Archive of Our Own

金継ぎ Kintsugi

The art of repairing ceramics traditionally with lacquer and gold, leaving a gold seam where the cracks were. The scars are as beautiful as they are unique; there is beauty in broken things.

A Vision is a curse given solid form, and those who walk Teyvat bearing its shimmering gem will never know the solace of death.

Beidou learns this from her adoptive father, when a young woman carrying a Cryo crystal saves their village from a herd of Geovishap. She has lived for centuries, her immortality imposed upon her by her Vision. Beidou remembers watching in morbid fascination as the Geovishap tore bone-deep gashes in the woman’s arm; the Cryo that burst from deep within, shattering the offender into a million pieces. The half-Qilin’s pained groan as ice filled her wounds, spilling over her skin; her wails echoing through the peaks of Jueyun Karst, where she returned to rest after clinching victory.

An eye for an eye; untold strength for untold suffering. The power Visions draw from leylines must be repaid in some form, and the contract stakes its claim on the Vision user’s body.

But there is more to the unwilling contract forged between owner and Vision. Beidou learns just how cruel the gods can be when she draws her sword against Haishan, god of the seas, her ship battered and broken, her crew clinging to the mast for dear life.

The Visionless Captain clung to her hope when she leapt into the storm, blade pointed at Haishan’s head. She carried nothing but prayers on her lips and fiery determination in her ruby eyes when the sword slipped between tough scales and pierced into soft flesh; when Haishan’s own spiny blades stabbed into her left eye and a searing pain ripped through her head. Grant her the strength, she prayed, strength beyond mortal means— grant me the power to kill Haishan!

The gods answered. From that day on, Beidou saw only lightning in her left eye. An endless storm raging beneath her eyelid, her blessing and damnation all in one.

But when she holds one woman close; when sleep has long conquered her beloved and only the Captain lies awake, finally cracking open her left eye— Beidou swears she can see Ningguang through the storm.

*

The gods are cruel, although Beidou thinks the world remains beautiful, even when she loses her home to the waves, or when she is tricked and beaten and used and thrown aside. Even when the waves crash into the Alcor and all she sees of the Jade Chamber are bright, flashing streaks of Geo hurtling towards an enraged god, she remembers the sun will rise— and it is always beautiful.

But this— this gives her pause. This… massive Geo crystal, sitting in Cloud Retainer’s very own abode, formed in the wake of the battle with Osial. Encased within is a woman, whose sacrifice saved all of Liyue Harbour, but not herself. The crystal shimmers and shines like a massive slab of cor lapis, and Beidou can just barely make out the twisted form of a human body deep within.

Is she conscious? Is she listening? Is she begging for help— bile rises in Beidou’s throat at the thought that Ningguang might be awake in her Geo prison, might have been awake since the explosion, her words and pleas going unheard.

The adepti salvaged this from the wreckage of the Jade Chamber, Ganyu had said, as they scoured the seas for any sign of Ningguang. They had transported the crystal to Jueyun Karst instead of the harbour to maintain calm, and Cloud Retainer had offered her abode for security’s sake. No one will find them here— not without Cloud Retainer’s permission.

“You said they found her three days ago?” Beidou questions.

Baizhu nods, pressing a hand on the crystal. His palm glows with Dendro. “I can feel her… vitality. She’s most certainly alive.”

“How…?” Beidou whispers hoarsely. She has no strength left, not after running from the pier to Yujing Terrace and finding no trace of the Tianquan. Not after falling to her knees at Yiyan Temple, where Ganyu found her amidst glaze lilies wilting from her tears.

“Osial,” Baizhu begins wearily, shaking his head. “He caught her just before the Jade Chamber exploded. She didn’t make it out with the others…”

But a Vision holder is immortal. A Vision will save them with pure elemental energy, leaving their bodies disfigured and inhuman, yet very much alive. Everyone knows this, and Ningguang is no exception. Yet the knowledge brings her no relief. “So why is she… still stuck in a crystal? Cor lapis, whatever?”

“I don’t know, Captain. Perhaps it was a means of protection, summoned by her Vision.”

