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“The land grows restless yet again.” Madam Ping takes a sip from her (mercifully circular) cup, eyes peering over the edge as she considered Zhongli. “There have been so many new disturbances to the ley lines, it seems. What should not have been unearthed has been unearthed.”
Madam Ping - Streetward Rambler of old - has long been one of his more perceptive friends, noticing more that she let on. It does not now escape here that there has been a good amount of digging around and dredging up of long-forgotten history, all performed by a certain blonde-haired traveler. Zhongli thinks she is within her rights to be concerned, after what happened so long ago with Guizhong, and how close the two women were, but he has also seen the traveler and thinks that if there is any existence that would be capable of dealing with Khaenri’ah and its forbidden knowledge without consequence, it is that strange child. Clearly, Madam Ping disagrees.
“I am aware of the recent…disturbances” he responds with a sigh, gloved fingertips tracing the lip of his teacup. “But, as you are no doubt aware…”
“It is for humanity to decide, in the end.” The force with which she grips the cup is perhaps uncharacteristically excessive; he does his best to dismiss it and put it from his mind as he nods in response.
“That is indeed what I believe Guizhong would have wanted.”
“Even so, do you not think they should perhaps be reined in and told of the consequences?” She frowns. Something about this expression and this wording is wrong, but he cannot quite put his finger on what, or how. “Can you not tell your traveler that these things are better left alone, if they do not wish to come to harm? Many of the those who have long been sealed and dormant begin to stir, to say nothing of Khaenri’ah itself.”
Perhaps this is just her older personality shining through: Streetward Rambler had been, at times, blunt and to the point when she had wanted others to listen to what she had to say, and even now as Madam Ping it could be that facet of her old self shining through. He resolves to think no more on the strangeness he feels, to just enjoy this long-overdue chat with an old friend and the heat of the teacup against his palms.
“I can attempt to convey the dangers of their actions to them, but I cannot stop them.” Nor does he want to: the traveler needs to take the path they believe best, as they observe and record the events of this world. “I will not get involved in these mortal affairs.”
“Won’t get involved again, you mean,” and with that, her warm, teasing tone returns. “We all know what you did at the Chasm, Mooncarver hasn’t been able to shut up about it for ages.”
Zhongli raises a single eyebrow as he brings his cup to his lips. “The Chasm? Why, I haven’t been there in an age or more.”
She laughs, smiling at him knowingly. “Oh, come off it,” she says, reaching out to touch his forearm. “You were there to assist, to keep everything from falling into the abyss. Speaking of…how is the Conqueror of Demons doing these days?”
He feels the corner of his lips twitch upward into a smile. “Hm, I do wonder.”
For a moment he is too lost in his own thoughts to notice the change in expression and posture of the one across from him, or how the outline of her shape fizzles and blurs.
-
Breathe in. Out. In. What was it, the Traveler had said, about heroes?
Breathe out.
He’s had days - nearly a full week - to meditate and simply think: on where he fits in this new world, what his function will become, what he wants it to become. There are enough possibilities that they make his head spin with the dizzying promise of something new, an entirely different kind of life.
Breathe in.
Is this the thought process his lord had gone through, before deciding to spend his days viewing birds and flowers, simply appreciating the land they had worked so hard to build, nurture, and defend? Not to mention, he -
Breathe out. In.
He’s letting his thoughts get away from him again, straying from the questions he needs to answer to the person he most wishes to see. With effort, he forces the memories down. What has happened, happened; what has passed, passed. Nothing more.
He can feel his heart pick up in tempo at the thought of his lord, fighting against the slowing of his breath, the stillness of his body. It throws itself at his ribs like a bird in a cage, fighting to free itself, shouting, ‘It is real it is real, it is real.”
Rex Lapis had saved him.
Xiao’s eyes fly open, breaking his meditation. This is the fourth time this has happened since he began, the fourth time his heart has thrown him off in such a way. He needs to get this useless muscle under control.
But the fact remains that his lord had stepped in to save him, this he cannot deny. The very thought makes him giddy from the attention; makes him mournful, knowing that Rex Lapis is gone and Morax with him. He wants to grab the man in question, a normal funerary consultant, by the shoulders and shake an explanation from him - Why him ? Why now? Why would you waste your remaining powers like this, on someone like that?
Like him.
He wants to wrap his hands in the front of his lord’s jacket and press the two of them as close as they had been in the depths of that darkness, when that golden light had enveloped him and borne him to the surface; two souls juxtaposed, no hidden spaces and no more deception.
Oh, he wants to press the two of them together and -
No, this is not a thought he is willing to chase. Without wasting another moment, he launches himself to his feet and teleports out of Pervases’ temple: he has been lost in idle contemplation for long enough. It is time to move, to do something, to distract him from the thoughts that now plague him.
