Work Text:
The feeling of smooth petals caressing their face invigorates them into consciousness.
Though they can’t bring themself to open their eyes yet, the immortal god can tell they are in a field of flowers, waving gently in some nondescript wind.
Rex Lapis had witnessed innumerable flowers spring and melt, wither and grow, and through it all, constantly, the thought wavered like the twang of a lyre.
When will I, too, return?
Blanketed in petals and laid to rest in a bed of flowers, they see their own decomposition into crumbing dust far too often, and in far too much detail.
But today is not that day they so unwillingly envision.
So with nothing more than a heaving breath cut short, Rex Lapis opens their eyes, those mortal and immortal instruments of sight alike, once again.
The sky is a murky white, with only hints of gray defining the shapes of low-lying clouds. Gusts of Anemo cheerfully flutter by, rustling the petals of the various flowers around them; the wind, however, only serves to remind them of the domain of that pesky acquaintance of theirs.
They sit up, careful to avoid crushing the delicate flora around them. Rex Lapis is somehow unfamiliar with the type of flowers that lie in the field, though they have been alive for many centuries at this point. In their attempt to preserve the flowers, they almost didn’t notice the person in front of them.
Almost.
“Love me not,” a smooth voice, one that seems to usually be full of laughter, sounds.
How—?
They sharply turn their head towards the stranger who produced the sound, fingers twitching around a lethal weapon that had yet to materialize. Their eyes narrow, shoulders tensing not unlike a cat— somehow, they hadn’t been able to detect a trace of the person right behind them.
The man, perhaps not even a day over 20, cuts a striking figure amongst the flowers of unknown origin. But he pays no attention to the god in front of him, instead preoccupied with plucking petals of a flower straight from the field.
The person in front of them is a mortal, presumably, as Rex Lapis isn’t able to detect any factors that would indicate a hidden divinity. In fact, they presume that if they pull at the strings of the elemental energy around them a little bit more, they might meet with something far more sinister than the likes of Celestia.
How the stranger’s presence was so cunningly hidden from the god before he spoke is certainly a source of worry. But as for the man himself… Rex Lapis is unable to find anything even a hint of such evil.
For one, his hair is a richly hued shade of hamlin with lighter blonde strands streaking the tumbling strands, a color far more complex than that of even the finest cor lapis. The locks fall ever so gracefully around the down-turned head, parting around an intimidating crimson mask hanging by the side.
“Love me.”
The stranger’s clothes are gaudily opulent in a way, obviously foreign in the language that each twill and weave of the cloth speaks. The grays and blacks paired with jagged sharp edges screams of a dangerous character— the gloves, though impractical-looking, have tasted bloodshed many times over.
“Love me not.”
But all the same, a wild splash of a similar red wraps around his neck in the form of a scarf, pristine at first glance and well-loved at second. There is someone for this boy to come home to at the end of his self-induced warring— somewhere where he is loved. The sharp, official-seeming pin on the scarf, however, speaks of responsibility he cannot balance with that care just yet.
And all of a sudden, Rex Lapis feels the need to see the face of this man, or—
“Hey.”
The god blinks, a faint warmth on their cheeks before they can even realize what’s happening.
A face as beautifully pale as the moon, dotted exuberantly with soft brown freckles, paired with eyes of Noctilucous Jade. Though, Rex Lapis feels it may be an unfair comparison, as the dead gaze is more reminiscent of looking into the treacherous, inviting depths of an ocean rather than merely looking at a gem.
The stranger is looking at them, fingers paused in the mutilation of the flower. Though the scene is peaceful, there is a strangely tense aura around him.
“You’ve been staring at me for quite a bit, comrade— like you were plotting murder at first sight, or something.”
“I sincerely apologize,” Rex Lapis says, bowing their head with chagrin as fast as they could.
Though they aren’t sure where the thought— or memory?— appears from, they have faith in their conviction of it.
“Childe, wasn’t it?”
The other person softens his expression in response, the hints of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
“That’s me. Glad you at least remember that,” Childe says, absentmindedly tearing off a leaf instead from the flower he’s holding. He gestures to the field around them, the expanse continuing on for as long as even the immortal eye can see.
“These,” he brushes his hand on the nearest flower of a deep blood red, “are called carnations, xiansheng.”
The honorific catches Rex Lapis off guard, though they are unable to stop listening. For some reason, they feel as if the roles have been switched, somehow.
“Back in my hometown, even the slightest variation in color means something completely different. I think it’s because it’s not so often you even get to see such a flower at all, so each and every shade is unique in the way that you will never see it again.”
Childe sighs, looking down as he pulls the last feathery petal of the carnation off, colored a much more papery pale red.
“Love me,” he whispers to himself, then a soft, fond scoff escapes his mouth.
After a long moment of being unable to voice any of their thoughts, Rex Lapis simply asks, “What are you doing?”
They cock their head in curiosity, observing the pile of petals and discarded stems around Childe, earning a chuckle out of the ginger’s mouth.
