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“I was thinking of taking a trip,” Zhongli says, startling them both.
Smiley Yanxiao sets the first dish upon the table with a soft clatter. Zhongli turns to thank him and to hear the details of what he’s come to present, glad for the distraction, the moment to hide both his surprise at himself and his smile at the look on Xiao’s face. Nothing much surprises Xiao, these days. He’d forgotten how charming an expression it was on him – but Xiao does not like being teased.
Wangshu Inn’s head chef has a reputation for simple food executed perfectly. Today is no exception – Zhongli looks over the plates bearing stuffed eggplant, Jueyun chili chicken, turnip cakes and the requisite delicate almond tofu with the satisfaction of seeing a master excel in their craft and nearly forgets he’s said something that Xiao might find shocking.
Indeed, he looks up and Xiao is studying him carefully across the table. “A long one?”
“Not far. The sea, perhaps.”
“You live in a harbor.” In the grand scheme of things it hasn’t been long since Xiao considered every visible emotion a massive break in protocol. To see his plain skepticism is still just enough of a surprise—
Zhongli hums, pleased. “A harbor, yes, in a bay. It is not the same.”
“Where, then?” He is being humored, Xiao is in a good mood – relaxed, or as close as he ever gets. Zhongli tries to savor it; Xiao will not like what he has to say next.
--
After dining they walk slowly back up the steps. He does not visit often – Xiao has carved out a place for himself here, an adeptus’ lair, if a small one, and Zhongli is loath to disturb it with the complications of his presence – but he does love the view from the balcony. On a clear evening it feels like you can see the whole of Liyue. He knows Xiao has chosen it for practical purposes but has always hoped he occasionally allows himself to see the beauty, too.
Xiao follows half a step behind him. He’s been quiet – quieter – since dinner, lost in thought. He pauses on the last step and Zhongli thinks, fond and familiar, at last, he’s worked up to it.
“Why there?”
And isn’t that the question. Zhongli has been thinking of how to respond to it since the idea came to him and he still hasn’t found an easy answer. He settles on the one that feels closest to the truth, even as he knows Xiao will find it unsatisfying.
“The traveler tells me it is a good place to collect eggs.”
There’s no reaction to that beyond silence. Well – not unexpected. Zhongli resists the urge to turn around.
“It’s quite alright,” he continues, smiling his most placid smile even if Xiao cannot see it. “I found it a… thoughtful report.”
The truth is that he’d felt an immediate, crushing swell of anger. Zhongli’s memories of Guyun are fractured and painful, a bone-deep bruise of rage and sharp exhaustion that has never healed. When he walked away from the stone forest of his own creation for the first and last time he had been bleeding, shaking with the aftershocks of his might and his fear. He had left the battlefield unaided, barely, determined not to let a soul see the effort it took to stand.
Xiao, ever watchful – of course he had seen. Zhongli remembers it only as he realizes Xiao has gone abruptly, dangerously quiet behind him.
“Really, Xiao. There is no need to get upset on my account,” Zhongli says, voice even with the practice of millenia. “No harm was meant by it.”
Xiao joins him, at last, at the railing. Surveys the scenery. His voice is soft and angry. “It’s disrespectful.”
“It’s intriguing. I’ve never been back, you know. I was concerned my presence would be – a provocation. But perhaps now…”
Xiao favors him with another of those confused skeptical looks. It should not be endearing.
“It would be better if you did not go alone,” he says tightly, “just in case.”
“Would you accompany me, then? If you can bear to leave the plains for a time.”
The faint pink on Xiao’s cheeks as he nods, once, is likely just a result of the setting sun. But perhaps it is not.
“When the weather is warm, then,” Zhongli says, some leftover dragon instinct unfurling, satisfied, in his chest.
--
Months ago, coerced and cajoled into one too many cups of osmanthus wine: “I should not have come. You are a bad influence.”
“Oh, please,” Barbatos pouting beside him. “You’re unemployed, it’s not like you have anything better to do. Hey, if we tell them you’re Rex Lapis will people here give us free drinks?”
“That would be disingenuous, as I am no longer Rex Lapis.”
“Maybe not. But don’t the benefits carry over at all? I mean, didn’t you write in a severance package or anything? A retirement benefit?”