Long has he harbored these blasphemous thoughts towards his lord - longer than Azhdaha has been sealed, longer than the harbor has properly existed - but now, after that gentle rescue, they are nearly impossible for him to ignore, hammering against the inside of his skull with renewed purpose. He will just have to deal with them as he always has.
Quelling the resentment that still seeps from the land is a chore, but there are times it is almost comforting in its familiarity. Provoke, attack, block, don his mask, slaughter; repeat ad nauseum until his brain has calmed down once more. This is the pattern he has followed for thousands of years with no desire to change it - it gets results, and that is enough.
This time is different, somehow. The first group of corrupted monsters pose no challenge, nor does the second, but by the time he gets to the third he cannot help but feel something is very wrong. They move like puppets, as though someone far away is pulling at their strings.
The motions are familiar to the point of being sickening: no, not now, not this particular god -
Far away he can feel the exorcists try to seal her back away, their seals nowhere near the order of magnitude that would be necessary to hold her for any time longer than a week. That’s the last thing Liyue needs right now, a weekly matchup between a mortal with a mortal’s heart and the one who has long since demonstrated their complete control of a mortal’s emotions and desires.
The disgust he feels is visceral, the fear even more so, some great and primeval thing that rouses the very center of his limbic system to awareness and activates every sympathetic nerve. She will catch him and claim him, heat him back down until he is so pliant she can wield him indiscriminately against her foes, a weapon so lost on the taste of blood and dreams that he -
The nails he digs into his forearm are sharp enough to, thankfully, draw blood and bring his racing thoughts screeching to a halt.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
No, he is stronger, now. He is strong enough for her weakened state to pose no threat. He has overcome so much, with so many: he is supported by hands more righteous than his own have ever been, will ever be.
The sealing of this particular deity had always been given to someone else, perhaps out of the mercy Rex Lapis had in his heart: to Menogias and Indarius the first time, Bonanus and Bosacius the next.
But now everyone else is gone, and Rex LApis has already overstepped once when he should not have interfered.
Deep in his heart, he has already made the promise to step back somewhat from his duties, to leave smaller jobs to the humans and to step in only when there is something they truly cannot handle or get to quickly enough to avoid catastrophe. Unfortunately, this is one of those jobs.
Xiao grits his teeth, shakes his head, and teleports out of the marsh. He can do this. He can seal the goddess of dreams once more.
He will not inconvenience his lord a second time.
-
"He is where ?" Zhongli's honey-brown eyes go the color of cor lapis. It's only his thousands of years of control that keep him from showing any other sign of his adeptal heritage.
Guizhong is not intimidated in the slightest: she never has been, and never will be. It is so right that she be here, by his side, during this difficult and frustrating moment: she always knew what was best, when it came to dealing with others and their emotions.
"Some of the other adepti were tailing him,” she explains. “I'm not really sure why, I'm sure they’ve got their reasons, but from what was described he's headed to the southwest, close to the desert. A group of exorcists actually just seem to have returned from there, sporting some heavy injuries and a few losses, so I'm sure it's just related to that, but…" She clears her throat. "Maybe it's not my place to comment, since I'm no yaksha, but he's still injured." She frowns, face scrunched up in concentration. "He will not be able to protect himself, like this, yaksha or not. He needs his lord, but Rex Lapis is dead."
Where is she going with this? Guizhong has been blunt before, but never in a way quite like this, where it cuts him straight to his core, blunt and approaching cruel, just as Madame Ping had been this morning. "Correct."
"His gnosis is gone, most of his powers are gone, and even if they still exist, he's not…really supposed to use them. Is my line of thinking correct?"
"There is nothing that stipulates he may not use his adeptal skills-"
"-just as there is nothing stipulating that the human Zhongli has any such skills."
"Guizhong-"
"Look." She sighs and pats his upper arm. “Everyone knows how you feel about him, and I think everyone wants Xiao to be here and be well, but any use of your powers could be a possible breach of your own binding contract, and not to mention… Don’t you think it’s time to move on? For all of us?"
"And so you are saying..?"
"Saving him a second time… don't you think it'd be a kind of favoritism? You certainly didn’t save any of us a second time. And don’t you think you’re just trying to prolong the inevitable?" She laughs. “We all have to leave, Morax, you know this: at the end, it’s just going to be you, a mountain against the wind.”
Something squeezes in the depths of his chest. She is not wrong, not entirely: it is a miracle she is still here, with him now, but perhaps to get involved now is indeed doing too much to stave off the inevitable.
He will just have to follow Xiao and see where he ends up and what he should do when he gets there.