“Nothing I think you need to worry about,” he says in response, holding out the petal in one gloved hand towards Rex Lapis.
A sweet smile adorns his face, eyes curved in innocent bliss.
“Here. Don’t worry, I don’t bite.”
They freeze for a second, strangely hesitant to accept the gift. But they extend both gold-lined hands to grasp Childe’s, reveling in the feeling for a moment.
Only humans could produce such warmth, Rex Lapis thinks, sharply aware of their own cold-blooded veins that run under their skin’s black exterior.
“You wouldn’t, right?”
Just as the peaceful moment begins, it ends abruptly with those words, a musty, ash-filled wind rustling the flowers ominously and bringing with it the smell of something putrid.
All of the red and pink carnations wilt into menacing yellows and blank whites, leaves decaying and crumpling into themselves like elderly humans would at the last throes of their life. They sink defeatedly into the now-sandy dust, staring up at the reddening sky, and Rex Lapis beholds them with alarm.
They snap their head back only to be faced with something that brings them an even deeper seated dread.
Blood begins its slow, agonizing descent from Childe’s temple, trickling into the corners of his eyes and nose. But the smile on his face only grows painfully wider, teeth stained with liquid life.
“Right?”
Then black bile spews from his lips, then his nose, then his eyes—
Rex Lapis desperately attempts to move their hands away from Childe’s, to try and aid him, but to no avail. It is as if sticky lotus silk will glue their hands together as they pass from one world— one life — to the next.
A scream begins to burst from their throat, but in one blink of their eyes, everything is gone.
————————————————————————
In the millisecond before he opens his eyes, he can already feel a pleasant, cool breeze; when he does open them, he is met with temporarily blinding sunlight.
It is never this warm in the mountains, he notices, blinking away the remnants of his disorientation.
A rock platform atop a unimaginably blue pool is now home to his feet. One of the finer Cuihua trees sways calmly above their heads, the shadows of graceful cranes passing by overhead filtering in through the leaves.
The lingering feeling of urgency stubbornly sticks to his heart, and he cannot even remember why.
What a strange feeling.
They now sit at an austere stone table, a delicately decorated teapot emitting the steam of fresh tea beside him. An empty teacup sits near his hands, the dredges of warmth already fading away from what is left of the tea in it.
They are atop Mt. Hulao, in Guizhong’s favorite spot. Cloud Retainer is nowhere to be seen, as is the usual nowadays, but as for Childe…
Well Childe, who’s hand is ( still ) enclosed in his own. He sits next to him in Guizhong’s seat, and it feels all too natural for him to be there in her stead.
“Are you alright over there, Zhongli xiansheng? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the Snezhnayan man laughs.
Zhongli blinks sheepishly.
“Apologies, I… must have been stuck in a daydream.”
“Well, don’t go floating off into the clouds now— you still haven’t taken my gift from me yet!”
A small ah, punctuated by some relief, escapes from Zhongli’s mouth.
“Right, of course,” he says, clutching the small item that Childe had in his hand and moving it towards himself.
Opening his hand like a blushing flower, the petals of each finger blooming outward, Zhongli could see a small treasure in its center— a fully silver pendant depicting a broadly branching tree, held by a black thread.
“Consider it my way of asking for a truce, since you won’t fight me and all,” Childe laughs, a little hesitation hiding behind it.
It wasn’t so often that Zhongli, stoic and logical as he constantly is, was struck speechless by something so simple.
He lightly traces the intricate phoenix and dragon intertwining at the base of the tree, their heads meeting together to hold up a singular centerpiece stone— chalcedony, he realizes, and of an extremely rare kind.
“The craftsmanship— the metallurgical craftsmanship is quite excellent, and the silver is high quality and…,” Zhongli begins to ramble, but stops. His knack for his usual spiel has failed him, a fact that he could only exhale air out of his nose at.
“Beautiful.”
He finds himself staring deep into the eyes of the man across from him instead, the foreign man endearingly listening to him as he always did. The funeral consultant thinks it reminds him of a calm, but sneaky fox— one who intends to steal a bunch of grapes but instead enamors itself with the crow who bears the grapes in its beak.
He ties the thread around his neck, proudly displaying the pendant on his chest.
“Thank you. I promise to cherish this in my memories and my heart unduly,” he smiles deeply instead, inducing a blooming blush out of Childe.
“Oh, uh, it’s no problem at all! You kn— you know how it is, hardly a dent in my pocket!”
The now fainter jingle of Mora in Childe’s pocket, paired with the natural senses of the lord who created the currency, says otherwise.
“Look, I wanted to… we need to talk, Zhongli xiansheng,” the Harbinger interrupts, struggling to find his words. He fidgets with the archery ring on his pinky finger with the thumb and forefinger of the other hand.
Offhandedly, Zhongli remembers the day they bought those rings together as if it was yesterday. In the corner of his mind, he couldn’t help but wonder why an archer as, well, inexperienced as Childe would even wear such a ring.
Though, he supposes, the misplacement is a testament to that inexperience.