“The Rite of Parting is completed; Rex Lapis is dead. There is nothing to sever. No one remains to claim the benefit.” Zhongli experiences a moment of brief and ridiculous pride at his own disaffected tone.
“Talk about a lack of foresight! That’s unlike you, Morax. No wonder you’re broke.”
What to say to that? The truth is he never expected to live through the war, which Barbatos knows, and on achieving that improbable outcome never thought to live beyond Rex Lapis, which Barbatos has almost certainly guessed. It is easier to take another drink than to respond.
--
The weather is warm. Xiao appears, a respectful half-step behind him, as Zhongli reaches the pier.
“You called?”
“I did. Are you busy?” He can see Xiao registering where they are. He dislikes coming into the city and the port is always busy – yet he’d arrived without hesitation, unthinking.
“We agreed I would attend you.” Is that what he thinks this is? Well – it is enough that he has come. The Conqueror of Demons is always busy. Zhongli no longer holds the contract that would have him at his beck and call. But here he is.
“Then I shall be glad of your company.”
Xiao is saved from having to respond to that by the arrival of Captain Beidou, who has graciously agreed to sail them to the far point on her way out.
“Mr. Zhongli,” she greets politely. “Welcome aboard. The traveler speaks of you often; it is a pleasure to share the journey.”
“I have heard much about you as well,” Zhongli replies. “Thank you for having us aboard. She is a fine vessel, with a finer crew.”
She laughs, short and pleased, a lightning-crack of a sound. “They said you knew how to spot quality. You’ll be out of the way up there.”
Zhongli follows where she points and she is gone by the time he turns back. He chuckles at her hurry – young and impatient. The novelty hasn’t worn away yet; it is still refreshing to be brushed off. Xiao’s expression, when he looks, is faintly mutinous.
“You did not need to call in this – favor,” he mutters. “I could have—”
“Please, Xiao. I said I wanted your company, didn’t I? Not your work.” A soft disgruntled noise; Zhongli laughs under his breath, still charmed by the captain and her ship. “And I have been curious about this captain for a long time. Come here. We’ll get in their way if we stay.”
--
The spears are faintly visible from the harbor, so he should not be surprised – but somehow he had forgotten the size of them. He can barely imagine how he must have made them, other than sheer desperation. In his mind’s eye and from the distance of the city Zhongli has always thought of them as they were then: sharp and smooth, unassailable as they rained from the heavens. It is a shock to see them crumbling and overgrown.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Beidou asks, tracking his gaze as they approach. They are large enough to cast a shadow over the whole ship; a sudden unexpected chill. “It’s one of the crew’s favorite places to stop. The sand is so soft, and – well, you’ll see.”
“Beautiful,” Zhongli echoes faintly. It feels strange on his tongue. Something is keeping him from looking away from the terrible shapes on the horizon. He can’t quite resolve the image from his memory with the reality in front of him; can’t make his eyes understand how they’ve merged.
“Have I said something wrong?”
He realizes he’s frowning. “No, no. Certainly not. Only – I am only familiar with stories of its creation. I had not thought something borne of such great violence would be described so.”
“I’ve heard those stories too. The poets describe it as an act of protection, not violence. But then I don’t suppose many poets have been here to see it for themselves.”
“What do you think it was, then?”
Beidou grins, sharp and wide and as unafraid as he’d once dreamed his people would be. “I don’t see why it can’t have been both. And now it’s neither – it’s Ningguang’s palace keeping that thing pinned. Guyun Stone Forest can just be as it is.”
She’s called away again. Xiao’s face is inscrutable when Zhongli turns to speak with him; eyes fixed on the towering landscape. He’d thought to ask his opinion but something in Xiao’s far-away expression stays the question.
Xiao offers it anyways, unprompted, voice so soft it’s barely audible over the wind: “It was both. And beautiful, too.”
--
Beidou rows them ashore herself. They disembark in a small cove, near the foot of the tallest pillar. Her nod as they leave is as close to respectful as he can imagine – not to him, but to Xiao. Another credit to her name, that she recognizes his power. She does not ask how they plan to get back.
All around them are short hardy grasses, white flowers, sweet-smelling in the sun. Xiao scowls at the retreating dinghy. “It is you she should honor.”
