Archive of Our Own

Prologue

Beidou’s soulmark starts on her bicep as the tattoo of a star conch that fills with colour as she spends year after year in Downriver with her foster father.

On the day she leaves, broken and alone, the conch explodes in a splash of dyes, trickling down her arm and pooling on her fingertips.

And when she lays her eyes upon the Alcor for the first time, the tints no longer stain her arm; they have turned into koi swimming against gravity onto her shoulder blades, raining onto her back in a hail of stone that gives way to the stars — a myriad of shimmering sparkles all along her spine.

The day Beidou receives her title as Captain of the Crux Fleet, the stars move across her body to her belly button, condensing into a single sphere mapping Teyvat’s sky.

Ningguang’s soulmark starts on her ankle as the tattoo of a fish hook that sinks into the waves as she makes the journey barefoot, day after day, from her home in Yaoguang Shoal to Liyue Harbour.

On the day she leaves, hugging one bag containing her hopes, dreams and savings, the fish hook bursts from the sea in the form of a carp pushing hard against the current, reaching for the sky.

And when she lays her eyes upon Captain Beidou for the first time, the carp swims far higher than her ankle, settling on her stomach, joined by several other tiny fishes as it holds firm against the last of the rapids.

Five days after Ningguang — the newly-appointed Tianquan of the Liyue Qixing — assigned Captain Beidou the impossible task of slaying the sea god Haishan, the carp leaps past the final current, evolving into a dragon coiled around her belly button.

Act I

Most will consider losing an eye as a major loss, but not Beidou. The brunette proudly wears her bandages as a badge of honour, irrevocable proof that she has achieved the impossible: she has slayed a god. 

Haishan had been terrorising sailors and fishermen alike for the last six months. The Qixing had been at their wits’ end, unable to find anyone willing to deal with the threat — until Beidou responded to a public call from their newly-appointed Tianquan for assistance.

To be frank, it hadn’t been the public accolades or the Qixing’s praise that Beidou had been after.

It had been the insane bounty laid on Haishan’s head: two million Mora. Enough to deck out the Alcor just the way she desires, and still have enough left over to start building the fleet of her dreams.

The Crux Fleet. That’s what Beidou would call it when she starts her recruitment drive.

Or — she would, if not for a certain green-haired man named Doctor Baizhu. He’d taken one look at her haphazardly-treated eye, inspected the rest of her injuries, and promptly declared she was to take a three-month-long vacation.

Captain Beidou of the Alcor. Slayer of Haishan. Hero to the people. Ordered to go on a vacation. 

All this — apart from her expansion plans — she relays to her highest-paying employer residing in the resplendent Jade Chamber. The new Tianquan lounges opposite with a twinkle in her wine-red eyes and an insufferable smirk on her rosy lips. “What a shame,” Ningguang remarks, though she sounds far from disappointed.

Beidou scowls. “Thanks for laughing at my misery, Ningguang.” She rubs her bandaged eye. “It also means your summon was useless, because I can’t work for three months, by the way. Gotta figure out this… distance thing… with one eye.” She flips a single coin of Mora into the air, missing wildly as the coin clatters onto the table.

A light chuckle. “No matter.” Slender fingers tap the chessboard on the table between them. “Perhaps we can play a game instead? I do have an hour with you, after all.”

“Huh.” Beidou squints. “Well, if the Lady of the Jade Chamber decides that’s a good use of her precious time, who am I to say no?”

That earns her an eyeroll. “I like getting to know the people I work with. Especially one capable of slaying a god.”

Beidou leans forward, hands on her chin. “Ah,” she says knowingly. “After all, what’s a pawn without a weakness, eh?”

Ningguang’s smug smile makes her heart flutter. “Is that a challenge, my dear Captain?”

It is Beidou’s turn to grin. She leans back, gesturing to the chessboard. “Ladies first.”

“How courteous.” Ningguang rests her head on one hand, lazily flicking a pawn two squares forward.

Beidou could watch her all day. “You seriously think I’m one of those uncouth, boorish types?” She misses twice before picking up a pawn on the left, moving it two squares ahead. 

Ningguang says nothing, but pushes the piece back by one square. Beidou mouths a silent “oh”. Maybe Baizhu is right about that three-month vacation. She won’t be hitting her targets with a claymore for quite some time.

“You’re a pirate,” Ningguang replies placidly as if nothing happened, sending out her knight piece. “It’s an… unfortunate part of the job description, I’m afraid.”

The captain manages to stop a vulgarity from escaping her lips. She swallows thickly. “Hey! I keep my manners around my partners.”

A lazy, knowing smile. “Partner, hmm?”

Beidou returns the smile. “The Alcor’s actions are ‘more or less’ approved by the Qixing, I recall a certain Tianquan saying, when I accepted the Haishan job.”

Wine-red eyes twinkle in amusement. “You forget the most important part, Captain: ‘for the duration of their employment’.”

“Am I not employed now by you, Ningguang?”

Ningguang hums, taking a drag of her pipe — when did she even take that out? “I suppose you are,” the Tianquan concedes, “But as Ningguang, I certainly have no authority to approve your actions.”

Beidou throws up her hands in surrender. 

Ningguang chuckles. The moment is short-lived, however, when three precise knocks ring out on her door. Beidou turns as it opens a crack. 

“I apologise, Lady Ningguang,” a black-haired girl murmurs.

“Yes, Baiwen?”

Ah. One of her three secretaries who look like identical triplets. 

“We’ve received a highly important report that requires your attention. Urgently.”

Ningguang glances at Beidou, who waves a hand dismissively. “Well, best go back to your duties.” She tries to keep the cheerfulness in her voice, but her heart sinks just a little. “Call me up when you’re free? I’ll be very bored down below.”

The Tianquan’s soft lips curve into a small smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “It will be my pleasure, Beidou.”

The report was from Yelan, and it indeed turned out to be urgent. Before Ningguang knows it, three days have passed in a blur of paperwork, questions and investigations. Her wall of intel has been cleared to make way for a new, more pressing matter: Abyss activity in the Chasm.

Her secretaries are hard at work piecing together all the information they have about the Abyss’ movements in Liyue, from 500 years ago to the present day, and it is painstakingly little. Ningguang leans on the railing of her balcony, taking drag after drag of her pipe, staring out at Liyue Harbour.

Even before her secretaries have completed their research, Ningguang knows what must be done.

The only question is — how much time do they have?

The answer arrives in the form of a blue-haired lady wearing an expensive fur coat on her shoulders. The three secretaries take one look at her and bow, leaving the wall of intel unfinished. 

Ningguang doesn’t turn. “Yelan.” The woman’s name is both a greeting and an order. 

The intelligence officer joins her at the balcony. Without missing a beat, she begins: “We investigated the mysterious… accidents. They are premeditated.”

“Is the Abyss Order behind this?”

A nod. “Whatever sleeps in the deepest parts of the mine… they’ve been disturbing it. There’s a foul darkness slowly seeping into the higher levels.”

Ningguang sighs, walking into her office and staring at her wall of notes. Her secretaries have kindly begun with the history of the Chasm and its crucial role in defending Liyue Harbour during the events of the cataclysm some 500 years ago. “It would seem that a nation’s problems never end,” she muses. Haishan had been solved barely a week ago, only to be replaced by another threat.