-
It does not take Xiao long to find the place he had once called his home, but there is not a single thing that is recognizable now. When Rex Lapis had slain his old master, when he had shot her through the heart with that infamous Jade Bow, the power released from both the shot and the death of a god was enough to bring the entire mountain crashing down upon itself. Xiao himself had been close enough to the goddess that the blast had thrown him against the wall and knocked the last bits of consciousness from him. He had been convinced that was to be his end, but he had awoken on top of the rubble in the aftermath, alive, if not necessarily in one piece, to cor-lapis eyes looking down at him in careful contemplation.
Even after all this time, he has never quite been able to put together why Rex Lapis had bothered to save him, or why he would continue to do so throughout the war, outside of his possible use as a half-decent weapon. All this time, that is what he has assumed: he is worth more alive than dead, simply for his utility in battle and his usefulness as a blade.
This last time had thrown that hypothesis clean out.
There was no longer a need in Liyue for the continued existence of the kind of weapon the yakshas had been. Rex Lapis - Zhongli - had made that perfectly clear on several occasions. A weapon would have been cast aside, another archaic piece of trash that now had no place in the modern world.
The time at the chasm was different, then, perhaps brought on by his lord’s transition to a mortal life.
Or perhaps it has always been this way, and he has been too stubborn, too caught in his own head to notice. He thinks of the hours he spent perched upon Liyue’s highest mountains, watching for any sign of Bosacius’ return, watching and waiting and hoping to catch even a final glimpse of the only living creature in Teyvat that could understand his suffering and the pain that exists inside his heart. Had there been the option to do so, he would have ferried the other yaksha back from hell itself, snatched him from the jaws of death and selfishly kept him from eternal rest. He wonders if it would have made a difference, if Bosacius would have known there had been someone waiting for his return.
The ignorant, self-possessed part of him had never assumed, never dared to assume that his lord was waiting for anyone’s safe return, let alone his, but he can picture Zhongli dressed in his golds and browns standing there upon the balcony at Wangshu Inn and waiting, hoping. The image does not appear so different from the figure he cut back when he had still been Rex Lapis, when he had stood and stared out at the plains forlornly after Guizhong’s death and again after the sealing of Azhdaha. Xiao can picture the expression on his face, see the tension in his neck and jaw from worry and despair that a warlord had no place in voicing, lest he appear weak. At the time, he had wished for the ability to give comfort; now, he wishes to go back and prevent himself from being someone who probably put a similar expression upon his lord’s face.
He should have known better, should have seen that there was someone waiting not just for all of his companions, but for him too, there at the end of their journey. There had always been people waiting for him.
Xiao won’t claim to understand their reasoning - given the chance, he would love nothing more than to cast himself, karmic debt and all, straight to the bottom of the abyss where he can do no more damage - but he can do his best to respect their wishes from now on.
This time, he will not make them worry more than they need to. He has sealed worse, has faced down worse horrors and come back alive. The sealing of his old master will take no time, and he will be gone from this place before the sun sinks past the horizon.
Tonight, he thinks, he will visit the funeral parlor, so that he can give a proper apology and a proper thank you. Tonight, he will come home alive.
Carefully, Xiao picks his way through the rubble of his old master's domain. There is deliberation in every step he takes, in each way he places his foot: he cannot remember what lies amidst the rubble but he does not doubt there is some trick to it, some hidden final punishment for those who would disturb her grave.
The last thing he wishes to do is to trigger anything, to catch himself in her web and become hopelessly entangled in some dreamscape. It would not be the first time, but he hopes he has already had his last.
The air among the rubble is stale and old, the area undisturbed, and if he were not so finely attuned to that miasma of corruption he would never have noticed anything wrong with this place.
A chill comes over him suddenly, one that starts not on his skin but in the deep of his gut and radiates outward, the kind of bone-deep iciness that comes with the purest fear.
He can feel the fingertips at the nape of his neck, in his hair. He will not turn around. He will not give her the acknowledgement she craves.
Here, his former master is no more than a shade of her former self, a houseless spirit with nowhere to couch itself, no-one it can turn to for comfort and strength; he refuses to allow her to become more than this, ever again.
The shade ghosts through him, over him, moving with him, but it cannot speak aloud, and her words had been what had given her power. Without a voice with which to speak, a medium through which to convey her will, she has no sway over his heart or any other, unless they fall into one of her traps.
In. Out. His lungs expand and fill his chest, pushing against his ribcage. This exorcism will be short.
Suddenly there comes
A crackling
A breaking
The sound of a fissure beginning, cutting through even granite
His head snaps around near about the whole way, human form briefly forgetting its shape and falling back onto its avian instincts.
