. She was leaning over the side of a row of birch planks, and a mallet was clutched in her slender hands.
Barbatos’ wind blew through her hair, and she called out behind her shoulder with a playful shout.
“Zhongli..!”
And our Geo Archon answered her, bright and hopeful.
“Yes, love?”
She got to her feet, dusted her palms, and gestured matter-of-factly to the half-finished creation at her side. The grass was green and warm around them, no longer stained with the crimson blood of monsters and the tears of the people, and trees had grown where their bodies had become one with the earth. And the shore was nearby--- that beautiful, sparkling expanse of water. Birds called in the distance, and Morax smiled.
It was weakness--- this thing called love. Ever the disappointment.
“This is frustrating me, therefore, I’m forcing you to help.” Guizhong grinned, speaking good naturedly. “Get a mallet, and you can start on the left side--- I’ll do the right. We’ll get it done faster this way.”
Morax kneeled softly on the ground, and held the heavy instrument in his hands.
“...What… what are you building?” He asked, gently.
Guizhong tied up her hair with a ribbon, fiddled with the folds on her sleeves.
“A boat, Zhongli! For us to sail--- it’s a beautiful summer day, we deserve it, don’t you think?” Teasingly, she prodded him with the point of her finger, and he flushed. “A date all to ourselves, in a canoe that we’ve built with our own hands. It’s simply perfect.”
Amber was beginning to crack Morax’s skin. He wore gloves--- a dark, comforting brown, gloves that were good at hiding him away from the world. And he reached for the wooden planks, holding them at an arm’s length, brow furrowing.
Cocking his head to the side, he blinked.
“Guizhong, my love… it’s… it’s simply building.” He offered helplessly. “Being… what we are, we do not have to go through this process. It’s time consuming, is it not?”
The breeze whistled its song, quiet, peaceful, and Guizhong gazed with light eyes across at our Geo Archon. Her stare was loving, her lips were pursed in gentle amusement. Wordlessly, she reached over the pile of wood, and took the board from Morax’s hands.
“That’s the point,” She murmured, under her breath.
Her arms moved forward, and she kneeled, brushing her fingers against her lover’s gloves. He watched, flushed, transfixed--- as she pulled them from his palms. They were discarded in the grass nearby.
Lightly, she traced patterns over the amber cracks running through his skin. Above them, in the trees, birds whistled lowly, and the world stopped to hear their ballad.
“This is what humans do,” Guizhong spoke, voice airy and stained with a smile. “They build, using their hands… they work together to make grand cities and palaces and monuments. It may take time--- but that’s a part of being on Teyvat. Things like this… they’re not done in a single day, and rarely by one human. But together…”
Fingers were laced. Knit together like tapestries.
Morax could feel his heart thud helplessly against his ribs.
“...They can make wonderful things. You and I should try it, Zhongli.”
And the waves were cool and embraced them with open arms as their boat flew over the water.
The world was kind to the pair of them--- so they were kind to it. And the God of War hung up his weapon, he placed it aside to make room for paintings and city plans and the oars of ships. Two Gods created a city, and they walked among their people, bare feet on the soil. They would help build things, wonderful things, pathetic things. Technological advances followed. The people became inventors, shapers of stone and metal.
Guili, they called it.
A watercolor blend of two names destined for tragedy.
We in Celestia watched it rise, and though we knew the answer in our minds, we wondered faintly whether our Geo Archon had forgotten the clauses agreed upon in his contract.
Years came and went. The sands of time were once again disturbed--- by divine hands.
We in Celestia descended for a visit.
The city was burning, and it was bright and blinding against the yellow-green of the plains.
Men and women fought desperately with their blunt weapons, mothers screamed and ran for their children. Infants cried in still arms, draped over their tiny bodies in their parents’ last moments, and the sky was darkened with the inky shadow of death. It hung like a cloud over this ancient city when we visited, and it rained fire.
The Geo Archon and the God of Dust fought with the kind of strength that came only with desperation, and the weakness that came only with love.
Morax was wild again, his polearm yanked off of its place on the wall, sharp as it was when he took his first life with it. He swung it mercilessly. He directed his people to safety, and shielded Guizhong from the swords of the divine. And she was a force raised from dust itself as she guarded her citizens and her love from the flames that rocketed high into the sky.
Their city burned, and Morax cried out.
It was a battle that could not be won.
Amber cracked his skin. Dust was raised into the air, a cloud of it that swirled like fog around two figures, kneeling amongst the glaze lilies.
“Guizhong,” He breathed, frantically, repeating her name like a mantra. Morax’s eroded arms held her tightly and gently all at once, desperate to keep her with him, terrified that she might break in his grasp.
And she gazed up at him with soft eyes.
She placed a hand on his cheek, and felt his warm tears stain her fingertips.
“It… it seems our journey together must come to an end,” She whispered.
“No,” Morax mumbled, brushing back her hair, trembling as he screwed his eyes shut. “Please, no…”
We in Celestia know her last words.
‘As for that stone dumbbell,’ she said. A memory of dust. ‘Forget about it, would you?’
Our Geo Archon cried as if his world was falling apart. And as the cloud dissipated, his arms were closed tightly around nothing but air, and dust carried on the breeze.
The price of love was not considered in his contract. It was brushed past, never an option, never a rite for the divine. Love was for humans--- it was for those mortal things, and their fragile hearts which beat and shattered like glass. And Morax had believed so, too.
We in Celestia believe he had simply been led astray.
And Morax was still quiet every time he took his seat at the table.
His tea still swirled with clouds of steam, and he stared into it with duller eyes than the ones we had gazed into before. His arms were cracked, Kintsugi pottery on the skin of a god. And he descended back to Teyvat silently, keeping to himself.
When he fell from the sky, we in Celestia knew better.
Our Geo Archon was giving his title up.
And this was his act of defiance--- his final silent contract, his sickening departure from the world of the divine. We saw weakness long before in his movements, gentle now, we saw unsettling tenderness in his eyes when he gazed at the blue blossoms of a glaze lily. He would not speak at the table, yet he would speak to Teyvat--- words of Liyue’s Geo Archon. Morax’s goodbye, his soft wave before stepping from the door.
A contract to end all contracts.
His gnosis.
We in Celestia will remember the way his hands were steady when he gave it up.
We will be aware that he walks, free now, unburdened by the divine, one with the insects of humanity.
And we will wait. Biding time has never been difficult for those who wield it.
There will come a point in which our Morax--- Zhongli, now--- will remember in our fury why we held him under our grasp for so long.
For in his hasty departure, perhaps the God of Contracts himself had neglected to read the fine print.