The fact it is still wrapped around the Fatuus’ finger gives Zhongli comfort, though, and he thinks that might be all that matters.
“Fight me,” Childe finally blurts, snapping Zhongli out of his small reverie.
“Pardon?”
“Fight me. Let’s have a spar, or something, no holds barred.”
Though even the mention of a battle brings a certain bloodlust to Childe’s features, the blush from earlier still adorns his face; his mouth is more pout than snarl.
Zhongli simply raises an eyebrow in response.
“Haven’t I already said no?”
The Harbinger deflates at the response, wringing his hands.
“I know, I know, I’ve asked many times. But somehow I… I just can’t get it out of my head.”
Childe pauses, then pushes forward with an expressive hand.
“It doesn’t have to be contractual, I guess. We can make it off the record. No need to win, or anything.”
Zhongli blinks.
No need to win. Of course.
“Alright. We shall.”
Childe looks taken aback at that, his dead fish eyes widening at the speed of Zhongli’s agreement to his challenge. But before he can rise from his seat and his twitching hands can summon blades of Hydro, the older man raises one hand to stop him.
“That is, on two conditions.”
“First, we should find a more suitable place than this— and do not fret, I have a place in mind,” Zhongli says with a gesture to the scenery around them. It earns a complacent nod from the other though he begins to bare his teeth in anticipation.
“Second…,” he starts, intending to intimidate while bending his frame over the table. But for the second time today, Zhongli finds himself speechless again as his eyes rove around the other’s face, close enough to pick up on each detail he craves.
Somehow, he has forgotten that second condition.
Childe’s breath picks up as his snarl fades, the apple in his throat bobbing as he swallows hard. A hint of a pink tongue peeks through his lips as he wets the chapped skin away. The former archons finds his gaze flickering, then dragging down towards cherry pink lips parted.
“I…”
Then in a moment of insanity he thinks Guizhong would never let him live down if she was alive, he grabs Childe’s collar and closes the distance between them with closed eyes.
And their lips meet at the end of that journey they took on two years ago, when they were only customers of each other. But now they are so much more.
Zhongli’s hand runs through the Harbinger’s hair like he is parting the raging sea, and Childe tilts his chin like he’s contemplating his new target. It is truly the union between the immovable object and the unstoppable force, a war that brings two sides together and over the brink of death, like the meld of Hydro cracking into fissures and surfaces of Geo that had never been previously found— it is everything, and nothing.
As Childe’s smile against Zhongli’s lips, those two warring sides become one, something so irrevocably more than the sum of its parts, for just a few, precious moments.
The ex-archon opens his eyes just a smidge to drink in the moment, but finds something much more horrifying instead.
The stones on Mt. Hulao are cracking apart, with lava spewing out of every orifice that appears. Ash profusely covers each inch of the air, blackening the sky.
In the distance, a sharp pillar of heavenly judgement hurtles toward his beloved Liyue Harbor, sinister crimson cubes consuming the rest of the landscape.
He is too late.
( For what? , he wants to ask, but the question dies in his throat.)
Hopelessness fills his lungs, making Zhongli feel heavier than all of Guyun Stone Forest— he suddenly leans on Childe like he’s a life support, clutching his shoulders with his last breaths.
He can’t bring himself to look at his dying city or his lover’s face— really, he can do nothing else but tug Childe impossibly close to him as it all fades to black once again.
——————————————————————————————————
It is greeted with that familiar putrid smell of decay and ash gracing its nose before it open its eyes.
What foolish thoughts is it thinking of now, entertaining itself with some strange false memory?
The ground runs rampant with lava, buildings crumbling just as easily as the pavement. The air around it is so unbearingly sweltering, yet not a drop of sweat graces its face.
(Who was he to succumb to such mortal acclimations?)
A mortal, burnt and desolate beside it, sobs uncontrollably, and without another thought, it dismissively flicks its hand. The remaining concrete under the mortal begins to fall apart as fingers of bedrock push their way through the crust of the earth.
The sobs abruptly stop, giving way to horrified, crackled screams as a enormous hand made of pure Geo emerges from the dust.
It turns around with only one motive in mind, the audible sound of gruesome crunches cutting screams short fast fading behind it.
Morax desires only two things of this world: one was for this cursed realm to cleanse itself of its filth, and the other for his love to stay by its side forever into the unknown.
Centuries had passed since his gnosis had been taken, and that ancient plot, that insuperable contract, had long been fulfilled. It had no reason for this world to accumulate debt to its gods anymore, and it was sure Barbatos, Beelzebub, and the others felt quite the same.
It waves its hand to reinforce the all-encompassing shield of jade around the building in front of them, because this towering mortal creation houses the only organism who was worthy of surviving its holy purge.
Then, it walks up the stairs to its condo, content with the calamity it has wrought.
It is a tread slow and steady, with the weight of time behind its every step, and every stair creaks with the agony of the sin of bearing its feet.
The number to its condo comes into view, and a crinkle of its eyes is its only indication of recognition.
Just as the doorbell blooms with jingling melodies, it hears the wails of a child. It looks back with a restless tap of its foot— though calling the appendage that was generous.
