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Beidou decides that, holy site or no holy site, she hates Jueyun Karst.

Oh, sure, the pillarlike mountains are certainly striking and the waterfalls are majestic; even though, in her opinion, water should never…fall like that. It’s very peaceful, with the only sounds permeating the air being birdsong and the occasional shrine bell moved by the breeze. In a way, she can see why generations of Liyue’s people have come here on pilgrimages to seek transcendence; if anywhere in Liyue were the realm of the divine, this would be it.

But it’s also hot. Beidou believes that summer in Liyue is a time to be sailing over the open sea, with the salty spray cooling her face, instead of trekking through a bunch of sweltering mountains. The shade afforded by the trees does little to block the sun as high up as she is, and the humidity makes her modified qipao stick to her skin. 

Beidou has never been one for heights; even the mere thought of climbing the mast of the Alcor makes her stomach turn. So in addition to the sweltering heat and her state of utter exhaustion, her trip to Jueyun Karst is also marred by the fact that she might faint if she accidentally gets a glimpse over the edge of a cliff.

A bug buzzes lazily around Beidou’s ear. She smacks it away irritatedly. Why Ningguang needed her here was beyond her. She’d do close to anything for that woman, but dear archons Beidou needed to learn how to refuse her requests sometimes. Too often, they led to exceedingly unpleasant experiences that no amount of mora could compensate her for. And this might just be the most unpleasant one yet.

Beidou considers the possible benefits of keeling over right on the path. She would stop walking, for one thing. But it’s nearly sunset, and she’s hungry, and fainting doesn’t get her food. So she keeps walking and hopes to whichever god is listening that the mountains become colder at night. 

Several minutes pass before Beidou realizes the birds have stopped singing.

She looks up from the path, then stops walking in surprise. Planted on either side of the stone path on wooden poles are what look like…banners? They’re similar in size and shape to Millileth war banners, but they’re white with a design Beidou had never seen before. It looks like some form of writing, probably Old Liyuen, with a row of large, faded characters written in black ink down the main stretch of fabric. Then below that is a sort of fringe of the same fabric, with more, smaller characters written on each section. The color had muddled to a sort of beige over time, and the pole is leaning to the side slightly. Similar banners are scattered on either side of the path up ahead, along with the usual smattering of stone beasts.

“Weird,” Beidou says aloud, bringing a piece of the fabric closer to her face to examine it. She can’t read Old Liyuen; only a few old scholars in the Harbor can nowadays. It was just another one of Liyue’s many traditions that were being slowly lost to time. She drops the fabric, bemused, then turns back to the path. Standing around and puzzling over weird old banners isn’t going to get her anywhere.

But just as she takes the first step forwards, something stops her.

The back of her neck prickles. 

Someone is watching her.

So that’s why the birdsong had stopped.

Beidou freezes, her every sense on high alert. Her heart is pounding in her ears, and her mind quickly cycles through the possible individuals who might be watching her. A pilgrim visiting the mountain? Possibly, although those devout types were usually all too happy to make their presence known. An herb gatherer from a nearby village? No, the most useful plants were at the mountain’s base.

An adeptus?

It was possible. That does absolutely nothing to calm Beidou’s anxiety, though. She knows little about adepti, but what she does know is enough to give her a healthy respect for them. They are the ancient defenders of Liyue, blessed with superhuman powers that often do not require the aid of Visions. They are more connected to the divine than a human could ever be, making them truly transcendent beings. But they are also said to be proud and reserved, and rarely take kindly to strangers–especially humans–on their land.

Beidou gulps.

If her senses are correct, her observer is located to her right, likely perched in one of the trees growing in the thin strip of grass between the path and the face of the cliff. Beidou weighs her options. If she keeps walking like nothing was wrong, she risked being killed for venturing too far into an adeptus’s private realm. If she turns around and walks right back down the mountain, she probably wouldn’t get compensation from Ningguang for this archons-forsaken journey. 

So, caught between two impossible outcomes, Beidou decides to speak.

“Is someone there?” she asks, trying to project her voice as much as possible.

Silence. Leaves rustle in the breeze. The birds are still silent.

Well. It wasn’t like she expected an answer. 

“Why are you watching me?” Beidou says again, beginning to slowly turn her head towards where she thinks her unknown observer is located. “Am I trespassing? If I am, you just gotta say so and I’ll leave.”

Nothing. Beidou purses her lips. “Are you an adeptus?”

A branch sways, and Beidou’s head snaps up.

Staring back at her from the tree canopy are a pair of wide golden eyes. The pupils are vertical slits, like a cat’s. They belong to the face of someone who looks surprisingly young, maybe seventeen at the oldest, with golden skin and longer dark hair. Probably a boy, but it’s a bit hard to tell.

But his face is the only part of him Beidou manages to process before the boy vanishes. There’s a green blur and then he’s just gone, leaving behind a wildly shaking tree branch.

“Hey–where are you going?” Beidou calls out, beginning to run after him as fast as she can manage, all fatigue suddenly driven from her system. Yeah, he’s probably an adeptus, but what if he’s actually some kind of feral or lost kid? That would be pretty dangerous, and one of Beidou’s many life philosophies is to never leave a kid in danger. So instead of hightailing it down the mountain, Beidou sprints after this possible adeptus, whipping her head from side to side to try to gauge where he’s gone. She sees a green blur ahead and to her left and races to keep up with it, her lungs screaming from the effort and her heart thundering in her ears. Now it’s to her right, now it’s in a tree again, now it’s on the path, now–

“AAAAH!”

The world drops out from underneath her. She had stepped too close to the edge of the cliff and now she’s falling, falling like she’s always been terrified of, falling like oh shit she’s going to die in these archonsdamned mountains isn’t she what the actual hell this is all Ningguang’s fault–

Then Beidou abruptly slams into something hard and has the wind knocked out of her.

She lies there for a few seconds on what feels like grass, gasping for air and trying to get her heartbeat under control. She’s alive, at least. And nothing really hurts, so she didn’t break any bones. Probably. Hopefully.

