Chapter Text
“Morax, despite what others say, you are so kind.”
Guizhong plucked a glaze lily from the grass and twirled it in her fingers.
“And why do you say that?” Morax took it gingerly from her hand and tucked it behind her ear with a nod.
Guizhong hummed happily at his ministrations. “Because of moments like this.” A soft smile wormed itself onto hers and his lips.
She leaned back and was caught in Morax's arms. She shifted her position so that her head was comfortably propped against his chest and that her legs were no longer beneath her but to the side.
Warm wind whistled and the sky had never looked bluer or the clouds fluffier. Despite the war waging and a battlefield always active nearby, Guizhong had never felt more at peace.
She ran a finger along geo arms. They were cold to the touch like stone and even the palms of his hands radiated no heat.
“Guizhong, while any compliment from you is a compliment I will always cherish, kind is something that should not be associated with me.”
The Goddess of Dust could feel his voice in his chest and the steady beat of his heart. She leaned deeper into his hold and allowed herself to breathe. Even if it was only for a few minutes she was so happy they were allowed this small moment.
~~~~~~
“You are very kind, Morax.” Xiao held the spear in his hands possessively despite the fact that they were caked in mud and blood. A small smile of freedom settled on his face.
Morax took a deep breath and stared at the battleground that was still laid with bodies, “Kind?”
The adepti watched him curiously but said nothing.
Finally, after some time, Morax turned back to Xiao, “Xiao, remember this. Kind is the last thing to describe me as. Now let us make our way to Guizhong to clean you up.” He nodded to Xiao and they went on their way.
Guizhong was currently working on a new weapon.
She was completely focused on her work and close to actually creating the first prototype until a certain god entered her workspace with a boy who seemed to be 5 or so following closely behind.
“Morax, welcome back. May I ask who you are, little boy?” She suppressed the urge to run over to the boy and scrub all the blood from his face. She also suppressed the urge to hit Morax. Hard.
Said god looked from Xiao to Guizhong and motioned to Xiao to step towards the goddess, “Xiao, meet Guizhong, the Goddess of Dust. Xiao, introduce yourself.”
After a few cautious steps Xiao was standing at the feet of Guizhong, “My name is Xiao, I’m an adepti. And I’m going to be the bane of all evil.”
She smiled pleasantly at his declaration and reached a hand down to pat him on the head. “I assume you brought him in for me to clean up?”
Morax nodded, “That would be greatly appreciated.”
“Then I suppose we should get to it.” Guizhong took one of Xiao’s small hands and led him out of the workshop leaving Morax alone.
He glanced at the blueprints on the desk and found a design for what seemed to be a new weapon. He nodded to himself and left as well, careful not to disturb any of the half-built machines scattered around.
With Xiao clean and asleep on a comfortable bed, Guizhong was free to scold Morax as much and as loud as she wanted to in the other room.
“Where did you get him?! Did you just kidnap someone’s child?” Guizhong pointed a finger in Morax’s face.
He chuckled and lowered the finger pointed at him. “I did not kidnap him. The God of Dreams had enslaved him and I have merely freed him.”
Guizhong huffed and crossed her arms, quite similar to a child, “And say, how did you free him?”
The God of Contracts thought for a moment and decided to tell the truth. “At the battle, I happened to encounter the God of Dreams. He’s no longer with us.” His voice held no remorse or regret.
“No wonder you reek of blood.”
“Excuse me?”
“Go bathe or your next battle may be against my machines if you don’t.”
Morax stared at Guizhong’s retreating back, perplexed and slightly worried. He began to walk to the bathroom with the knowledge almost only she could talk with him like that.
~~~~~~~
“ Please , spare my son! He’s only just a boy! Please have mercy and be kind !”
Morax, a mother and her son on a battlefield.
The clang of metal rings around them and fires roar nearby. Morax doesn’t know how the two ended up here.
And he doesn’t care .
Is what he tells himself when he impales the two through the heart and heads off to fight another foe.
It’s also what he tells Guizhong when she’s tending to the long cut in his back.
Although he has the ability to heal himself he’s much too busy rebuilding his left hand, which had been cleanly cut off.
The cut is deep as well and right now they’re discussing what to do next.
“The weapons prototype is ready for use. It should hold its own.” Her voice is no longer happy as it used to be, albeit still soft but not as much.
Morax looks over the maps sprawled over the table. They’ve been drawn over wildly and he can barely see the geographical features on it.
