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Xiao has always felt most comfortable in his own presence. He doesn’t hate people, although he knows that’s the impression he gives off. He hates the way being around people makes him feel – heat rising on his cheeks, that too-tight feeling in his chest, eyes darting around the room, searching desperately for an exit.
He tries. He really does try - for the traveler, for Rex Lapis, even for Barbatos and Hu Tao and the little chef and her exorcist friend. He doesn’t want to disappoint anyone. But the relief that sweeps through him when Hu Tao declares that it’s getting late is nothing short of cathartic.
The traveler had helped, but she hadn’t understood. The fresh air, the cool night – it had helped, but it hadn’t been what he needed. What he had needed was to be alone, somewhere far away from the hustle and bustle and the bright lights of the harbor. Somewhere on a mountaintop, with only the birds for company, breathing in cool, dry air under the silvery light of the moon.
The scent of the incense is overwhelming. It burns as he breathes it in, stings his eyes until they’re wet with tears. He practically runs out of the room.
He stands off to the side as they all say their goodbyes. The mortals leave first, then Barbatos, and soon enough it’s just him and Rex Lapis standing on that stone-paved street outside the restaurant with the traveler.
Zhongli, he says every time. Call me Zhongli. Xiao will do as he is bidden. But he will never be able to see this man - his god, his master - as anything else. Even in this form, his amber eyes are the same, shining gold in the low light just as they had on that battlefield, millennia ago. He still bears a trace of the shackles he had worn - two pale scars running parallel down his back. Rex Lapis had been the one to break those shackles. Not Zhongli.
Soon enough he is gone too. Xiao watches as he walks away, golden-brown coattails swaying in time with his steps. When he turns, he finds the traveler looking at him.
She asks him to stay. It’s not unexpected. Xiao hates saying no to her, but he has to anyway.
She doesn’t mind. She never does. She just smiles and hugs him goodbye, enveloping him in her scent, the gentle fragrance of some foreign flower that lingers even as he teleports away.
He finds himself standing atop Mount Tianheng, by instinct rather than conscious choice. The lights of the harbor glimmer below. From this distance, he can appreciate them fully. The wind blows gently through his hair, rustling through the tall grass. The breeze carries the distant scent of qingxin flowers, bitter and pure.
He is alone on the hill above the harbor, until suddenly he isn’t.
“Xiao?” he hears.
He turns; sees her. The blue and black of her outfit fade into the darkness, but her face stands out, a flower blooming silver beneath the moon.
“Yelan.”
Her vision pulses, a flash of blue light piercing the night, and the bow in her hands disappears with a quiet woosh.
“I’m glad to see you’re doing well,” she says.
Her eyes are flat and guarded, nothing like the wide-eyed terror he’d read in her gaze when she’d reached out for him in the infinite void of the Chasm, moments before he’d teleported her to the surface. Her hand had brushed against his arm in the instant before she had disappeared. It had burned like a brand, and Xiao had clutched onto it like a lifeline as he fell.
His mouth feels dry, tacky. “You, too,” he says. He looks back down at the harbor. Away from her.
“Why aren’t you down there, celebrating?” she asks.
He huffs, a quiet puff of air through his nose, barely audible even in the stillness that reigns on the mountaintop.
“I could ask you the same.”
She’s silent, and when he looks back at her she’s staring right at him, one eyebrow cocked.
“I was down there,” he mumbles. “I only just left. Director Hu invited me to dinner with some of her friends.”
“Ah,” Yelan nods. “The traveler, I presume.”
Xiao hums. “Now will you answer my question?”
Incomprehensibly, she smiles. “You never asked.”
Xiao frowns.
“You never asked,” she continues. “You said I could ask you the same. But you never did.”
Xiao stands there for a moment in stunned silence. Then something inside him loosens, a rope beginning to fray, and he laughs.
“Alright then,” he says. “Why aren’t you down there?”
She looks down at the ground. It’s hard to tell in the darkness, but he thinks she might be blushing. The silver moonlight flattens everything out; makes her cheeks and lips appear the same color – a deep purple like violetgrass.
“I was,” she says. “But I guess I wasn’t in the mood for celebration. Besides,” she continues, gesturing all around them with a sweep of her arm. “Duty calls.”
The night is quiet and still. They are the only two people on top of Mount Tianheng tonight. Xiao keeps his mouth shut.
“I suppose you of all people would understand,” she muses.
Xiao tilts his head forward, not quite a nod but a gesture of acknowledgment all the same. “Indeed. Those that would harm Liyue do not take time off to celebrate the Lantern Rite.”
Yelan hums; takes a step forward. Closer to Xiao, closer to the edge. She peers down at the harbor. Up close, her eyes remind Xiao of the sea near Yaoguang Shoal, a shimmering greenish-blue, reflecting the stars and the lanterns alike.