Beidou groans and rolls over onto her stomach, trying to push herself upright. She glances around to gauge how much immediate danger she’s in, then immediately wishes she hadn’t. She’s standing on a narrow ledge on a steeply sloping cliff face, at least fifteen feet from the top where she fell and a good thirty more from the ground beneath her. Just having her eyes open gives her vertigo, so she closes them quickly and makes a brave attempt at not panicking.

Okay. Okay, she can do this. She can’t climb back up, so she’ll just have to go…down. Yeah. She’ll just slide down the mountain the rest of the way and try not to snap her ankles in half. Then she’ll be on solid ground–or whatever passes for solid ground around here–and she can figure out what to do. There’s even a stream down there, and what looks like an abandoned shack she can use for shelter. Perfect. She’s actually in a great situation right now, and is most definitely not absolutely terrified.

Beidou examines the slope of the cliff, trying to mentally map a path to the bottom that will result in the least danger to her well-being.

Fuck it.

Praying to whatever deity oversees stupid ideas, Beidou braces her hands on the edge of the cliff face and slowly inches herself over the edge. After a few seconds of concentration, twin leviathans spark to life, their segmented bodies circling around her in an embrace that makes Beidou’s hair stand on end. One of them almost looks like it rolls its eyes . The nerve.

She takes a deep breath, and pitches herself over the side of the cliff.

Turns out, skidding down a deceptively steep mountainside is not a pleasant experience. About halfway down, she loses whatever control she started with and starts rolling , the electric sea serpents hissing and spitting as they do their utmost to absorb the worst of the damage. She would apologize, but she’s too busy trying not to scream in terror.

She reaches the bottom with an oomph. From her vantage point of approximately a worm, Beidou takes stock of her situation. Again, no bones seem broken–that’s always a plus. She slowly rises to her feet and dusts herself off. Who knew mountain slopes were so dirty? The leviathans flicker angrily, their purple light fading, and she waves a shaky hand to dismiss them. 

There’s a scoff from a nearby tree.

Beidou whips toward the sound, hand on her claymore. She catches a flash of green. Then nothing.

“I’d like to see you do better,” she calls out, fuming. 

No response.

Oh, she had better get amazing compensation for this particular excursion.

Beidou surveys her new surroundings, hands braced on hips. The river she had seen is more like a brook, or maybe a very large trickle of water; it looks almost narrow enough to jump across, and definitely no deeper than her waist at the center. On the opposite side of the sandy bank is the abandoned cottage, built in traditional Liyuen style with sandbearer wood walls and a thatched roof. The walls have many gaps and cracks in them, but the roof has somehow held together; Beidou has to give whoever built it credit for that. Who would build something like this miles from civilization and several hundred feet in the air is beyond her, though. Maybe a transcendentalist who wanted to live the rest of their life above the clouds. Or maybe a hermit, sick of human society and deciding to die alone. Beidou wonders idly if there’s a skeleton hidden within its walls. 

Well. Skeleton or no skeleton, the monsters in the area will definitely not take kindly to a human in their midst, so she had best try to use the house as some kind of shelter before it gets too dark. She spares the tree next to it another glance, trying to discern whether a figure is crouched behind its red-gold leaves. 

“You shouldn’t spy on people,” she calls.

Again, nothing. Honestly, she should just stop trying.

With a huff, she leaps across the brook, only stumbling once, and approaches the shack. She’ll put her bedroll inside, then find some wood for a campfire. Sandbearer wood burns well, she’ll just have to make sure to not chop down a sacred tree or whatever. And there are plenty of fish in the river, she’ll just have to make sure not to kill a sacred fish. Are there sacred fish? Maybe this place is just messing with her mind.

As if on cue, her stomach growls. On second thought, she’ll grab two fish, sacred or not. It’s only a matter of time before the sea dragon that shares her mind will sing shanties in her head until she eats something, so it’s best not to question it. Matters dealing with Visions were best left alone and well-fed.

The door creaks open at her touch. Beidou takes that as a generous–if creepy–invitation, so she tosses her bedroll through the door and turns her attention to the stream behind her.

Soon, there are two fish crackling over a fire, speared with a piece of timber from the crumbling house. She’ll have to check for splinters later. Dark smoke shot through with glowing sparks billows into the rapidly darkening sky, and Beidou is certain that if that kid adeptus had decided to leave her alone, she certainly had his attention now.

But that’s the least of her worries. The fish smells heavenly, and a certain sea serpent keeps telling her to simply reach into the fire and eat them in one gulp. Which is unfortunately a surprisingly strong urge.

Beidou glances around, deciding to at least attempt to find some kind of path she can take in the morning. She’s in what might be considered a valley, except she’s still at least a couple hundred feet up from the actual ground. So it would probably be best described as a very narrow plateau. There’s an abrupt drop-off a couple hundred feet to her left, where the brook likely turns into a tiny waterfall. The grass beneath her feet is golden-yellow, interspersed by patches of white flowers, and a few tall, twisting trees are scattered seemingly at random across the whole expanse. Although, oddly enough, there are very few bushes. 

A hissing voice grumbles in her head. Stop daydreaming and take the fish off the fire. It’s gotta be done by now.

Beidou grimaces. Shut up.

Are you one of those crazy people who likes burnt fish?

Fine!

With a grunt, Beidou rises from her position and grabs the spit. The sea serpent hisses in tandem with her because ouch , she seems to have forgotten that heated wood is very hot. 

Thanks for nothing, Haishan, Beidou thinks sourly. The dragon sharing her mind doesn’t respond. Jackass.

Beidou grabs a chopstick from her pack and cleanly skewers both fish in one go, their crispy flesh crackling deliciously. She blows on them furiously, then takes a tiny bite. It could use some pepper, but the texture is perfect. Not burnt, not underdone. Nice and flaky.

The leaves in the tree above her rustle, and Beidou looks up, squinting into the darkness. If she looks at it right, she can almost see the firelight glinting off someone’s eyes, watching her…nope, it’s gone. Beidou sighs and takes another bite of fish. 