One that Beidou and her crew surely can’t handle, not when she’s still learning to live with the loss of her eye.

A price she shouldn’t have had to pay, even if this job gave her a Vision in the end. 

Ever since news of Haishan’s death reached her ears, the tattoo on Ningguang’s abdomen has stopped shifting. It remains a dragon coiled around her belly button, almost as if— 

“Do you regret your choices, Ningguang?” Yelan's quiet voice cuts into her thoughts.

The Tianquan allows herself a hollow chuckle. “I know the consequences of what I chose.” She'd accounted for everything when she set her sights on the Qixing with Yelan's support.

Everything — except Beidou.

Ningguang tears her thoughts away from the brunette, focusing on the history written across papers stuck to her wall. “Our ancestors held the frontline at the Chasm 500 years ago with Rex Lapis,” she murmurs. “Is there a chance of a second… cataclysm?”

“No,” Yelan replies. “As far as our intel shows, this doesn’t appear to be an invasion. Monster numbers are not growing in the Chasm; the darkness seems to be a side effect of whatever the Order’s up to in the deeper levels.”

“Which are now inaccessible due to this corruption.”

Yelan nods. “Ningguang, I propose—”

“I know.” The Tianquan turns, twirling her pipe as she speaks, “But If we shut down Liyue’s main mine, we will plunge the nation into an economic crisis. Thousands of miners will be robbed of their livelihoods.” She pauses. “That’s not to say it can’t be done, of course. It would require all seven of us to be on board. I will need sufficient evidence from your team… to convince the rest of the Qixing.”

“I can do that,” Yelan responds easily. 

Ningguang raises an eyebrow.

“Give me a month. You’d best be ready to seal it when I’m back, Ningguang. The Chasm is now a threat, and it’s growing day by day.”

The Tianquan nods. “You have my word.”

Act II

Wooden claymore in hand, Beidou swings at a straw target, hitting nothing but air. Beads of sweat trickle down her forehead as she blinks, taking another step forward and lifting the practice claymore again. Her movements remain as fluid and instinctive as ever, but she doesn’t feel the satisfying thunk of wood against straw.

Now that the initial high of gaining a Vision and killing a god has faded, Beidou reluctantly admits that perhaps losing an eye is indeed a major loss. She’s had to relearn everything — from climbing stairs to grabbing a mug of beer — and it’s only two weeks later that Baizhu has permitted her to start whacking training dummies. 

For good reason. She gets it now.

The brunette turns her head left, right; left, right a few more times. The straw target appears to be further than she estimated. Beidou takes another step forward. She stretches out the claymore. It touches the target. She lifts the sword again, taking another swing.

This hit connects with a satisfying thunk. Beidou side steps; swings again. Miss. Thunk. Miss. Miss. Thunk. Thunk.

“Getting there,” the pirate grunts to herself, carefully gauging the distance between the rack and the claymore before stabbing it in smoothly. With enough time, she will be able to do this as easily as she could when she had two eyes.

Beidou sighs, heading back across the bridge into Liyue Harbour. She’s booked a room at Baiju Guesthouse, at least while she’s still adjusting to living with limited vision. It would be rather ridiculous for Captain Beidou to misstep and fall off her gangplank while trying to board the Alcor, after all. She’s done many silly antics for her crew and friends, but she doesn’t want to receive looks of pity if she trips because she can’t see.

It’s in the shower, as she scrubs herself dry, that Beidou notices the soulmark on her belly button has changed. The armillary sphere is opening, inverting itself into a downward spiral. She shivers.

Her tattoo hasn’t stopped morphing, not since she first saw it as an orphan. Where most people’s soulmarks generally stop changing when their soulmates reach adulthood, Beidou’s tattoo constantly shifts and twists every few days. It often resumes the shape of an armillary sphere, but she’d look at it a day later and it’d be something else. 

She’d asked Qiming about it once. After all, soulmarks chart the journey of their soulmate through ups and downs, writing their story on the body of their loved one. 

“I don’t know, Beidou,” the fortune teller had said, “I haven’t heard anything quite like this. A soulmark that keeps rewriting itself so often… your soulmate might be someone who carries a lot of worries and burdens, maybe — someone who’s constantly adapting to unforeseen danger.”

A Millelith guard? A sailor? A mercenary like herself? That can’t be. Her buddy in Sumeru, Dehya, is always getting into trouble, and her partner Candace has never mentioned anything about their soulmarks changing so often.

There is, however, someone else that fits the description, though Beidou has barely known her for two years, and worked for her less than six months.

But time cannot deny the magnetic hold that Ningguang has over her. Her breath hitches when she thinks about the white-haired woman. Her heart always pounds furiously in her chest when she rides the plaustrite elevator up to the Jade Chamber. Her witty tongue always ties itself into knots when she meets that sharp crimson gaze, piercing all the way into her heart, laying her bare before the Tianquan.

Oh, Archons. It can’t be Ningguang.

She doesn’t deserve Ningguang.

Beidou scrubs herself clean, wrings her hair, and slams the bathroom door shut behind her. 

It won’t be Ningguang.

Pipe in hand, Ningguang leans on the railing of her balcony, lazily puffing smoke towards Bishui Plains. She can see the Chasm in the distance, a gaping indigo hole in Liyue’s picturesque landscape. Today, the Chasm remains an active mine, with hundreds and thousands of miners and inspectors from Huishan Hall going in and out of its depths. 

In a few weeks, it will become nothing but a graveyard.

The sixty-page proposal sits on Ningguang’s desk, referencing an ancient sealing art taught to their predecessors by Rex Lapis himself. Seven bedrock keys will be positioned in the shape of a seven-pointed star to form the sacred Seven Star Array — a seal so powerful the Geo Archon had used it to end the Archon War eons ago, imprisoning gods within its array. 

So crucial was this seal in the war that Morax had then named the newly-formed Liyue Qixing after it. Seven stars to govern the Eight Trades of Liyue, to carry out the Geo Archon’s will. 

As the only Geo Vision bearer in this generation of the Qixing, Ningguang will have to conduct the sealing herself. The rest of their forces will be mobilised in a perimeter around the Chasm to prevent monsters from escaping while the seal is being formed.

The risk, of course, is great. There may be casualties — herself included. 

A few months ago, Ningguang wouldn’t have cared. Now, though, a lingering regret makes her grip tighten on the pipe. She turns back into the Jade Chamber, past her office and into her bedroom. Lifting her qipao, she peers at the violet dragon still coiled protectively around her belly button. 

She’s not a fool; she’s heard the tales of Beidou’s feats.

The Uncrowned King of Dragons. She who splits mountains and seas in two with her mighty sword of thunder. She who bends the storms to her will.

Ningguang peers closer, pinching the soulmark with her fingers. The tattoo has changed, just a little — when did that happen? Where the dragon once had two eyes, it now bears only one. 

