Archive of Our Own ^beta

I. You’re Like a Storm I Want to Sail Through, Again and Again

The first time Beidou flirted with Ningguang, it was an accident.

A very deliberate accident, if you asked anyone who knew her. But if you asked Beidou? She’d scratch the back of her neck, flash that unapologetic grin, and say something like “You ever see a typhoon check the weather before rolling in?”—which, in essence, said nothing and everything at once.

It happened on a day where the clouds were not so much looming as lounging—fluffy, sunlit things with the temperament of lazy sea lions. Beidou had docked The Crux at Liyue Harbor after weeks at sea, her crew in high spirits, their pockets full of half-traded loot and stories with suspicious timelines. Beidou herself was covered in a fine layer of sea salt and bravado, which she considered her natural cologne.

She sauntered up to the Jade Chamber uninvited—though “uninvited” was perhaps the wrong word when you brought an entire barrel of vintage dandelion wine and shouted your name so loud at the gates that the Tianquan herself had to step out of a meeting just to tell you to shut up or come in.

So she came in.

Ningguang stood at the center of her sprawling chamber like a swan among cranes: poised, remote, and criminally untouchable. She wore her composure like silk—smooth, ivory-white, impossible to stain. Beidou, on the other hand, wore rumpled linen and a half-buttoned vest that looked like it had lost a fight with a sea monster.

“You reek of ocean,” Ningguang said, delicately wrinkling her nose.

“You reek of expensive decisions,” Beidou replied, leaning on the arch of one of those gilded staircases that probably cost more than the entirety of the Southern fleet.

Ningguang blinked once. It was the kind of blink that contained decades of bureaucracy, a whole monologue of rebuttals she decided weren’t worth her breath.

“I see the sea hasn’t improved your manners.”

“It’s improved my mood,” Beidou said. “And that’s really what matters.”

“You brought alcohol, didn’t you?”

Beidou thumped the barrel on the floor like a proud parent presenting their child at a talent show. “From Mondstadt. Aged longer than some of your laws have been on the books. Want a taste?”

“I have work.”

“You always have work.”

“You always have leisure.”

“That’s why we balance each other out so well.”

It was that line—That’s why we balance each other out so well—that did it.

Beidou didn’t even mean it as a flirtation, not entirely. Not consciously. But the second it left her lips, she could feel something shift in the air. Like the wind changing direction just before a storm. Like the ocean, stilled. Ningguang’s eyes flicked up from her fan, her pupils sharp as cut jade.

For a moment, Beidou had the wild thought that Ningguang might laugh. Not one of those polite, chamber-approved chuckles she gave at banquets, but a real laugh—sharp, startled, maybe even slightly scandalized. Instead, she said:

“Don’t confuse contrast with compatibility.”

Beidou grinned. “Now that sounded rehearsed. You practicing for when you finally say yes?”

“Say yes to what?”

“Drinks. Dinner. Me,” she said breezily. “Any of the above.”

Ningguang gave her a long look. The kind of look that felt like being measured for a noose and a wedding dress at the same time.

“You flatter yourself.”

“Only when you don’t do it for me.”

This time, the fan stopped mid-wave. Ningguang blinked again, slower now, a touch more like a cat lazily intrigued by a mouse that might bite back.

“I’m far too busy to entertain childish games.”

“Lucky for you,” Beidou said, stepping forward and lifting the barrel with one arm, “I’m far too charming to need games.”

“Charming,” Ningguang echoed dryly, “is one word for it.”

She turned back toward her desk, all grace and marble-carved indifference, but Beidou saw it—a flicker of amusement at the corner of her mouth. Like a tide refusing to come in, and then betraying itself in the shine of a single wave.

“Leave the wine,” Ningguang called over her shoulder.

Beidou placed it down with exaggerated care.

“And Beidou?”

“Mm?”

“Next time, try knocking. It’s less dramatic, but I’m told it’s effective.”

“I don’t do effective,” Beidou said, already walking backward toward the exit. “I do unforgettable.”

Ningguang said nothing.

But later, when Beidou returned to the ship, she found a note tucked beneath the seal of the Tianquan.

Captain Beidou,
Thank you for the wine. It was adequate.

– N.

Beidou read it three times.

She swore the ink still smelled faintly of sandalwood and smugness.