Just on the next flight of stairs, a mortal woman stands motionless with fear, a baby cradled in her arms.
They are already gone, a lapse in memory , it thinks, though its eyes will never fail. Yet, the mortals are still irreversibly tangible, and vexingly so.
It blinks lazily at the sight, the hoarse cries of the baby irritating it further with every second. Narrowing its eyes, it takes a step towards with a curious tilt of the head.
At the sight of it ambling slowly upwards, the woman regains motion too late, grabbing onto the railing with one arm as she runs up the stairs. It despises those who wait too long to take action, hypocrite its former self may have been.
A snap of its fingers, and they are nothing but stone.
It grabs the shoulders of the woman and leans forward to peer into the baby’s blank rocky eyes, geometric lines along them pulsing with a fearful, golden light.
Carefully grabbing her neck, it twists the woman’s head cleanly off, watching the remnants of what used to be organic material crumble to dust along with the rest with a detached interest.
It barely hears the door to the condo creak open, but it turns instinctively towards the feeling of a presence.
Ajax stands there, just as motionless as the woman had been.
“…Zhongli?”
Morax smiles widely, the feeling of skin stretching taut against its face and sharpness grazing his lips disgusting some hidden part of it.
It was not him as Ajax so thought, but it would certainly play along— anything to claim a portion of the love that he gave so willingly to him.
“Ajax, love. How have you been faring?” it says, walking down with an enthusiastic gait.
“I-I don’t understand, Zhongli. What’s going on? Was it you that—?”
It quiets him with barely an exhale, a singular (clawed?) finger raising to its lips.
It does wonder when Ajax began to care so deeply about the lives of others, having been the unfortunate end to so many himself.
Ajax’s face crinkles into an unreadable emotion, seemingly deciding on something.
It walks into the condo as Ajax steps to the side wordlessly, looking around with an air of comfortable casualness. The red light washes over the furniture they picked out so carefully, ash gracing every surface.
“Ah, I believe the furniture needs cleaning. I’ll be sure to do th—“
“Morax, what are you doing?”
It turns around with a raise of the eyebrow. A macabre smirk spreads across its face, the tang of copper dancing across its tongue as the sharpness in its mouth grips tightly.
Ajax had always been so perceptive.
“The world only needs us.”
“ What have you done? ”
“Don’t be foolish, Ajax. Surely you too saw the defilement of this sanctum sanctorum, my everlasting territory. This was inevitable.”
“I won’t accept a word out of your mouth.”
“As if I would take such insolence from you. Remember your place as the mortal he gave his life to.”
Ajax reaches out to it with an outstretched hand and desperation in his eyes, before pausing.
“He wouldn’t want this. That must mean… he isn’t here anymore. So why… must I…?”
Ajax lets out a weak, almost manic laugh. His arm falls limply at his side, and his tense shoulders drop.
“I give up.”
Morax scoffs at the sight, flexing its fingers with barely controlled brutality.
Looking away, it naively catches a glimpse of itself in a body-length mirror— the action spiking its vision with black.
A dragon-like tongue, swollen with poison, lolls lazily around long fangs.
that is not me
Golden horns carve out of its head, shining sinisterly in the gleam of the ashen light.
That is not me.
Its arms are covered in solid black, unearthly claws dripping with blood protruding from his hands. Gold lines its arms. There’s a horrifying look on the one behind him, and his eyes widen in similar terror— was it for that look or his appearance?
Yes, it is.
There has never been a distinction to make between us.
Rather, there was never us to begin with.
He falls to the ground with a earth-shattering quake, a scream tearing from his mouth in torturous silence.
No matter my wishes, Morax, Rex Lapis, and Zhongli will always be one and the same.
That sickening reality knocks on his door every second, and it almost forces putrid bile up his drying throat.
Zhongli grips his chest in an attempt to reconnect to his heart. Through the haze of unshed tears, he sees Ajax facing the glass window, miraculously not cracked despite the slowly rising heat due to the jade shield he put up.
There’s shadows skirting around the room, seemingly avoiding Ajax’s very presence. Zhongli notices that he’s looking out the window with a strange intensity, some shade of dark intent slipping from his body.
“Ajax, please. I don’t know how much longer I will be able to remember. You must kill me now, before Teyvat is destroyed at my hands,” he begs with barely a shred of a whisper.
The other man’s hands rise up slowly towards his face, his shoulders twitching slightly. Zhongli’s voice raises frantically.
“End this chaos before I’m completely consumed by erosion. You— we don’t have a choice, you have to. For the sake of this world.”
Yet Ajax still stays silent, red backlighting his homely sweater in a strangely different way.
“DESTROY THIS BODY BEFORE IT CAN REFORM! PLEASE!” Zhongli screams, throat crackling with disuse and smoke. He slumps further into the floor with desperation, unable to keep up the pretense of a life well-lived and selflessly ended.
But the love of his life starts cackling instead, the wheeze piercing needles into his eardrums.