“Hey, kid?” she says hesitantly. There’s no response, but she wasn’t expecting one. “Uh, you hungry? I have a second fish here, if you want it…” she trails off, scanning the branches for another sign of life. Nothing. 

That second fish is mine, actually, Haishan grumbles. If you don’t eat it, I won’t receive enough energy, and then I just might decide not to help you with your shielding anymore.

Shut UP, Beidou thinks forcefully. I’m trying to hold a conversation.

Conversations are normally two-sided.

Just go to sleep.

Ugh. But the voice in her head grudgingly quiets, leaving Beidou in blessed, blessed peace.

She waves the fish on the skewer above her head, craning her neck to train her gaze on the tree. “It’s quite tasty,” she wheedles. “Cooked it myself. It’d be better with some spices, but hey, I did what I could.” 

It’s like trying to get a stray cat to come up to me, Beidou thinks, then has to stop herself from laughing aloud.

“So, uh, Mr. Adeptus. Because I don’t think you’re a kid anymore, actually. Even though you look like one. Can I say that? Well, too late. Uh, I’m gonna be leaving this fish out here, on top of my pack, and then I’m gonna go to sleep. If you want it, you can take it. Think of it as an offering or something.” She hesitates. “And if you wait too long, or if you aren’t actually there and I’m just talking to air, then some wild animal will take it instead.”

Beidou thinks there’s some kind of movement in the branches above her, but she can’t be sure. 

Yo, Haishan .

I thought you wanted me to sleep.

Yeah, yeah. Any ideas on how to make an ancient being show itself, my dear ancient being?

Somehow, she can sense Haishan rolling his eyes. He’s silent for a moment.

If food doesn’t work, I’d say you only need two words: fire and work . They’re loud and annoying, and a deity living here is probably used to peace and quiet. 

“Firework” is one word, dumbass.

Oh, so I’M the dumbass?

Actually, Haishan’s idea doesn’t sound half bad. She still has a few leftover fireworks from Lantern Rite tucked into her pocket–a waterproof type that the Traveler had begged her to test out. They had seemed way too eager to, quote, see if it goes boom underwater , but she had humored them. Apparently, these fireworks did indeed go boom underwater, and Beidou had felt compelled to order a few, then promptly forgot about them.

Ignoring Haishan’s triumphant snickering, Beidou digs in her pack for a firework. She sets it next to the still-blazing firepit, and sets it alight.

Oh, this’ll be good!

With a crack and an oddly human-sounding scream, the firework explodes, sending a trail of sparks into the darkened sky. Beidou leaps backward, Haishan cackling in her head. 

The glowing trail reaches the height of the surrounding mountains. Beidou cranes her neck and watches it explode into a brightly colored blossom, a glowing silk flower emblazoned on the night sky. Apparently, these fireworks “went boom” on both land and sea. She’d have to congratulate the Traveler whenever they were back in Liyue.

The silence after the initial explosion is deafening, only the faint sizzling of sparks on their last trip to the earth permeating the quiet. Beidou tenses. Had it not worked?

“Just what do you think you’re doing, human?”

The voice is low, slightly raspy, and unmistakably irritated. Beidou spins around. Perched at the very top of the shack’s straw roof is the boy-adeptus, his eyes narrow and arms crossed. From what she can see in the wavering glow from her fire, he has a thin, lithe build, and is dressed in what looks like a sleeveless white shirt, navy pants, and tall boots. A strand of beads encircles his neck, and lengths of patterned fabric hang from his belt and left arm. His right arm is covered by an odd green tattoo that Beidou can’t quite make out. 

It’s strange; parts of his appearance are familiar, but others are utterly foreign. It’s like he stepped out from a different era in a different world, but one just barely removed from the current one; the dichotomy makes him seem both alien and distinctly Liyuen at the same time. 

He tilts his head to the side, and Beidou notices that his dark hair is shot through with streaks of teal. “Well?” he snaps. “What’s your business here, and how does it involve shooting off fireworks and disturbing the peace of the mountains?”

“Uh,” Beidou replies, because she may or may not be a little bit scared of how this adeptus is looking at her with disdainful anger. He’s the same size and build as a slightly underfed teenager, but there is no doubt in her mind that he could kill her before she could blink and not even break a sweat. “Um. No business, actually. I have no business here. Well, I do. Just not with fireworks. Those were just to get your attention.” Shit, what should she even say?

Thanks a lot for your excellent idea, Haishan, now I pissed off an immortal being.

Hey, you set off the fireworks, not me.

“To get my attention.” Beidou is pretty sure that if murderous disdain could be personified, it would look like this adeptus. He glares down at her, scowling. “You’re foolish for even attempting to do that.”

“Uh, yeah. I was. But, hey, you’re here now, aren’t you?” Beidou tries for her normal bravado, and to her surprise finds it easy to slip back into, even when confronted by a ticked-off immortal being. “So, even if it was foolish, it worked. It kinda cancels out, don’t you think?”

The adeptus just stares at her. Beidou grins widely.

She can feel Haishan’s incredulity in her subconscious. You’re dead. You are absolutely dead.

And you’re not helping.

“Oh, yeah. The fish I offered earlier is still up for grabs, if you want it,” Beidou says, picking the skewer back up and holding it out. What Beidou has learned over her years of negotiating tricky situations is that food is, strangely, often a decent route for basic diplomacy. The adeptus’s eyes flick to it and then back to her. She waggles the skewer invitingly.

Dear archons, it really is like tempting a feral cat.

Shut up, you’ll make me laugh.

The adeptus presses his lips together into a thin line. “No,” he says shortly. “And you need to leave this place. Your presence is disrespectful to the divine. I would allow it if you were a normal pilgrim, but as you’re a foolish woman who sets off fireworks for no reason at all, your presence here is most definitely not appreciated.”

“Aww, don’t be like that,” Beidou grins, ignoring the fear curling in her chest. “I won’t set off any more fireworks, I swear. That was a one-time thing.”

The adeptus’s gaze remains ice-cold. “It had better be.”