She thinks about the cloudy day the Alcor docked after leaving to slay Haishan. How Beidou had been led into the Jade Chamber by Juza, bloody bandages haphazardly wrapped around her eye, an Electro Vision tightly gripped in her other hand. How Ningguang had taken Beidou’s hand and led her not to the office, but to her bedroom. 

How Beidou had stopped, laughed, and said she’d dirty the Tianquan’s sheets, but Ningguang had gripped her by the shoulders and simply shoved her onto the bed. Her laughter died immediately. That lone ruby eye had stared at her, confused and hesitant. Ningguang had been unable to speak, knowing if she so much as uttered a word, her trembling voice would give away the cold fear calcifying in her veins.

For her, the new Tianquan, to show fear before a collaborator? Unthinkable.

And yet Ningguang was absolutely certain that Beidou knew.

They never spoke of this again, sweeping it under the rug like countless other moments: a glance or two, a brush of the hand, those intense stares where they simply stood firm against the other, refusing to back down. But a rug can only hide so much, and Ningguang knows it’s bursting at the seams, threatening to let loose a flood that could ruin the lives they’ve carefully crafted for themselves. 

As a businesswoman, Ningguang would never consider this. The risk is too high; the reward is too little. The gamble is ridiculous. And yet as a woman, as a human — she would regret it forever if she doesn’t try before she seals the Chasm.

If I die during the Seven Star Array, I’d like to have at least—

“Lady Ningguang.”

She exhales, patting down her qipao and inspecting her reflection. “Yes, Baixiao?”

“Captain Beidou requests an audience. It is rather late now; would you prefer I arrange another time?”

Speak of the devil. Ningguang dismisses her pipe with a flick of her finger, turning to see her secretary nervously hovering at the door. “That’s quite alright, dear Baixiao,” she murmurs, schooling her expression into the calm veneer of the Tianquan. “I’ll see her in my office.”

Beidou feels like the entire Jade Chamber lights up when the ever-regal Ningguang sweeps into the office. A stupid grin spreads across her lips when the Tianquan stops, noticing the bottle of fine wine in her hand, and raises a perfectly sculpted brow.

“Got this from a partner,” the captain remarks, swishing the bottle. “As thanks for slaying Haishan. Thought I’d share it with you, since you gave me the job.” And the Mora. 

A low chuckle. “That is why you appeared in my office at… six in the evening?”

“Yeah.” Beidou shrugs, leaning back on the guest chair. “I did tell you I’d be very bored on this vacation, didn’t I?”

A smirk tugs at the corners of her lips. Ningguang turns to a cabinet, extracting two wine glasses from the second drawer. “Well, a fine bottle like this requires a better ambience.”

It is Beidou’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

“Come.” 

The word has an almost magnetic effect on the captain, settling on her chin and pulling her to her feet. Beidou stumbles after the Tianquan, following her through the Jade Chamber’s winding corridors. She carefully climbs a flight of stairs, slightly gratified to see Ningguang patiently waiting for her at the top, and soon finds herself standing before a tea table with four stools on a balcony overlooking all of Liyue. A cool night breeze caresses her cheeks. Beidou draws a deep breath of fresh, crisp air. “Wow,” she breathes.

Ningguang sets the glasses on the table, lowering herself gracefully onto a stool. “This view will suit the taste, I’m sure.” 

Beidou simply stands there. The moonlight falls over Ningguang’s silvery-white hair and slender body, bathing her in an ethereal glow. Her wine-red eyes gleam in the pale light — they are honestly the most beautiful crimson pools Beidou has ever seen in her life. No one else looks at her quite the way Ningguang does: intelligent, understanding, soft. As if she knows all the pain Beidou has caused throughout her life, and she does not care. As if she wants to be here, with her, every time.

But of course she’d look at a collaborator like that. She needs the captain for her dirty work, after all.

“Beidou?” Her voice, low and quiet and musical, reaches her ears.

“A–admiring the view,” Beidou immediately replies, blinking away the shock and settling next to her. She realises it a split second later when their elbows touch. The captain freezes for a moment, stealing a glance.

Ningguang doesn’t seem to mind.

Relaxing, Beidou grabs the bottle tightly. “Here we go!” She swiftly opens the bottle with a grunt, pouring them both a glass of red wine. 

Ningguang laughs, swirling the wine in her glass before taking a sip. 

“Good, ain’t it?” Beidou probes.

The Tianquan hums. “Your partners have good taste.”

“Wow, way to flatter yourself.”

The white-haired woman huffs, daintily drinking the rest of the glass. Beidou refills the two, raising her own. “To a long and fruitful partnership,” the captain declares.

Wine-red eyes twinkle in amusement. “Indeed,” Ningguang replies, clinking her glass. 

Beidou looks out over Liyue Harbour while Ningguang slowly drains the glass of wine. From this height, the commercial city’s numerous lights look like an orange sea underneath them. And if she lifts her head to the sky, she sees another ocean of twinkling, shimmering stars. “You’re right,” she mutters.

“Hmm?” The Tianquan takes the bottle this time, refilling their glasses yet again.

“The view does suit the taste.” Exquisite, unique, heartwarming — just like Ningguang. 

And like a bottle of fine wine, it’s bound to end. Beidou shakes the bottle by the fourth glass, letting the last drops of alcohol fall into her empty glass. “Shame. He should’ve given me two.”

“Or three,” Ningguang remarks.

“You like wine, don’t you?” Beidou steals a glance. Her drinking partner’s cheeks are flushed from the wine, a strangely carefree smile on her lips.

“It tastes infinitely better than the foul-smelling liquid you keep in your bottle, Beidou.”

“That’s ale. Ale!” Beidou snaps. “It’s also infinitely cheaper than your expensive wines, Ningguang.”

She laughs, and the pure happiness in her voice makes Beidou’s heart twist. She’s heard Ningguang laugh plenty, but never like this. Here, with just her, away from her duties and her work, Ningguang seems… lighter, gentler — free. This is a woman Beidou hasn’t met before, a side of her that reminds the pirate that for all of her feats and her intelligence, Ningguang is only still human — as human as she herself is.

“Do you regret your choices?” Beidou blurts out before covering her mouth with one hand. Shit. 

Wine-red eyes land on her. Beidou steels herself to be intimidated once again, but she sees only sorrow. “Perhaps,” Ningguang concedes, twisting her glass round and round between her fingers. “I thought the troubles of a nation would be like running a business. Simple, logical, people-first.”

Beidou doesn’t tear her gaze away.

A hollow chuckle. “I was wrong.” 

Unforeseen dangers lie in wait everywhere.

Beidou’s mind is blank. All she can do is silently lay a hand on Ningguang’s arm. The Tianquan stares at her calloused hand for a moment. “Beidou.”

“Yeah?” Her name sounds so sweet on Ningguang’s lips.

“I’ve thought about this for a long time. Watched the soulmark move throughout my life. And I… I think I know who my soulmate is.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I think it’s you, Beidou.”

The world screeches to a halt. The cool night breeze dies. Her cheeks burn and her heart pounds and there’s a deafening roar in her ears and it cannot be because now death hovers behind the one woman she would never dare to — No. 

Beidou doesn’t realise she’s said the word aloud until she feels Ningguang’s arm slip out from under hers as she recoils. The brunette blinks, feeling beads of cold sweat trickling down her face. She crosses her arms, trying to stop them from shaking.

