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The day the Exuvia fell split Xiao’s life into thirds.
Immediately, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was his fault, for not being there to place himself in the path, fulfill his final duty as protector of the peace. It had been a long while since he had stood amongst the crowds for the Rite of Descension, watched the strangeness of the great Rex Lapis standing level with the current selection of transitory Liyuen citizenry, a miasma of faces that looked all the same, unidentifiable to one who had watched the endless passage of generations for much too long.
But grand occasion had long since faded into the background for Xiao, the endless march of his days barely impacted by any human celebration, anymore. He wouldn’t even have known of Rex Lapis’ passing if not for the persistence of the golden haired traveler and their strange companion. He had not seen a visitor in so long, and yet he could not turn away an offering so innocently made; the taste of dreams plated by a gentle hand, a starlight smile. Some part of him had resented it, the laughter and the almond tofu- even more so when the traveler finally dealt the blow of Morax’s death. They could not have known, of course. Still, it seemed a mockery, throwing bright light across the shattered foundations of the nation he loved. An offering of dreams to herald the ending of one.
And had it not been one final betrayal, to have been elsewhere while Morax’s body had cooled, unceremoniously, on the carved stone of the Plaza? The thought settled in his stomach like a stone, one more failure. One more reminder of his inadequacy. His worthlessness in the face of time.
Xiao remained on the roof long after the traveler had gone.
For moment, he wondered if it was a falsehood, a mistake. But something in him, a tired, whispering voice, knew it was only his own foolishness, entertaining such hopes. Rex Lapis would not be the first god Xiao had seen rise and fall, and yet still he believed him different; golden, untouchable. One step above the world, looking down on distant stone below.
But in the end, even three sister moons, hung deep in the sky, could not escape the hand of death. Xiao should have known this lesson like the thrum of his own heartbeat.
Nobody survives.
Hours bled past, empty and cold, but he could not quite find a reason to move, to reassert his existence, because if Rex Lapis truly was gone- it was not a mourning, this feeling. It was simply a hollowness. A return.
And Alatus had belonged to the first god, bound by chains and blood. It had been a kindness to be nothing, nobody, an empty shell to be commanded as others pleased. If he had any desires, they had been thoroughly crushed, if not by the pain and punishment, then by his own hand. The one small gift he could give himself was forgetting how to exist at all.
And so no wonder Morax’s mercy had felt like cruelty, at first. A new name, a new contract to rule his body and mind. But Morax had spoken of freedom. Had searched for hope, for want. Had asked something of him he had forgotten how to give. Xiao had belonged to Rex Lapis. Xiao had let him down, again and again.
And now?
He half expected to disappear into dust, return to the nothing before he had been given life. Perhaps the greatest cruelty was that aching, silent, he simply remained.
—
“Rex Lapis is not dead,” Moon Carver says flatly.
It takes Xiao a second to process that new information. The words hang in the air between them. It seems a cruel joke. A lie.
“I have been informed otherwise,” he responds.
Cloud Retainer cuts in. “I believe the knowledge of Morax’s second life was shared in a dream,” she says. “In which case, Xiao may not have…” She pauses. One by one, Xiao watches as the other adepti realize, and something coils painfully in his chest, an emptiness, an unidentifiable question.
“I do not sleep,” he confirms, because the other look to him for a response, next, and expectation is the last structure he knows will hold his weight.
And still there is a sensation of vertigo. The adepti beside him are too close and yet too far away.
“I see,” Cloud Retainer says. There is a silence in the domain in which they are meeting. Xiao feels flayed. Peeled open and scrutinized. A helpless thing.
“Perhaps we should break,” she says. “I will bring Xiao up to speed.”
—
Ganyu follows him to the edge of Jueyun Karst. Xiao does not prevent it; he knows, short of violence, there is nothing he can do to dissuade her. But still, he hopes she will know to leave him be, as he sits by the edge of the lake, digging his nails into the stone.
She does not. She sits down beside him silently, unbothered by the way the wind off the lake musses her long hair.
“It was likely a mistake,” she offers, eventually.
“I know,” Xiao says. “I would not blame him.”
Ganyu lapses into silence.
“Perhaps you should,” she says softly, after a time.
Xiao looks to her. She meets his gaze. He cannot identify the emotion there, but it is not deception.
Ganyu looks down, first. She picks idly at the grass, moving her gaze to the distance, the thin line where the lake meets the sky. “I’ve watched this city grow,” she says. “It’s still young, to me. Ningguang is my Tianqian. I bow to her in respect. And still I see her red cheeked, peddling roses by the side of the cart path.”
She rolls a leaf of grass between her fingers, crushing it until its shape is lost, reduced to green stained fibers, crumpled, a lifeless smear across her thumb.
“You don’t even know who Ningguang is, do you,” she says. She does not look to him. They both know the answer, anyway.
Ganyu exhales softly. “You think me young,” she says. “You think me soft. Confused. I am not.”
Xiao does not respond.
“I watched this world turn for a thousand years, before you were given life,” she says. “I was there when Rex Lapis became the God of War. I was there when he sealed the Dragon of the Mountains. I was there when you were freed. The Archon of Stone stood invincible. I walked behind him, as he went.”
She looks down to her hands, half lost in thought.
“I too, fought in the archon war,” she continues. “I would have given my life, had Rex Lapis asked for it. I laid gods at my feet, stained my bow golden and red. And now I do paperwork for a child, and my Archon did not even ask for my advice before he disappeared into obscurity without me.”
“He did not ask me either,” Xiao points out.
Ganyu looks sideways at him before huffing out a laugh. She shakes her head. It’s a strangely human mannerism. Xiao does not find it as unpleasant as he should.
She turns back to the horizon, flicking a fibrous clump, what’s left of the grass, into the lake. It makes no splash, no ripple; it sits on the surface, then slowly becomes inundated with water, sinking inch by inch below the surface until finally it disappears entirely, perhaps to be swallowed by some confused fish, perhaps to settle onto the lakefloor, to be covered by sand over the years, rotting in the dark, pressed into fossilhood.
Somewhere beyond the lake, candles are being lit in Liyue Harbor. Rex Lapis is sharing dinner with his new favorite children, pretending not to see the distance between himself and the place he wants to be. The temples of the Yaksha crumble, bit by bit, and the god of the vortex stirs in the darkness.
Ganyu attempts to stifle a yawn, humming an awkward sound behind the cover of a hand.
“You should sleep,” Xiao offers gruffly.
“Not yet,” Ganyu replies. “I wanted to see the sunset.”
“Okay,” Xiao says. Ganyu does not need guarding, but nevertheless, he will watch her tonight. Just to be certain. He makes to stand.
Something stops him. He looks back, and Ganyu is watching him, looking like she’s not quite sure what to say.
They both still, frozen in place, for an eternity of a moment. He takes in her face, the vulnerability of her expression, the dark circles beneath her eyes. Some understanding passes between them, two great warriors long since displaced from time, waiting endlessly with nothing to say.
Xiao sits back down.
Cloud crawls across the sky, the falling sun dripping color across the expanse of the horizon, reflecting in the gentle ripples of the lake. The sky turns violet, then blackberry, then indigo. As the mountains finally swallow the sun, stars blink to life, cracking the night with tiny pinpricks of brightness, following the curve of the moon.
It is not until the sun has completely disappeared from view that Ganyu finally speaks, again. “Thank you,” she says, quietly.
Xiao nods.
They settle in their positions, two immovable stones, worn but unbroken in the face of an endless river of time. Changed but unchanging, smoothed and yet scarred.
Nothing keeps them here.
For now, for a little while longer, they will stay.