Beidou decides that as long as she’s here and talking to an immortal, transcendental being for probably the only time in her life, she should at least get as much information out of him as possible. “So, what’s your name?” she asks, sitting down with her back to the fire, looking up at the adeptus expectantly. “I just wanna know so I can look you up when I get back to the Harbor.”

“That’s none of your concern,” he says, stone-faced.

Beidou quirks her mouth to the side. “Aw, okay. Are you Moon Carver?”

The adeptus’s eye twitches. “No.”

“Cloud Retainer? That bird or whatever?”

“Heavenly crane, actually. And no.”

“Oh, what was the other one…Mountain Shaper?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s all the adepti I know, so I guess I’m shit out of luck, eh?” Beidou sighs. “Guess I’ll just call you Mr. Adeptus.”

He remains unamused. “Don’t do that,” he says shortly.

“All right, I won’t,” Beidou says amiably, because while this entire conversation may be inadvisable, she doesn’t have a death wish. “So, d’you think I could make an offering to you even though I don’t know your name? To, I dunno, protect me during my travels or something.”

For some reason, the kid’s face shutters instantly. “I’m not in the position to accept offerings.”

Beidou blinks. “What does that mean?”

“It means I’m not in the position to accept offerings. You would be better off praying to any other deity you can think of.” He pauses, then opens his mouth to continue, but shuts it again and looks away. 

Beidou can’t read his expression, but it intrigues her. “Oh? Why is that?” she asks in what she hopes is an inviting way, beginning to stand up and move slowly towards the shack, trying to get a better look at the strange kid.

He glances towards her and scowls. Then, with a sound like a throwing knife whizzing through the air, he disappears in a flash of dark green, reappearing perched on the bamboo lamppost on the other side of the shack. Beidou stares. How the hell does he move so fast? And how isn’t he falling? That bamboo has to be two inches wide at the most.

“Do not attempt to approach me, human,” the adeptus says, voice bordering on dangerous.

“Jeez, okay, okay,” Beidou says, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I will stay right here.”

“Good,” he responds curtly.

They then proceed to not move from their positions for at least ten minutes. The adeptus’s eyes bore into her, unblinking. Apparently, he has decided that she simply cannot be left alone. Which is valid, considering she did set off a firework in a holy site. He probably thinks she’ll start eating the stone frogs or something.

Why the hell was that your first thought?

Yet again, not helping.

Eyes watering, Beidou surrenders the staring contest in favor of polishing off her roasted fish. And, even after being rebuffed, she is nothing if not opportunistic– and fucking stupid –so Beidou opens her mouth. “So, what’s the story with the adepti?” she asks, beginning to pick her teeth with the skewer. “How’ve they been getting along?”

The adeptus only glares harder, if that’s even possible. “Adeptal affairs are none of your concern, mortal,” he huffs.

Beidou groans, now cracking the skewer into tiny sections. “I have a name, you know,” she calls, trying to ignore Haishan having a mental breakdown inside her head (and the implications of a completely different being having a mental breakdown inside your own mind) .

“I hope you do not believe that I wish to hear it.” His tone is so hilariously deadpan , it almost makes Beidou forget how rude he is. 

Well, too bad. “Name’s Beidou. Captain Beidou, actually,” she proclaims. And because she can’t stop herself, she adds “You looked very curious.”

The adeptus scowls darkly, catlike eyes flashing dangerously. Beidou may not be afraid of many things, but pissed-off adepti is right up there with heights. She backpedals furiously. “I mean, uh, I will accept whatever you may call me.”

The adeptus’ glare becomes slightly less murderous, more of a mild bloodlust, and he nods. “Beidou. I heard of you once.”

Well, that’s more than she could ask for. The feeling that she just dodged a blade surfaces, but her chest puffs out with pride. “Oh, yeah? About my illustrious adventures? My slaying Haishan? My–”

“A raving madman came to this very spot a few weeks ago, muttering about how a wench named Beidou cheated him at poker. I found him facedown in the stream two days later.”

Beidou stares. “Oh. Um.” She licks her lips, trying to think of what to say next. The adeptus’s flat, unblinking stare is not helping matters. “Are deaths like that common here?”

“Those who venture into the deepest recesses of Jueyun Karst often never leave,” the adeptus responds matter-of-factly. “They’re often either completely insane or religious pilgrims seeking to hear the voices of the gods. Some fall to monsters, some fall to the terrain. But others, mainly the pilgrims, fall to their own blade if they do not receive divine guidance like they expected. If the gods do not speak to them, which they never will, the humans will sometimes take this as a sign that they are not worthy of divine attention and thus not worthy of life.” 

Beidou swallows. How many unmarked graves had she passed on her way through the mountains? How many bones were buried in the soil beneath her feet? 

She shakes her head. It isn’t her place to wonder about those kinds of things. That belongs to the gods, and she’s decidedly human, taking care of human affairs. Death comes for everyone, but she’ll try to keep it away from herself for as long as possible, and that’s that. Nothing else. 

Wondering about what once was is a good way to drive yourself crazy. Beidou can certainly attest to that.

“So? Which are you?” the adeptus asks suddenly, breaking the silence and driving Beidou from her thoughts. He tilts his head to the side. “Pilgrim or madwoman?”

“I like to think neither,” Beidou responds. “Never been too interested in the gods, and I’m still mostly sane.”

“That could change.”

“Which one?”

“Either.”

Archons, this adeptus is even more infuriating than Ningguang. She’s not sure how long she can keep herself from leaping up there and strangling him, divine or otherwise.

“I’d better turn in,” she says through gritted teeth, hauling herself up and sauntering toward the dilapidated shack. “Thanks for the conversation.”

The adeptus crosses his arms, turning away from her. “Hmph.” 

But she doesn’t miss the fact that he still doesn’t move from that bamboo lightpost.

It’s dark, and Beidou is falling.

It doesn’t matter whether her eyes are open or closed; featureless darkness surrounds her, but she can still tell she’s falling by the wind whistling in her ears and the air stinging against her skin. She tries to call out, but can’t even breathe; her lungs are full of stones, their rough edges slicing the inside of her chest, trying to claw their way out. She calls for Haishan inside her mind, but he isn’t there. 