“Duty is a harsh mistress,” Yelan sighs. “A heavy burden to carry. And yet…” She turns towards him. He waits, listens. “You never complain, do you?”
“There is nothing to complain about,” Xiao says, shaking his head. “This is my purpose.”
She pauses for a moment, eyes searching his face. “Don’t you ever get tired, Xiao?”
He frowns. “It doesn’t matter.”
She opens her mouth, inhales like she’s about to speak, but then changes her mind. An owl hoots in the silence. She glances down at the harbor twinkling below, so distant that it may as well be a painting, then back at him. There’s something new in the set of her mouth, in the shimmer of her eyes.
“Sit with me for a while, Conqueror of Demons,” she says. “Sit and rest. We can watch over the harbor from here.”
Xiao feels unmoored. His hands itch for the familiar heft of his spear. “I should really be getting back to Wangshu Inn,” he mutters.
“The marsh is empty tonight,” Yelan says. “And the inn is safe. Just sit. You don’t have to stay long.”
And so he sits.
The grass is cool, slightly damp. He can feel it starting to soak through the thin fabric of his pants. Yelan sits next to him. The grass brushes her bare thighs through the slits in her stockings. Xiao feels an inexplicable surge of heat rising to his cheeks.
“You- you shouldn’t stay too long,” he mumbles, feeling strangely out of breath. “My karma… I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t,” Yelan says. She closes her eyes, tilts her head up and lets the moonlight bathe her face, and he believes her. Somehow, he believes her.
“You can’t know that for sure,” he protests all the same. Millennia of isolation make for habits that are hard to break.
“I can’t,” she hums. “But I’m willing to take the risk.”
He turns, and she’s looking at him. Her eyes seem darker all of a sudden, murky and dangerous like the waters around Guyun.
“Mortal lives are fragile, Adeptus Xiao,” she continues. “You’re not the only thing out here that could hurt me. But I won’t spend my whole life cowering in fear.”
“I’m far more dangerous than anything else out here,” Xiao scoffs.
Yelan grins, and her eyes twinkle like the stars above their heads, like the lanterns down in the harbor. “Surely that means I’m safer here with you than I would be without.”
Xiao’s mouth drops open, but no words come out. The cool night air feels too warm all of a sudden. Yelan is still smiling, teeth glinting in the faint light. For a moment, Xiao feels more like prey than like the predator he knows himself to be.
“Well then, Adeptus Xiao. Why don’t you lay back and relax a little?”
She lets herself fall back into the spongy grass, arms crossed behind her head, legs sprawled out in front of her. Her eyes flutter shut, and a smirk spreads across her face.
“Don’t worry,” she adds. “I’ll keep us safe.”
Xiao scoffs. He wants to get up and walk away. He wants to return to the inn, to the soft golden light of the balcony, to the cold, cloying air of Dihua marsh. But he doesn’t. His limbs feel limp and heavy, and he lies down in the grass next to Yelan.
The humidity soaks through the thin material of his top in seconds, and he can feel the fabric beginning to stick to his skin already. Blades of grass tickle his cheeks, his ears, the back of his neck. He squirms, uncomfortable.
“Relax,” Yelan breathes, reaching out to lay a hand over his thigh. Her palm feels hot even through his pants, a warm, heavy weight on his leg.
“Can’t,” he mutters. “It’s itchy. And wet.”
Yelan bursts out laughing, loud and abrasive in the silence of the night. Leaves rustle loudly somewhere in the distance, a flock of birds taking off, scared out of their slumber by the noise. Xiao almost flinches, but the weight on his thigh keeps him still.
“So this is your weakness?” she laughs. “The Conqueror of Demons, vanquisher of the foulest beasts in all the land, brought to his knees by a few blades of grass?”
Xiao cheeks are getting flushed again – he can feel the heat rising to his face, mirroring the heat on his thigh, the hot flash of embarrassment welling up in his chest.
“You are brave indeed,” he says, voice steady, keeping his turmoil locked up safely inside; “to speak so brazenly to an adeptus.”
She laughs again. His face is burning, and he’s glad that it’s dark enough out here that she probably can’t tell. He thinks he’s felt more in one night than he has in the last hundred years.
“I know you won’t hurt me,” she says. Her voice is thick with conviction, the certitude of a dozen generations of worship.
She rolls over onto her side, and her hand leaves Xiao’s leg, coming up to support her head as she props it up to look down at him. For a moment, he mourns the weight and the warmth of it. Then she moves again, and her other hand is on him, on his hip, resting against the jut of his bone.
He gasps, quiet and choked off, the barest of sounds. A smile spreads across her face.
“Besides,” she continues. “You should learn to laugh a little, Adeptus Xiao. I bet you have a pretty smile.”
He closes his eyes. The way she’s looking at him is making him feel like a fledgling all over again, spreading his wings and taking flight for the very first time, awkward and wobbly.