There is nothing there, not even the shade. It is just a blank wall, stone and sediment, rock and ash, rock and ash and
The tip
Of a fine boot, soft brown leather
The same shade as the owner's eyes.
His reaction is instantaneous, instincts overriding every last conscious thought and sending him shooting forward into a deep crag in the ruins, chasing after-
A ghost, he realizes, too little too late. Rex Lapis would not be here, in this place, at this time, but if there ever was something that could get him to forgo his careful thought and lose all composure, it was any threat of danger to that man, and she knew that.
There's nothing else he can do but to face up to the nightmare he is no doubt about to enter; he doesn't even bother to turn around and look for his exit.
All that time ago he would have faced this as a warrior, a slaughterer, would have faced the nightmare with teeth bared and muscles tensed. Now, he knows better. He knows to breathe into the space he wishes to occupy, knows to check for the tension in his shoulders and let it melt away. This is not a battle that can be won with force of body, but it can perhaps be won with strength of spirit.
He will go to Wangshu Funeral Parlor tonight; he will walk into the city he built from the ground up and say, 'I am home.'
Silence is broken by a layer of shale, slamming itself up and over the only exit. The opening closes.
His world goes dark.
-
The dream is an insidious, horrid thing: his late master had specialized in two particular types of dream, each equally nasty. The first was an entrapment she often used before she sent him to finish off whatever foe they were facing, a dream so sweet and light that it would almost melt if looked at for too long. These dreams showed the dreamer their most desired situation in vivid detail, playing to their desirous, weak hearts, and he knows by now that the desires of mortals can be…well. He had tried not to see any part of these dreams.
The other type was a nightmare, plain and simple, an amalgamation of all the dreamer’s past sins and future fears, condensed and rolled into one horrible scenario. It was this type of dream that he was more familiar with, bitter and heavy. It is this type of dream that ensnares him now
She knows the good dream will not hold him: Xiao views every good dream as a threat, every chance at his own happiness a lie, but he is already caught up in his past sins and wrongs and all of the pain that they come with, so trapping him within a nightmare poses almost no challenge whatsoever.
Like this, he struggles to differentiate real past sins from imagined, future fears from true events. Part of him knows what he will see, because he has already seen it and it is easier and more powerful to weave dreams directly from memories.
In his nightmare, Rex Lapis falls.
It is not the exuvia, it is not at the rite of descension: it is when Ossial is upon the harbor and demanding revenge. The Qixing are fast enough to evacuate some of the city, but the waters run red, filled with bloated, drowned corpses. He averts his eyes: the faces are those of people in the harbor now, people who are alive and safe , he tries to tell himself, but his heart shudders nonetheless.
Ossial is relentless: the Traveler does their best, but it is not enough to stop the outpouring of corrupted energy, and it is then that Rex Lapis steps in, not as Rex Lapis, but as Zhongli the mortal, fighting alongside his fellow mortals.
Dying alongside his fellow mortals, as fleeting as dust.
In this dream, he is not fast enough. No matter how much power he exerts, how much of himself he pours out and gives to the Traveler to amplify theirs, it is never enough. Rex Lapis falls.
This has always been his greatest fear, that he would not be there, by his lord’s side, fast enough; that his powers would not be enough to protect the thing he wants most to protect. His contract itself may bind him to the protection of Liyue, but his heart has always bound him to the protection of his lord, and it is this heart now that fails him and brings him to his knees even as his brain hisses that this is a trick, a nightmare, a trap. There is a difference between knowing something is false and being able to act on that knowledge: he can see through the illusion, but it still brings him down and breaks his heart.
He takes the emotions within him: the hurt, the self-loathing, the grief, and he breathes now into the space they create, inhaling deep, and on the exhale…
He finds he can let them go, release the pain the dream has caused and watch it float far away.
There had been a time where this ability would have been fully out of his reach, far from his capabilities, but here, now, he is able to make it happen. He lets it all go.
Apparently, this is not enough for the goddess to be satisfied, and is also not enough to break him free from her dreamscape.
The scene slows and freezes, other than the water, and then a gigantic wave is rising up, up, up and over him, to cover him and drag him down through the depths.
-
The battles have been long and hard, but they have made it through to an era of peace, an era where weapons are no longer necessary.
Each time he has stumbled, each time he has fallen, his lord has been there with his gentle eyes to patch him up and restore him to full health. His touch is gentle and soothing, reassuring and, if he dares to think it, perhaps loving now, after all they have been through.
While he still goes out to fight each dawn, to clean up minor issues, he has somewhere safe and warm to return to, a bed that remembers the outline of his body, strong arms across his back.