Then she hits the water, and the world is completely silent.

She doesn’t know where the water came from, or why she’s in it, but it’s freezing and pitch-black and closes over her head almost greedily, an ancient monster swallowing her whole. The sea has always been her friend but now it’s her enemy, biting and clawing at her numbed skin as she struggles desperately, trying to swim.

Suddenly, pain explodes in her side. She looks down and sees a cloud of red pluming into the water, and a faceless figure holding a knife swimming alongside her. The knife is red with her blood, and the figure stabs her again and again. Beidou tries to swim away, tries to push her assailant off her, but she can’t move from the pain. Her limbs are seizing up. She’s paralyzed.

Beidou looks down, and sees that she’s only a skeleton. Bleach-white bones sink farther and farther into this horrible, grasping ocean, but somehow blood still comes when the knife drives into the space between two pale ribs.

Suddenly, the face of her assailant looms out of the darkness. It’s the corpse of a man she doesn’t recognize, eyes like black holes and greenish skin peeling away from his skull. It’s the corpse of the man who drowned in the river, dead like so many others in these mountains, their bones ground to dust beneath the feet of humans and gods alike.

“You cheated me,” he hisses, in a voice that sounds like someone drowning.

Beidou screams, but all that comes out is a cloud of bubbles.

She starts clawing at the man as best she can with her skeleton hands, trying to force him away. He laughs, sounding like a shrieking seabird, and keeps stabbing her, again and again and again. Then his face turns into Ningguang’s, who smirks and closes her crimson eyes; Beidou reaches out to ask her what is happening to her and suddenly she’s holding Ningguang’s dead body. She’s sinking farther and farther and Ningguang is rising away from her, unmoving, to the faraway surface, and Beidou screams again, this time for Ningguang, but of course nothing can hear her because she is alone-

Beidou wakes up gasping for air, her hair sticking to her neck with sweat. There’s a single, terrifying second where she thinks she’s still trapped in that horrible ocean, because it’s so dark, but she sees the pattern of moonlight on the cottage’s dirt floor and can suddenly breathe again. She looks down at her shaking hands, no longer those of a skeleton’s, and touches her side, where the knife had been driven into her so many times. There is no wound.

So it was just a dream. Of course. Beidou breathes a shuddering sigh of relief, then leans her head back to stare at the straw ceiling, crisscrossed with half-rotted wooden beams. Now that she thought about it, one of them could fall on her while she was asleep, and that certainly wouldn’t be good…

“The ancient magic in Jueyun Karst causes mortal fears to be amplified to immense levels, especially in the subconscious. You’re lucky I kept you from going mad.”

Beidou has to stop herself from screaming. She jolts back upright, whipping her head from side to side. There, perched on the windowsill like a massive bird, is the adeptus. The moonlight streaming in from behind him glints on his necklace, and Beidou realizes that his eyes reflect it too, like a cat’s. 

Try as she might, Beidou still can’t form a sentence, her throat parched and chest heavy as if it’s still full of stones. “You–I–”

“Do not worry,” the adeptus says flatly. Now that her eyes have adjusted to the darkness, she can see that he looks sickly, swaying slightly from side to side, sweat beading on his brow. “Your dreams will not haunt you again.”

“How?” Beidou manages to choke out, but her mind is still full of flashing images of rotting corpses and white hair billowing in an endless ocean and a sinking emptiness –

The adeptus shrugs, then winces. “None of your concern,” he huffs, but his usual standoffishness is shaky. He chokes, and a tremor wracks his small frame as he raises his hand to shakily wipe at his mouth. “Bad dreams…” He trails off, and doesn’t seem inclined to continue his sentence.

Beidou gives an unsteady nod, deciding against asking what’s wrong. She knows he won’t answer her. But whatever this adeptus did, he saved her. “Thank you.”

“I do not require thanks. Sleep now. You will be safe under my watch.”

And Beidou is tired, so tired, so she falls back onto her bedroll and dreams of silken white hair against a cornflower sky.

Beidou wakes up to the sound of birds. She used to know how to distinguish their calls from one another; now a golden finch, now a sparrow, now a crane’s mournful caw. But that skill has faded somewhat, displaced by its lack of usage on the open sea. The only birds out there are petrels and albatrosses, persistent things that soar hundreds of feet above the waves across entire oceans without rest.

She listens to their songs sleepily for a while, rubbing at her eyes. Shafts of golden morning light pierce through the cracks in the walls, creating patterns on the cabin’s floor. Beidou hopes she hasn’t slept through the entire morning and wasted the little time available where Jueyun Karst’s temperature was a bit more bearable…

Finally, Beidou stands and stretches, smacking her lips and wishing for something to drink. The liquor she had in a travel bottle wasn’t exactly appealing right after she woke up…maybe the water in the stream was drinkable?

With a yawn, Beidou reluctantly rolls up her bedroll and stuffs it in her pack, then tugs on her boots. She slings the pack over her shoulder and exits the shack, squinting in the sudden brightness. Thankfully, the sun isn’t too high yet, and the breeze is miraculously cool; she should have at least an hour of decent temperatures after this. 

Beidou has to admit that the mountains, even with all their annoyances, do have a certain beauty in the mornings. The low-hanging sun tinges the ever-present clouds orange-gold, and bathes the sides of the cliffs with light. The leaves and grass rustle quietly, and the birdcalls have a certain melody to them. 

As much as it pains her to admit, she could understand why someone would want to spend the rest of their life here, minus creepy dreams. 

Speaking of which…

Beidou scans her surroundings carefully, peering up at the branches of the nearest tree and checking the roof of the house. There’s no sign of the adeptus. Maybe he left in the middle of the night, after doing…whatever he did to dispel her nightmares. She still isn’t sure it even happened; the encounter floats on the edges of her consciousness like a half-remembered dream, until she isn’t sure whether it wasn’t a dream itself.