“It’s been three days!” Beidou resists the urge to slam her fist on the ground. “Her Vision should have released her if she’s alive!”

The gods are cruel.

“Yes. Which means we must find a way to release her.”

Beidou surveys the crystal thoughtfully. “We could smash it.”

The white snake coiled around Baizhu’s neck — Changsheng, she recalls — flicks its tongue at her. “You really want to risk shattering it?” she asks. And her?

“Fine. Chip away at it.”

“That will take us decades.” Baizhu squats next to Qiqi at the base of the crystal. Beidou recalls the little girl has been kneeling there, motionless, since she first entered the abode. “What have you noticed, Qiqi?” he murmurs.

“It… tickles,” Qiqi replies, “When I… do… this.” She cradles a ball of frost in her tiny hands and bounces it against the crystal. The ball shatters with a soft ‘ping’, two miniature Geo gems fall from the massive rock.

“Of course, Qiqi. Cryo reacts with Geo—”

“Wait.” Beidou drops to her knees, inspecting the base that Qiqi had been playing with. Along the edges of the crystal are small dents shaped exactly like the two Geo gems that fell when she bounced a Cryo ball against it.

Of course. Elemental reactions.

“Electro reacts with Geo too,” Beidou muses, “So… all we need is enough power.”

“Captain?”

She rises. “Stand back, Baizhu, Qiqi.”

The doctor obeys, taking Qiqi’s hand and leading her away. Beidou pulls off her gloves, pressing her bare palm against the Geo crystal, right where Ningguang’s face is. This close, she can see the other woman’s expression— calm, peaceful, delicate; as though she is merely asleep. But layers upon layers of shimmering rock separate them, and it tingles at her touch. The warmth of elemental magic pools underneath her fingertips. This will work, she realises; if Qiqi’s little balls of frost can dent the crystal… a blast powerful enough to crystallize the entire Geo formation would release her.

“Whatever happens,” Beidou mutters, “Be ready to help Ning. Okay?”

“You have my word.”

She gingerly pulls off her eyepatch, keeping her left eye closed. The storm within her eyeball flares to life, filling the left side of her vision with white lightning. Gritting her teeth, Beidou opens her eye, forcing it to stare at the Geo crystal. And amidst the whiteness, she sees her— Ningguang.

Electro bursts from her eye, wild and free, burning her cheeks and scorching her hair. She falls to her knees with a groan, seeing only blinding sparks of purple and hearing shouts of alarm behind her. The Geo crystal glows; Beidou watches in disbelief as it draws her uncontrollable Electro into itself, sucking the storm in like a hungry beast. And then— it bursts into a thousand shimmering gems, releasing the woman imprisoned within.

Baizhu leaps forward to catch Ningguang as Beidou falls back, struggling to pull her eyepatch over the storm in her eye. A Cryo orb explodes above her, showering her face with a cool mist that numbs the pain of her burns, and she manages to shut her left eye long enough for her to pull the eyepatch over it again. Rolling onto her stomach, Beidou staggers to her feet, wiping blood from her burned hands.

She stumbles over to Baizhu, half-blind, and falls to her knees beside him. He discreetly covers the naked body of Ningguang with a blanket, but not before Beidou glimpses the Geo veins glowing in her skin, like a network of gold-plated cracks in a vase. The scars run across her entire face and body, pulsing with elemental power.

“Ning,” Beidou whispers, shakily cradling her lifeless hand. Some part of her realises there is a pattern to these scars, almost as if her body had been torn apart by the Jade Chamber’s explosion, but stitched back together with sheer elemental power by the will of her Vision. After all, the eye of god denies death to those who receive it.

A Vision is a curse.

“She’s alright,” Baizhu reassures Beidou, “But I’m not sure how much she’ll remember when she—”

He stops, looking down, when Ningguang stirs. Beidou stretches out her arms and Baizhu quietly hands Ningguang over, wrapped in the blanket. The other woman’s chest heaves as she wakes, her breathing erratic and strained.

“Ning,” Beidou whispers again, pressing her close to her chest and stroking her hair. “Bǎobèi, it’s okay. You’re okay. Breathe.” She coos softly to the woman in her arms, hugging her until Ningguang calms down enough to look around.