And then she laughed. Loud, delighted, free.

She folded the note up, slipped it into her coat pocket, and told her crew, “Set sail tomorrow. I’ve got to piss off the most beautiful woman in Liyue again.”

Because flirting with Ningguang was like sailing into a storm: risky, exhilarating, and bound to leave you soaked.

And Beidou, of all people, never brought an umbrella.

II. Captain, There’s a Fine for That

If the first time was an accident, the second time was an event.

Not a festival, not a party. Not a mere disturbance. No, it was a full-on, Liyue Harbor–scale Event—with a capital E—filed under “unanticipated interruptions of public order caused by certain maritime individuals of dubious diplomatic restraint.”

Beidou, it should be noted, was wearing a red silk shirt unbuttoned to the point of abandon, her hair half-loose from a barfight the night before (which she won, obviously), and a shark tooth on a cord hanging from her neck like a talisman of impudence. She’d just rolled off the Alcor with a swagger that suggested she owned the harbor and a grin that suggested she might ask you on a date and rob you blind, possibly in that order.

The streets of Liyue bustled as usual—traders haggling, children scampering between stalls, street performers charming coins out of passersby—but when Beidou passed through, conversations dipped like tides before a ship’s arrival. A merchant dropped a vase. A scholar forgot how to walk. One poor Millelith officer turned on his heel and walked directly into a post.

She was on her way to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Not because she had paperwork to file. No, Beidou didn’t believe in paperwork. She believed in things like instinct, wind currents, and running late with flair. She was there because Ningguang was there—Ningguang, in her glacier-pure robes and celestial contempt, presiding over a meeting of utterly joyless officials with the serenity of someone who didn’t realize she was the main character in a romantic comedy Beidou had decided to star in.

She burst in like a cannonball of charisma.

“I brought tea!” she announced, holding up a clay pot with a festive bow. It was unclear if the tea was even still warm, or if the bow was something she’d tied on herself, but it hardly mattered. Her voice echoed against the chamber walls like thunder trying to flirt.

Ningguang did not look up immediately. She turned a page in her ledger first. A pause followed. Beidou had learned to respect that pause. It was the sound of Ningguang calculating how many metaphorical daggers to line up behind her next sentence.

“I don’t recall inviting you,” she said eventually, cool as a constellation.

“You didn’t,” Beidou said cheerfully, sauntering closer. “But I thought, what’s a policy meeting without a little spice?”

“This is not a teahouse, Captain.”

“Not yet.”

That earned her several audible gasps from the assembled bureaucrats. One choked on a piece of candied almond and had to be thumped on the back by his seatmate. Beidou bowed, vaguely theatrical.

“I’ll be brief,” she said, placing the tea on the table like an offering to a very elegant volcano. “I just thought you could use a break. You know. From all the math.”

Ningguang blinked. Slowly. Mathematics to Ningguang was like breathing. Possibly easier.

“I’m flattered by your concern,” she said. “But the Harbor’s economy won’t regulate itself.”

“Neither will your blood pressure if you keep frowning like that,” Beidou said, crossing her arms. “Seriously. You look like you’re trying to out-stare a dragon.”

“It works,” Ningguang said smoothly. “They blink first.”

Beidou laughed. “Bet they don’t flirt back, though.”

A silence so thick you could bottle it and sell it as tension settled over the room. Beidou was aware—painfully aware—of the way Ningguang’s eyes flicked up to her face, of the way one brow arched in a gesture that could flatten entire governments.

“Captain Beidou,” she said, slow and honeyed, “is this a bribe?”

Beidou paused. “...Only if it’s working.”

The silence cracked.

Ningguang did something dangerous: she smiled. Not a smirk. Not a sneer. A smile—small, sharp, like the glint of a blade just before it cuts you somewhere you’ll enjoy.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to file it,” she said, picking up a calligraphy brush with infuriating delicacy. “As a violation of Article 43-C of the Merchant Interference Act. Subsection three: Attempted Emotional Manipulation of a Sitting Official During Office Hours.”

Beidou blinked. “That’s not real.”

“I’m drafting it now,” Ningguang said, voice syrupy. “Would you like a receipt?”

Beidou leaned in over the desk, propping one elbow casually beside the tea. “Only if it has your signature on it.”

Several bureaucrats stood up and left the room.