Ningguang is staring at her, patiently waiting, just as she always has.

Just as Beidou never wants her to.

“We aren’t,” Beidou says firmly, each word feeling like a knife slicing into her heart. “We shouldn’t be.”

Those lovely wine-red eyes water. Ningguang says nothing.

Beidou opens and closes her mouth, but the rest of the words won't slip past the lump in her throat: that they're better off as partners, that she brings death upon those she loves, that she only wants Ningguang to be safe from her curse.

I can't lose you.

The silence drags on for an eternity. Beidou watches a myriad of expressions flicker across those crimson eyes now staring at the floor, all while Ningguang wrangles her fingers, crossing and uncrossing her legs, unable to meet Beidou’s gaze.

Finally, though, she looks up. Beidou glimpses a deep hurt that quickly vanishes as a veil falls between them both, cloaking Ningguang’s heart from her.

All she can see now is the ruthless Tianquan of the Liyue Qixing, cold eyes staring her down like she does any other business partner. “You’re right,” Ningguang murmurs, and her voice does not tremble, not even a little.

Beidou feels her ruby eye water. “Y–yeah.”

Ningguang gracefully rises, dipping her head politely. “Thank you for the wine, Beidou,” she says amicably. “I’ll call for you when the need arises.”

Archons above, it hurts. The smoothness of Ningguang’s voice, the lack of tenderness in her eyes; it feels like a hand punching straight into Beidou’s chest, closing around her heart, and brutally ripping it out. Her ribs hang open and she bleeds and she can’t breathe past the fire spreading all over her trembling body. Beidou stares at the floor, half-expecting to see her still-beating heart, tightly held in Ningguang’s slender hand.

She had always held it since the day Beidou dropped her first pouch of Mora into Ningguang’s outstretched hand.

When the Tianquan leaves without waiting for an answer, Beidou simply stays glued to the stool as the world dies before her eyes, draining of colour and life. When she finally gets to her feet, her legs are heavier than lead, her head spinning violently. She drags her limbs down the stairs, almost crawling on her knees, and staggers out of the Jade Chamber. The roar in her ears drowns out voices and laughter alike as she puts one foot ahead of another, counting the steps back to the inn.

When she somehow manages to stumble back into Baiju Guesthouse and lifts her shirt to inspect her tattoo, she sees only a downward spiral that drips blood.

It takes her a good three hours at the Qixing’s weekly meeting, but with Keqing’s help, Ningguang finally has the rest of the nation’s leaders convinced: the Chasm must be closed by the end of the month.

Construction of the seven bedrock keys is now underway as a top priority, with all high-quality cor lapis being directed to the project under Qixing orders. Now, as Ningguang leaves Yujing Terrace, the Yaoguang and Kaiyang will be holding further meetings in their offices to make arrangements for the hundreds of miners and merchants whose ore businesses and livelihoods will be destroyed by the closure of Liyue’s main mine.

All civilians will be relocated away from the Chasm a week before the sealing begins. A select force of Millelith will depart in a week with Keqing to prepare for the expected onslaught of Abyss creatures when Ningguang begins the Seven Star Array.

Those are the meeting minutes that their General Secretary has written, a copy of which will be sitting on Ningguang’s desk by the time she returns to the Jade Chamber.

With just a speech and a sixty-page proposal, Ningguang has committed herself to a dangerous task. How simple.

At least, in both matters of business and law, logic and order can be applied. Matters of the heart, however, are truly so unpredictable. Ningguang takes a drag of her pipe while she ascends to the Jade Chamber, giving her secretaries and the guard a cursory nod. The sweet smoke burns her throat. It’s a good kind of pain, one that takes her mind off the ache in her chest.

The Tianquan runs her fingers along a leather-bound book lying on her desk. In it, the steps to cast the Seven Star Array are lovingly detailed; the book itself — supposedly written by Rex Lapis — was passed down from Tianquan to Tianquan, finally landing in her possession when she took office. It details the threats to Liyue beyond the games of mere humans and nations; threats that lie far beyond what she can see. 

If all else fails, the Geo Archon will protect them, but Ningguang doesn’t want the threat to even emerge from its grave far below.

A moment in which her concentration lapses, and the Tianquan idly wonders whether Beidou will shed a single tear if she dies in this sealing. It’s a very real possibility given the surge of monsters that will occur once they sense the prison being created. She thinks — hopes, even — that Beidou’s heart might break the way hers did on the night they shared a bottle of wine and she dared to drop her mask.

Perhaps Beidou is right, though.

They both have duties that keep them far from each other, duties that endanger them both. Perhaps it’s better to have never loved than to love — and lose. 

The ache in her chest lessens ever so slightly. Yes. 

Perhaps this is how it should be.

Beidou wakes to her lost eye on fire. She groans, rolling off the bed and yelping when her body slams into the wooden floor. “Ugh…” The captain whines pitifully to herself, tearing at the bandages covering the empty socket while she blindly pats the bedside table, looking for numbing poultices. Finally finding one, she hurriedly dips her fingers into it, spreading the soothing paste over the burning wound. 

Beidou sighs in relief, tipping her head back against the bed, as the fiery pain ebbs. She wipes the cold sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. Once her body stops aching, she flops back onto her bed, idly wondering what ass’o’clock it is in the morning. 

She closes her eye and lets her thoughts drift. These few weeks haven’t been easy. Every time Beidou sees the Jade Chamber, her heart twists slightly at the memory of what had last transpired there. She tells herself it’s the right thing to do, that she can’t possibly cause Ningguang any more pain — but there are days when she wonders if she is the reason for her pain. 

The Tianquan doesn’t frequently appear in public, but when she does, the merchants quietly wonder if her pale complexion and sunken eyes are the result of some wasting illness.

Beidou wants to sail far away from Liyue and perhaps never return, but even that breaks her heart. She wonders if Ningguang can see the Alcor leave the docks from the Jade Chamber. She considers sneaking off in the dead of night instead, so that Ningguang will not watch her step out of her life as quickly as she had burst in. 

There are days when Beidou can’t get out of bed. She’s paralysed by despair, by rage at what she’s done to herself and her soulmate. Is what she’s done any better than condemning Ningguang to a painful death? In times like these, Beidou knows she’s just been a coward: she’d rather break Ningguang’s heart than watch her die, knowing full well that she is the curse that befell her lover. 

She’d rather cause Ningguang pain than let herself suffer. The realisation is sobering. It disgusts her, that she can be this much of a weakling. Ningguang is the strongest woman she has ever known.

Beidou can’t be like her.

The captain spends hours watching the soulmark’s ink stains spread across her stomach, slowly forming what looks like seven nail-shaped stones surrounding the downward spiral.

She doesn’t understand.

She’s heard the news. All of Liyue has: the Chasm will be shut down at the end of the month. The Qixing’s two Vision holders, Tianquan Ningguang and Yuheng Keqing, will lead a delegation to the Chasm to oversee its closure. Beyond that, there is no explanation as to why a portion of the Millelith have been dispatched to the mine as well, together with other known Vision bearers like Chongyun and Young Master Xingqiu of the Feiyun Commerce Guild. 