Wine-red eyes stare blankly at the abode’s false sky, flick towards Baizhu and then settle on Beidou. Ningguang blinks several times, utterly lost.

“Hey,” Beidou murmurs, taking her hand gently. It’s a strange sensation, she thinks, to see these scars on her skin, yet not feel any bumps or textures to them. It’s as though someone painted her veins with gold and sprinkled Geo energy into them. “Are you okay, Ning? Does it hurt?”

A pause. Then, a hesitant shake of her head.

“Good.” Beidou sneaks a glance at Baizhu, who nods reassuringly. “Listen, Ning. You’ve been out for days, you” — died — “almost died. I know you’re confused, but let’s take it slow. One thing at a time, okay?”

Ningguang nods, shivering despite the blanket.

Beidou’s grip tightens around her. “Can you talk?”

Her lips part. “I… yes,” Ningguang croaks hoarsely, “I… I don’t…” She looks down at her hands, at the Geo veins snaking all over her skin. Her eyes widen. “I… B–Beidou, I…”

“Shh.” Beidou draws her closer; Ningguang buries her head into Beidou’s chest. “Let it out, okay? You’re okay. I’m here.” She keeps Ningguang in a tight, firm hug as sobs rack the other woman’s frail frame, as her body weeps for the pain that her mind has yet to fully recall.

Beidou knows. She remembers her first time waking after Haishan almost killed her, as confused as Ningguang now is. She remembers thinking, I should be dead; that her survival had felt like a perversion of nature, a defilement of the laws that govern the world. She was — still is — a criminal, pursued by more than Liyue’s laws, her debt to death unpaid.

And now—

“I’m… alive,” Ningguang whispers, so soft that only Beidou can hear.

How cruel the gods can be.

Beidou nods once, arms tightening around her, as if the mere act of holding Ningguang close can undo all the horror Osial has wrought. “You’re alive,” she agrees softly.

And the world is beautiful because you live.

*

In the dark of night, Ningguang dreams of death. It fills her mouth and lungs like the icy water of the ocean; it suffocates her till the water boils from the heat of the plummeting Jade Chamber, till wood and stone shred her burned body to pieces and she wakes, thrashing and gagging.

Beidou says nothing, coaxing her to lean against the bedrest and wiping the cold sweat from her brow with a cloth.

Ningguang can’t speak. Her heart pounds furiously against her ribs; she looks around the room like a cornered beast, until Beidou’s hand rests on hers, calm and steady. Then she remembers: Wangshu Inn. They are here to spend the night, before continuing their journey back to Liyue Harbour now that she is well. Well enough, at least.

“Bǎobèi,” Beidou calls, her voice a low rumble.

Ningguang blinks, focusing on the other woman. On her kind ruby eye; her gentle, knowing smile. On the slow, purposeful movement of Beidou’s hands and body, careful not to further startle her already-frayed nerves.

“Let me.”

Ningguang nods, closing her eyes. Beidou leans close, drinking her fears with her lips, soothing the tremors that still wrack her body. She winds her fingers into Ningguang’s silky hair as their lips part, pulling her close, till all she can feel is the warmth of the Captain’s body against hers, and the comforting scent of mint and pine.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Beidou asks when her nerves settle.

Ningguang hesitates. Her thoughts tumble over each other. Even with her face buried in Beidou’s neck, this… heaviness… lingers. The dreams have thrown a door open, and instead of the paralysing fear she’d felt staring into the rage-filled eyes of Osial, something else has stepped through, quiet and cunning.

“It…” Her gaze rests on her Geo Vision, lying innocently on the bedside table. “It took something away from me.” Ningguang stares at the golden cracks running all across her skin. They look like scars and glow with the essence of Geo, but when she runs her hand over it… she feels nothing, as if they don’t exist. She has seen the extent of this scarring; it leaves no piece of her untouched.