You should have expected this, Haishan chastises her. Adepti do what they like, and their lifespans are centuries long. He probably just viewed you as another anomaly in these mountains that should be left behind after being dealt with.

That’s a bit rude, you know, Beidou responds, but as much as it pains her to admit it, he’s right. She shouldn’t have expected the adeptus to stay behind; his world was so removed from hers, both literally and figuratively, that their brief encounter was probably the last she’d ever see of him. And he probably felt it was even more brief than she did; for a near-immortal being who had seen civilizations rise and fall, who had assisted gods and struck down countless enemies, one mortal pirate captain was probably not even worth remembering.

But if she knows anything about that adeptus, it’s that he’s good at concealing himself, so she still wonders.

But if she isn’t careful, she’ll waste the morning just wondering , and she needs to get moving. She kicks dirt over the ashes of her campfire, disassembles the makeshift spit and tosses the sticks into the grass. Uncapping her flask, she walks over to the side of the brook and dips it in, then squints at the water sloshing inside. It’s perfectly clear, with no sediment she can see, which is a good sign. After filling the flask to the brim, she recaps it and replaces it inside her pack. 

Jueyun Karst in the morning is slightly more tolerable than in the middle of the day, with the omnipresent heat not yet fully developed. The mist hovering over the land is more a cool relief than a heavy, humid burden. The mora weasels trail behind her as she hikes, and she tosses a few coins over her shoulder, grinning at their excited squeaking. It’s not enough to change her mind about the place, but mornings in the Karst are certainly a rejuvenating experience.

It’s almost enough to make her forget the adeptus.

Questions still roil about in her head like the sea in a storm. Who was he, really? How had he taken away her dreams? Why did he always dash away whenever she tried to get a good look at him?

There’s the peculiar sensation of Haishan giving a full-body shudder. All I have to say is thank Osial he’s gone.

Beidou frowns. Number one, rude. Number two, you’re just like that because you were scared shitless.

Was not.

Were too.

Was not.

This is stupid.

As are you.

Beidou decides not to respond to give Haishan time to think about the poor quality of his insults.

After about an hour, Beidou has slipped almost completely back into her previous view of the mountains. It’s already unbearably hot even just a few hours after daybreak, branches keep smacking her in the face, and the mosquitoes just won’t leave her alone. She’s considered bringing up her electro shield just to zap the little insects whenever they get too close, but that would be a waste of her energy. So she has to settle for intermittently smacking the bloodsucking fiends away with her hands and cursing everything she can think of for her predicament.

Beidou is just finished with calling Osial a lengthy list of names, many of them pertaining to beetles and loaches, when she rounds a bend in the path and stops dead. 

She considers just lying down in the road and letting nature reclaim her. There, in front of her, are the odd war banners, their age-spotted fabric waving innocently in the breeze. Their design and unreadable calligraphy helpfully inform her that they are indeed the same ones she momentarily stopped in front of yesterday.

She had been going in a circle the entire time.

Wow. Just wow.

Shut the fuck up, Haishan. 

Beidou groans out loud, pressing her hands to her forehead and digging her fingers into her hair. Everything, she has decided, is Ningguang’s fault. If she had been more clear with her instructions, Beidou would have known exactly where to go in Jueyun Karst, instead of wandering around hoping to find a place that matched her description. 

“A doorway to an adeptal abode, near the top of one of the mountains,” she tells me, Beidou thinks bitterly. Like I automatically know which mountain she means. There’s nothing BUT mountains out here. Damn rich girl. 

Beidou considers her options. She could simply leave , but that would be admitting defeat. And Captain Beidou is never defeated. So, against her–and Haishan’s–better judgment, she tramps along the path again, determined to find a way off this damned mountain and on to another damned mountain.

There's a flash of green between golden leaves.

Beidou freezes. Could he be back?

She inches forward, one millimeter at a time until she can peer around the calloused trunk of a knotwood tree. She squints at the golden grass and the sky full of fog beyond it. Nothing. Had she been mistaken? 

Probably. Because why would he come back, anyway? Beidou shakes her head and turns back to the path. There’s something to that adage of nothing being in the Karst but bones and dust, she thinks; she couldn’t truly classify that boy-adeptus as living, at least living in the way a human is. 

But as she’s turning, she suddenly sees him standing at the edge of a cliff, his small frame silhouetted against the sky that makes her wonder how she didn’t see him at first. A solitary interruption against the horizon line, an anomaly between misty mountains and endless blue. He’s utterly still, not even seeming to breathe, only his clothing fluttering gently in the breeze. His face is tilted upward slightly, as if he’s searching for something in the sky. He says nothing, even though Beidou can sense he knows she’s there.

Not alive, at least in the way humans are, that’s for sure. Humans burn bright and fast, like the fireworks at festivals, and the very brightest always burn out fastest. Creatures like Haishan barely stir, hidden beneath this world’s surface like buried stone beasts, the same and opposite of the gods that watch from the heavens. 

But adepti are different from both of those. They’re contradictions, almost. Immortal, but not in the way that gods are; human-like, but with that slightly alien quality that had stood out to Beidou even at first glance; transcendental, but always tied to the earth. Servants whose work is never done, protectors who always have to watch those they protect eventually die as the years pass. 

It must be lonely.

Beidou moves slowly, carefully; inching forward a bit at a time around the tree trunk and over to stand at the edge of the cliff about a dozen feet away.

To her surprise, he speaks first. “Why are you still here?” His voice is still oddly raspy, sounding a bit odd spoken by someone who looks pretty young by human standards, but still undoubtedly centuries older than she is. She wonders if its roughness comes from disuse, from how little he usually speaks up in these mountains with no one to hear him. 

Beidou grimaces. “I guess I just kept going in circles.”

The adeptus gives the closest thing to a laugh that she’d ever heard him say, a kind of soft huff-snort of derision. “Don’t we all.”

They’re silent for a moment. The adeptus doesn’t move, doesn’t turn to look at her at all. 

Beidou licks her lips and decides to take her chances. If this ends with a spear through her side, well…she’s survived worse. “Hey, adeptus?”

