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He’s told there are others like him, others who know slaughter and death and the agony of karmic debt. He’s told he’ll get to meet them soon, sooner than Alatus is ready for. But even if he only recently fell under the command of Morax, he has served the Gods long enough to know not to oppose their decisions, so he doesn’t.
There’s four of them total, huddled around a campfire in the outskirts of the assembly, where the imposing stone structures and grand archways abruptly cut off to reveal the rolling, grassy hills of the planes. They’re using big chunks of stone as makeshift stools, grilling river fish over the open fire, chatting, laughing in a manner that seems too carefree for beings of their Yaksha status.
Even in such a casual setting do they carry themselves with the unfaltering statures befitting of the God of War’s most elite warriors, an air of confidence and strength hanging so heavily around them that breathing in their vicinity is difficult.
They spot them long before they’re actually within speaking distance. Alatus wishes nothing more than to flee from this obvious danger, but Morax’s hand rests lightly on his back, effectively blocking any attempt he could make at a retreat and gently pushing him forward, until the space between the two groups could be considered socially acceptable.
“Generals,” the God respectfully greets. They all return the courtesy with bowed heads, though their attention drifts quickly from the familiar sight of their Lord.
Curious stares molest his skin, and Alatus nips the inside of his cheek to suppress his survival instincts that bellow at him to run, run from this enemy you cannot possibly hope to defeat —instincts that have served him well in the fiercest of battles but is useless now that the danger is undetermined.
In a war of will, subservience proves stronger than his fear, and Alatus stays in place, right where Morax wants him.
“I’d like to introduce you to Alatus,” Morax says, calm voice an anchor tethering him to the here and now while a storm of opposing ideals rages in his head. “He is an adeptus just as you, a seasoned warrior proficient with a spear. And, as of today, he will be joining your ranks.”
There’s a silence so stifling Alatus doesn’t dare breathe out of fear he would disrupt it.
“My Lord,” the biggest of the four, a hulking, four-armed mass of muscles even taller than Morax himself, steps forth. “I don’t assume this would be your poor attempt at a joke, would it?”
The bite of animosity in his voice is unexpected, but not unfamiliar. Anger is indicative of disappointment. Anger means punishment. Anger means pain.
“Do you take me for the type to go this far just for some ephemeral amusement?”
“He is a child! ”
The volume of the conversation spikes too suddenly, and Alatus involuntarily flinches, even though he doesn’t intend to move when he hasn’t been instructed to do so. A discreet glance up at his Lord’s face reveals no indication that he noticed, however, unblinking eyes undividedly on the enraged adeptus in front of them.
“Morax,” he continues, anger now contained but still very much apparent. “I have fought by your side for centuries. My respect for you knows no bounds, and I do not doubt your judgment if you deem this boy physically fit for battle. But you cannot honestly command me to throw him head-first into the horrors of war. It would be cruelty of the highest degree.”
Morax’s hand moves to Alatus’ shoulder, squeezing it without hurting him, firm, grounding, quelling the tremors he hadn’t even realized were wracking his body.
“Marshal Vritras. I assure you, this child has seen as much bloodshed and carnage as the rest of you. He has accumulated enough karma to prove as much. Turning him away would be to dismiss every hardship he has suffered, to deprive him of the respect he deserves and take away his only purpose and reason for continuing on. Is that not more cruel than allowing him the chance to atone for his sins?”
And that’s the end of the verbal disagreement, at least, because the man—Marshal Vritras, Alatus tucks the name away for safekeeping in case the giant ever demands anything of him and he’d need to formally respond—still seems displeased with their Lord’s decision.
Or, at least Alatus assumed it to be the end. But as unsaid objection carves a hole of silence into the conversation, another Yaksha steps forward to fill it, the other male of the group, a sturdy man with silky hair and silky robes.
“My Lord,” he says, a refined edge framing his every word. “Much as it pains me to fault your reasoning, I would be dishonest to say I’m not inclined to agree with Bosacius' line of thinking. You claim the boy has karma, which implies that he has slain a lot . Though from the sounds of it, unwillingly—or at the very least he bemoans his past decisions enough that he desires to recompense for them. So, why, I beg, why rescue a child from bloody brutality only to bring him right back into it?
The fate of a Yaksha is set in stone from the very onset, and surely you must know this, so why, why condemn one who has not even lived a full life yet to a predetermined demise? Forgive me, but I do not understand.”
“I agree as well,” the red one chips in. “Just because he knows death doesn't mean he should be exposed to more of it. Having karmic debt isn’t an excuse to pile it on even heavier.”