The explosion tore her apart, limb to limb. Her Vision stitched her back together like a ragdoll, for death denied her at its door, as it does all Vision bearers. Ningguang should be grateful. But when she gazes at herself in the mirror, at the scars marring her porcelain skin with its jagged lines and inhuman glow—

“I can’t… face anyone like this.” The words drop from her lips with the weight of finality. “Beidou, I… I’ve lost… everything. Even my life. This body—”

—now bears the marks of a sinner.

“I know,” Beidou murmurs, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, “I know your feelings, bǎobèi. When you die and come back, it… it feels… wrong. It takes something away from you. Something that… made you human.”

Ningguang recoils at the lethality of Beidou’s words. They pierce her like a spear, fine and razor-sharp. “How…?”

The Captain smiles a strange sort of smile, the kind that draws Ningguang in but leaves her spiraling in emptiness. For all of her jokes and strength, Beidou is no stranger to despair. Ningguang knows this as clearly as she knows each and every law in Liyue Harbour. But to see despair written on her beloved’s face—

“Haishan,” Ningguang whispers. A feat celebrated by many, whose truth few know.

“Yeah.” Beidou touches her eyepatch briefly. “I told you I lost my eye, didn’t I?”

Her brows raise.

“Well” — she barks out a nervous laugh — “that wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth, either.”

“I figured as much, given what occurred just a minute ago.”

“Damn. Snappy as always,” Beidou chuckles, though it holds no bite. “Well, I died.”

Ningguang freezes.

“He killed me with that stab. Right through the head.” Beidou shakes her head, letting out another hollow snort. “I got the Vision just before, or after, I don’t know… but the next thing I know, I was awake, and this eye” — she touches it again, pressing the eyepatch inward — “it wasn’t an eye anymore.”

It occurs to Ningguang that she has never seen Beidou’s left eye in all these years. She’d always assumed Beidou was simply… blind. “What… is it?”

“Electro. A ball of pure, angry Electro.” Beidou sighs, rubbing circles on Ningguang’s hands. “I keep it covered because I can’t control it. All I see in that eye is lightning, y’know? If I open my eyelid, it’ll attack whoever I look at. Raw and furious power, that’s what it is. That’s what Electro is.”

Then you, too—

“My father used to tell me a Vision is a curse,” Beidou continues with a sad smile, “That the gods are cruel for denying the best of us the solace of death.”

—bear the marks of a sinner.

Something akin to a string settles between them, long and iridescent, its ends looping round their little fingers. Ningguang drinks each word that falls from Beidou’s lips, rolling them on her tongue and tasting the emotions wrapped within. Sweet joy tinged with the bitterness of melancholy, raw passion honed through perseverance, and the saccharine aftertaste of hope.

“Have you heard of kintsugi?”

Ningguang raises a brow. “The Inazuman art of fixing broken porcelain?”

A snort. “You could put it that way,” Beidou says slowly, “But I prefer to call it the art of embracing imperfection. You know how they do it?”

The Tianquan huffs, folding her arms. “Of course. I commissioned some valuable pieces myself…”

Though they’re all lost now.

Her shoulders sag. Beidou clutches them knowingly and plants a kiss on her forehead. “They put the pieces back together. Seal it up with pure liquid gold.”

“I know that.”

Beidou barks out a laugh. The Tianquan frowns at the crooked grin on the pirate’s face. She always wears this particular smile when she smells victory in the air, when the Captain would have her way with the law as her prize.

This time, however, Beidou simply picks up her blanket and drapes it around Ningguang’s shoulders. “You can hide them from the world if you must,” Beidou murmurs, “And I will hide them for you.”

She pulls Ningguang close, cupping her cheeks and covering the scars on her face.

“But I want you to know,” Beidou breathes, every word a kiss on her lips, “That they only make you more beautiful to me.”

Like a broken vase pieced back together, their seams filled with gold.

*

Spring seems to drag on for an infinity, an airy cloak of freshness and life stretching across moon cycles that witness the revival of Liyue Harbour and her Tianquan. Sunsettias ripen and burst without end; ships dock at and depart with each new dawn, dotting the horizon with their masts held high. Ningguang’s thoughts drift like the ships out at sea, as time numbs the horrors of her flawed reflection.