“I would rather have her honest conversation.”
“You would have had it either way. She walks into even the Jade Chamber as if she owns it.” They have met before, then, or Xiao was at least aware of her. Strange, that after thousands of years there are things Zhongli does not know about him. He is, for a moment, absurdly and blindingly jealous of those unknown moments – the dragon’s want to possess.
The greed must show on his face; Xiao’s lips quirk up in an almost-smile. “Shall we walk?”
--
During the war, in the rare moment of overlap in Rex Lapis’ reign in which Zhongli looks back and thinks both we were young and I should have known better, there had been – a flicker.
Xiao had come back bloodied: bleeding, or splattered with it, or both – it is far away and surrounded by a lifetime of Xiao returning to him this way; Zhongli no longer remembers.
What he does remember, as clear and sharp as if Liu Su is telling the story over tea, what he remembers despite his best efforts: Xiao had finished his report. He’d risen, or tried to, but stumbled – bleeding, then – and Zhongli had caught him by the elbows. Helped him ease back to kneeling. His hand had moved almost against his will, cupped Xiao’s jaw, thumb wiping over the cut across his cheek. Xiao had leaned into the touch.
A moment, suspended, Xiao’s eyes slipping shut. Here his memory fades to nothing but that warm weight and the pull in his chest, tired and aching and terribly lonely at what he knew he must say, what he knew they could not do.
“Rest well, Alatus.” Zhongli cannot hear himself speak in the memory but knows what it must have felt to say it – rough and rumbling in his chest, scraping as his voice had always been in those days. Echoing, perhaps, in his chambers, all the cold hard angles of them. There had been no room for softness in a place like that. It is said that none could ascribe gentleness to him and it is true.
“My lord.” Xiao had met his gaze and held it – a first and last time Rex Lapis hadn’t known to appreciate – eyes solemn and sure.
Then he’d looked carefully down, subordinate once more, and Rex Lapis’ hand had fallen away, and Xiao had stood and stepped one careful step backwards, just barely a distance across which neither of them could reach, and they had not allowed themselves to be alone with one another again for nearly a century.
--
The contract wasn’t just an ideal; he’d signed it. A thumbprint in blood, his life the price of the hopes of a nation. He knows it like his lungs know to breathe, a true living document in the form of a man. At every turn its provisions are ghosts at the edge of his vision, flickering into view as they become relevant—
This contract between the Assembly and all successors and Morax, also known as Rex Lapis, the Prime Adepti who is henceforth referred to as the Guarantor – afforded rights and privileges of the office – the defense of the Assembly shall be the purview of the Guarantor and the Guarantor may make any subsequent contracts to this purpose as determined necessary by their best judgment – rite of descension; procedures; requirements – the Guarantor shall not display undue bias, preference, favor nor attention to any person under their protection nor rule; nor shall their relationships have the appearance of partiality or preferential treatment—
--
The trail takes them up and up, past the gulls swooping over the water, switchbacks through stubborn dry grasses that give way to sturdy little trees clinging to the cliffside with admirable determination. Halfway through the climb they round a corner and find themselves among the remains of buildings. What possessed them to come out here, Zhongli wonders, but then his people were always bold and curious, and he looks up to where the sea meets the sky in one long unbroken horizon and thinks he might understand, anyways.
At the top of the trail the stone continues even further, too much of a scramble for Zhongli to be interested in climbing. The traveler was right – there are eggs everywhere: where the spears crumbled into perfectly nest-sized nooks and crannies, tucked away in old roofs of buildings, nestled carefully in the scrubby low bushes. His chest twists at the sight, caught peculiarly between joy and sorrow. New life determined to begin everywhere – anywhere. Even the stone adapts.
He blinks roughly. He must have been staring for a long time; Xiao is no longer by his side.
At the edge of the path the ground drops off into a sheer stony cliff. Xiao’s hair whips in the wind, salt-rough and wild in the afternoon sun. Looking across the water, Zhongli would think, but when he reaches Xiao’s side he sees his eyes are closed.
Beautiful, Zhongli thinks, and wishes, for just a moment, for the freeness of the captain’s laugh.