The former archon looks up with a jolt; he scrapes the ground in shock with claws that will no longer retract, staring at the back of his love with disbelief in his heart.
The maniacal laugh fades, Ajax still facing away from him with a hand on the window in sickly fascination.
“Oh, dear… Zhongli xiansheng, Rex Lapis, now why would I kill you when you’ve created this glorious masterpiece just for me, darling?”
His eyes widen, just as frozen in place as all the victims of his petrification had been. He can only manage a whisper in response.
“ What ?”
Ajax finally turns around to face him, but the sight has his breath sticking in his throat.
Skin is slowly flaking off the former harbinger’s face, revealing nothing but a void under it where skin should have been. Gnarled veins run up his neck in an eerie crimson, intertwining with shocks of blue.
Perhaps the most frightening factor was not the slowly lengthening fingernails or the blackening arms, but the utterly dead look he was giving him, eyes graced with freckles slowly turning black.
The shine of vitality in his pupils had never been there, but that drive— the uniquely human motive— was gone too now. Only an unreadable void remains now, hollowly thirsting for sadistic relief as they fixate on the one other person alive.
A simpering leer spreads wide on Ajax’s face, all teeth and no sincerity.
Morax and Zhongli may be the same creature, but that — that is not Ajax, or Childe, or even Tartaglia by any definition.
“When did this… no, what’s happening to— why would you—!?”
Now he was the one asking unanswerable questions.
He ominously walks towards him, cutting him off. Now the only sound permeating the silence is the slight rap of Ajax’s dark grey boots against the wooden floor.
“Oh dear, dear Morax, I thought you were smarter than that,” his voice is a multitude, a cacophonous chorus with an unbridled emotion he cannot place.
Bending over to meet his eyes, rotting fingers softly touch either side of his face. Try as he may, though, Zhongli could not even flinch, mouth slightly parted with words unspoken.
It’s all so wrong. His voice— it’s not right.
He stares deep into the ocean’s blue, encroaching darkness surrounding Ajax’s pupils.
That horrible smirk falls, only to be replaced by an equally awful flat affect.
“Well, let me spell it out for you.”
Finality, he realizes, his voice is fraught with finality.
Ajax’s— no, the thing’s — eyes completely and utterly dissipate before him, leaving only empty sockets behind.
Something stinging hot falls from his eyes onto the floor.
The thing returns to its full height, flailing its limbs around as if Ajax’s body was just a puppet to be used and discarded. It extends his arms outwards in an all-encompassing stance, embracing all evil into it though it still held an innocent puppet.
“Why would I stop you when this—“ he gestures to the ensuing destruction around him, “—is what I’ve been craving for millennia?”
The creature completely decays, an indescribable being before him that could not even be termed by that Abyssal “Foul Legacy.”
Zhongli wails, throat raw with the lump he cannot pull out. Crumpling into himself at a fact that he ignored, he claws at every part of his body. He is desperate to find the clues that should have been acknowledged all along.
To ponder the eddy so innocently swirling around the stone ships he created, he had let down that indomitable anchor. He had been so blissfully unaware that Charybdis’s mouth was eagerly waiting in drooling anticipation, just beneath that young surface.
Ajax had never been what he said from the moment he met him, never as Childe nor as Tartaglia. There has always been a replacement mask hidden behind his back, just as carefully crafted as the rest.
But he had never been, really, since he had clawed his way out of a shadowy, forgotten pocket of the world. Of course. What a fool he’s been.
His heart was being wrenched out from underneath him in such a brutal manner. And he had let it be so.
He searches for the centuries they had spent together, the words and the nights they had shared, the trials and tribulations. Was there anything—?
No.
Whether the ocean had dried up a long time ago, or that ocean had always been an illusory mirage, he was only met with empty sockets.
After all this time, there was nothing. Nothing at all.
“What are you?”
The scene is already burning hot on the back of his eyelids— that empty shell backlit by blood and embers haunts him even when he closes his eyes.
“Look at me, Morax.“
Desperate sobs could not drown out the creature’s voice. Despite his will, the ancient deity feels his eyes dragging back to meet an everlasting lie.
That place is still where his eyes lock onto, though there had been nothing there to make eye contact to begin with.
“I think you already know the answer to your question— no, not even. You knew the answer all along.”
The rest of the world has long since tuned out. The only sound the god can hear is the clamor that tumbles from the swirling, chaotic turbulence’s supposed mouth, undefined by anything he once called love.
Spine-chilling laughter.
He knows the words that come next will start a crimson-lit chase, stalking after his long-weary soul into the afterlife even as the world caves in.
The former geo archon closes his eyes for the last time, a pretense of an ardor so genuine on his mind. Even now, the remnants of a Snezhnayan accent so impossibly fond still rings in his ears.
He silently waits for the final verdict. Standing at the sandy brink of death, he watches the tsunami of his last thoughts rush towards him, all at once—
“ I am erosion .”
And it all turns black.
————————————————————————
Zhongli awoke to the sensation of cold sweat trickling down the sides of his neck and his arms.