The intensity of their rebuttals escalates, voices overlapping and intersecting at a rapid rate. They’re speaking like Alatus isn’t present to hear it, hear their rebukes and disapproval of him, but he’s used to as much. One would not count their weapon as a participant or active listener in a conversation, and therefore he shall not consider himself as such, nor is he displeased with being disregarded.
However, the one thread stringing their argument together is that inexplicably, all-important matter of his age.
They reject him, yet Alatus does not understand why when he’s done everything that’s been asked. They cite his youth as the source of their contempt, and he’s been called young before, by his old master who used his underdeveloped worldview as a weapon against him, filled his holes of knowledge with lies and warped the world into His preferred reality.
Alatus… Alatus decides he does not like being young. The Yaksha use it as evidence for his vulnerability—his breakability—as a means of doubting his resilience and usefulness.
If they don’t deem him to be of any worth then… then what will they do? Will they discard him as one does a defective weapon? Will they deny him the chance to fight, to die the death he has always been deserving of, cut down by the blade of his adversary in a bout of ardent combat, precisely as he has slaughtered countless others?
The thought is far scarier than the punishment he is guaranteed for speaking out, and so, completely unprompted, Alatus pries his lips apart and forces the words past a blockade of terror.
“A-age…”
His voice is a pathetic thing, grating against his throat in a way that sounds and feels painful, vocal chords rubbed raw from years of abuse. The rising tension stills at his tiny, almost inaudible plea, and as does everyone’s voices.
In turn, the invasive stares return to violate his body, and Alatus attempts to swallow the discomfort and waits a few breathless seconds for any of them to lash out at him for his inexcusable act of blatant disrespect.
But they stand as silent and as expectant as him. So, it seems that they wish for him to finish speaking, and Alatus cannot deny the will of powers higher than him.
“Age does not matter on the battlefield. I will strike down my enemies, and they will strike me down all the same. I have sworn loyalty to Morax and the Guili Assembly, and I will lay down my life to fulfill my designated duty. I do not fear death.”
Somehow, those words are all it takes to unwind the strained atmosphere, even if momentarily. Any hint of animosity and dispute evaporates, only to be immediately replaced by something unidentifiable, something far more solemn but equally as heavy and suffocating.
The blue Yaksha interrupts the fragile truce this time, risking a single, harmless step in his direction. It’s followed by another, then another, and then another.
“Young one, we are not concerned about a lack of conviction. We Yaksha know the value of life better than anyone, when it is paramount to preserve it and when it is senselessly thrown away. We wish not to see such an unjust fate befall you, is all.”
He notices only now that she gives him a reason to study her hands. They’re like an oversized pair of gloves, except the claws look too pointed to be synthetic, and her fingers bend with all the grace of appendages that have bones and muscles and nerves to support their movement.
She reaches out for his head with one of those giant, clawed palms, too slow to strike, too slow to pack any force.
It is pure reflex that lets him drop to his knee in time.
Whatever she had intended to do to him, it would be no good to do it while he is standing eye to eye with her, like they are equals. Alatus sits and lets his muscles tighten in anticipation, but instead of a blow strong enough to knock his brain against his skull, a set of fingers gently tap the back of his head.
“Alatus,” Morax sighs, and his Lord needn’t say more for Alatus to obey his order and raise his head.
They’ve enclosed him, yaksha forming a half-circle in the front, War God single-handedly serving as a barricade in the back. Their proximity is close enough to form imprisoning walls around him, but Alatus keeps his shallow, pained puffs of air as muffled as he can, concealing his rising panic.
The blue Yaksha crouches so she’s eye-height with him again. Alatus forces himself to greet her gaze welcomingly, even if her pained look utterly perplexes him.
“I’m sorry, I… I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Her soft features are pinched tight with genuine remorse that Alatus is wholly undeserving of.
“A being as distinguished as yourself should not apologize to one as unworthy as I,” Alatus fumbles out all too quickly.
And that, apparently, is the wrong thing to say, because the sadness on her face drops a level deeper, and the tension returns anew and is wound up to a downright combustible level, waiting only for a single spark to set off a blazing battle as ugly as any Alatus has ever fought.
“Morax…” the Marshal growls, this time seeming truly intent on lashing out if his dissatisfaction is not placated rather than dismissed.
Morax stands as immovable as ever, expressionless face unreadable as the earth. He grips his chin in thought, and after a few prolonged seconds of internal debate, appears to reach some satisfactory consensus with himself.
“Alatus, I would like to confer with my generals in private. Would you mind stepping away for a minute?
