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Xiao approached the temple. “So this is it,” he murmured, stopping at the foot of the stairs to peer at everything that stood before him.
A temple built to honour the fallen Yaksha, Pervases, which had fallen into ruin after centuries of neglect. Xiao had never expected it to be repaired, let alone actively in use, but it did appear to be, with the smoke of the incense drifting from the censer placed in front of Pervases’ statue. It looked like it had just been ignited not too long ago. Which meant…
“Who’s there?” Xiao took a tentative step up the stairs. He had planned to be alone that day. A person being there with him was an inconvenience, to say the least. But a small part of him was almost glad that someone else was at the temple, because it meant that someone else had also wanted to honour his late friend.
“A visitor?” A man emerged at the entrance from inside the temple. “Would you like to offer some incense?” He held out a bundle of incense sticks, waiting for Xiao to take one.
Xiao waved him off. “No need. I brought my own.”
The man then looked closer at Xiao, and his eyes widened in recognition. “Conqueror of Demons! It’s you!” He clasped his hands together and leaned forward in a bow.
“Hmm?” Xiao crossed his arms. “Do I know you?”
“It’s me, Wang Ping’an! Remember when I called myself Starsnatcher and pretended to be an adeptus?” His eyes were pleading for Xiao to recognize him. “I told you and the Traveller I was building this temple, didn’t I?”
Xiao thought for a moment. “Yes, I do remember you.” He paused. “Could you excuse me? I want to be alone.”
“Yes, of course.” Wang Ping’an didn’t move.
“No, I want to be alone here.” Xiao was starting to get annoyed. “In the temple.”
“Oh, right!” Ping’an scratched his head. “Sorry about that.”
Xiao watched as he left, making sure he was out of earshot before he proceeded into the temple, placing his incense sticks into the censer and lighting it, before carefully stoking the flames with his anemo power, letting the sweet scent waft throughout the temple.
For a moment, Xiao was silent, allowing himself to be still and alone with his thoughts, brimming with millennia of bittersweet memories, many of which he had still yet to share with anyone else.
But Pervases was dead, and the Mortal Lingering that allowed his illusion to appear had faded. Despite Pervases’s presence having vanished from the realm of the living, Xiao felt that there was no one else he could speak to about all the events that had transpired within the Chasm. Battling the manifestation of Bosacius’s memory, expending all his energy escaping from the depths of the Chasm with the Fantastic Compass, being saved from death by none other than the Geo Archon himself—Xiao’s experiences all ached to be told. And perhaps telling them would make it all hurt less, but maybe that was just wishful thinking.
“Pervases,” Xiao said softly. No response. It was to be expected, but the silence that answered him still invited a small pang in his chest.
“I saw Bosacius again.” Xiao launched into a description of the self-destructive way Bosacius had fought him, a harrowing reenactment of what had transpired in the Chasm long ago. The Electro Yaksha had gone mad and forgotten his name, but still fought in Liyue’s defence during the cataclysm, losing his life in the process.
“I think that’s the last time I’ll ever see him.” Xiao’s stomach twisted in knots as he thought about his old friends and the grim finality of each of their deaths.
“Bosacius is gone, Indarias, Bonanus, Menogias, they’re all dead and gone.” Xiao’s voice had cracked, just a little, just enough so that the pain he always tried to keep well hidden seeped into his words, colouring them with hints of every emotion he liked to pretend not to feel.
“And you’re gone too, Pervases. I’m the only one left.” Xiao’s pain was replaced by a blunted anger as he said these last few words.
He slammed his hands on the altar table, and it shook from the force, the candles and incense sticks nearly being blown out. “Why?” he cried. “Why am I the only one left alive?”
Xiao lowered his voice, but his words remained raw. “I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve to be alive.”
In his memories, the other Yakshas were always laughing, always self-assured, a direct contrast to his eternally sombre self. “Everyone else had so much to live for. They were all so full of life. But me? Even in the beginning, all I thought about was death and bloodshed. It’s not fair.” He let out a heavy sigh. “It’s not fair that I’m the one who’s still alive.”
Xiao paused as he thought. “I was told that I should spend my time around those who make me happiest. That there are people who… care about me. But what do I do when the people who make me happiest are dead?”
Blinking rapidly, he looked at the ceiling to keep tears from welling up in his eyes. What was wrong with him? He was the Vigilant Yaksha, and he was nothing more than a weapon, a tool to be used for Liyue’s safety, or at least that was what he always told himself.
How was it fair that those who wanted to live had gone mad and died, but the one left alive was the one who most wanted to die?
All of a sudden, someone placed a comforting hand on Xiao’s shoulder. He whirled around to face the culprit, but no one was there. Only the feeling of a hand on his shoulder keeping him stable, and a voice that he heard not with his ears but within his mind.
I know you can’t find it in you to live for the sake of yourself, so for now, try live for others, for those you care about and those who care about you. I hope that within time you will let go of your madness of self-hatred and learn to love yourself.
The feeling of a hand on his shoulder disappeared when the voice finished speaking, but the words lingered with him. People’s faces flashed in Xiao’s mind—the Traveller, Rex Lapis, the other adepti who still lived. These were all people he could try to live for, who could help him battle his own form of madness.
Xiao knew then that he was finished with what he had to do, that he could let Pervases’s spirit rest.
“Leaving now?” Wang Ping’an called as Xiao stepped out the door of the temple. “Are you done with what you needed to be alone for?”
“Yeah,” he responded. “I’m done being alone.” And Xiao walked away, not looking back at what he left behind.