Silence. She takes that as an affirmation to keep going and takes a deep breath before continuing her question.

“Why do you always…run away?”

He tenses. Beidou immediately realizes she’s said something wrong. “I do not run away ,” he hisses in a voice dripping with venom. He finally turns to look at her, and his golden eyes are narrowed in anger. “Rex Lapis chose me for my loyalty. I do not run. That is impossible for me. Foolish mortal. You know nothing of the adepti, nothing of who I am.” He breaks off the sentence with a strangled hiss, bringing a hand to his forehead as if trying to stave off a headache. A wicked-looking spear materializes in his hands, and Beidou’s heart leaps in her throat, but instead of using it as a weapon he plants the end in the dirt and leans on it like a weary traveler on a walking stick.

Beidou freezes. Eventually, his strangled breathing abates.

She decides to speak again. “I meant the thing you do when you flash away whenever I try to get nearer to you.”

A pause. “That’s none of your concern.” The adeptus’s voice is flat and hard. “Mortals often ask about things they don’t need to know. It’s one of your greatest flaws.”

Beidou scoffs. “So adepti just do what they’re told, no questions asked?”

“Yes,” the adeptus snarls, so vehemently that Beidou takes a step back from him. “We were put on this earth to serve Rex Lapis and protect him and his people. And we continue to do that until our bodies return to the dust of the mountains we live in. Until the day we no longer draw breath, we are extensions of our god.” He forms a fist around his spear with one hand, an unconscious gesture. A memory of battle. 

“Rex Lapis gave me my name,” he says quietly, all intensity gone from his voice. “And for that, I can never repay him. Even in his death, I…” he pauses. “I will continue to devote myself to this land in his honor.”

Beidou watches him with a peculiar ache in her chest, a too-thin figure in strange, old-fashioned clothes, who has watched civilizations pass him by and the lives of humans and gods alike snuffed out. Leaning on a weapon of war for support, looking weary. A warrior who has fought too many battles but refuses to lay down his sword. Even after the death of the god he fought for.

The adepti are an unchanging feature of Liyue, as much a part of the nation as its mountains and forests. They are nearly immortal, with power close to that of the divine and reverence from most humans. But they can never be known, truly known, by a human. A human cannot know a mountain or forest even if they spend their entire existence near it, no matter how much they appreciate its presence. 

Beidou takes a breath. “You’re a protector by nature. But the people Rex Lapis asked you to protect–you don’t know them at all, do you?”

The adeptus tightens his grip on his spear. “I feel no reason to.”

She scoffs. “Why do you have so much disdain for the mortals you fight to protect?”

The adeptus stiffens. She knows arguing with an eternal being is a bad idea, but for some reason, she can’t help but lecture him as if he were a standoffish kid. She suspects the only reason he hasn’t pushed her over the cliff yet is that his contract prevents it, or something.

But when he speaks, his voice is quiet. “Do you know the story of the Yaoyun plague?”

Out of all possible answers, that is not one Beidou expected. But something presses at the back of her mind, a memory struggling to get loose. This time, it dislodges. “The elders in my village mentioned it a few times,” she recalls. Before they drove me out. “I never asked about it, though.”

A nod. “The Yaoyun plague started when a mortal man brought traces of negative adeptal energy back to his village. It quickly spread, inciting madness among the villagers. Eventually, they all killed each other, and the village fell to ruin, with no one willing to disturb the cursed soil.” He looks to the horizon, golden eyes downcast, clouds reflected around slitted pupils. 

Beidou remembers more now; elders speaking in hushed whispers of a village not too far from where they were, a village that had been corrupted by darkness and bathed in blood. She had been too young to understand, a child pressing her ear to the meeting house for a few minutes before skipping away, unconcerned. But if what the adeptus said was true…

“It was I who caused the Yaoyun plague. I saved a man from drowning by carrying him back to his boat when he fell overboard. Some of my karmic debt must have settled inside of him, and…” He trails off. There is pain behind his eyes, not the sharp pain of a wound but the tiredness of a lifelong ache, one that slowly saps the strength from your bones until you can barely stand.

Beidou doesn’t know what to say. 

What could it be like to always have the threat of harming those you attempt to help hanging over you? How can it feel to bathe your hands in blood, again and again, for the protection of the land you’re tied to, while watching that land’s people live and die, generations slipping by again and again, as you remain the same?

It’s lonely.

Beidou starts at Haishan’s voice in her head after his being silent for so long. His tone is solemn and heavy, completely different from what he normally sounds like. 

Well, I can’t assume that my experience was similar to his, but I at least know what it’s like to be immortal like that. Until I wasn’t, hah. But I don’t resent you for killing me, you know? I’ve made peace with it at this point. 

A pause. She can almost sense Haishan sighing, seawater and history and rage and exhaustion all making up a creature that didn’t leave this world, even after death. 

I’m glad, sometimes. Glad that you killed me. Looking back on it, living like that was a hell within itself. 

Beidou doesn’t answer him. She doesn’t need to.

“I’m sorry,” she says, even though her words mean nothing.

He doesn’t even grace her with a reply, instead staring at the distant peaks with a distant look in his eyes. Even though she knows he’s probably hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, Beidou can’t help but feel that he looks like a kid. A lost kid, like she thought he was at first. Hurt by things he couldn’t control. Hurt by things he could, and wishes he had. Hoping for a reason to keep going, for a reason to live when everyone around you leaves, because you know they will. That's how life works, and it’s pointless to hold on to something that’s just going to slip through your fingers, grains of sand on an endless shore.

So you keep going, and don’t look back.

She might be projecting too much.

“I’ve had a similar experience, believe it or not.” Beidou rests her hands on her hips and grimaces, feeling the same strange sense of shame and regret that always twinged in the back of her mind whenever she remembered her childhood. Which she tries not to. Dirty feet, a fishing village, and a young girl with bone-white hair walking along Yaoguang Shoal. That’s all she really needs to know, with her present being so different from her past. 