One said something about “witnessing public courtship” and “needing to lie down.”

Ningguang, betraying nothing, added, “There is also a fine.”

“How much?”

“A kiss,” she said, without looking up.

There was a beat. Then:

“Sorry, what?”

Ningguang met her gaze. Her expression didn’t change, but the air suddenly felt like it was about to rain. Or something.

“I said a miss,” she repeated, precisely. “A misfile. As in, you’ve submitted your intentions to the wrong department. Try the Court of Poetic Delusions.”

Beidou clutched her chest. “Ouch. I think I felt that in my ancestors.”

“They deserve it for passing down such bravado.”

“Flattery, now that’s a violation.”

Ningguang exhaled. A sigh. The kind you’d give to a cat who knocked over your entire jade vase collection but was just too pretty to punish.

“Captain,” she said. “Go flirt with a mirror. It’s more likely to appreciate you.”

“Only reflects what’s already there, sweetheart.”

“Then it’s no wonder you’re always talking to me.”

Oh, that one burned.

Beidou straightened, hand to her heart like she was saluting the sun. “That was cruel. I’m proud of you.”

“You should be. It was inspired by you.”

“Touché. But next time, Ningguang—”

“There will not be a next time.”

“—next time, I’m bringing snacks. You can’t resist snacks and me.”

“I’ll resist the snacks on principle.”

“Then I’ll just have to make me the snack.”

Ningguang did not blink. She did not flinch. She simply, delicately, picked up her brush again and said, “Millelith, please escort Captain Beidou to the exit. She’s just declared herself contraband.”

“Careful,” Beidou said as she was gently pushed toward the door, “you keep talking like that, and I might start thinking you like me.”

“I am not in the habit of liking things that talk back.”

“That explains why your furniture is so well-behaved.”

“Goodbye, Beidou.”

“Goodbye, my Tianquan.”

The door shut behind her with imperial finality. Beidou stood for a moment in the hallway, winded and thrilled, like someone who’d just survived a game of verbal chicken with a god.

One of the officers looked at her. “Was that really necessary, Captain?”

“She smiled,” Beidou said, grinning like she’d won a war. “She smiled, and she didn’t have me arrested. That’s basically a love letter.”

“…Are you courting her or begging to be banished?”

“Same thing, when you do it right.”

And off she went, swagger and all, already plotting her next crime of the heart.

III. Jade Is Not a Love Language (But She Keeps Catching It Anyway)

If the second time had involved flirtation thinly veiled as diplomatic interference, the third time Beidou flirted with Ningguang was… technically classified as an act of public endangerment.

To Beidou’s credit, she had no idea the jade sculpture was going to fall. She also had no idea that Ningguang would catch it with one hand, high heel still perfectly perched on polished stone, not even a bead of sweat on her flawless brow.

What she did know was that it all started because she had called Ningguang "gorgeous, but in that dangerous, collapse-an-economy way."

Let’s rewind.

It was Lantern Rite season.

The sky was dressed in a thousand little suns—lanterns bobbing like fireflies on invisible strings. The harbor glowed, alive with music and light and the kind of laughter that lingered in the space between fireworks. The Alcor had been docked for three days, and Beidou’s crew was taking full advantage of shore leave: drinking, dancing, trying to romance opera singers who dramatically spurned them with stylized flourishes.

Beidou, however, had a different objective.

Ningguang.

Specifically, Ningguang, who was presiding over the unveiling of a new civic installation in the plaza: a towering jade sculpture that looked like a celestial dragon coiling around a lotus tower, encrusted with tiny insets of lapis lazuli and gold leaf. It was, of course, excessive. It was also Ningguang’s idea. Which meant it was, by default, beyond criticism—unless you were Beidou.

So she approached the ceremony fashionably late, carrying two skewers of grilled squid and a pouch of osmanthus wine tucked under her arm like a smuggled treasure. Her red coat fluttered behind her. She was still slightly sunburnt. Her smile should’ve come with hazard pay.

Ningguang, flanked by diplomats and scholars, was mid-speech. Her voice—measured, precise, and deeply intimidating—carried across the plaza with the gravity of a decree and the softness of snow on marble.

