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It wasn’t much longer to his house. The carriage had been able to take them to the entrance to the village but no further, the loose gravel streets unsuitable for horses after the beating of the latest blizzard.
He walked hand in hand with Zhongli as she shivered and pressed into his side.
“Hold on, lyubimaya. We’re almost there.”
“Ajax,” she hissed through chattering teeth. “Your people are absolutely absurd for surviving weather like this. These kinds of conditions should be illegal. Unethical.”
Ajax laughed as he tugged her along. “Oh yeah? Want me to bring it up with the Tsaritsa?”
From behind, he felt Zhongli’s grip slacken.
What was that about? Did she want me to carry her?
He looked back with a witty jab poised on the tip of his tongue, only for it to die with a sinking feeling in his throat. All he had in his hand was a mitten, and laying in a pile in the snow was Zhongli’s pack and coat.
“Zhongli? Zhongli this isn’t funny, where’d you go?!” He yelled frantically.
He was completely alone on the street, with no monsters or bandits in sight, and worst of all no Zhongli.
Just as he was getting ready to drop his bag and go prowl the woods, a rustle from Zhongli’s coat caught his attention.
“What the…”
He crouched down, moving the fabric aside cautiously. His breath caught in his throat as it rustled again, revealing a small brown dragon coiled in the hood, shaking against the cold.
Somewhere between the internal screaming of SHE’S SO CUTE and OH FUCK WHAT DO I DO?! Ajax had half the mind to scoop her up and open his coat to tuck her against his chest.
“Oh gods ohhhh Tsaritsa,” he said to himself as he shoved Zhongli’s coat into her luggage and put the straps of her bag in the crook of her arm.
“Alright my love, just five more minutes,” he whispered.
As he ran through the snow, bags jostling, he held a hand to his chest to keep Zhongli close to his frantic heart.
- - -
When Ajax arrived at his house, he burst through the door like a kid out of the Abyss.
Not funny, the overlapping voices of Tonia and Zhongli said in his head, but at least he knew Skirk would appreciate it.
“Big sister!” the aforementioned girl yelled, leading Anton and Teucer to crowd the door alongside her.
“Sorry princess, not now,” he said, dragging Zhongli’s pack through the door. “I’ll get that later- cold girlfriend coming through!”
“What in the- Ajax?! Don’t leave your mess in the door and go blaming it on your girlfriend. Where is she anyway?”
Ajax shoved his way through the crowded entrance and bolted for the living room. “Mama please it’s a bit of an emergency!”
He heard her scoff exaggeratedly from the kitchen, no doubt getting Father to take over the cooking while she comes investigates the ruckus in the living room. Already he’d been tailed by his younger siblings, and it couldn’t be much longer until Anya, Anatoly, and Taras came out from wherever they were hiding to greet him too.
He paid them no mind as he attended to Zhongli, first pulling her out of his coat and wrapping her in a blanket and placing her on Father’s plush chair. Luckily the fire was already lit, saving him time as he dragged her over in front of the fire and picked her up once again, sitting down and placing the bundle back on his lap.
Tonia was the first to reach them, clinging tentatively to the armrest as she spoke.
“Are you alright, Ajax? And I thought you were bringing-”
“Is that a lizard?” Anton interjected.
“Is it okay? Why is it sleeping?” Teucer asked.
Ajax sighed. He knew the questions would come eventually, but his mind was racing so fast with worry it was a bit hard to diverge his focus.
“I believe she has gone torpid because of the weather but…” Zhongli’s heart didn’t beat. She could mimic the feeling with the steady thrum of Geo, and often did when she rested against Ajax’s chest, but she had no need for many functions of a human. She’d even stopped breathing, probably to conserve as much energy as possible.
“She’s probably never done it in Liyue,” Anton said. “Don’t worry big sister, she should wake up soon now that she’s in front of the fire. Although um… are you sure she’s a lizard? I’ve never seen one with fur and horns like that.”
He smiled nervously. “She’s uh- she’s a dragon actually. Half-dragon, to be exact, on her father’s side,” he added, as if it made the matter any less confusing.
“Half-dragon half-lizard…?” Tonia asked skeptically. “And your girlfriend?”
Ajax cleared his throat nervously. “Ah, no, half-qilin. I wrote to you about Liyue’s Adepti, right? Many of them can shapeshift, including Zhongli. Usually she looks like a human but…” he trailed off with a sigh.
In the quiet of their waiting, he could hear a small commotion from the kitchen that ended with a few clatters of metal and Mama joining them in the living room with her hands on her hips.
“Alright, what’s all this about lizards and girlfriends keeping you from picking up the mess in the hallway?”