The adeptus scoffs. Beidou can’t blame him. How could any human experience compare to one of a supernatural being who has walked the same land for centuries?

But she keeps going. That’s all she’s ever been able to do, really.

“I used to be one of those orphans you see all the time, the kids whose parents died or left them behind to move to the city. I wandered around the beach and forest near Yaoguang Shoal, until I chased a dog into a fishing village because it had a bun in its mouth and I was just that hungry.” Now that she’s said it, Beidou remembers that hunger all too well; how it clawed at her, chipping away at her mind, some foul creature hidden within her own body that could never be calmed. “When I got to the village, the dog just keeled over dead. Nobody ever found out why. Then the village head took me in, for reasons I still don’t know today. Maybe truly good people really exist in this world. And even if they do, they don’t last, because he died pretty soon afterwards, too.” 

Dark clouds begin to roll over the serene mountains, muting the shadows of the peaks and darkening the scattered foliage.

Beidou is trying to keep her voice steady, but archons is it hard. “So the other villagers put two and two together and decided I was cursed. That dog and their leader had both died because of my presence. Pretty soon, I was the cause of everything bad; a miscarried baby, a poor crab harvest, a flood. So they drove me out.” She’s looking at the darkening sky now, blinking very quickly, because fuck it she can’t cry here. She’s done so well all these years, holding it together, burying and forgetting. What is it about now that threatens to turn her into a teary mess? 

“They threw stones at me, kicked dirt at me, yelled at me to leave. I didn’t know what was happening. I was still a kid, just twelve or so. I kept trying to talk to them, to try to come back, but they would just scream that my name meant death. ‘Beidou means death’, they said, and for the longest time I had no idea what that meant.” She pauses. “But then, when I met a navigator years later, she showed me a map of the stars. Beidou is one of the stars in the Crux constellation, and its appearance signals death.”

She takes a shuddering breath. This is the second time she’s told that story in full. There’s something about this place, about this adeptus, that bares your soul whether you like it or not. 

“Don’t know why I rambled to you about that, hah,” she says, forcing a laugh. “Not like it’s your business.”

Silence.

Beidou should really stop talking now, but she doesn’t. “I just want you to know that, uh, you don’t need to push people away because you think you’ll always hurt them. Not that you need to know, since you’re, like, thousands of years old. So you know that.”

More silence.

“You’ve hurt people. More than I have. But that’s no reason why you can’t try again. I mean, I’ve been near you for a while now, and I’m not keeling over just yet.” She tries to smile, but can’t. The adeptus still won’t look at her.

What is she thinking, honestly? She can’t even begin to relate to him. Beidou isn’t reverent, not by a long shot, but she at least knows what immortality really means. And she’s heard stories–legends, mostly, but a few are stilted, hesitant accounts of war, told by Ganyu, always a quiet, peaceful woman, but whose eyes can go dark and inscrutable when she speaks of her past. Blood soaking the earth, blood staining blades, blood in the sea. Gods and creatures raging rampant, with mortals only able to watch, helpless, as beings with power beyond their comprehension fought in the heavens above them, not caring what humans they crushed in their desperate bid for dominion. 

She can’t imagine what it might be like to witness something like that. 

And she can’t imagine his resolve, either. Hundreds of years spent serving a god without question. And that servitude continuing even after the god’s death, even when it comes with the chance of harming those he protects.

It is an existence of pain and loneliness, she can tell that much. But he has no choice but to carry it out until he fades into the earth, just like every other feature of Liyue that was once thought of as unchanging. 

Beidou sighs. “If you won’t look at me, I guess I’ll go. They say mortals don’t belong in these mountains for a reason, I can see that now.” 

She starts to turn away, heaving her pack over her shoulder. The grass crunches under her boots.

“Xiao.”

She starts, almost not registering the word had been spoken. The adeptus has finally turned to look at her, still with one hand on his spear. Beidou can’t place the emotion in his eyes. 

He tilts his head to the side, golden eyes glittering and inscrutable. “My name. Xiao.”

Xiao.

Ganyu has told her that in the old days of Liyue, no immortal ever revealed their true name for fear of gods using them as means of control. The details of this ancient magic have been lost to time, but the idea of giving one’s name being indicative of one’s trust persists. That’s why so many of Beidou’s crew use false names; they just can’t rid themselves of the idea that they shouldn’t trust others.

Xiao. In this intonation, the word means “mountain demon.”

She looks at the adeptus in front of her. Small and almost unhealthily slight, with the top of his head probably not even reaching her chin. A deceptively young face and eyes that have seen death. An appearance that is both familiar and alien.

He’s as much a part of this land as she is a part of the sea. Even though they are as different as two beings can be, she can’t help but see herself in him, a devoted guardian of his past as much as he guards the people he protects, a harbinger of death who would like nothing more than to live, live free of burdens and guilt and pain.

But that’s only a distant dream.

They will keep fighting, keep protecting as many as they can for as long as they can. Until the mountains melt into the sea and the sea floats up to the sky.

Something in Beidou’s chest tightens. “Well, you’re always welcome on the Alcor, Xiao.”

Xiao twitches at the sound of his name and looks at the ground. “You may want me there, but you know nothing of what would happen.”

Even though he’s being sensible, the words still sting. “I understand,” she says.

Perhaps Xiao will forget her as soon as she leaves the mountains. Perhaps a hundred years are nothing to him, and their one encounter is a miniscule drop in the vast ocean that is an immortal life. Perhaps even now, he still sees her as little more than an ignorant child. 

But even in a world shaped and ruled by the divine, humans can still persist. They are remembered, even if not by the gods. There are facets of the world even the divine cannot control. Maybe that is where a human soul can find immortality.

So Beidou grins at the adeptus in front of her, a demon in the mountains. “So, I’ll see you around then, Xiao?”

There’s a pause. Xiao fidgets with his spear and presses his lips together, staring hard at the ground. He almost looks embarrassed. It’s the most human expression she’s ever seen, so much so that she nearly laughs aloud.

“...Perhaps,” he finally says, “but do not expect to.”

Beidou almost laughs.