“—and thus, this sculpture stands not only as a symbol of Liyue’s resilience, but of the harmony between commerce and tradition. Let it serve as a reminder—”

“—that you have impeccable taste in phallic architecture?” Beidou cut in, loudly, with all the shamelessness of someone who considered tact a suggestion.

A gasp rolled through the crowd like a wave before a storm.

Ningguang’s eyes slid sideways. She did not stop speaking. She did not pause. She merely adjusted her fan in a single, precise flick. A fraction tighter.

“—of our ability to rise together.”

Beidou made a low whistle. “I’ll rise for you anytime, sweetheart.”

Someone dropped their parasol. A Millelith guard visibly reconsidered his career. Yun Jin, standing off to the side, muttered “Again?” into her tea.

Ningguang did not sigh. She was above sighing. But she did fold her fan with a decisive snap and turned to face Beidou, her smile all frost-dusted magnolias.

“Captain Beidou,” she said, silk over steel. “Do you often disrupt state events with innuendo, or am I simply fortunate?”

“Just you,” Beidou said, stepping closer, holding out the squid like a peace offering and a bribe in one. “You inspire me.”

Ningguang looked at the squid. Then at Beidou. Then back at the squid.

“No,” she said.

“No to the squid, or no to the flirtation?”

“Yes.”

“You’re insufferable,” Beidou beamed. “Have I told you that recently?”

“Only every time you open your mouth.”

“Romance thrives on consistency.”

“You wouldn’t know romance if it danced naked on your helm with a ‘TAX ME’ sign.”

“Now that’s an image I’m keeping,” Beidou said, chewing on her own squid. “You know, I was thinking—this whole statue thing? It’s missing something.”

“It’s worth twenty million mora,” Ningguang said flatly. “It is not missing anything.”

“Wrong,” Beidou said. “It’s missing a little danger.”

And then.

As if summoned by the gods of irony and comedic timing—it happened.

A merchant cart trundled by a little too quickly. A wheel knocked into a support rope for one of the scaffolds left over from construction. There was a snap, a creak, a tilt, and then—jade, gilded and glorious, began to fall.

Screams rang out. The crowd scattered like startled starlings.

Beidou lunged forward on instinct—outstretched arms, battle-hardened reflexes—but she wasn’t fast enough.

She didn’t need to be.

Because Ningguang, heels and all, didn’t flinch. She raised one hand. Her Geo vision sparked gold against the moonlight. And the sculpture froze mid-fall, suspended in a shimmering lattice of crystallized force. For a moment, it hovered—a dragon halted mid-plunge. Then, gently, she rotated her wrist, and the entire thing lifted and re-settled itself like nothing had happened at all.

Silence.

Then applause.

Then murmuring.

Then Beidou, still wide-eyed, whispered, “Marry me.”

Ningguang did not dignify that with a response.

“You caught a two-ton sculpture. In heels.”

“Should I have let it fall?”

“No, but—that was hot.”

Ningguang turned to her aides. “Ensure the merchant responsible is fined. Triple rate.”

Then she turned back to Beidou. “And you.”

“Yes?” Beidou asked, hopeful. Dazzled. Definitely rethinking her entire type, which until now had been ‘chaotic’ and not ‘divine, terrifying, and shaped like a dream wearing diplomatic immunity.’

“You are never,” Ningguang said, crisp as winter air, “to make me laugh in public.”

Beidou paused. “Wait. Waitwaitwait—did you—did you laugh?”

Ningguang said nothing. Which said everything.

Beidou leaned in, slow, reverent. “I’m going to remember this moment until I die.”

“That can be arranged.”

“Do it. I’ll die happy.”

“Captain.”

“Yes?”

Ningguang tilted her head. “You’re still holding the squid.”

Beidou blinked. “...Want a bite?”

And Ningguang—perfect, powerful, poetic Ningguang—looked at her for a long moment. Then she plucked the skewer from Beidou’s fingers, took the tiniest bite imaginable, handed it back without a word, and walked away, her heels clicking like punctuation marks on the script of Beidou’s heart.

Beidou stood there, holding a mostly-eaten skewer, struck dumb with wonder.

“…I’m in love,” she said to no one in particular.

A passing Millelith muttered, “We know.”