“We’ll use them then,” He nods to himself as she tightens the bandages.
“You do care, don't you?”
“What?”
“The mother and son.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“ I don’t.”
Guizhong presses a hand against the recently wrapped bandages and pushes into the wound. Morax hisses at the pain and instinctively jerks out of the way.
“You care and you’re just lying to yourself.”
Morax rolls his eyes but does not argue.
Guizhong had always been the smarter one.
~~~~~~~
“Morax, thank you. I will surely repay your kindness when you need it.” The little wind spirit bowed his head.
Morax had found it wounded and trapped under a fallen tree branch. Pitying it, he had taken it to his camp and bandaged it.
Guizhong would’ve done it if she wasn’t busy giving inspirational speeches to their soldiers.
He now regretted doing so.
The wind spirit was a loud, chatty thing that often interrupted Morax in anything he was doing.
However, something about this specific spirit piqued his interest.
“Say, aren’t you the wind spirit who led the rebellion against Decarabian?”
The wind spirit froze in his spot floating over the Warrior God’s shoulder. It seemed to wiggle uncomfortably and flew in front of Morax’s face, “I am. Is there anything you want to say about it?”
“Rumours say you took the form of a nameless bard that was a casualty of it.” Perhaps he was being mean, perhaps he was crossing a line. But he wasn’t kind.
“That is correct.” A hint of sorrow could be heard.
Morax nodded and moved from the table of maps to his spear, “People would take you more seriously if you changed your form. In this war you can’t let people think of you as kind.”
The spirit huffed and in a few seconds, in his place stood a young boy with long, ponytailed hair, “Are you perhaps offended by one of my comments?”
“Not necessarily, just as the God of Contracts, I despise liars.” He stepped out of the tent and held a flap so that the sun filled it.
He looked back at the now turned human form spirit with a question in his eyes.
The spirit sighed and hopped onto one of the tables, “No, I would not like to join you in your senseless killing. My name is Barbatos and I will win this war by spilling no more blood.”
Morax's face softened, not out of care but pity,
“You’ll regret lying to yourself, Barbatos.”
He then nodded farewell, and dropped the tent flap, letting the tent be lit by only the lantern.
~~~~~~~~
“If you were so kind as to clean this mess up,” Havria’s voice whispers in the air.
It’s almost a pitiful sight. A goddess, slaughtered by her own people because she was too gentle, too caring, too kind.
Crimson pools around Morax’s feet, the colour draining from the Goddess of Salt’s skin.
He morbidly thinks her face will be the same colour as marble in a few hours.
The person who did it hadn’t even been bothered to do it cleanly.
She’s still dressed as elegantly as ever, even if the white fabric is slowly turning red. There’s a ragged cut in the middle of her chest still spitting blood. Her eyes are glassy and ultimately dead, the tell-tale shine of a god gone.
While Morax and Havaria were not too close, she was one of his allies, and he enjoyed old memories of the two of them merely chatting.
How will he tell Guizhong?
She probably already knows. He’s not certain that he will find her with unshed tears, overworking herself to get her next invention made, to stop this war , but the possibility is high.
How should he feel? He’s not sure because he just keeps staring, unmoving and unfeeling .
Perhaps this is why Guizhong and Havria love(d) mortals so much. They had emotions. They felt and most times knew what to feel.
Morax did not. Not in this world of war. Not in this reality where a goddess is killed because she wishes not to partake in a war that so many have already died in and will continue to die in.
“I’m sorry,” he says aloud despite the empty room, “but I’m not kind.” He nods in agreement to himself.
And then he leaves the room as he found it.
The corpse of a friend on the ground and no one there to care.
~~~~~~~
“Morax, please, be kind and stay with me.”
Guizhong is lying in a field of glaze lilies in Morax’s hold as she usually does.
The only problem is that there is blood slowly slowly seeping out of her, quickly staining the pure flowers and ruining her beautiful dress.
And it’s running down Morax’s arms and into his palms as he holds her like she is a delicate, porcelain doll.
The description matches her appearance. Wide eyes that are glazing over, pale skin that is stolen of blood and soft brown hair that spreads underneath her.
Morax wasn’t kind. He was never going to be kind. And some might call him cruel. Those who witnessed him in battle do call him cruel.
But he is not so cruel to leave at this moment.