“Right… Well, Mama, meet my girlfriend Zhongli,” he said, carefully lifting her up. “I’d introduce her to you back but I don’t think she’s awake yet.”
His mother’s face slackened in disbelief before she gathered herself and pursed her lips into a frown.
“Honey, is this about the whole suitor thing? I told you your Father and I would stop bringing up marriage if you aren’t ready. He hasn’t been sending you letters about it, has he?”
“Mama please, is it that hard to believe I brought someone home?!”
The silence as she bit her lips spoke volumes, leaving Ajax to sputter out explanations, completely oblivious to the way Zhongli stirred in his lap.
“Really Mama, it’s not that hard to meet someone at least part Adeptus in Liyue! Several of them work in the Harbor, you know.”
“Um… Big sister,” Tonia said.
“Really, I’m actually on quite good terms with one of them,” Ajax barrelled on. “Or well Qiqi isn’t exactly an Adeptus but Ganyu and Yanfei, the other ones, are always working.”
“Big sister.”
“Qiqi is a sweetheart, though. I sometimes babysit her even though her guardian argues she doesn’t really need it. Like sure she’s imbued with magic energy and is essentially superpowered, but she’s like Teucer’s age, Mama!”
“Ajax honey, you’ve lost me,” his mother sighed.
Ajax opened his mouth to try to double back and explain, but before he could Tonia cut him off.
“BIG SISTER!”
He turned to her, incredulous. “There’s no need to yell. Why are you so worked up?”
Tonia threw both her arms out and gestured to his lap, “I’ve been trying to tell you your girlfriend is glowing!”
Ajax tried to look and see what the fuss was, but soon his vision was consumed by a flash of golden light that left everyone hurrying to shield their eyes as it overwhelmed the living room. Over the shimmer and hum of geo, he heard his family gasp alongside a deep grunt of surprise right in front of him.
The light settled, along with a much heavier weight in his lap. Ajax blinked away the spots in his vision to see Zhongli, now fully human with her arms slung around his shoulders and her legs thrown over the side of the chair.
“Zhongli,” he whispered, “it’s good to see you back.”
“Ajax…” she groaned, voice still rough with sleep. Everyone had gone still as she blinked the sleep from her eyes and slowly picked her head up off of Ajax’s shoulder.
“Where are we? And is there a reason I’m in your lap…?” she murmured quietly. “Not that I protest being in your arms.”
“I brought you home, lyubimaya,” he whispered. “You collapsed in the village and turned into a little dragon… It scared the daylights out of me.”
He leaned forward and pressed a reverent kiss to her forehead, trying to imbue all his love and relief in the simple press of flesh. Zhongli responded in kind with a pleased rumble, closing her eyes once more to bask in her lover’s affection.
“My apologies, it’s been a long time since such a thing has happened.”
At that moment Ajax’s mother cleared her throat, snapping the women out of their private bubble and bringing back awareness of all the other eyes in the room. Zhongli’s purring stopped abruptly as she whipped her head around with flushed cheeks.
“Ah, Mrs. Zotava. This is… not the first impression I wanted to make.”
The older woman smiled and shook her head. “Don’t you worry, dear. At least I didn’t catch you climbing through the window.”
A choked cough from the hall was ignored as she walked toward the kitchen and paused to give Ajax a pat on the head.
“Call me Polina. I’ll go get started on some hot chocolate while Ajax introduces the kids.”
- - -
Polina returned shortly with hot chocolate in hand alongside her husband who carried the rest. She stopped in front of Zhongli first, who was now wrapped in a blanket and squished into a single sofa chair beside Ajax. From the way she was bundled up, Polina had to lean down to pass her the mug, allowing her to whisper conspiratorially.
“My husband isn’t very social, but you can call him Ivan,” she said. “Don’t take it personally if he doesn’t have much to say.”
Zhongli smiled as she said her thanks. It was one thing to hear Ajax talk about his family, but another thing entirely to see them in person. He told her much in advance to prepare her for their meeting, but as someone so familiar with the scene before them there was much he left out.
Like the way Anton jumped as soon as his father entered the room, taking a few mugs from his hands to distribute to his older siblings that now lingered about the back of the couch. Or the way Tonia reached out her hand alongside Teucer’s to steady his grip as he brought his mug down to the coffee table.
She looked back to Ajax, wondering if she saw what she did, only to find his eyes staring straight at her.
“What are you looking at, xīngān?”
Ajax smiled as if he had discovered all the unknown secrets of the universe, leaning in close to sling his arm around her.
“You, my love. Always you.”