There is a day like any other, where the sun is high above the plains and the dark miasma that engulfs the land is too much for him to handle. The Abyss has grown too loud, too powerful, amidst all of the Traveler’s meddling, and with a tainted Abyss Lector added to the usual line-up of enemies is simply too much for him, all at once.
He returns to his roost, bloody and beat, and can find no respite in his lover’s arms, no help, no extended hand, only sadness in the depths of those eyes.
“This is the extent of it all,” his lord says. “There is no longer any use for a weapon such as yourself; why would I mend that which has no place amongst this day and age? Erosion must come for all, as it did for those we once loved.”
And that is that.
Xiao knows, hearing this, that his heart should crumble and break like his bones have, that the joy he has built up in this life should seep from him as his lifeblood has, and yet, something about this is wrong: Rex Lapis’ eyes are too soft, his words are too damning, his resignation is wrong .
Every last neuron in his brain snaps suddenly into place at the wrongness of this scenario.
Years ago, perhaps even a month ago, he would have believed that this was indeed to be his fate, but now…
Now, he knows the truth, knows it with a certainty that lends strength to his claws and lets him rip through the gossamer fabric of his dream, tearing it to shreds.
“Zhongli cares for birds and flowers, for sculpture and fine tea and objects that have no utility, serve no purpose,” he hisses as he comes through the dream and into the goddess’ realm. “He would not abandon me in that state; he would not abandon me at all.”
They are all the other has left, he has come to realize: the two last artifacts of a bygone age, clinging desperately to one another in the hopes that they, too, will not be taken and laid to rest.
{ What do you think you are doing !} the shade of his former master screeches at him. { You dare to tear down all I have painstakingly wrought for you, my little songbird? You would deny my gift of a soft, easy end? }
“I would deny your lies ,” he snarls, the teeth that usually remain hidden behind soft lips suddenly on full, predatory display. “You caught me once, when I was new-got to the world and knew no better; you shall not trap me again, and certainly not with such paltry lies.” When he extends his hand the Jade Spear answers his call. It is blessedly real, solid and weighty in his palm.
“I will seal you now,” he declares. “Your false dreams shall trouble no more souls in this day and age, and never again while I still draw breath.” Step by step he advances, the heels of his boots echoing against the stone floor of her realm, and despite the savage shape he cuts, the goddess
Laughs
And says,
{ If you seal me, you will seal the other dreamer with me, } and for a good long moment he considers it, one soul as a trade for the safety of many, but perhaps the last few centuries have seen him grow soft, for in the end he drops his blade and simply says, “Show me.”
-
Zhongli wants to ask why: why Xiao would go after the goddess on his own, why he'd do so while still injured from the chasm? Has he not learned anything from the past? Does he still truly only see himself as a weapon, as something to batter itself against fate and its bindings until he breaks?
Does he not realize the position this puts Zhongli in? Does he not realize what this will cost? He has overstepped as the former archon once already, and he cannot do so again, but more than that…
Xiao, of all things that still drew breath in their right mind, should have known, should know.
"Does he know of your pain?" Azhdaha hisses in his ear. "Or is he too caught up in his own, too lost in his own thoughts and hurts to realize?" The old dragon chuckles. "Does he truly know you and realize all you have sacrificed, to keep him and Liyue safe?"
He has sealed so many loved ones.
Azhdaha still rests beneath the mantle of the earth; Guizhong's spirit lives on in memories only; Ossial, once simply a rival, lays sealed in the depths of the sea.
Each of them has taken a piece of his heart with them, has placed a crack into his otherwise solid foundation. At each love lost he breaks a little more, is worn down a little more.
To stand back and allow the man who has held his heart for so long to step into the abyss with it will completely undo him, but to go back on his promises, so blatantly this time, will completely damn him. Either way, he is destroyed; either way, he is eroded and worn down.
He watches as a line of blood trickles down the other man's mouth. It won't be long: if he wishes to act, he needs to act now.
"Do you not wish to run to him, to sweep him up into the safety of your arms once more?" There is a light giggle in Guizhong's tone, as if this is of no large importance. "Which will it be, Morax? Your heart or your word?"
–
{ See? He too sees you as no more than a weapon ,} she hisses at him, gleeful. { I bound you with power, but I made no move to hide it. He binds you with emotions, with love, as dishonest as a human; everything I had ever taught you about the weakness of a heart, forgotten and gone to waste! }
"He is not the same." There is new conviction within him, ever since that golden light had enveloped him in the depths of the chasm. "When I was bloodied and beaten you would save me for my further utility: he saved me because I am me, and I am his."