His throat was still raspy with a lament he can no longer remember, the memory of the dream already trickling out from his head as if from a broken flower pot.
He groaned as he ran his fingers through his hair and over his face, somehow feeling more mentally exhausted than he did when he went to sleep.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have fell asleep , Zhongli thought, considering that his status as the Prime of the Adepti would have probably allowed him to go for some more time without it.
But he shuddered upon thinking of the last time Director Hu figured out he hadn’t slept in a few days— needless to say, if he had been beginning to lose his fear of seafood, it was certainly reinforced now.
So he simply swung his legs over the side of the bed to pour himself a glass of water, sighing as the water quenched his parched throat, unable to gather his thoughts.
It was starting to dawn on him that trying to go back to sleep would be futile for now, so he stood up and moved to the window with nothing short of his usual poise. The same couldn’t be said for his clothes, the coat of his hanfu askew, and the collar and sash looser than he would have liked.
In his disarray however, he found some twisted peace.
A bouncy breeze blew through the glass panes, lightly rustling the translucent curtains and buoying them upwards. The city outside looked just as lively as he had left it, though it must have been just after midnight at that point.
There was a reason Zhongli despised sleep, with all the dreams it came with.
He would have to be a fool to not recognize that his dream was anything but fake, that he was privy to all sorts of alternate futures that could await him if he took one wrong step.
Zhongli remembered the times when he had first obtained the Geo gnosis. While the Archon War had emboldened his relationships with the humans, it had also ripped his ego and some of confidence asunder.
It was with great hesitation that he had merged with the gnosis, and with good reason.
Going to sleep for the first time after receiving it was quite the shock, seeing futures upon futures laid closely together in the fabric of space and time.
Guizhong had laughed jovially in his face when he woke up at first, but then her smile on her face slid down into a grim frown as he told her about what he saw.
“I think it’s a catalytic converter of sorts. It draws on pure Ley Line energy to create a set of specific magical reactions that will add onto powers you already have. It must have enhanced your draconic clairvoyance,” she had said, staring intently at the gnosis revolving around in her palm.
“Perhaps I can use it to see how I can trap that insolent bard inside a mountain for once,” Zhongli replied, the rare joke from him, though stoically delivered, cracking a small smile on her face.
“I’m sure Venti would have the time of his life with that one. But…”
“But?”
The Goddess of Dust, his eternal friend, sighed as she handed the gnosis back to him.
“Just… be careful, Li. There’s a big difference between knowing the next few minutes in a battle and seeing centuries into the future. There’s a reason that Celestial power is only given to a rare few— knowledge of the future may be too much for even someone like you to handle.”
But even that power later proved useless. She still left his side in the end, that steady source of support no longer propping him up.
For once in his life, though he was surrounded by his people, friends, and his faithful adepti, he felt well and truly alone.
The gnosis thrummed an ominous countdown, the link to Celestia only growing stronger with every passing day. Zhongli wondered whether Guizhong was hiding somewhere in those godly ranks, biding her time as she always did.
But at the same time, he should know better by now.
The archon sighed, looking blankly at the bright lanterns and colorful pennants waving and beckoning at customers. Even in the dead of night, there were hordes of children running around, laughing jovially at some trick or joke or the other. The adults nearby shook their heads fondly as they restocked their wares with special products.
Lantern Rite would start in two days.
And then in a few months, the Rite of Descension.
The thought tasted bittersweet on his tongue, thinking of how the city would celebrate the beloved festival next year without their deity— at least, not them, Rex Lapis.
Zhongli would still be here, to witness every trial and tribulation until the city grew far more than he could ever predict, and he too, would return to dust.
He massaged his temples, unable to get any semblance of relief from his pervading thoughts. The prophetic dreams had almost but all disappeared from his mind, an almost unheard of occurrence with his unrivaled memory.
It could only mean one thing: whatever the funeral consultant saw was not something he could have indomitable control over. Whoever it was in that dream…
He supposed Celestia would write his fate for him just this once, before he cut ties with them forever.
Zhongli readjusted the silk hanfu on his frame to a more acceptable arrangement, and carefully got into bed. Hu Tao may think she was perceptive, but only because he allowed her to be (that cheeky child of his).
He wouldn’t let her worry about him and his sleeping habits any longer. He would simply walk towards that unavoidable future he wrote for his city, give them his final test, and then…
Well, then he would go about business as normal. The future seemed completely indiscernible for once— and the fear of the unknown exhilarated him.
But before all that, he’d have to orchestrate his pawns accordingly.
Zhongli recalled the letter that the Cryo Archon sent in reply to his impossible request.
I will entrust to you my beloved 11th and Vanguard, Tartaglia, the tsunami that strikes fear into every heart on the battlefield , the Tsaritsa had wrote with an unmistakable flair. Once upon a time, they had been close because of their shared fondness of traditional letters, despite their ability to use the divine to send messages.
Once upon a time, he could imagine a playfully inquisitive twinkle in her eye, the hints of laughter so loud it brought tears to everyone’s eyes in its contagion. Now he could only remember the frost at the edges of the paper, that calculating scheme behind every word.