Perhaps there is a reason their Visions cursed them so. Ningguang begins to ponder this conundrum in her free time, gripped by feverish obsession with the origins of a Vision and its impact on the numerous immortals of history. No Vision bearer has died of old age; throughout the centuries, every Vision bearer has met a violent end, their bodies shredded beyond repair. Consumed by beasts, dismembered and beheaded, their Visions shattered along with their corpses.

But not all were successful in orchestrating their own deaths. The others— the others ceased to be human.

When these thoughts keep her awake, she resorts to watching Beidou sleep. She wonders what the Captain’s eye looks like beneath the eyepatch, beneath her eyelid. A ball of Electro, Beidou had described, an uncontrollable and wild power. It draws her attention, keeps her mind off the golden cracks that marr her once-flawless skin.

Once or twice, Ningguang debates prying open Beidou’s eyelid while she sleeps. But that would be a betrayal of trust, and she holds the Captain in too high regard to destroy what they’ve built. Despite that, Ningguang must know. Does Beidou’s lightning eye glow the way her scars do, pulsing with elemental energy? Does it crackle with lightning the way Geo flows through her veins?

Her senses have been heightened since her ‘death’. In her temporary office at Yujing Terrace, she feels the earth rumble beneath her feet, feels the leylines of the land under her palms— that endless stream of energy, the lifeblood of the world. Perhaps the more times they die, the closer they draw to ascending as gods. Perhaps that is the fate of all Vision bearers.

When naught of mortality remains, what are they, but gods?

She raises this thought to Beidou over a game of chess, a cup of tea in hand. The Captain pauses mid-move, calloused fingers still clutching her knight. “You’re saying… Haishan and Osial, Rex Lapis… they were all once human?”

Ningguang nods. “They could all have been Vision bearers once, Beidou. If each death twists and warps our bodies further from mortality…”

“And you think that because you’ve become more sensitive to Geo?”

“Do you not sense the coming storms at sea? The static in the air, perhaps?”

Beidou sets the knight down on a black square, leaning back and crossing her arms. “I suppose I do,” she muses, “Since Haishan, I can… feel thunder in the skies. I know it’ll answer me if I call. I can sense the storms at sea long before we approach.” She shakes her head. “I just never thought… it’s because of my death at Haishan.”

Of course. Beidou had ‘died’ as soon as she received her Vision. “I can guarantee that I was never this sensitive.” Ningguang presses a hand on the table. “Even now, if I close my eyes… I can feel it. The leylines of Liyue.” She closes her eyes. “And far beneath Nantianmen… a simmering anger.”

“A god?”

“Perhaps. I don’t know. The point is, before I died… I have never sensed any of this.”

Beidou hums, gesturing at her to make her move. Ningguang leans forward, electing to move a bishop two squares ahead.

“What of the adepti?” the Captain asks, surveying the board. “Do you think they were once human, too?”

“It’s not impossible. Ganyu bears a Vision.”

“I don’t think her master does. Cloud Retainer, was it?”

“Cloud Retainer is a bird.”

The Captain barks out a laugh. “Fair. I don’t suppose you can just ask her about this, eh?”

“Have you met Cloud Retainer, Captain?” Ningguang resists the urge to cover her face in her hands. “She is insufferable.”

“So are you.”

Ningguang raises a brow.

“What was it again… birds of a feather, flock together?” Beidou’s grin widens.

“What does that make you, then?” Ningguang counters, “A mere duck paddling in water?”

Beidou’s face flames red. “Y–you… you’re more insufferable than any damn bird, I say!”

The Tianquan beams, gesturing to the board. “Your move, Captain.”

She watches Beidou fold her arms, brows cutely furrowed as she contemplates her next move. The Captain rises all of a sudden, towering over her and slipping a finger under her chin. Ningguang obeys the slight motion, lifting her head to gaze at herself, reflected in Beidou’s ruby eye.

It’s funny, she thinks. Beidou makes her forget about the scars that run across her skin. Where others now avert their gazes, Beidou never will. It’s almost as if nothing has changed between them, though everything else has changed.

“Human or god, whatever I might become,” Beidou says, quiet and firm all at once, “There’s one thing that I won’t lose.”