If shades could laugh, he thinks that would be what she was doing, but the sound is a horrendous screech of stale air between rock. { Oh foolish child .} Something cold caresses the back of his neck. { You may have seen through your own entrapment, but will he? And what will he choose, I wonder, when presented with the choice of his image, his morals, and your well-being? }
His shoulders stiffen: he knows the answer, there, knows what he would do and what his lord will do. Before he can have second thoughts he steels himself to the fact that his lord is stuck in a dream where he is under duress, that his choice will be his choice. "He will choose what is best. I trust him."
The goddess Laughs again. { I know your strength and your determination, little finch! } For a moment, a brief moment, his heart opens towards her, towards the moments of gentleness she had shown in the past, before he snaps it shut once more. He glares and contemplates drawing his weapon.
She laughs once more. { It was worth a try, no matter how futile. We both know how this ends: you will emerge victorious and seal me, regardless of if your master survives, but is it so wrong of me to hope that his actions will shatter your heart so badly you are powerless against my charm? }
"They will not ." He has not endured years of yearning, years of watching Zhongli take others as his lover and confidant, for him to break now at one small mistake in a dream.
His old master shrugs and sighs, a chilling breeze against his skin.
{ Let's see the grand finale, then. }
-
Zhongli - Rex Lapis - Morax: he is not sure which of the three he embodies here, in this moment, watching as the man he has loved for centuries and never found the voice to tell falls to the dirt for a final time, falls as he has watched other yakshas fall, brought low by a mix of their own injury and karmic madness, at the end.
How could you make me choose ? He wants to ask, but there is no time.
To save Xiao a second time, now, brings him fully out of the contact he had made when stepping down as Archon.
To not save Xiao…
He closes his eyes. Yes, perhaps that is the best outcome.
And so he stands by as the goddess takes the last breath from the man he loves, stands with his hands at his sides as Zhongli, the human, unable to change the outcome. Guizhong shakes her head next to him.
“Oh Morax,” she says, with a laugh, appearance shifting, swirling: her hair lengthens and she grows tall and imposing, a mirror to the goddess who stands over the body of the last living thing who has truly known him, known his heart and his pain.
{ I believe that is enough. Your choice stands, and now -}
She is not expecting it. He is not expecting it. But he himself - Zhongli-Rex Lapis-Morax - rounds on the goddess of dreams, claws out, teeth bared, madness in his eyes.
The goddess of dreams only smiles.
-
Xiao can tell before the goddess explains, before he sees the outcome.
“He’ll let me die,” he says, “and it will ruin him.”
The days after Guizhong’s death are burned into his mind, how his lord had mourned. Nothing upon Teyvat grieved as a dragon grieved; Guili plains was razed to the flat landscape it was in now during that time, and most had thought Rex Lapis would never be able to come back to himself.
Now, he is old and without his power: such an emotional outpouring…
“It will erode him,” Xiao says, “It will break him, if he chooses to…to let me die.”
{ Is that so bad? It is perhaps a little romantic ,} the goddess replies as her presence fades from his side. { Finding no will to live after your lover has been taken away .}
“I’m not his lover,” he says, and finds that statement is not entirely true, not entirely false.
They are the only two who know of the suffering the past age could bring; they are the last two living things who can share, between them, the grief of losing friends and beloved souls, and who can share in the joy of watching a country grow from tiny seeds planted in the dust to the grandeur that Liyue displays now.
{ Do you not find it a little pathetic, that the mighty Rex Lapis -}
“You live for only yourself, of course you are incapable of understanding,” he hisses.
He had been like that, once, thinking that there was no other way to live than to claw your way through life alone, scraping by to survive. All extended hands had been a threat, any offer of companionship an insidious distraction that sought to weaken him so they could get past his defenses and weaken him.
It has taken millennia and will take eons more for him to truly feel comfortable letting his guard down fully, but he knows how wrong the goddess is, knows how she will never understand in how she portrays Guizhong and Azhdaha and Madame Ping at Zhongli’s side: she cannot capture the true connection that exists between them all, and will never be able to.
But perhaps, he thinks, as he watches her fade into Guizhong’s place and Zhongli round on her, an expression on his face that has not been seen since the Archon war…
Perhaps it is he who misjudged.
-
He rounds on the goddess without a second thought: he has destroyed her once and will simply have to do so again, fully this time. Perhaps, in this state, the energy from his own demise will still be enough to wipe her from the face of existence for all time. When he clashes against her, the outburst of power is enough to send sheets of shale tumbling off the wall with a sharp clash.
“You!” he snarls.
