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”There are little to no borders between godhood and humanity. Perhaps the only difference is time, if you are willing to let me generalize a bit.”
“As a Liyuen, wouldn’t saying that be a bit, ah… disrespectful? Considering the reverence for Rex Lapis I’ve heard all about.”
“Rex Lapis is simply a guide, I believe. Liyue can stand on its own two feet nowadays.”
“Huh… interesting. Do many of the other citizens hold this belief?”
“Mm.. I wouldn’t say so. It is a rather uncommon thought process.”
“Personally, I’d like to know what the Lord of Geo himself thinks about all this.”
“I am certain he would not mind.”
“Ahh, xiansheng. As eloquent yet brutal as ever.”
~~~
Rex Lapis must be pretty satisfied with himself, Childe thinks.
He doesn’t mean that bitterly or angrily. He’s just making observations. All the pieces of the apparent Archon’s plan fell together all as he intended, the actors in his little play following the script verbatim. He could give up his gnosis and godhood, La Signora had proved her status and superiority once again, and the Tsaritsa was one step closer to fulfilling her wishes. Truly, it’s a win-win for everyone. It’s brilliant, actually— so many unpredictable factors and yet everything still managed to work out. Honestly? Childe would be happy with himself too, if he was in Rex Lapis’ position.
Really, there’s no real reason for him to be sulking right now. He places his full trust in the Tsaritsa and her judgment, after all. He told himself that he would get on the first boat out of Liyue like he promised his siblings (even if it means dealing with Signora again) and be sent off to his next mission. He’ll get used to a new nation, to new people, and he’ll live in the moment and make the absolute best of it.
So, then, why does he still feel so conflicted?
Trying to reason with Archons is near impossible, Childe knows this well. Their minds are absolutely incomprehensible, not to mention indiscernible. Perhaps waxing philosophy instead of just speaking one’s mind every two seconds is a direct result of being centuries old, he thinks. And yet, he still finds himself wanting to understand why this all had to happen.
He is Childe, Tartaglia, the Eleventh Harbinger, the Tsaritsa’s vanguard and wild card. If he was only let in on the plan, if he was only given the word, he would’ve caused chaos and stirred up the nation far more than he already has. As far as he knows, there was no reason for leaving him in the dark this whole time. Did Rex Lapis somehow revel in his confusion even now? Did he predict that Childe would be contemplating the past few months in his little corner of the Northland Bank, still recovering from his overuse of Foul Legacy? Did it grant him some form of sadistic enjoyment, watching the silly little mortals performing their silly little dances to achieve their silly little goals and inevitably tripping up along the way?
If Rex Lapis believes so much in immortals being close to mortals, why did he need to toy with and test Liyue and come up with this convoluted— brilliant, but convoluted— plan just to see if he could leave them alone and retire?
The punch line, the cherry on top, is that he can’t even find it in himself to blame the damned Archon, hilariously enough. He’s not even mad at him no matter how much he tries to be. He can’t be, considering he quite literally released an ancient god on an entire city. He knows that despite how much he wants to be angry, to make Rex Lapis shoulder all the blame for lying to him, the damage has been done.
He’d fallen— hook, line, and sinker.
He would’ve done the same thing himself if Her Imperial Majesty gave the orders, really, so that gives him even fewer reasons to be mad. No matter how much he despises subterfuge, he’s certainly capable of it. He would go through the motions of befriending and conversing and bonding only to betray in the end, if she desired. He’d tried to get information from Zhongli, at first, before realizing that he saw him as more than a business partner. Come to think of it, that airheaded yet knowledgeable persona was the perfect thing to get him to lower his guard. Even that had been a perfectly crafted part of the plan, Rex Lapis always being two steps ahead. It would’ve warranted applause had Childe not been involved the way he was.
Really, he was quite the fool. So much for being unpredictable. So much for thinking the Tsaritsa had enough faith in him to put him in control.
In the end, he supposed he really did have no chance at winning a game he didn’t even know he was playing in. In fact, he can see well enough that it was an intelligent decision to choose him to be at the forefront of the plan. He’s chaotic, he revels in destruction, he makes assumptions far too quickly, and above all, he’s good at playing the villain. He wasn’t just the perfect person to test Liyue’s strength, he’s also the perfect candidate for deflecting all the blame. Of course the people would blame the resident bad guy. They aren’t particularly wrong, but the point still stands.
It’s almost poetic justice. The gods win, and the Abyss-tainted one, the war machine, loses. In a battle of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’, ‘good’ always wins. Childe isn’t sure whether knowing he couldn’t do anything about what would happen comforts him or makes things far worse.
The more he thinks about it, the more it seems like the whole time, two Archons had been tossing him around like a predictable plaything.
If he can’t find closure in knowing what the hell was going through Rex Lapis’ head, at least he can find closure in knowing their relationship had been just another prop in the play, another piece in the game. He always knew what Childe was thinking, every move he would even make, how to get under his skin, while the Harbinger himself would never know what was going on in the consultant’s head. It doesn’t matter how much Rex Lapis believes that gods and humans are no different, that they deserve to walk together instead of above each other— the chasm between them would forever be open, never able to be closed.
No time will be spent wondering how the Archon actually thought of him, because in those forever glazed over amber eyes he’s just some type of lower being. A disposable pawn, a perfect catalyst for his plan. Maybe, judging by some of those late nights when both of them were too inebriated to put on their respective facades, he also served as a replacement for one of Rex Lapis’ long lost friends.
Instead, that time will be spent wondering if he truly is that pathetic.
He’d gotten horribly, stupidly attached like some sort of amateur. Zhongli had always seemed so unreachable for reasons he couldn’t put a finger to back then, and he’d still let his walls down for that goddamned consultant. Recruits back at the Fatui got tortured for such immaturity, to beat the lesson that emotions should never get in the way of goals into their heads.
Absently, Childe thinks that the injuries he sustained from using Foul Legacy twice should work in place of intentional torture.
That’s another thing that’s absolutely laughable. He prides himself on never breaking a single promise, and yet the fact that he’d used that cursed Abyssal form again prevented him from getting on the first boat home like he’d promised his family. He has to spend another week in Liyue, the place he’d learned to love and cherish and abhor and despise all at once.
Childe can handle the Liyuen citizens looking at him like dross, sure. He doesn’t give a single damn anymore. He’d taught himself back in the Abyss to find enjoyment and invigoration in being feared instead of liked, hated instead of wanted.
But Rex Lapis? He has so many questions, things he wants to say. Despite knowing he’ll never be able to understand the adeptus he still wants to fool himself into believing that he was seen as more than just a pawn in the game, an actor in a play, a cog in the indecipherable machinations of the Archons.
He doesn’t know what he’d do if he had to see him again.
He doesn’t know if he wants to.