Beidou hadn’t been summoned. She’s told it’s because she’s still on vacation, that Baizhu refuses to let her out of Liyue. 

A part of her wonders if it’s Ningguang’s own decision.

The pirate sighs, cracking open her ruby eye. With her thoughts running faster than an Electro seelie, sleep is out of the question. She might as well start her day early. 

Swinging her legs off the bed, Beidou gets to her feet. 

She doesn’t see how the seven stone-shaped keys on her stomach pierce into the downward spiral and explode in a splash of blood.

Act III

Lady Ningguang walks down the small dirt path leading into the gaping maw of the Chasm, flanked by Keqing and Ganyu. Squads of Millelith have already been positioned on the cliffs surrounding the mine, forming a perimeter that they are not allowed to break. She stops at the edge of the massive pit, peering into the darkness far below. 

She sees nothing. She knows better than to trust her eyes.

“Lady Ningguang.” Yelan’s quiet voice startles Keqing, but Ningguang has been expecting her.

“Are the bedrock keys in place?” the Tianquan asks, her calm voice hiding all vestiges of fear twisting around her pounding heart. 

The Yuheng recovers, straightening. “Yes. Positioned at the seven points of a star all across the Chasm’s perimeter.”

“And the Abyss?”

“Stirring,” Yelan reports. “They’re sensing movement on the surface.”

Ningguang nods. There’s no time to waste, no time to think. Before the Abyss Order clambers out of the Chasm, the Seven Star Array must be built. “Do the Millelith know their duty?”

“Yes,” Keqing says firmly. “We will prevent anything from breaking through the line.”

“Good. Let us begin.”

The Yuheng draws her sword as Ganyu raises her bow. In response, the sound of a war horn blows, and the Millelith draw their weapons.

Ningguang presses her hands together, sending herself into the air as a spark of Geo, hovering right above the middle of the mine. Here, she can sense the faint pulse of each bedrock key, situated exactly where she’d stipulated on the blueprints of the array that would seal the Chasm indefinitely.

Her middle fingers meet her thumb, a gesture of concentration as she opens her Vision to the leylines running across all of Liyue like pulsing veins in a body. Flowers bloom beneath her feet, petals interconnecting to form a golden mandala that keeps growing until each point touches the cor lapis embedded in the heart of every bedrock key.

The seven nail-shaped stones rise with a roar, sharp tips pointed down towards the Chasm.

On her command, dust rises from the land and condenses into streams of Geo, infusing each bedrock key with power. This surge in elemental energy does not go unnoticed by their enemies: all at once, the sky over the Chasm darkens. From the depths of the mine emerge familiar faces: Abyss Mages and Shadowy Husks, pouncing onto the nearest warriors. Rift portals tear open the very fabric of Teyvat, its dreaded rift hounds bursting out from the darkness within.

The sounds of battle explode across the mine as Millelith and Vision bearers alike engage in fierce combat. Ningguang ignores all of the noise, concentrating only on the pulsing Geo that continues to seep into the cor lapis until the rock shines bright with life.

The first key slams into the star-shaped mandala. An Abyss Mage is caught within, slamming helplessly into the seal. Geo-infused cracks flicker on the surface of the incomplete array. It’s no matter: she will be done with the others soon.

One by one, the bedrock keys pierce the star-shaped mandala, twisting and locking the array in place above the Chasm. Bit by bit, Shadowy Husks are trapped beneath the array, throwing themselves uselessly against the strengthening seal that traps them within the mine. 

It is the Rifthounds that the Millelith are fighting a losing battle against. Parts of the formation have been broken by the powerful Abyssal creatures, and when a Wolfhound emerges, the guards are swept aside like broken toys. Ningguang grits her teeth, willing the Geo infusion of the last two keys to accelerate.

Then — she glimpses a purple dragon, roaring through the Wolfhound’s body, and a body of red and brown swinging a claymore at the monster.

Beidou. 

The rest of her crew leap into the fray with a roar. With the reinforcements pouring in, the Millelith mount a final pushback, driving the monsters back into the Chasm as the final bedrock key sinks into the mandala.

The Seven Star Array flashes, the stars of the Big Dipper gleaming within, and fades. The bedrock keys hover just above the mine’s entrance, each one pulsing with powerful Geo energy.

They’ve done it—

“Ningguang!” Beidou’s booming voice makes her head snap up just as she senses a crack of abnormal energy behind her.

The Tianquan turns to see a black portal open before her eyes. An Abyss Herald steps out. She throws open a jade screen, but the monster is faster: he leaps forward as the screen opens behind him, punching a tidal blade cleanly through her chest.

She chokes on nothing but pain; she sees nothing but white. She hears blood splatter onto the spinning hydro blade that lines the length of the Abyss Herald’s arm, feels specks of it land on her face. He raises his arm. Her body slides down the blade and she groans, feeling the rotating blades churn inside her ribs, whittling away her lungs. Ningguang stares at the silent creature through watery eyes, hanging helplessly on his arm. 

Oh, Archons above. She’s just barely aware of warm blood trickling down her twitching legs over the intense white-hot fire in her chest. Her burning body is screaming for air, but all she can manage is a weak gurgle. She can’t breathe. She sucks in a gasp, only to see more blood spurt from her chest in response. She stares at the Abyss Herald, who lets out a mocking laugh. Then — he withdraws his arm.

She falls—

And a pair of strong, sturdy arms catch her. The jolt causes a fresh wave of fire to burn through her chest, but she only manages a choked gurgle. 

She’s cradled against something so soft and so warm it makes her open her eyes, but she can see only white and moving shadows. She can hear strange noises — gurgles; an odd squelching noise; and the disgusting sound of air and blood being sucked into a cavity that shouldn’t exist. It sounds awfully loud, as though… it’s coming… from her? 

Hot droplets fall onto her cheeks, and the tears in her own eyes slowly slip out. 

“Ning,” a voice whispers, broken and desperate, in her ear. “Can you hear me? Stay with me.”

That voice. It is so earnest, so warm, so very much like a certain pirate captain she’s barely known for two years. 

“Don’t close your eyes.”

Her lips — wet with blood — move ever so slightly, but she hears only wet gurgles coming from herself. Something impossibly cold is pressed on her chest, numbing the burning agony, but she’s still choking, still desperately struggling for air. Still wishing she could have done something more, asked her why, told her no, argued that soulmates should be. Through thick and thin. In sickness and in health. Till death do them part.

“Please!”

Death is so cruel indeed, if the last thing she now thinks of is the one woman she will never be given a chance to love and be loved.

Death is so kind indeed, for Beidou will thankfully never know the pain of having loved and lost.

“Ningguang… don’t—”

Goodbye, Beidou. She shudders; takes a final, weak gasp, and everything fades away.

Numb.

Everything is numb; gray; dark. Beidou stays at the entrance to the Chasm on her knees, helplessly staring at the blood now drying on her hands, long after the Qixing take her soulmate, her everything, her precious star, away. 

Long after Beidou watched Ningguang take her last breath.