The Cataclysm had changed that young girl he once knew.
Tartaglia , the word rolled around in his head, unable to catch properly on his tongue despite his fluency in nearly every Teyvatian language.
The name brought to mind a profane, violent warrior, with crazed wrinkles around his eyes and mouth and bloodlust in every way. Like a hurricane that left destruction in its wake, and left every citizen with an impending sense of doom if they hadn’t faced it already.
Zhongli bristled at the image, but another image, a different part of the letter, came to the forefront of his mind.
There may be no difference you find between the abyss and the deep blue sea at first, but one may give way to the other if you enter with a heart magnanimous, and perhaps you may emerge at the shore with something far more than with what you entered.
There something genuine bled through her words, a certain overwhelming fondness for the character she talked about in such metaphors. If he dared he think it, it felt like love from one who considered themselves a mo—
It didn’t matter.
Whoever (or whatever) this Tartaglia ended up to be, he would follow through on his plan no matter what.
And with that thought, Zhongli closed his eyes and slept a dreamless sleep.
————————————————————————
And yet all too soon, the sunlight began to shimmer through the curtains again, eyelashes unwittingly and begrudgingly fluttered open.
Technically, an elemental being such as himself couldn’t feel muscle aches or similar pains— ever flowing as the Ley Lines are, it was simply impossible to tire pure energy.
Mortal bodies were exceedingly different, though, as he has come to realize. They weren’t bound simply by karmic forces to the inevitability of death, like he or Alatus was.
They were so fragile.
(But even then, he couldn’t resist the urge to treat the young yaksha like humans, like glass, keeping him close to his heart and away from the world. But alas, a contract was made, and Xiao unwaveringly fulfilled it no matter what he tried.)
The antsy anxiety coursing through Zhongli’s veins had only seem to amplified with his early wandering thoughts, taking control of his artificial joints, phantom pains flashing throughout his body as he went through the motions of waking up.
Sleep truly isn’t worth the effort nor the risks , he mused. But what was done was done, and now it was morning.
And mornings were the most important part of each day.
First, Zhongli carefully arranged the sheets and pillows on the hard mattress of his bed. Even though it felt perfect, his wandering hands rearranged the duvet covers about 5 times before his mind fell silent with its nitpicking. Whether it was out of habit or the unusual anxiety he was feeling, Zhongli couldn’t tell.
Brushing his teeth was menial, as always. The flowery paste on his brush was simply applied again and again, the cycle of refilling his cup with water to clean his mouth with an admittedly arduous one.
Before changing out of his sleepwear, he made sure that the second pair of curtains were firmly closed over the window. He had learned his lesson dearly the first time he had attempted to change his clothes the mortal way, with a small crowd gathering on the terrace below his room to watch with silent gapes— not exactly something he wished to recreate.
Careful to not muss his hair, though he doubted it would have mattered, he swiftly removed his hanfu and left it folded neatly on the bed. Each clasp of his form-fitting suit clacked satisfyingly into place.
Each morning generally ran its course this way, with the archon running over each simple instruction in his head mindlessly until he was sure everything was satisfactory. It was, after all, how his Liyue remained the epitome of success; the meticulous efficiency of his contracts combined with the rich tradition and experiences that his people brought forth made every village and city much more than the sum of their parts.
But today, his need for order grew even stronger: every hair must be in place, each wrinkle must be smoothed out, his hands must feign rawness with each scrub of the sandalwood soap—
Zhongli sighed for what must have been the umpteenth time, wincing ever so slightly at the dry pain of mortal skin as he pulled his signature gloves over his hands.
Perhaps it was the prospect of meeting such a volatile person soon that was making him even more irrational than usual. He couldn’t control the urge to brush imaginary dust off his lapels, though.
Just in case.
A quick glance in mirror, pointless to the adeptus as it was, quelled some of his fears. The assuredness of eons bled a healthy color on his face, straightening his spine and settling his mouth into a passive, serene expression. Red eyeliner melded smoothly with the red scales under his eyes he always failed to recede when transforming.
Today, the Prime Adeptus would not waver from his straightforward, cold discipline— silent and foreboding as the bedrock of the harbor he shaped.
Despite the uncontrollable variables thrown his way (those damned Harbingers he was forced to solicit for his retirement), he would steadfastly fulfill his last duty to the people of Liyue till the end.
Hopefully , he would be able to quietly slip out of the parlor so he could be early in Xinyue Kiosk. He planned to perfect his posture for his elegant wait for the Harbinger that would catalyze his plan, preferably with a cup of osmanthus tea steaming between his lips.
“Oii, grandpa! You haven’t kicked the bucket up there, have you? Come downstairs for breakfast now or this leftover squid’s going in your tea!” a familiarly loud, vexing voice sounded from downstairs.
Ah . Consider his hope dashed.
Zhongli shuddered merely at the thought of any sort of sea vermin in his tea, then composed himself with a small exhale.
