Chapter Text
Xiao is not always welcome on the battlefield. He is too destructive, and though he can tell friend from foe, his power cannot. When he plunges, he rains death indiscriminately upon the surface of the ground. The only ones who are safe from his uncontrolled massacre are the other adepti who can fly.
So, when Rex Lapis does not wish to demolish a city, he leaves Xiao at Guili Assembly.
It does not upset Xiao, not really. Rex Lapis’s decisions are always rational, and in his position, anyone would make the same decision. Even before Rex Lapis, Xiao was typically left in charge of watching over the land while the army went out on expeditions. Someone must take care of the territory, and Xiao is more experienced and better at it than most.
(Once upon a time, he had watched over his clan’s territory. The first and last time he had erred in his duty had resulted in their (almost) extinction. He will not fail again.)
What does upset Xiao is his own inability to do anything except kill. (Oh, he is also perfectly capable of eating dreams, scaring others away with a single glance, and running away. But that is beside the point.) If he were capable of healing or protecting, perhaps there might be other uses for him in the army. After all, no one is foolish enough to invade Rex Lapis’s territory, even when he and most of his army are out.
(He itches for a fight. He has not had a friendly spar with anyone since… Before. He presses his head against the tree he is leaning against. Now is not the time for that.)
The children he is watching over are sitting in a huddle, and they seem to have grown bored of flower crowns. They have devolved to playing with leaves instead.
Lady Guizhong began looking for him more than an hour ago. Presently, he finally hears her footsteps behind him. He straightens to greet her.
“Lady Guizhong.”
“None of that nonsense,” she says. Xiao ignores that as usual. “I should have known I would find you here.”
‘Here’ refers to the thin boundary between Qingce Village and Dihua Marsh. He often spends time in either, but not so much at this spot in particular. He makes no comment about it.
“It’s so peaceful here, isn’t it?” she comments. “When Morax and his army are gone. Soon… when the war is over, it will be like this all the time.”
(Xiao is so restless he is vibrating out of his skin. He makes no comment about that, either.)
Lady Guizhong is optimistic; that is what keeps the people going. In reality they are in a stalemate. Irresponsible words like ‘It will all be over soon’... Xiao has been hearing them for as long as he can remember. By now, the mortals know they may never see the peace they are fighting for, but they fight for it anyway.
(If Xiao knows for sure that he would not see it, he would be far more invested in the war. As it is, the impending end of the war feels like a death sentence.)
If she catches on to his thoughts, she is cruel about it, “What would you like to do, when it is all over?”
Someday, Rex Lapis will ask him a similar question. This, Xiao knows. Rex Lapis’s dedication to his freedom is as unshakeable as Xiao’s dedication to his job. When the time comes, he knows the answer he will give is not the same one he gives Lady Guizhong today. “I will do as Rex Lapis commands.” It is not a lie, but it does not answer her question.
There are many things Xiao knows but does not say. These are some of them: It has been many moons since Lady Guizhong has expected a straight answer out of him. She thinks he does not notice when he dodges her questions; Rex Lapis knows it is almost always deliberate. She affords kindness and generosity to all; what little mercy Rex Lapis is capable of showing is shown only to those who report directly to him, and the very occasional stray he picks up — and that is the only real difference between serving Rex Lapis and serving Lady Guizhong.
Xiao knows this also: Lady Guizhong is meddlesome, and it is only by Rex Lapis’s grace that he is allowed to evade her (entirely unmalicious) machinations.
She sighs and turns away. “Oh,” she says, “isn’t that adorable?”
He follows her gaze to where the children are still playing with leaves. Then he looks back at her questioningly. Their flower crowns are… passable. Nothing he does not see often.
“The butterfly,” she says.
He looks again.
One of the boys is throwing a vaguely butterfly-shaped leaf upwards with all his strength, only for it to float down like a leaf is supposed to, swaying aimlessly, caught in the eternal quarrel between gravity and the wind. Just watching it makes Xiao’s fingers itch with frustration.
The leaf butterfly flutters its wings once, before Xiao realises what he is doing. Then it falls lifelessly to the ground. The children do not notice.
Lady Guizhong smiles at him knowingly.
“It is but a torn leaf,” Xiao says.
She laughs and picks a leaf out of the air as it falls past her. With a look over her shoulder that may be an invitation, she saunters towards the children.
She is not Rex Lapis, so Xiao watches but does not follow.
She sits gracefully on the grass beside them and asks them to teach her. Within two minutes she has a leaf butterfly more shapely than any of theirs. She whispers to them like a secret, “If you want it to fly, you need only pray to your guardian adeptus, ‘Please guide this one to the sky,’ and blow on it gently–” She closes her eyes, and blows.
(This, too, Xiao knows: Lady Guizhong is always praying for peace and happiness for her people. When at night the people dream of the terrors of war and death, she dreams of peace more wholeheartedly than any other. There are some who dream of the peace between battles, and fewer still who dream of the peace they had known before all of this started, but she is the only one who dreams of the peace that will come after.
Xiao is not a creature of peace, so he simply closes his ears to those prayers. But when what she wishes for is but a breeze…)
She is not Rex Lapis, but Xiao complies.
The butterfly flutters weakly, and is sent into the sky. Its motions are nothing like those of a real butterfly, but the children gasp in awe anyway.
Lady Guizhong smiles at them, “But you must do it with a heart filled with love. Only then can you know that he has heard your prayers.”
She walks with him that evening. Her first leaf butterfly falls from the sky and lands in her hands.
“Thank you,” she says, ever-sincere.
Xiao has not done anything, so he ignores her thanks and lets the credit go to the winds.
“You are capable of more than destruction,” she tells him, and Xiao wonders if she hears his thoughts as clearly as he does hers. It should not surprise him. She is a god of this land, he is merely the adeptus who guards it. “The lands, the sky, the people, and another plane entirely,” she muses. “Their lives and their hopes and dreams. Guardian adeptus, the name is very fitting indeed.”
Xiao prays only to Rex Lapis. But Lady Guizhong is the one with an open heart, so it must be natural that she hears his thoughts, especially when he thinks so very loudly.
“Talk to me,” she insists.
There is nothing he wishes to say, so he sends a wisp of wind under the leaf butterfly’s wings instead.
“We shall watch butterflies together next time,” she decides. “Your butterfly imitation can use some work.”
The butterfly in her palm falls, lifeless.
Lady Guizhong laughs. (Laughter is not a sound that Xiao hears often. Today, he has heard it more times than he can count. He thinks he might not be opposed to spending more time with her, after all.) “This leaf is from the parasol tree,” she says, her tone oddly reminiscent of Rex Lapis’s. “They are very common in these parts, but are almost entirely planted by mortals. They believe that the phoenix – or perhaps another mystical bird native to these parts – would grace the lands with their presence, maybe even bless them, if these trees are planted for them to rest upon.
"I know little about what charm the mystical bird may find in it, but the parasol tree is my favourite for making soundboards, for the guzheng, for example.” She then begins to talk about musical instruments and how in war, more than ever, they are a painfully underrated necessity.
Xiao listens, like how he listens to all the people’s dreams and the prayers they whisper to the wind.