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When Zhongli meets her for the first time, she is sitting in a sea of blooming glaze lilies.
The sun is starting to dip below the horizon, painting the sky a million different shades of pinks, oranges, purples. She is playing a tune he doesn’t recognize on the pipa, the last rays of the day swallowing her in a halo of golden light.
The slight breeze combs through her long hair, rippling the flowers around her. The waves of her robes give way to delicate, porcelain hands that strum the instrument in her arms with an expertise that Zhongli could only dream of one day having. He can’t look away—wouldn’t have been able to look away, even if he wanted to.
She glimpses him out of the corner of her eye, and the music pauses. There remains only the rustle of the wind and the sky turning dark and their heartbeats beating as one. They are standing there, in a meadow of glaze lilies, facing each other. Seeing each other.
The Archon War is going on, Zhongli reminds himself. He should be cautious and on guard around this girl he just met. He should immediately presume that she is an enemy out to take his life, should immediately assume a fighting stance, should immediately cut through the flowers and strike his polearm through her heart, as stable and unwavering as the rocks he command. He is positioning himself to do just that until—
She turns away, breaking eye contact, and returns her attention to the pipa in her arms.
———
Her name is Guizhong, he learns. Dust is her power.
She tells him that dust is a fickle thing—unstable, and easily blown away to somewhere else. She tells him that dust is not dependable, so unlike cold, hard stone. And she tells him that she loves it because of that.
To someone like Zhongli—so focused on getting stronger, winning—he can’t figure out why Guizhong would love something so weak, so light, so fragile.
Centuries later, he understands. By that time, he himself had loved the weak, the light, the fragile.
———
They create a city together. It is a long and hard process, but together, they raise and nurture it as if it were their own child. Zhongli swears to defend it to the very end.
———
Guizhong is intelligent like no other. Where she lacks in strength, she makes up for in wit. When they fight together, they are unstoppable.
She is beautiful. She is beautiful when she is fighting, determination and strategy flickering in her eyes. She is beautiful when she is playing her pipa, fingers flying across the strings. She is so beautiful that she can easily put any flower to shame, including the glaze lilies she loves so much. Zhongli can’t look away—has never been able to look away.
He doesn’t need to say anything. Guizhong catches his eye from across the battlefield, and he knows that she understands.
———
It is enough, pipas and stories and quiet laughter. It is enough for Zhongli and for Guizhong. But it is not enough for the world. Rock will always demand more to erode, dust will always demand more to fly away.
———
The end of the Archon War approaches. The sun begins to dip below the horizon, painting the sky a million different shades of pinks, oranges, purples. Guizhong’s robes are stained with red as Zhongli carries her across the field of wilting glaze lilies.
———
A long, long while later, after nations have fallen and civilizations have crumbled, Zhongli sips tea from where he sits in Liyue Harbour. He is reminiscing as a storyteller tells a tale, always about Liyue’s rich history. Zhongli had lived the tale, many years ago.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a lone glaze lily. It is nowhere near what he is used to—the myriad of wild ones thousands of years ago, creating fields and meadows of shimmering blue—but it is better than nothing.