Director Hu certainly had an uncanny knack for finding a way to throw a wrench in even the best of his laid out plans.
Breakfast, however, was becoming of a mortal, as Guizhong had attempted to drill in his skull all those years ago. So he walked out of his room with grace, stepping down the stairs in silence.
As he reached the last creaking step, a woman in a demure black uniform frantically rushed past the bottom of the stairs, scrolls spilling from her arms and unfurling everywhere.
Zhongli’s right eye twitched slightly, his hands falling off the banister to tightly clasp behind his back.
It seemed that the young funeral director must’ve placed some issues of middling importance on the long-suffering undertaker again— it was about the only time that such a severe display of neuroticism could be seen from the timid woman.
The Ferrylady exclaimed words just short of curses, looking close to tearing her hair out. He crossed his arms for a moment, examining her expression, then silently bent down to grab a few scrolls from the ground.
With a slight, unnoticeable wave of Geo ribboning the scrolls together as soon as he touched them, Zhongli neatly placed them in the Ferrylady’s arms. Her flustered expression slowly calmed down, but a mess of apologies and gratitude fell from her lips.
“Good morning, Ms. Ferrylady,” he said, letting the rumbling timbre of his voice stop the train crash of words in its tracks politely.
“Good morning, Mr. Zhongli sir,” the Ferrylady bowed (much deeper than one would for a colleague, but he supposed he could excuse it just this once). The scrolls teetered dangerously close to the edge again with the movement, and the consultant had to restrain the urge to grab them from her hands and take care of it himself.
“Please, be careful to watch your step next time.”
She put a hand on her chest to assuage herself from the sudden embarrassed fluster on her cheeks.
“Thank you,” her face fell into a dreamy, vague expression, somehow looking like she had immediately zoned out of the conversation entirely. “I hope your excursion with the client goes well.”
Something must’ve darkened on his face at the mention of his meeting with Tartaglia, because the Ferrylady only squeaked in fright upon seeing his expression. Before he could apologize, however, she had already blushed wildly and scurried away.
He delicately tilted his head to place his fingers on his forehead, resisting the urge to massage his temples again. Over 6000 years of existence still hasn’t educated him on the nuances of social interactions, it seems.
“You can come out now, Director Hu.”
A stifled giggle, then a raucous outburst of laughter, and then the girl all but rolled out of her hiding spot behind the wall.
“Oh my, dear Zhongli,” Hu Tao cackled, gasping for words as she wiped tears from her eyes, “how cold!”
“It wasn’t intentional,” Zhongli said with a frown.
“Maybe— hahaha— it’s time to p-put you in the freezer with little Qiqi? To keep the freshness of your new frostiness, of course.”
Director Hu raised both of her arms and wiggled her fingers at him in the typical jiangshi pose, rings clacking gaudily.
“Then maybe I’ll take my services elsewhere,” he tilted his head, an airy eyebrow lifted in superficial threat.
“While in the cryo freezer?! Oh my archons, can you imagine?” She lowered her voice into an absurd imitation that reminded him of the haughty people that frequented the Pearl Galley. “Introducing honorable Mr. Zhongli of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, funeral consultant and popsicle extraordinaire!”
And she broke down into uncontrollable laughter again.
“Alright, alright, just show me my cup of tea already,” he conceded with an exasperated smile.
“You sure you don’t want some squid with it? I heard it’s a great source of sodi—“
Carefully crossing his arms, he closed his eyes and briskly walked to the kitchen on muscle memory alone. He noted, among loud calls behind him, that the kitchen remained nowhere near any of their funerary services and instead adjoined their house to parlor.
“Oi oi, you aren’t ignoring me, are you?”
Thankfully, Hu Tao hadn’t managed to talk her employees into converting the (currently dysfunctional) cremation device from Fontaine into a stove.
“Is this any way to properly treat your boss? May the ghosts of the dearly departed break your favorite pot! Or worse, I won’t hesitate to dock your pay!” she grumbled, stomping off to the dining room in mock anger.
A sound involuntarily slipped from between his lips.
“Did you just chuckle at me? Hey!”
She lightly pounded his fists on the back of his coat as he reached the ornate dining table, where indeed, a steaming cup of osmanthus tea laid in wait at the head of the table (amidst cries of insubordination and “Are you actually made of rock or something? My hands really huurrt—“)
He waved a hand for Hu Tao to sit next to him, and she chirped something around the lines of “leftover Stir-Fried Shrimp.”
Attempting (and failing) to conceal a fond smile as she skipped to the side, Zhongli sipped his tea quietly, reveling as those thoughts that threatened to eat away at his shaky foundation sloughed away.
There was so much to look forward to in Liyue, wasn’t there? Even in his long centuries of existence, somehow time had managed to slip past his awareness again. Those days plagued with hopelessness were long gone.
More than ever, Zhongli felt, he had something to fight for. So he’d protect his people to his last minute as their archon, just as he promised. His plan would go through.
An endearingly freckled smile, and dark, mischievous blue eyes.
…Draconic clairvoyance be damned.