IV. Beidou Brings Flowers, Chaos, and Other Things That Shouldn't Belong in the Jade Chamber

By the fourth time Beidou flirted with Ningguang, the entire port city of Liyue was invested. Not just the harbor workers, not just the Millelith, not just the waitstaff at Xinyue Kiosk who had taken to placing bets—but everyone. Housewives paused over vegetable stalls to ask about “the pirate and the Tianquan.” Children played “Beidou and Ningguang” instead of “knight and treasure hoarder.” Even the Crux crew had started a betting pool, though it had gotten out of hand when Xiangling brought in gourmet snacks and Yanfei drew up an actual contract of terms.

This was no longer a private courtship.

This was an epic.

And Beidou, bless her chaotic, lion-hearted soul, had no idea what she was doing—but she was absolutely going to keep doing it.

It started, as all great disasters do, with flowers.

Beidou had taken three boats to get to the Jade Chamber—none of them hers. She’d left the Alcor with a shrug and a vague “be back soon, tell the crew not to burn anything unless it sings first,” then commandeered a civilian skiff, a gondola, and, finally, a very confused Glaze Lily delivery raft.

In her arms was a bouquet.

But not a normal bouquet. No.

It was a Beidou bouquet.

Ragged, glorious, mismatched. Glaze lilies, yes—but also cecilias, qingxins, even a few windwheel asters she’d smuggled from Mondstadt “because they reminded her of someone with a god complex and excellent legs.” It was all held together with a scrap of red silk and at least one shark tooth.

She was very proud of it.

So naturally, she broke into the Jade Chamber with it.

Not subtly. Not respectfully. No.

She announced herself with, “Ningguang! I brought tribute!” and stepped onto polished cloud-glass flooring like she owned the sky.

Guards scattered. Secretaries sighed. A tea tray somewhere trembled in fear.

And Ningguang, seated on her throne-like lacquered chair in robes so white they seemed to defy gravity, raised a single eyebrow.

“I recall inviting you zero times this week,” she said, calm as silk. “Did you mistake that for a challenge?”

Beidou grinned. “Wouldn’t be the first time I misread a dangerous woman and liked it.”

Ningguang looked at the bouquet. Then at Beidou’s wind-swept hair. Then back at the bouquet.

“Are those Mondstadt asters?”

“Maybe.”

“This is an illegal import.”

“Only if you report me.”

“You are reporting yourself, out loud.”

“I am romancing you.”

Ningguang paused.

A pause that lasted exactly 2.3 seconds too long.

Beidou noticed.

“You almost smiled,” she said, stepping closer. “Don’t lie to me, Tianquan. I saw the corners of your mouth do the tiniest wiggle. You looked—dare I say it—moved.”

Ningguang tilted her head. “I was moved. To consider pushing you off my balcony.”

Beidou whistled. “Now that’s flirting.”

“Captain Beidou—”

“Say it again.”

Ningguang blinked. “What?”

“Say my title again. Slower.”

“Captain Beidou,” Ningguang said flatly.

“Mm, that does things to me.”

Ningguang stood. Slowly. The room shifted with her, as if the very clouds bent slightly to accommodate her gravity. She walked toward Beidou with precise steps, each one echoing like a countdown.

“You truly believe that crashing into my sanctum with flowers you stole and metaphors you haven’t thought through counts as courtship?”

“It worked on a sea witch once.”

“You’re a menace.”

“I’m a gift.”

“You’re unbearable.”

“Unbearably charming.”

They were inches apart now.

The bouquet trembled slightly in Beidou’s hands—not from fear, but from the sheer kinetic energy of almost. Of what if. Of two unstoppable forces both pretending they weren’t already falling.

Beidou’s voice dropped. “Just take the flowers, Ningguang.”

“And what if I do?”

“Then I win.”

Ningguang’s lashes swept downward. “This is not a game.”

“Everything’s a game. Especially with you. The question is—are you playing back?”

A beat.

Two.

Three.

And then, very delicately, Ningguang reached forward and took the bouquet.

Beidou stopped breathing.

Ningguang turned it in her hands. She touched the shark tooth. Brushed the petals. Then looked back up with an expression so unreadable it could’ve been carved from ivory.

“Your composition is... chaotic,” she murmured. “But striking.”

“Like me?”

“No,” Ningguang said.

Beidou’s heart dropped—until Ningguang added:

“Worse.”