“And what is that, Captain?” Her voice trembles, just a little.

“My love for you.”

And she seals her promise with a kiss.

*

When Beidou does not have duties to attend to, she returns home. She mindlessly approaches Yiyan Temple and stops before a confused Bu’yun, before turning on her heel and treading back to the offices of Yujing Terrace. She has thought of a thousand gifts and a million gestures — to remind Ningguang of what is truly precious — but nothing has seemed right. Her mind skips through various speeches and merchants who would fall head over heels to craft something for the Tianquan; the motifs she will need to imagine, the symbolism of each piece. Ningguang has always been complex, just like the vase Beidou had commissioned long ago.

She wonders, briefly, if the pieces of the vase can yet be salvaged from the merciless sea.

In her dissatisfaction, she doesn’t realise she has reached Ningguang’s office until she crosses the threshold and hears an irritated click of the tongue from the Tianquan. Beidou gazes at Ningguang, and her world seems to light up like a thousand fireworks in the sky.

“Lantern Rite’s shows could never match your radiance, beloved,” Beidou utters without thinking.

Ningguang’s brow raises, though her cheeks are dusted pink. “Have you been drinking again, Captain?”

“Of course not!” She flops on the chair opposite, resting her elbows on Ningguang’s fine desk. “What, do I have to be drunk to admire my bǎobèi?”

Something indecipherable flickers across Ningguang’s eyes. Beidou tries to grasp it, but it slips out of her fingers as easily as sand. “You do not have to lie, Beidou,” the Tianquan murmurs, lowering her gaze to the parchments on her desk.

“I don’t like to lie.” Beidou reaches out to rest a hand on Ningguang’s, tracing the Geo veins snaking across the back of her hand. “You know that.”

Ningguang smiles, soft and delicate. The silence drags on, and just before it grows unbearable, she speaks again. “Do you ever loathe your Vision, Beidou?”

The Captain stares at a stack of scrolls on her desk, her mind on the truth behind Ningguang’s question. Of course she would blame her Vision. But what would have happened without it, then? It is a path Beidou does not wish to consider. She focuses on herself instead, on the Electro Vision dangling from her midriff. It has granted her powers beyond imagination, protecting her people countless times at war;she can call down the power of lightning from the skies if she so desires to smite her foes.

But the sheer, raw energy of Electro terrifies her. It is unlike the other elements; it is volatile, violent, and uncaring.

Still, it is not her answer that Ningguang seeks. The chessboard is laid before them once again, a game played with words and emotions as their pawns. And so Beidou chooses her words carefully: “Once. Before I met you.”

“I changed your mind?”

Beidou laughs at the incredulity in Ningguang’s tone. “Sure you did.”

“I do not believe I’ve ever spoken about Visions to you until now, Captain.”

“You didn’t need to.” She grins. “I think about it sometimes, you know? Haishan would have killed me if the gods hadn’t cursed me with a Vision. And if I hadn’t been cursed, if the Vision hadn’t taken my eye… I wouldn’t have met you.”

The Tianquan’s brow furrows— an opening.

Beidou seizes it. “The world’s cruel like that, isn’t it?”

Ningguang’s next question is hesitant. “Do you… not find yourself hating this… cruelty?”

“Sometimes. But then I look at the stars, and I remember the good times. The smiles, the laughter, my friends, you… especially you.”

Ningguang swallows thickly.

Beidou rises, cupping Ningguang’s cheeks in her hands. She takes a moment to stare, to truly admire, how her veins now shimmer and glow with a golden hue, tracing her curves and illuminating her features. Satisfied with the flush on Ningguang’s cheeks, Beidou finally plants a kiss on her forehead.

“And I remember that, for all of its cruelty,” Beidou says softly, looking into watery wine-red eyes, “This world is still beautiful. Always.”

*

But beautiful though the world may be, her people still lack decorum. The people begin to whisper that Lady Ningguang’s scars will not heal; that she is no longer the unparalleled beauty she once was before Osial struck. And who can deny that? The veins of Geo snake through her skin like cracks in porcelain, pulsing with elemental energy. Unlike Beidou, she can neither hide nor deny it, for these seams hold her entire body together. No part of her is spared.