--
“Weren’t you just telling me you can’t use your status as Rex Lapis Emeritus to get us free drinks?” The bar, the wine, Barbatos with a look on his face like he’s thought of a joke Zhongli isn’t in on. He is deeply suspicious of that look, it has only ever brought him trouble.
“There is no such clause,” he scowls, irritated. “Did I not just finish explaining to you that the contract no longer applies? We are parted, Rex Lapis and I.”
“And yet when it comes to your happiness he remains quite stubbornly blocking your way.”
Barbatos has always been able to see through him, has always been able to get under his skin and speak straight and true to the heart of the matter. That he is frequently correct only makes him more irritating. “It is not so simple as you make it sound.”
“Couldn’t it be?”
--
The air warms as they pick their way slowly back down. Zhongli takes off his jacket and drapes it over his arm. Why not? It is a clear sunny day and his new mortal body is sweating. There’s not a soul out here beside the two of them; he has rarely been so unobserved.
Well – Xiao is observing him. But the weight of Xiao’s careful gaze is an old and familiar one. Now he looks at Zhongli out of the corner of his eye, looks at him and away and back again. A familiar weight made new, novel in the boundless open water of a voided contract. The only way to learn to navigate the world outside the tight confines of what he was once allowed is to go out and live in it.
Xiao does not remove any layers but Zhongli observes him all the same, slow and careful when Xiao is not watching him. Lets his eyes roam freely over the lithe lines of Xiao’s body, lingering at the tight muscles of his arms, the places the fabric clings. It is not just the air that is warm: Zhongli feels it from within.
--
To hear the traveler speak of the remnants of his terrible power, his devastating impact on the landscape and beyond it the world – for the traveler to know the monstrous things below and the monstrous deeds that had trapped them there, to know and choose still to describe it only by the number of birds to be found on its shores – after his rage settled he had been struck by it like a physical blow: unthinkable kindness. He’d wanted to see for himself. He’d wanted to understand how it was possible.
It turns out that from the base, up close, they don’t look like spears at all. Just cliffs. Not an act of violence or protection but part of the landscape. Mossy and full of growing things. Part of the world, with no particular purpose but to exist in it: Guyun Stone Forest simply is.
--
At the shore, more birds – sandpipers and azure cranes and gulls circling through the air, and crabs and fish so big he can see them from the shore. A shocking bounty of life. He could never have conceived of it.
When he battled Osial the ocean had churned, waves the size of mountains that crashed like deafening thunder. Now the water is smooth and clear and when Zhongli takes off his shoes the sand is soft, as promised, and too-warm against his feet.
Zhongli rolls up his pants and wades into the sea. The water is still and cool above his ankles. A school of tiny minnows flashes silvery in the sun; he stands very still and watches how close they come to his feet. Daring, even if they do not realize it. He smiles – at their daring, at the way they dart as one away when he moves his toe, at the reminder that even here there are tiny living things.
“I thought you hated fish,” Xiao says. There is a strange quality to his voice; like he’s puzzling something out.
“I do.” His voice is too shocking for them; they scatter, a ripple of light under water. “I am feeling – generous, today.”
When he looks up Xiao is still on the sand, watching him with warm dark eyes. It is not a surprise. Xiao has always watched when he thought Rex Lapis could not see him. The surprise is that this time he does not look away.
--
They had not been alone together for nearly a century – except, except.
After Osial, after Rex Lapis left the battlefield, determined to walk away under his own power, to show no weakness – he’d been so lightheaded he could barely see. He remembers it as if it were a dream, in fragments: his limbs so heavy, such an effort to move them he’d wondered if he’d lost after all, whether he was walking on land or sinking beneath the sea. His hands clenched around his spear as if they’d been petrified there. Somehow through sheer bitter stubbornness he’d nearly made it, he’d been so close and then – a stumble.
Vision blurred with exhaustion and blood loss he barely registered the buckling of his knees, the fall – barely registered being caught, the small figure under his shoulder, the arm around his back keeping him upright for those last unsteady steps.
In his chambers the spear had been pried gently from his grasp, he’d been undressed with painstaking care and eased into a tub of warm water that soaked away the leeching chill of the torrential storm. It had been, by then, millenia since he had been so gently touched. Since he’d allowed anyone so close. He thinks he may have cried at the first touch of a comb to his hair; remembers, at least, a stinging in his eyes and a hot distant shame.
