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Morax has to do a double take as he crosses the barren battlefield. Amidst the destruction and rubble of a crumbling civilisation about to have the fabric of its reality itself torn and collapsed was… a child.
Shaken, wounded, and bloody, but a child nonetheless– and from the looks of it, he couldn't be older than 15.
Against his better judgment, Morax takes a detour. He plucks the child from off the ruins of the battlefield, quickly tucking him against his chest before returning to the escape route he was on.
The child panics, quickly manifesting blades of water as he struggles in Morax's hold. A hydro vision… a nationless hydro vision.
He lands a couple of stabs before he stops, confusion replacing fear as he realises his attacks were of little to no hindrance to his current captor, the wounds healing over the moment his blades leave.
"Relax, I mean you no harm, child," Morax assures quietly as he brings them to safety.
He passes into the fringes of Liyue's countryside, away from the growing chasm of abyssal energy that was quickly splintering Liyue's mining lands and sets the boy down. Remarkably, Morax discovers that as far as wounds go, the boy only had one nasty gash down the side of his abdomen. As for the rest of the blood…
Well, so long as the child was safe.
"How did you get here?" Morax asks as he finishes sealing the wound, the golden glow of his power slowly fading out.
"I…" the boy shakes his head, clearly still in shock, "I don't know, I don't know… Is this one of master's tests? Did I pass? Can I go back now? Please?"
Internally, Morax panics, not quite used to dealing with children, "I– I don't know who your master is child–"
"Then where am I? I don't want to stay here!"
Morax balks, "I– Oh no… Please don't– Oh heavens, I don't know who your master is but I promise I'll try to help." The boy seems to calm down at that, hiccuping as he tries his best to even his breath. He seems to consider the proposition for a little, before shyly reaching out his hand, pinkie stuck out.
"...You pinkie promise?"
Morax huffs, unwittingly endeared by the child as he obliges, "very well then, I pinkie promise. My word is set in stone."
The boy's body relaxes then, and Morax breathes a sigh of relief, before he starts to ponder how he would even go about helping this kid. He had no clue where he was from and how he had even gotten here, much less a way to send the kid back.
"I… uh, what is your name child?" Morax decides to start somewhere simple.
"... Ajax."
"Ajax. A lovely name."
"What's yours, mister?" The boy asks, voice small.
"You can call me Rex." Morax settles on, "where are you from Ajax?"
"Snezhnaya," he says, "but I don't think that's where I was with master… it's so much darker there, and there are so many monsters."
That's when it hits Morax, the lingering stench on the boy. Distinctly cataclysmic, yet not exactly what he had smelled when on the battlefield. No, this was an aged corruption, the odour of Khaenri'ah's twisted alchemy given time to ferment.
"Mister Rex?"
Morax turns back to Ajax, and now that he gets a proper look, the boy was fresh faced in a way that was too youthful for this time. Suddenly, everything begins to make too much sense, Morax returns the boy's inquisitive gaze with one filled with sorrow.
"You… are not of this time."
"What?"
"Don't worry. I promise I will find a way to get you back."
"Back to master?"
Morax shakes his head, "back home."