{ Me! } She sounds far too gleeful. { Morax, you truly have gone soft, letting yourself erode for such a pathetic soul: you are like a star, burning yourself out here at the end of your life and looking to take everyone with you .} She laughs without a voice, a strange not-sound that makes all the hair on his body stand on end. { You pathetic old man, you haven’t changed one bit. As it has been in the past, your temper will be the undoing of all you love. }
He is about to refute, to laugh and tell her that she is simply trying to stall him from ending her, from wiping this wretched place off the map for what she has done and what he has seen, for ensnaring him in such a way. Power seeps from his body in an overwhelming outpouring of energy.
“Rex Lapis!”
It is Xiao’s voice, perhaps another trick of the goddess, but then the other man is
Right there, inside his guard, his back to Zhongli, pressing him away from the goddess, away from making such a horrible, damning mistake.
The goddess matches his stare with an unblinking, avian gaze of her own.
{ Come on then, Alatus ,} she sneers. { Finish i- }
He does not hesitate to run her through.
-
Sealing the goddess properly takes only a few additional moments of his time, but it is enough of a distraction that he misses the exhaustion that comes over his lord: Zhongli is Zhongli , after all, mortal funerary consultant: not a god, not an archon, not a dragon, and such an outpouring of what little energy he had left, on top of the exhaustion at being ensnared, seems to take effect all at once.
The man collapses to the dirt and shale faster than Xiao can turn around and grab him.
-
His eyes flicker open to darkness and the soft glow of crystalflies along with the merciful susurration of running water: they are out of the goddess’ cave, then, and he has not perished, not entirely. Zhongli pushes himself up, props himself on his elbows, and almost instantly there is a hand resting on his sternum to gently press him back to a prone position.
Ah.
The details of his dream (not-dream?) are still hazy, but he remembers his choice: a choice to turn aside and to damn both himself and the man who, if he dares to admit it, holds the last few pieces of his archaic heart. He knows Xiao, knows the other man well enough that he knows, painfully, he will harbor no rancour at Zhongli’s decision to not save him, but that to have seen Zhongli accept his own destruction will have broken his heart in some way. He hadn’t known it was only a dream. But did that make it any different, make his choices any better or worse? He had reacted as he would react should he ever be in such a situation, hiding nothing, and now Xiao knows the ugly and bitter truth of his heart, that he both cannot give up on his word and he cannot continue to live in this world, some ancient relic, alone and with a heart only of stone.
“Rest.”
Xiao’s voice is as soft and gentle as it was on the first day they met, a voice that had so contrasted the actions of a vengeful warrior. There is no anger or pain in the word, just that usual soft tone, full of the kind of reassurance and care for others that the man speaking cannot be bothered to offer himself. It’s a trait that has always driven Zhongli to distraction, perhaps now more than ever. He wants to protest and to say that Xiao would never allow himself to rest, even in this state; he wants to explain why he chose what he did, to justify his own actions, to… He’s unsure.
To apologize? To beg forgiveness of the other man for putting him through what Xiao has put him through so many times, the worry of living in a world without the other? To throw himself at the yaksha’s feet and repent for the words that could possibly have prevented all this for both of them, had they been spoken? His mouth tastes of ashes, all the unspoken words of a thousand years piled on his tongue.
It is as if Xiao can hear all of the thoughts spinning through his mind. “We can talk later. Sleep. Rest.”
He must truly be getting old, he thinks, because it takes mere seconds for his resolve to crumble and his eyes to slip closed once again as exhaustion pulls him under.
-
The second time he awakens there is a fire. They’re in a cave somewhere in the nexus of subterranean chambers that had once connected the goddess’ home to what mortals had thought of as the underworld. He cannot help but think of how close to the truth they were: it was no underworld, but rather a deep passage that had connected to Khaenri’ah of old.
This time, when he sits up, he manages to make it the full way. His body feels strange: physically, he knows he has not exerted himself, but mentally, in the dream world, he had released so much power that he feels entirely spent.
“You’re awake.”
Just out of the main glow of the fire, Xiao lounges in a state approaching repose. The soft light causes shadows to play across his fine features, obscuring whatever emotion he is currently feeling.
Zhongli swallows, a tightness clawing at his throat. “Xiao, I-”
“Don’t.”
It is no more than a whisper, but the tone is firm.
“I have been at your side for eons and have known your heart for over half of that. THere is nothing you need to explain to me: your decisions, your desires, your actions.” A wry smile twists his face to something approaching grotesque in the strange light. “At least now you must concede that I am not the only reckless one.”
Zhongli feels a protest bubble up in his chest, anger at being called out so - and by none other than Teyvat’s greatest repeat offender for reckless, self-sacrificing antics - but he shoves the emotion down. He will let Xiao have this point, just this once.
“Then you saw all of it,” he says. “My dream.”