It could have been any of his adepti. Any would have done the same and none would have spoken of it, after – but there had been a pause, just before they left, and warm pressure against his cheek.
Sometimes he thinks he dreamed it. In the moments he allows himself to know he did not, another certainty: of course, it had been Xiao.
--
Barbatos, the bar, the wine, the long walk home in low light making him horrifically, embarrassingly honest:
“Even if I am no longer bound to Rex Lapis – those who know the truth still see me in that way.”
“Then help him see you anew,” Barbatos says softly, hand firm but gentle on Zhongli’s arm. Barbatos had always been kind but he wields it with precision, now. Zhongli wonders how he learned it, so late in life.
--
He knows the contract like his lungs know to breathe. At every turn its provisions linger, ghosts at the edge of his vision. They have shaped his life for so long – it takes conscious effort, each time, to remember they no longer must.
Ankle deep in salt water, Zhongli helps Xiao up from where they’ve been sitting, observing the waves in companionable silence. The rock had been pleasantly warm in the sun; the heat lingers even as it sets. If Barbatos were here he’d make an insulting comparison to a lizard. Thankfully it is only Xiao, who smiles and takes his hand without hesitation.
It’s not until he’s standing that the contact registers. Xiao freezes, a sudden, full-body stillness that in another person might have been a shudder. His hand is still resting lightly atop Zhongli’s; faint pressure and still somehow shocking. Zhongli cannot remember the last time they touched so heedlessly, if they ever have. He needs more time to bring the words to the surface, he hasn’t had time to plan it all out—
Xiao is starting to pull his hand away.
“I have long had – dreams,” Zhongli says, half-against his will. His throat is dry. It takes effort and painful awareness to swallow. “And desires. But Rex Lapis could not. The contract – of all people, Rex Lapis had to be perfectly bound.”
There is no description for Xiao’s expression other than shattered – it is painful to look at.
“I understand,” he says, and steps back, eyes downcast. Zhongli tightens his grip just a moment too late – Xiao’s hand has already slipped away. “I have always understood that, my lord.”
“You have,” Zhongli agrees softly. It is an old, familiar ache, a sharp tug in his stomach. “But now you misunderstand. Rex Lapis is dead.”
Zhongli right in front of him and still Xiao flinches at it. He is impossibly loyal, impossibly dear. It has been so long. Zhongli wants to know everything he’s missed, is greedy for every detail. The sunset glistens in the water, golden light flickering across Xiao’s face. His eyes widen when Zhongli steps closer again: desperate hope.
“Xiao,” Zhongli starts again, dizzy with the proximity, “I mean we are free of him.”
Rex Lapis is dead, Rex Lapis will never be remembered as gentle but perhaps someday Zhongli could be. It is not too late to learn. There is new life to be found even here, in what he’d thought was only wreckage. He leans down and Xiao tilts his head up and when their lips press together he tastes salt on Xiao’s skin. It’s so quiet, just the cool lapping waves and the calls of an impossible number of sea birds on the wind, the weight of Xiao’s hands on his hips and the soft noise he makes when they pull away from each other; like it hurts.
“I do not want to be free of you,” Xiao says, breathless. If Zhongli were a better man he would discourage such a sentiment – but he is not, and he cannot fully tamp down the rush of possessive satisfaction. “I want – I want—”
He breaks off with a frustrated noise, tugs at the front of Zhongli’s shirt and kisses him, hard, like he could make Zhongli understand without words, could force the sentiment into Zhongli’s head if he only kissed him well enough. He stumbles backwards to sit clumsily on the rock and Zhongli lets himself be pulled until he’s kneeling, half in the water and half on Xiao.
Xiao makes a choked desperate noise, presses them together, hand on the back of Zhongli’s neck like he wants to pull him closer closer closer, making up for centuries of careful distance all at once. He’s laughing, Zhongli realizes, or as close to it as Xiao has ever come, shaky warm breaths against Zhongli’s cheek.
“I am not him,” Zhongli says raggedly, believing it for the first time, “I—”
“Zhongli,” Xiao murmurs, wondrous, ”Zhongli—”
--
The force of his laugh sends gulls flocking upwards, raucous, all down the shore.