A hand touches her shoulder, gentle and slow. Beidou slowly lifts her head to see the worried Ganyu, asking if she’s okay, murmuring that they should go back to Liyue Harbour.

Beidou doesn’t answer. She mutely gets to her feet, pushing the half-qilin away, staggering along the dirt path towards the harbour. 

Her curse. It came for Ningguang. Even though Beidou denied what they had, time and time again. Shouldn’t be. Can’t be. Won’t be.

Death knew anyway. Death took her away.

She stumbles blindly into the Millelith camp, set up a few feet away from the mines. Ganyu’s hand closes around her arm. She’s talking, her pink eyes filling with tears, but Beidou doesn’t understand. All she can hear is a deafening roar of voices in her head, cursing and screaming and yelling at her. 

You had a soulmate. You killed her.

Beidou stumbles into a chair and slumps on it; a bowl of soup is pushed into her shaking hands.

Ganyu is saying: “Eat, Beidou, please—”

I think I know who my soulmate is. I think it’s you, Beidou. 

We aren’t. We shouldn’t be.

The bowl slips from her hand, and the world suddenly turns black.

The next time Beidou opens her eyes, she’s staring at a familiar wooden ceiling with an overhead fan. She stares at it, focusing on it. The fan spins… spins… spins in a perfect circle, like the massive hole that is the Chasm, where— a door opens. She turns, seeing a green-haired, bespectacled man enter. Baizhu looks at Beidou, surprise written on his features. “Oh, you’re finally awake,” he murmurs.

Beidou stares at him. Her tongue feels heavier than lead. Her lips refuse to part.

“You’ve been out for a full day,” the doctor explains, taking her wrist and pressing a thumb to it. “You were in severe shock, Beidou.”

I don’t… understand. She feels cold and numb all at once, like she shouldn’t be here, like she shouldn’t have been able to open her eyes again. 

“Can you speak?”

Finally, her lips part. “Yeah,” Beidou croaks, wincing at the hoarseness of her voice. “Yeah.” She turns her head back to stare at the spinning ceiling fan again; she lifts her other hand to see it’s clean. There’s something she needs to ask, something she needs to know — but the words are trapped in her tight chest, painfully gripping her heart, refusing to let go. 

Baizhu’s brow furrows at her pounding pulse. “You’ve been through a lot, Beidou,” he says gently. “Haishan, losing an eye, and now this… you need time to—”

“No,” Beidou snaps, anger propelling her to sit up. Her aching body screams. She ignores it. She doesn’t need time. She needs to see—

The doctor recoils, eyes wide, as Beidou starts tearing off her bandages, searching for it on her body. It’s not on her stomach, not on her thighs, not on her arms. There’s no mark on her skin, not anymore, not even a single blemish on a scar. 

It’s gone. Her soulmark is gone.

She remembers now. Ningguang lying in her arms, the light dying in her glazed eyes. The pained shudder that ran through her failing body as she drew one final, weak gasp. The blood that flowed in spurts from her chest, staining the grass red.

Ningguang is gone.  

She killed her soulmate. She never even dared to love her. Beidou slumps against the bed, torn bandages hanging from her body, as a gaping maw deeper than even the Chasm opens in her heart. Hot tears prick her eye, threatening to fall.

Baizhu’s voice, quiet and calm, cuts through the haze of pain. “Are you looking for your soulmark?”

Beidou turns, broken and numb. She manages a weak nod.

The doctor stands, gathering her brown tresses and lifting it. He presses the nape of her neck gently. “It’s here.”

She stiffens. Hope, an ever-so cruel ray of light, pierces the darkness. “What… is it?” she croaks, unable to stop her voice from trembling. How dare she hope now, when she couldn’t even find the strength to love her where it counted.

“Little sparkles,” Baizhu answers, “Like light condensed in dewdrops.”

Ningguang. Almost as if she’s fading, hiding behind Beidou, as frail as glittering dewdrops falling off a leaf and shattering on the soil.

“Where is she?” Beidou demands.

“Where is who?” The confusion in Baizhu’s voice is genuine.

“Ningguang.”

“The Tianquan? Why—”

Beidou throws him a glare, struggling to quell the irrational rage surging within her that burns her chest and makes her hands shake violently. “Please.”

Baizhu frowns, the gears in his head clearly turning. His brow shoots up in surprise — Beidou's cheeks burn — and then he relents. “We brought her to the Jade Chamber. The Qixing healers are monitoring her closely,” he explains slowly. “Qiqi and I did our best, but… the damage was… devastating.” His gaze softens as a horrified shudder visibly rips through Beidou’s body. “We don’t know if she’ll pull through the next few days. There’s nothing we can do now but pray.”

No. Beidou’s shaking fingers curl into fists. There is something that she can do.

Something only I can do. 

Something she should have done, when she had the chance.

Before Baizhu opens his mouth, Beidou almost flies off the bed, grabbing her tunic and pulling on her boots by the doorway. She swings her fur cloak over her shoulders, hurrying out of Bubu Pharmacy and stumbling down the steps. She clambers up the seemingly-endless flight of steps to Yujing Terrance, shoves Bu’yun aside and gets on the plaustrite elevator.

Ningguang’s secretaries raise hell the instant Beidou flings open the doors to the Jade Chamber, but she resolutely pushes on. She can’t walk away anymore. She can’t pretend she doesn’t care anymore. The captain bursts into Ningguang’s bedroom and shuts the door behind her. 

She’s only been to Ningguang’s private rooms once. That was when she'd first lost her eye, and was far too dazed to pay attention. For a moment, Beidou stares, slack-jawed, at the ornate wooden dresser to the left and a guest table complete with teacups to the right. Past a red rug emblazoned with a phoenix stands a wooden screen of the Alcor on the sea. Drawn to the painting, Beidou runs her fingers almost lovingly over the ship, which has been painted to stunning accuracy. It sits on a slightly thicker layer of paint compared to the rest of the screen: Ningguang had the original ship repainted to reflect the Alcor.

Her ruby eye waters.

Laying a hand shakily on the screen, Beidou turns the corner and finally sees her.

Ningguang is asleep on her bed, a fluffy blanket pulled up to her shoulders. Hesitantly, Beidou draws closer. Her skin is deathly pale; almost as white as her hair, and her breaths come in faint, weak pants. There is an odd device shaped like a mask over her nose and mouth, glowing with anemo energy. The mask pulses steadily with each weak breath, pushing air in and helping her to breathe.

Beidou almost hears her heart shatter all over again. Voices are whispering in her ear, echoing the thoughts hurtling through her head.

How dare she stand before Ningguang again, after all that she — cursed child of death — has done? 

How dare you push her away and yet ask her to stay, Beidou. 

She pushes past the accusations, past the hateful murmurs, and takes the last four steps to Ningguang’s side. 

How dare you coldly break her heart while nobly claiming to protect her, child of death. 

Still trembling, Beidou gently wipes away the cold sweat on Ningguang’s forehead. She looks so lifeless Beidou would think she is dead, if not for the erratic rise and fall of her chest, and the hisses of air from the Anemo-infused mask.