And so he stays, trying to comfort the dying goddess as best as he can. Trying to hide the fact his heart of stone feels like it’s cracking and that it’ll shatter.
Guizhong brings a weak hand to cup his cheek. She smiles and it’s sad, but still painfully lovely, and everything Morax hates at this moment.
“Morax, forget about the stupid dumbbell. Lead the people. Our people. And please be a kind ruler.”
Morax takes his own hand and places it against the one on his cheek, “I will Guizhong, I will.”
In a cruel twist of fate he promises to be kind.
“Thank you…”
And her efforts to breath stop and her eyes slip close.
Morax swallows and gently places her on the ground. She looks peaceful, and like she’s sleeping.
If only that was reality.
He doesn’t know how long he stays staring, but when Xiao comes and taps him on the shoulder he knows he needs to fight once again. He nods to Xiao and motions for him to return to where he came from.
As he takes his pole arm a single tear cuts it’s way down his cheek.
~~~~~~
“Morax, you are so kind. Thank you for giving me sight”
Morax had found a dragon. It had no sight and so he had carved it two eyes.
And he made a contract. A contract that if this dragon, Azhdaha, ever brought ruin to the land, he would be sealed again under rock and darkness.
Morax nodded in acknowledgment but not in thanks, “Let me show you the wonders of this world.”
And the two went off, they fought together, and chatted with each other.
If only things could’ve stayed that way.
~~~~~~~
“Thank you, Morax! You are so kind, my family will sing praises for you for generations!”
Morax, a mother and her son and a battlefield.
A fire roars a few inches from Morax. On the floor is the body of a soldier that was about to slit the pair’s throats.
He tugs his spear out of the corpse with a sickening squelch and splash of blood. It lands on the mother who is still holding her son so tightly as if he would disappear if she didn’t.
It doesn’t land on the son.
Morax wonders if this is right. If letting them live in an era like this is fair. But she’s still crying and mumbling thank you’s.
He nods to the mother, “ Leave.”
And the two run off as quickly as their mortal legs can manage.
He’s still fighting when the battlefield is almost empty.
Gone are his soldiers, gone are the soldiers they were fighting against. Only a handful are standing, all of them foes.
The sun had set and risen and Morax was still fighting.
He can’t particularly distinguish the faces of the people he is fighting but that does not matter. They are tired and weary and easy targets to pick off.
He finishes them off quickly and is left standing covered head to toe in blood, some from others and some his own, on a pile of corpses.
He can feel his grip slipping from his spear and jerks when he almost collapses.
Many wounds are carved into his skin, including a deep, long cut on his back.
But this time there are no gentle hands to help wrap bandages around his chest.
If he were a mortal, he’d have died from blood loss a long time ago. Or perhaps starvation. Thirst? Actually, it would probably be the sleep deprivation that got to him.
Gods did not need water, foor nor sleep. They however did feel the consequences of neglecting them, much like mortals.
Morax finds it ironic but he supposes Celestia needed something to keep the gods humble.
How effective that was.
He respects humans a little more as a familiar migraine finds its way in his head. His throat is annoyingly dry and his stomach empty. When was the last time he had rested?
That did not matter. Right now he needed to look presentable for a peace negotiation that would most likely end with a body on the ground and more violence.
~~~~~~
“Morax, you are so kind to volunteer for the first attack.”
The Sustainer of Heavenly Principles smiled mockingly at Morax.
But none of the other gods saw it as mocking. They saw it as a happy one and one of satisfaction.
Hidden looks of horror and disgust graced all of their faces and Morax couldn’t believe it.
He couldn’t believe the words that had just left his mouth.
“Of course. It is only fit for me to, as the eldest and strongest of the Archons.” He didn’t say that. He didn’t want to say that. He didn’t think that.
But it was his voice wasn’t it? His own deep, “wise” voice.
“Then let us commence the battle.”
With a flash of light they were all teleported into the great nation of Khaenri'ah.
And then Morax’s body was moving on its own accord, it was wielding his jade spear - the one he had carved meticulously for his human-loving Guizhong - fiercely at innocents and black, red cubes were cracking open the ground beneath him.
Blood was splattering everywhere and Morax couldn’t stop it .
He tried to turn away as a particularly harsh jab threw blood in his mouth but was unsuccessful. It was irony and warm and human .
It was disgusting.
He hated this. He hated this so goddamn much.
Why was Celestia forcing him to do this? Why him? Why? Why?