Can a Vision’s gift be rejected? Can Celestia’s choice be rescinded? Ningguang pores over dusty tomes in her free time, searching for answers in the written records of those who came before her. Should she find a way to regain mortality — should she and Beidou both attempt the impossible — would they die, immediately?

The gods are cruel to curse the best of us.

When she can no longer keep her eyes open, she retreats to her bedroom and finds Beidou seated at the guest table, a chessboard ready for play, waiting for her return. Her eyes widen.

The Captain flashes her a crooked grin. “Finally finished work, eh?”

Perhaps, she thinks, this curse isn’t so bad after all.

*

There is one book amongst many that piques Ningguang’s interest: a series of notes cobbled together by an unnamed Vision bearer — a scholar, perhaps — on the balance present in the world. Pyro vaporises Hydro. Cryo neutralises Electro’s volatility. Anemo, the free element that amplifies temperamental energies. Dendro, the element upon which nature’s wildest forces act.

And Geo, the neutral catalyst of all alchemy, from which Mora is born.

She glances over at Beidou, snoozing away on their bed, and her thoughts return once again to the Captain’s eyepatch. Even in sleep, Beidou does not remove it, for fear that she will forget to control its power when she opens her eyes. A wild orb of lightning that burns and destroys everything it sees.

Yet it was this cursed eye that had freed her from the Geo crystal.

Ningguang keeps the book in her drawer, loosens her hair, and slips into bed next to Beidou. She leans over her beloved, admiring the way her brown curls frame her face; how she barely stirs even with Ningguang barely a hair’s width away from her lips.

Beidou embraced her even after her body was marred by sin. Ningguang wants to know her too, know every piece of her the way Beidou has. Even if the storm hurts—

I want to embrace all of you, too.

*

Ningguang visits Beidou one evening, stepping aboard the Alcor for the first time in months. She does not pretend it is for official business; she simply walks across the deck, descends the steps and raps sharply on the Captain’s door.

It takes Beidou several seconds to recover from the sight of the Tianquan, still in her elegant qipao and gold-laced black heels, standing in front of her door on a ship rocking ever so slightly with the waves. “Wh–what brings you here, my lady?”

Ningguang does not speak. She merely steps over the threshold, moving to sit on the bed, and Beidou notes the tension in her shoulders and the squareness of her jaw. Silently, she shuts the door behind them and locks it for good measure.

“Everything okay?” Beidou settles next to her.

Ningguang nods. “I simply… wished to speak.”

“What about?”

The Tianquan bites her lip. Beidou drapes an arm around her waist, letting her mind wander. What is that Ningguang came all the way here to speak about? What couldn’t have waited till she swung by later for dinner? It is surely something urgent, and yet Ningguang struggles to put her desires into words. The irony, she thinks, that the sharp-tongued businesswoman now sits on her bed, at a loss for words. But Ningguang has always been like that. Complex and mysterious, cunning yet kind. A moon shrouded in star-scattered clouds.

“Your eye,” the other woman finally says.

Beidou’s mind blanks. “My… eye?”

Ningguang nods, a little firmer this time. “Will you let me see it?” She reaches out to touch the eyepatch, but Beidou recoils.

“I already told you,” the Captain mumbles, covering her eyepatch, “It’s a storm. I can’t control it at all. It’ll hurt you—”

And that’s the last thing I ever want to do.

There is a glint in Ningguang’s eyes, a gem of belief that Beidou is not privy to. “Perhaps in the past,” the Tianquan murmurs, “But not this time. Not after… this.” She lifts her arms, inclining her head towards the golden scars littering her body.

“You can’t know that,” Beidou protests weakly, “It’s not pretty, Ningguang. This eye… it’ll tear you apart. I’ve seen the aftermath, the corpses. I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy.”

A ghost of a smile flits across Ningguang’s lips. “Well, I cannot die, can I?”

“Why do you want me to do this so badly?” Beidou nearly shouts, “I’ve told you about this eye, haven’t I? It is a monster and I—”

“You never thought of that me.”