“Ning.” She manages to push a word through the lump in her throat. “Ningguang.” Her voice breaks as hot tears fall unchecked, landing on the unconscious woman’s cheeks. “I’m… I’m sorry it took me so, so long.”

Beidou gulps, choking back a sob. “Please, please, if it’s the last request I can ever make of you… please, fight this. Don’t leave me before I can tell you—”

—how much I’ve loved you since the day we met.

“Don’t leave me, my heart, my star—”

—it’s you. It’s always been you. 

Ningguang’s hand is cold. She’s barely clinging on to life. Beidou cradles her hand, rubbing it between sobs, trying everything she can do to just reach her, to tell her I’m here, to say yes, to say we should be. 

And words die in her throat once again. She cries helplessly, shoulders shaking violently. Everything that Beidou is and was and ever could be crumbles in the face of the agony calcifying around her heart, squeezing it in an unforgiving grip. 

She stares at her, at the woman she had not allowed herself to love and be loved, at how she lies trapped between life and death. And all Beidou can do is beg like the curse she is, beg like she once did to the people of Downriver when they drove her out, chanting her name.

If begging will snatch her from the jaws of death, Beidou will do it again and again.

Her tears finally dry. Her throat aches. Her head hurts. Her eyelid hangs heavy. She slowly intertwines her fingers with Ningguang’s, sending a final, desperate prayer to any Archon that might still be listening—

Please, let this be enough to bring her home.

Beidou’s soulmark moves as the hours turn into days, peeking out from the nape of her neck. It is now a full moon hanging between her collarbones, silent and still, very much like the woman she watches almost obsessively over.

Ningguang drifts in and out of sleep, barely conscious, and Beidou isn’t sure if she can understand anything she says. Although her eyes flutter open once in a while, they are glazed and unfocused. She never answers Beidou’s calls, her gentle kisses, or her hugs. It hurts, in a visceral way, like a raw burn that simply won’t stop stinging.

While Ningguang sleeps, Beidou changes the bandages wrapped around her torso, as she has been doing since she barged into the Jade Chamber. The exhausted Qixing healers had been relieved to have someone else help monitor her; they haven’t had a proper rest since the Seven Star Array sealed the Chasm. Beidou quietly peels away the bandages that stick to her skin.

Even now, the gaping wound in Ningguang’s chest — held together by strong stitches — continues to ooze pus and blood, while her body struggles to close the near-fatal wound. Baizhu’s and Qiqi’s combined strength pulled her back from death’s door, but she remains far from safe. 

Beidou sees the desperate fight with each weak breath, her body still struggling to stay alive. Each day is a gamble, an endless torment of Beidou’s heart and soul, but she accepts the pain that burns in her veins. It’s her punishment, after all, for having denied what they are.

It’s just… why does Ningguang have to suffer for my own folly, too?

With the bandages unwrapped, Beidou pauses to stare at Ningguang’s soulmark. Baishi tells her it was once a one-eyed dragon, but now it has scattered, forming jagged bloody lines that twist away from the ugly wound on her chest, spreading like poisoned veins all across her torso.

In a way, Beidou supposes, her heart is indeed bleeding this way.

She gently wraps Ningguang's chest in fresh linen, gathering the bloody ones in her arm and leaving them at the door for Baishi to discard.

Beidou returns to see the light of her life waking in a daze again, her red eyes glazed over in confusion. It hurts, it hurts, that there’s no recognition in her clouded stare, that Beidou can’t understand what’s happening to her. She misses the times when she can look into Ningguang’s eyes and read her like an open book, moments that they both quietly enjoyed. 

Beidou can only take Ningguang’s cold hand and squeeze it gently again, whispering words meant more for herself than anyone else: “It’s okay, Ning. You’ll be alright.” 

She tries to believe her own words. Because she needs to believe she’ll get another chance, a chance to say what she yearns to. She’s had so much time alone to mull it over by Ningguang’s side, to think about all the words she’s kept to herself, words that could have saved Ningguang, could have saved them both. The words well up in her chest, wanting to be spilled out, but can Ningguang even understand?

The Tianquan's once-indomitable will seems to be faltering. She’s growing weaker.

But when Beidou looks at her, at the daze in her unfocused eyes, she can’t keep the words in any longer. Better that Ningguang hears it now, than never at all. If these are truly their final days together, Beidou can’t let her go without trying.

If this is what destiny decrees, I’d like to have at least— 

She opens her mouth and lets it all tumble out in a rush of tears.

Ningguang drifts aimlessly in a thick sea of stars. It’s comfortable here. The warm liquid carries her in the darkness, its inky black waves illuminated by the twinkling of countless stars. She opens her eyes once in a while, staring up at the pitch-black abyss of the sky. Sometimes, she hears voices when she does this, whispers and murmurs from the dark heavens. There’s one, in particular, that looks like a ray of light, piercing through the abyss above her.

Beidou… Beidou. She lifts a hand from the inky water, stretching out her palm to the black sky above. She watches as inky blades stretch from the very heavens, tearing through her fingers, disintegrating her hand. 

She recoils with a scream and turns into the jet-black sea, curling up like a fetus and willing the waters to enclose her; to keep her warm and safe; to hide her away from the agony that awaits her in the abyss of the sky.

But the voice is still there, still talking. It keeps whispering, keeps pleading, keeps murmuring. Ningguang, don’t leave me. Please. Please, if you can hear me… I love you so, so much, my beloved, my light. 

Beidou, so broken, so empty, so hurt. Her heart aches for Beidou, for her soulmate who doesn’t want her.

My heart, my star, there’s so much I haven’t said. There’s so much love I want you to feel. I’m… I’m so, so sorry. Please stay with me. 

Beidou, her soulmate, for whom she desires only happiness. Not broken, not crying, not like this.

Open your eyes, Ningguang, please. Ning? …I’m here. 

She rolls, her face to the jet-black sky again. There is a single star shining bright, far brighter than any star she’s ever known in this sea. The inky waters cling to her as she sits up, watching stars fall from her hair and her face. The sky is near, far nearer than she’d thought. 

She looks up and there is no pain, only the gentle caress of a breeze seeping into a sky that has no wind. Hesitantly, she gets onto her knees, slowly reaching out until she can grasp the one shining star in the endless darkness. It is warm.

The North Star. Her love, her lover, her soul, her dream, her heart.

Her fingers close tightly around the brilliant star. Light explodes from her fist. She blinks—

—and opens her eyes to see Beidou leaning over her, cradling her cheeks. The brunette’s ruby eye widens. “Ning…?” she whispers. “Ning, can you hear me?”

Ningguang stares at her, slowly becoming aware of the dull ache in her chest with each breath she takes. She remembers waking over and over like this, but somehow never quite seeing.

Her lips part as she manages only a whisper: “Bei… dou…?”

Relief. So much relief shines in Beidou’s eye that she starts to cry, hot tears falling onto her cheeks. Ningguang blinks at the warmth of the droplets hitting her face. “Archons, Ning, you’re… you’re awake,” Beidou breathes, her voice impossibly warm and gentle and tender all at once. “You’re okay.”

Ningguang blinks a few more times, her mind completely blank. What happened? She’d just been dreaming, hadn’t she? A very, very long dream. “I… heard… you,” she murmurs. In the sea of stars. While I dreamed.