“...This isn’t very relaxing,” he says after a while. “Are you going to keep- teasing me all night?”
Once more, she laughs. It’s a pleasant sound, now that he’s starting to get used to it.
“Alright then,” she says. “I’ll let you rest.”
She flops back onto her back. Her hand moves again, but she’s lying closer this time, and he can feel the heat of her body, a scorching line down his side.
The urge to look over at her tugs at him, but he keeps his eyes shut and ignores it. Instead he focuses on the grass scratching at his neck, the cool breeze sneaking through the gaps in his clothes, the sound of wings flapping in the distance. Owls, bats, perhaps even adepti.
He focuses on his breathing, in and out, in and out again, deep breaths that fill his chest with the faint scent of silkflowers - Yelan’s perfume? She is breathing next to him, slow and even, and he matches the flow of air through his body to hers.
The grass against his neck and the cold wind and the damp fabric against his back all fade into the background. He breathes, feels the heat of her body against his, and his heart feels a hundred times lighter.
Birdsong wakes him from his trance. When he opens his eyes, the sky above him is still dark, but the owls and the bats are quiet and the birds are singing the arrival of the dawn. He sits up, stretches his stiff limbs, and looks out at the harbor.
On the horizon, a pale light blooms across the waves. The sun is still hidden behind the mass of dark water, but soon it will make its appearance. Duty is a harsh mistress indeed; Xiao can already feel her tugging at his gut. But for the first time in millennia, for the first time in so long that it hurts behind his sternum to think about, he doesn’t want to leave.
A lantern drifts by above them, splattered silver and gold beneath the fading light of the moon. Xiao glances to the side. Yelan is lying flat on her back, eyes closed, fur-lined cape spread out around her shoulders, braid slightly askew. The grass, almost black in the darkness, fades into the ebony of her hair.
His leg is still pressed up against hers, ankle to knee to hip. In the nascent light, the strip of bare skin on her thigh shines, pearlescent. He averts his gaze; reaches out to shake her shoulder.
Her eyes flutter open, dark and heavy-lidded.
“It’s morning,” he whispers.
She stretches, joints cracking, and sits up. Their shoulders brush.
“I have to go,” he says.
She turns to face him. She’s close, so close that he can feel her breath, a gentle stream of air against his face. He feels frozen to the spot. A moment passes, a moment that is both a heartbeat and an eternity, and she leans back.
“I suppose I do too,” she sighs, brushing stray pieces of grass out of her mantle.
Xiao stands, and his hand instinctively comes to his belt, feeling for the familiar shape of his mask.
“Wait,” she says, voice sharp, suddenly alert. “Wait. Don’t leave.”
“Duty calls,” Xiao says, but his hand falls away from his mask.
“I know,” Yelan says. “I only wanted to say goodbye properly.” There’s a beat of awkward silence, and Xiao just stands there. Dawn has come, a crimson flood on the horizon.
“I… I hope I’ll see you again,” she says at last. Something in Xiao’s chest goes tight.
“You know my name,” he says. “If you ever need me, call for me. I will come to your aid.”
She looks at him with sad eyes, a melancholy blue like the sea around Sal Terrae.
“That’s not what I meant.”
He bites his lip. “I… I suppose you’ll never need me to save you. You’re… quite capable.”
She stays silent. He closes his eyes, takes a breath.
“Well… You… You can call for me anyway. I won’t mind. Just wait for me here.”
When he opens his eyes again, she’s smiling at him, and her eyes don’t look so sad anymore. She stands, and he finds himself having to take a step back just so he can look up at her. She follows him, taking a step forward, pressing herself into his space, and grabs his arm.
If it were anyone else, he would have cut their hand off already. But her skin is soft and warm, her fingertips are slightly callused, and when it’s her, he doesn’t mind. Like this, his face is level with her chest. She has a mole just above her neckline, stark against her creamy skin. Her clothes are slightly askew. He averts his eyes, looks down at the ground, calls upon the power of the wind to take him back to Wangshu Inn.
His vision flashes blue-green on his wrist. In the split second before he disappears, she presses closer still, leaning down to whisper in his ear.
“Goodbye, Adeptus Xiao.”
A moment later, he rematerializes on the balcony at Wangshu Inn, alone. He can still feel her - the ghost of her touch on his arm, the brush of her lips against the shell of his ear. He shivers. It’s warmer here, under the golden lights of the inn, but he misses the heat of her touch.
Shaking his head, he steps up onto the railing, spear materializing in his outstretched hand. The heft of it is familiar, and so is the ice-cold of the jade against his skin.
The sun begins to flood the marsh, golden and bright, as he leaps off the railing and lets the wind take him. There is a tug in his chest, a heartstring uncoiled and stretched halfway across Liyue, rooted in the grass atop Mount Tianheng. But for now, there is still work to be done.