Her words are quiet, but they hold enough force to stop Beidou in her tracks. The pirate gazes at her. Ningguang lowers her head, fingers idly tracing the scars on her arm. She has surely heard the rumours, just as Beidou has. Her beauty marred, her veins inhuman. The Jade Chamber’s sacrifice has prevented worse from being uttered, but she is certain Ningguang is very much aware of the unkind words that have spilled down the grapevine. Words that Beidou has beaten others for in the dark of night, growling threats in their ear.

“You are not a monster,” Beidou whispers, clutching her shoulders. “Your scars don’t hurt anyone, bǎobèi.”

“So believe me when I say your scar will not hurt me, Beidou. It may hurt others, but not me.” Something flares in Ningguang’s eyes as she speaks. A flame of conviction, Beidou thinks, the very same that led her to build a palace in the sky. When the Tianquan of the Liyue Qixing is this determined, nothing short of the next Cataclysm will stop her.

Beidou sighs and gives her a tight-lipped nod.

Gingerly, Ningguang touches the eyepatch with her fingers. The sensation alone is strange; ever since Haishan, Beidou has allowed no one to touch it, for fear they might move it as a prank. She closes her other eye, relishing the gentle, feather-light touch of skin on skin. Ningguang’s neatly-trimmed nails brush against her cheek when she digs her fingers in, and slowly lifts the eyepatch.

“Open your eyes.” The words fall from her lips like an order, and Beidou obeys.

From one eye, she sees Ningguang in all her beauty. From the other eye— blinding white, and Ningguang’s silhouette amidst the light. She hears the crackle of Electro, but Ningguang holds her firm, leaning closer until she fills her entire vision.

Lightning bursts from the storm in her eye, surging through her beloved. Beidou braces herself for the screaming, for the smell of burned flesh to fill her quarters, for the sparks to burn her own face— but it never comes. She stares in disbelief, watching lightning streak through Ningguang’s glowing veins like moths drawn to a flame. Not a single bolt is lost; Ningguang’s Geo scars glow with each strike, illuminating her porcelain skin. She looks unbelievably ethereal like this, silver hair reflecting the golden light of Geo, her eyes twinkling with the brilliant purple of Electro. Like a goddess, Beidou thinks, her goddess.

When the sparks finally recede, Beidou blinks, and makes out the blurry shape of Ningguang through her left eye. “H–how…?” she whispers, “How is this…?”

“I thought so.” Ningguang smiles, cupping her cheeks gently with glowing hands. “Geo and Electro… they neutralise each other. That is how you freed me.”

Beidou remembers then, how the crystal had simply absorbed all her eye had to offer, until it burst into a million gems, freeing the woman encased within. How she had struggled to contain the remnant energy in her eye while Baizhu checked on Ningguang. “But why do you want to see this… see me?”

The Tianquan leans closer, and the scent of glaze lilies is all that fills Beidou’s senses. “I wanted to see you the way you see me, Beidou,” she murmurs, her voice soft and low, “To understand why you still find beauty in a world so cruel.”

“How could I not?” the pirate whispers breathlessly, looking deep into a pool of rich, wine-red eyes. It feels as though her heart has forgotten how to beat, and her chest tightens. They are so close. So close. So close that Beidou can think of nothing else, only Ningguang. Her powerful presence, the light in her silvery hair, the way she moves like a dancer skimming across the water's surface, leaving barely a ripple in her wake. “How could I think otherwise when I have you? You…”

“Yes.” Ningguang rubs her thumbs over Beidou’s cheeks, brushing both her eyelids gently. Warmth pools beneath her fingertips, and Beidou closes both eyes with a contented sigh. “Beidou, I understand now. Because your eye… only makes you more beautiful to me, too.”

Ningguang presses the sweet curve of her smile against Beidou’s lips, hands still cupping her cheeks, and Beidou realises she has never known a kiss could feel like this: like liquid sunshine, like destiny fulfilled. 

That’s right. No matter how cruel the world is—

Beidou drinks deep of Ningguang, large hands clutching her slender waist, and smiles.

—it is beautiful because of you.

—FIN.