Alatus would like nothing more than to do that, so he bows as graciously as he can manage while kneeling, vanishing in a gust of wind. He doesn’t teleport too far away, just to the trunk of the nearest tree, where his Lord can still see and watch over him, as he had been instructed before they set out from the infirmary this morning.
It’s not his intention to eavesdrop, but they’re talking about him, and the wind carries his name directly into his ears, no matter how hushed they try to keep their voices.
“Why send him away? That child has every right to hear what we are discussing about him.”
“I doubt even a lifetime would be enough to fully heal the wounds that that young adeptus’ soul has sustained. It would be heartless of me to rip them open again so soon.”
It was easier to control the wind in the fortress of his Master, where the gales had to force themselves through the thinnest of slithers of cracks in the framework to reach him. Nothing stronger than a whiff of air could ever get in, amounting to a whisper, a mock-comfort to one such as he who survives not off of mortal food or even the addictively sweet dreams his Master had force-fed him, but the unending freedom of the sky.
The ceiling above his head blocking his view of the outside was more of a cage than the literal cell he had been locked in. The unyielding stone walls made him effectively deaf and blind at the same time.
He has never felt as trapped, as starved, as invalid and as irreversibly broken as the day his wings were taken.
“He does not speak for himself.”
The sky and the wind have returned to him now that he’s free of his Master’s shackles. The earth and the sea will shift and deform as elements collide and terraform the landscape, but the wind and the sky have remained unchanged for all the time Alatus has been alive.
“Adepti are proud creatures, strength and vigor unmatched by any mortal of this age. Seeing one so… compleasant is certainly unsettling.”
Alatus wraps his arms around his knees and buries his nose in the crease of his elbow, closing his eyes to try and block out the unwanted stimuli. The sun bakes the exposed skin on his neck, wind brushing against the fresh scar tissue on his arms like the delicate fingers of a caring parent.
He can’t recall when he last had the opportunity to relish in nature’s beauty like this.
It doesn't matter that he now has the opportunity. Regardless of how hard he tries to distract himself with thoughts unconcerning the conversation he does not want to be a part of, it’s the wind's deliberate choice to disturb him.
“What happened to him?”
A breeze carries his Lord’s sigh.
“He was enslaved.”
Alatus moves his hands to physically block the wind’s entrance to his ear canal. He would really rather skip this part of the conversation, would rather skip the discussion in its entirety, because he was sent away with the explicit intention of excluding him from whatever heavenly matters his Lord intended to address.
The wind is adamant in its attempt to make him disobey Morax’s direct order, however, and in the ensuing power struggle, fragmented sentences make it through his defenses.
“..An adeptus?”
“...How…”
“...Who could’ve…”
“The God of Dreams.”
Something painful twists in his chest, pain amassing in his throat and closing up his airways. His breathing accelerates and hitches simultaneously, respiratory system fighting against itself to stop and speed out of control all at the same time.
“Please stop…”
He chokes out a broken sob, too quiet for any human ear to ever hear, but the wind does, and it dies out in heed of his plea.
For some time it grants him the mercy of restless quiet, rustling leaves and the faraway racket of the Assembly’s bustling about with all its life and activity not quite allowing it to fall completely silent, and Alatus sits and counts his heartbeats, letting himself exist simply in this moment and this moment alone.
But the wind returns, albeit slowly, unnoticable at first, dancing on lithe feet around him and singing calming serenades in the bushy treetops, as if apologizing before it integrates him remotely back into the meeting.
“After so many years spent in captivity, perhaps it seems immoral to deny him the freedom he has been deprived of. But the battlefield has become something of a home to him. It is what he is most familiar with, it is the only place he feels he can ever be of any use to anyone. Were I to release him, he would be left aimlessly wandering this world looking for a purpose until he were to either get taken by Karma or the next greedy God looking for a mindless pawn.”
“Even so—”
“In time, perhaps, you will see that there is no place better suited for him than with you, my loyal generals. Please, I ask only that you take care of him to the best of your ability.”
The discussion fades to silence too suddenly, and, this time, Alatus knows it isn’t because the wind stopped relaying their voices to him.
Hello hello!! To any lucky readers who happen to stumble across this little ficlet (dug out of the dusty google docs archives), it shared familial connections with my other work; 'When The Weapom Dulls, Lay It To Rest', which is another Xiao-ouch fic. Similarily to that, this was also written by my lovely sister, before she even started playing Genshin, and also long before she wrote the other one! (Illegal, I know.)
To any fellow Alatus & Morax enjoyers, I offer you a hug to help quell the pain. You are very very heard, poor soul.
Happy holidays, and kind regards!