Beidou’s eye widens in surprise. She reaches out, gently carding her fingers through Ningguang’s hair. “You… did?” The pirate’s voice is a low whisper. 

“Why…?” Why do this for me?

The brunette freezes. She opens her mouth; closes it. Again, just like… before. Ningguang feels something in her harden, icy fury suddenly awakening in her chest. The cold seeps through her veins. 

But this time — Beidou speaks. “Because I lied.”

The fury surging within her stops, watching with rapt attention. “Because my soulmate is you, Ningguang.” The words tumble out of Beidou in a desperate rush, as though Ningguang would disappear if she didn’t say it. “It’s always been you.”

Her fury collapses, shattering into a thousand shards of pain that embed themselves in her heart. Words, unspoken, dance in her mind. Why here, why now? 

Beidou must have seen a shift in her eyes, because the pirate continues: “It’s fine if you don’t believe me, Ning.” Fingers tenderly stroke her cheek, in ways Ningguang has only dreamed of. “All I ask is for another chance. To love as soulmates should.” Through thick and thin. In sickness and in health. Till death do us part.

The shards in her heart dig deeper, threatening to tear it apart. Her breath hitches.

Beidou stops then, hands moving to cradle her head gently. “Shit, I’m sorry. Let’s not talk about this now, okay?” She rubs her temples with her thumbs, and Ningguang feels her tense body relax. “Breathe. I promise everything will be okay.”

Ningguang latches onto them, onto the soft coos and firm words Beidou speaks in her low, gruff voice. The tension in her body eases; the pain of each breath slowly lessens. Fingers gently stroke her hair as her eyes flutter shut again.

A whisper in the silence, so soft that Ningguang isn’t sure if she’s dreaming: I’m so sorry. I love you, my star.

The moon hanging between Beidou’s collarbones slowly falls, dropping lower and lower until it hugs her belly button once again. And as Ningguang’s strength returns, bit by bit, day after day, lines dance around the moon, slowly reshaping it into the familiar mark of an armillary sphere.

Similarly, Beidou watches the bloody streaks on Ningguang’s torso scatter, falling like rain and pooling below her belly button. And as Beidou slowly parts the veil between them, bit by bit, day after day, a one-eyed dragon rises from the pool once again.

All too soon, it is the last day of Beidou’s three-month long vacation. When today ends, she will be free to sail, free to start recruiting for the fleet of her dreams.

She spends all of her day by the side of the person who matters most to her.

Ningguang has come a long way since the day the Abyss Herald nearly killed her. Now, when Beidou steals a peek at her bed from around the screen, she sees an unamused look on the Tianquan’s face more often than not.

Still, Ningguang is far from fully recovered. When Beidou looks at her sunken cheeks, tired eyes and scrawny frame, she’s reminded of how much pain her soulmate has endured. The only thing she can do is to stay with her, to try her best and make her smile again.

So Beidou holds up a bag when she comes back to Ningguang’s side from a trip down to Liyue Harbour. The woman in question is resting, her head propped up by several cushions. She’s grown strong enough that that awful Anemo mask is gone, much to Beidou’s relief. “Got you golden crab for dinner!” the captain sings.

Ningguang’s impassive look instantly dissolves into one of utter disgust. “You—”

The pirate guffaws, revealing a bowl of lotus seed and bird egg soup instead, freshly made in Bubu Pharmacy. “I jest.”

The palpable relief on Ningguang’s face only drives her into another fit of laughter. The Tianquan folds her arms, managing to look both crossed and amused. “You are insufferable.”

Her voice is still weak and soft, but the bite in her tone has returned. It brings a wide grin to Beidou’s lips. “You’re the insufferable one, Ning. Who the hell eats cabbage soup for four days in a row? No small wonder you look so poorly put-together.”

Ningguang rolls her eyes.

Beidou settles on the bed next to her, holding up the bowl. “Baizhu says this is super nutritional and easy to eat. It should help with regaining your strength,” the pirate says earnestly, taking a scoop of the egg custard and holding it up to Ningguang’s lips.

A lovely pink flush spreads across the white-haired lady’s cheeks, but she doesn’t protest. She obediently opens her mouth, accepting the spoonful of egg custard. Beidou has the odd feeling that Ningguang perhaps enjoys being pampered, though she’d probably be thrown out of the Jade Chamber if she so much as mentions it.

When the bowl is emptied in record time, Beidou waggles a finger. “See? A change in dishes helps with appetite.”

“Yes, yes,” Ningguang deadpans. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

“You have the most creative ways of saying ‘thank you’, you know?”

A small smile graces her lips. Beidou’s heart soars at the sight; at these tiny signs of contentment that Ningguang allows her to see. It will take time for the reserved woman to open up again, but Beidou counts every moment of happiness as a victory. 

She only has herself to blame. She’s grateful, at least, that Ningguang hasn’t shut her away, that perhaps Ningguang still… loves… her.

On the nights where Beidou whispers the sacred words to her, Ningguang has never spoken it in turn. The brunette knows she is still deeply hurt, perhaps even angry, from what transpired before. At times when Ningguang thinks Beidou isn’t looking, she allows a shadow of pain to emerge in her wine-red eyes; a soul-deep pain that doesn’t belong to her still-healing injury or her wounded pride.

No, it runs deeper than that.

It’s the reason why Ningguang kept Beidou out of the loop on her plans to seal the Chasm. It’s the reason why Ningguang almost gave up the fight to survive.

It’s the belief that she is mistaken, that they are not soulmates. A belief that Beidou herself instilled in her. A belief that the pirate has committed to overwriting with nothing but truthful, all-encompassing love. 

For at the moment Beidou saw the Abyss Herald’s arm punch through Ningguang’s chest, the moment she watched the light in those wine-red eyes die, Beidou knew with absolute clarity that she had been wrong all this time.

Denying that they were soulmates caused only pain. Her curse will find Ningguang, over and over. And if death will hunt her down for the mere sin of being Beidou’s one and only, then it is Beidou’s duty to fight it off again and again.

It is better to have loved and lost, than never at all.

Beidou finally understands.

She strips down to her undergarments, slipping into bed with Ningguang as she’s often had in the past week. It helps her beloved sleep through the night without waking.

Ningguang gingerly rests her head on Beidou’s shoulder. There is still some hesitation, some uncertainty, that lingers between them like a broken veil, that Beidou knows only time can heal. She says nothing, idly carding her fingers through silky white tresses.

“You’ll be free tomorrow,” Ningguang murmurs.

“Yeah.” Beidou kisses her forehead.

“Where will you go?”

“Nowhere.” A pause. Beidou draws her closer, inhaling that comforting scent of glaze lilies. “You need me for a little longer, my light.”

Ningguang’s silence is all she needs to know she’s right.

Beidou stays quiet, letting her lover think in the comfort and warmth of her arms. Her eyelid grows heavy. Softly, as she always has for the past week, she leans down and breathes into Ningguang’s ear: “I love you, my star.”

And tonight, the light of her life finally whispers into her chest: “I… I love you too, Beidou.”

—FIN.