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Xiao only has himself to blame.
Deception, the two-faced lifeblood of mortality, glimmers in every beat of the butterfly’s wings. A vow, a forsaken oath, a contract to honour the sanctity of Liyue itself restrains him from following it’s path, but Xiao breaks free regardless. He’s been bewitched. Lulled into a false sense of security, until it flits just out of reach, and he is left to his own devices once more.
It begins, as always, with piety. An amply decorated pyre, and a swansong of prayers to the dead. Xiao observes from afar, but finds himself becoming more and more entranced with the funeral parlour director. Coils of silver curl around her fingers, the only indication that she even wears those rings being the blinding glints reflected off her masterpiece.
Those hands haven’t only been clasped in prayer. They’ve created art. The sprawling death-canvas yields at the Director’s experienced fingertips. Xiao can only imagine what tribulations her hands have experienced in such a business.
What would it feel like to entwine his fingers with hers?
This odd, unnatural feeling germinates, takes root inside of him and worms it’s way into darker crevices. It isn’t particularly unpleasant, he supposes, but it’s not something he’s accustomed to deal with, therefore he must terminate those thoughts. At any rate, he’s overstayed his welcome amongst the trees. The perpetual war between yaksha and slavering beast cannot fight itself.
Unbeknownst to Xiao, however, this feeling, as the elusive butterfly does, will weave a whisper of a thought into being.
…
He meets her again, and again, and again. Her name is Hu Tao, he learns, but not without repeating it to himself, his own personal litany.
Xiao is certain that this attraction of sorts is fickle. Mortals do not last, and neither will his sentiments. At least, his rationality would say so. When his gaze lingers longer than usual on her, when turgid heat parches his throat entirely, with every beat of the butterfly’s wings, he grows less and less sure of himself.
Now, especially, his confidence sinks, consumed by a stygian sense of comfort, of all things.
Hu Tao swings her legs over the edge of the cliff. He’s not quite used to their proximity, yet, despite being completely aware of her eccentric manner of socialisation. Xiao turns away to stare into the sprawling landscape of Dihua Marsh, but internally, he’s counting each beat of her heels denting the rock face.
One. Two. One. Two. They’re beginning to sound more like wingbeats.
She offers him a square of tofu, part of her own lunch. He’s not particularly bound to hunger after years of deprivation, nor is it the almond-flavoured delicacy he’s used to, but Xiao is inclined to accept regardless, for no reason of his own. Hints of ginger, mushroom, and doubanjiang envelop his senses in a confusing embrace. It’s unfamiliar. He wouldn’t order it himself.
What’s even more unfamiliar is the beaming expression he’s met with. For some indelible reason, this smile feels more genuine than any he's seen before. Perhaps this is his moment of deception. Xiao only wonders if in this instance he’s being deceived, or if it has been every other instance up to this point.
Hu Tao leans forward to wipe a speck of tofu from the corner of his mouth. His pulse flutters. Xiao wants to kiss her.
This fateful realisation unravels everything he’s known, stitches it up haphazardly again, then tramples it completely. That’s what this feeling has been all this time. He stands abruptly and tells her he hears someone calling for his aid.
That little white lie tastes worse than the tofu.
…
Afterwards, he tries to avoid Hu Tao, so as not to let these intentions develop. They worsen. Xiao daydreams more and more about holding her close. He returns to convening with her more regularly.
This was exactly what he had been afraid of. Time and time again, fate’s sickle reaps those he cares for too soon, with no such respite for a yaksha like him. A relationship like this will ruin him.
Sometimes, he wants to be ruined. Sometimes, he envisions the warmth in her eyes, sinew and flesh a paragon of her element, and he wonders if he truly wants to be ruined. It’s only occasionally that he thinks he may ruin her - no, he hopes he would handle her gentler than that.
Xiao would rather let his hands wander listlessly. He’d map out the canvas of Hu Tao’s body, and just as she creates art in death, he wants to paint a Sistine marvel. His fingertips would become the brush of wings, and his mouth a vessel of praises. He can be reverent, surely, to more than one deity.
It’s only now that he can name these emotions. Since he met Hu Tao, they’ve undergone a metamorphosis, but now he can ascribe a number of names to it.
Want. Longing. Desire. In every sense of the word.
He’s growing complacent, Xiao realises. He desires the presence, the touch, the voice, the kiss of a mere mortal. The butterfly’s been a mirage all this time. Where will this yearning go, if not directly outward?
Perhaps he should just let the swarm of butterflies take him.
After all, he has only himself to blame.