“I found out after that you had left the funeral parlor nearly a full day before I realized the goddess was even unsealed, knowing that She was too much of a challenge for the exorcists and that I would inevitably follow and try to seal herm but…why?”
Xiao finally looks up and over at him, pupils no more than slits in the light of the fire. Cor lapis eyes meet golden brown, a falcon’s ochre.
“The goddess. The chasm. I… you…” Xiao exhales, air whistling through his teeth. “Not even for Ossial, in the harbor, did you waiver. This was for me.”
The assertion catches Zhongli off-guard. Years ago he would not have been able to pull such a conclusion from Xiao even under threat of death, would have fought pointlessly to try and explain to the other man that, yes, it was for love of him that he had acted in such ways. Years ago Xiao himself would have said he was being presumptuous, to assume that his lord’s affection was for anything other than Liyue itself, or for him more than it would be for any other citizen of Liyue.
It is impossible to hide, now, to shove his personal feelings to the side and claim that he had acted in this way for any other reason. The only thing left to do, here, is to face up to what it is that sits between them, unspoken.
“You have always been dear to me,” he says.
You are all I have left he leaves unsaid, but it is these unspoken words that they both hear shouted between them, echoing off the caverns of their hearts. They cling to one another with desperation now, holding onto these final scraps of a life long gone by, hanging on as if, by some miracle, them holding tightly now can bring back all it is they have lost in the years that have passed.
Xiao turns his head away to stare at the cavern wall.
“I know,” is all he says.
Neither can quite look head-on at the other, or meet their gaze. The fire burns in its pit, giving off a warmth that neither rock nor air truly need to survive.
“You don’t need to save me, any more.”
Xiao’s back is to him, but it is as if he can feel Zhongli open his mouth.
“It is not because I don’t want to live,” he says. “I’m going to live. I’m going to stay here for as long as I can, as a thank you to those who came before. But I don’t need…” He sighs. “I am no longer the creature you saved all those years ago. I am the defender of Liyue.” He laughs, as if to himself. “I’m general Alatus, and I fight for the mortals of this land.”
He turns, then, firelight burning in his eyes.
“That means you too, Mister Zhongli.”
-
It takes Zhongli some time to come back to himself and regain enough strength to travel: this new, mortal form certainly has more limits than he is used to, but they will manage. Xiao offers to teleport them back to civilization and Zhongli staunchly refuses, claiming a walk is better for his health and constitution as a mortal when in reality they can both recognize it as an excuse to spend more time in each others’ company, trying to fill the silence that has existed between them for thousands of years now.
They are still very much not talking about what it is they share between the two of them, what feelings and emotions they hold in their hearts for each other, but enough has happened recently that there is almost no need to discuss their feelings, for once. Actions speak louder than all the unspoken phrases between them ever could.
Zhongli’s hands linger a little longer after holding onto Xiao “for support” as they trek through a steep mountain pathway; Xiao’s gaze is now direct and unabashed, eyes fixed upon his lord without shame. Their fingers brush when they walk side by side along the path, and their legs bump against one another when they sit for meals and tea. Zhongli points out trees and rocks and insects as they go and pretends that Xiao’s intense gaze is for the subjects of his lecture and not for he, himself.
On the third day, it is Xiao who decides to speak.
“Rex La- Zhongli da-ren.” His previous bravado and boldness is gone, replaced with the shyness of a boy around his first crush. “I wanted to apologize.”
Zhongli steals himself, braces his heart for another instance of Xiao’s self-loathing, for the phrase, “I am sorry, but we cannot be doing this. ”
Somehow, that phrase never comes.
“I am sorry I made you worry. That you ever might have thought that I didn’t… That I wouldn’t come back. From the Chasm.” He stumbles over the words, tongue tangling and tripping up as though he is speaking through a mouthful of dust, but it’s clear he’s been thinking things through ever since talking with the Traveler and his new friends. Perhaps Xiao is starting to realize that others feel fondly for him, that he, too, deserves to be missed.
That he is loved, has always been loved and deserving of love, and for him to leave would take that love away; that for him to leave would break what little of Zhongli’s heart remains unbroken from the loss of friends and companions throughout the years.
Hopefully, Xiao will continue to remember, will be able to see his own worth and the worth in living for the both of them, Zhongli thinks as he gently takes the other man’s face in his hands, leans down, and kisses him.
They are both all that remains of a bygone time, a time of gods and monsters and unforgiving wars. They are the last two relics of a bygone age, two pieces that, without the other, now lack context or connection to much else, ancient and anachronistic. They are two weapons, two beings capable of bringing so much pain and destruction.
And yet despite this, in spite of this
They fit together perfectly, the last two pieces of a puzzle that has long ceased to exist.