Here he was, killing innocent mortals , killing them instead of leading them , killing his promise , killing his promise with Guizhong’s last words , lying .
Still, his body continued to slaughter all while Morax was painfully aware.
At one point he tried to call out to his fellow Archons to be kind and to please just stop him. But their eyes were glazed over and their bodies were moving with a hostility he’d never seen before.
Especially Barbatos.
Something tugged at his heart as he watched the Anemo Archon mercilessly kill the people around him.
It would have been humorous any other time, that a little boy clothed in white was killing anyone that got close to him, but this time it was awfully reminiscent and almost accusing.
It felt like months but it was probably only a few hours. Hours of killing, killing and killing. Even when his arms were tired and sore and he was out of breath, his body just kept moving.
The other Archons seemed to have collapsed, perhaps out of exhaustion, perhaps after the strain on their minds being made to move against their will.
Whatever the cause, Morax, the Warrior God, was the only left standing.
A sound rings throughout the area and he knows it’s The Sustainer of Heavenly Principles. His limbs lock themselves and his body stops moving, barely allowing him to breath.
“Morax, you did excellent work.” Her voice bounces in his head and makes him want to deafen himself, “Although, you did try to resist.”
Black, red cubes formed on his legs, planting him down and disabling the geo energy that might just burst.
“We’ll have to punish you accordingly.”
And then he’s pulled and shoved into a void. He can’t hear anything but his own thoughts that threaten to drown him and the air is filled with a static that he can’t move through.
Suddenly, something is pulling at every one of his limbs. He’s sure he can feel them tearing off and it’s pure agony.
He can hear screaming and recognises the voice as his own.
There’s spikey vines wrapping themselves around his body and stabbing him in places that if he were human would’ve been fatal.
A warm, liquid seeps into his skin and he realises its blood.
Tears are shed and trail down his face.
His eyes, then, are plucked from his skull.
Morax finds his hands have, in fact, not been ripped off and he presses them against empty sockets.
All he can feel is pain and all he can hear his own screaming. He just wants it to stop but he’s certain it won’t.
It felt like a millennia when he stopped shivering defenselessly on the ground and was seated in front of the other six.
Morax couldn’t remember sitting down, nor even leaving the void but there he was.
The ability to see and the absence of pain left him staring for a few seconds before Barbatos spoke up, “Morax? Are you alright?”
The Electro Archon scoffed and banged his fist on the table, “A few hours ago he killed hundreds of innocent people! A few hours before that he volunteered to! Of course he’s alright, he's probably savouring it!”
Hours? A few hours ? His head hurt and he winced as he pressed his fingers into one of his temples.
The noise seemed to startle the other Archons as they turned to him, most in surprise, two in concern.
“Morax…?” The Cryo Archon trailed off.
The Sustainer of Heavenly Principle appeared suddenly behind him. She placed a firm on his shoulder and squeezed it, from anyone else it would have been reassuring, from her it was a threat.
“Morax here is quite well, he’s just a bit tired, that’s all.” She smiled and squeezed his shoulder again, “Thank you all for your help. Celestia will remember this.”
And then she disappeared.
“I suppose I’d be tired too if I killed that many people,” the Pyro Archon smirked and crossed her arms.
A confused look settled on Morax’s face, “Did you not?…”
Barbatos, deciding to have pity, perked up, “The Sustainer of Heavenly Principles said “Then let us commence the battle.” And I can only remember stabbing someone and then waking up on the battlefield.”
There were agreements around the table.
Morax propped his elbows on his table and held his head in hands. The other gods said nothing and just watched.
Celestia, Morax was tired.
He stood up abruptly and put a hand to his face.
He still needed to generate more mora, and check in on his people, and check in on his adeptus and yakshas, and and make sure Liyue wasn't destroyed like Khaenri'ah-
He sighed at his work load and pivoted on his heel towards the door.
“Where are you going?” The Hydro Archon’s tone was purely made of curiosity.
Morax turned to face her out of politeness, despite the fact he wished at this moment he no longer existed, “Liyue, there are matters I must attend to.”
He nodded farewell and exited the room, letting the doors slam shut.
The Electro Archon hummed, as if satisfied, “Working after overworking his body slaughtering hundreds? How ironic. Just shows how cold he can be.”
The Cryo Archon giggled to herself.
“No,” Barbatos began, “He’s very kind.”
The Anemo Archon stared at the door of which Morax had exited.