And then—oh gods help her—Ningguang reached into the bouquet, plucked a single windwheel aster, and tucked it behind Beidou’s ear with the same motion she used when setting market prices: absolute, calculated precision.

“There,” she said. “Now it’s properly absurd.”

Beidou short-circuited.

Her brain simply shut off.

Windwheel aster. Behind the ear. Touched her face.

“Oh, you’re evil,” Beidou whispered.

“I’m busy,” Ningguang corrected. “If you're finished performing, I suggest you return to your ship before I charge you with unauthorized pollination of regional flora.”

“I’m gonna need you to stop talking dirty,” Beidou said faintly.

Ningguang stepped back. “Goodbye, Captain.”

“Wait—”

“What.”

“Will you keep the flowers?”

A long, slow breath.

“I’ll consider them... collateral.”

“Collateral for what?”

“For whatever chaos you plan next.”

And with that, Ningguang turned on her heel and left. Her silhouette against the sun. The sea of clouds rippling beneath her like silk in a storm.

Beidou stood alone, windwheel aster still behind her ear, and whispered to herself:

“She kept the damn flowers.”

Back aboard the Alcor, hours later:

“Captain!” cried one of her crewmates. “Did it go well?!”

Beidou touched the spot behind her ear. Smiled. Stared out toward the Jade Chamber.

“She touched my face,” she said.

“…Do we prepare for war?”

“No,” Beidou said, starry-eyed. “We prepare for love.”

V. She Brought a Boat, a Storm, and Every Word She Never Meant to Say Out Loud

It was raining. The kind of rain that swept across Liyue like an old hymn—familiar, mournful, cleansing in a way that felt less like washing and more like revealing. The sky had opened hours ago, and no one had dared to close it. Not the harbor merchants huddled under awnings, not the paper lanterns now sagging with water, and certainly not Beidou, who stood barefoot at the edge of the docks, sleeves rolled up, soaked to the skin and grinning like she’d just won an impossible bet.

It had started as a dare.

Or perhaps not a dare. More like a bet within a bet, a challenge she made to herself because no one else had the gall to do it. Ningguang had once told her—off-handedly, over tea she hadn’t asked for but still drank—that “a woman of discipline cannot be won with antics.” Which, to Beidou, sounded a lot like an invitation.

So today she brought a boat.

Not the Alcor. No, this was a smaller vessel. Beautiful. Elegant. Custom-built over the last three months in secret, commissioned from an Inazuman artisan who only took payments in poetry and shell beads. It had gold filigree curling around the hull like vines, a lotus blossom carved into the prow, and a sail made from deep burgundy silk.

Its name, etched into the side in painstaking calligraphy: The Ningguang.

Ridiculous? Absolutely.

Effective? Also absolutely.

Because when Beidou marched into the harbor offices, rain cascading off her like she was born from storm, and shouted, “I’ve brought her a boat—someone tell her to come see it before I sail it straight into legend!” it didn’t take long for word to reach the Jade Chamber.

And Ningguang, of course, came down.

She arrived without ceremony but not without presence. Umbrella untouched by the rain, her robes unwrinkled, makeup flawless as always. The storm curved around her, bowed to her. Her heels didn’t even splash.

Beidou watched her walk the length of the dock like she was walking into a poem Beidou hadn’t figured out how to write yet. Water beaded in her hair. She hated rain, Beidou remembered suddenly. Hated the mess, the unpredictability, the weight of damp silk.

Yet here she was, anyway.

“This,” Ningguang said, when she finally reached her, “had better not be some elaborate metaphor.”

Beidou leaned casually against the boat’s railing, rain-soaked and radiant. “Why, because you’re afraid it is?”

“I’m afraid it’s poorly executed,” Ningguang replied, examining the sail with the air of someone judging a particularly optimistic opera performance. “You named it after me.”

“I did.”

“Do you realize how arrogant that is?”

“I do.”

“Do you care?”

“Not even a little.”

A silence, then—soaking wet and golden-edged.

Beidou’s smile softened. She pushed off the railing and took a step closer, water sloshing around her ankles. “I didn’t name it after you to flatter you. I named it after you because I’ve never seen something so impossible and so beautiful float before.”

Ningguang blinked.

Beidou kept going. “You’re the kind of woman people think is made of stone, but really, you’re all fire under a thousand layers of restraint. And I—well, I’m the storm. You think I’m trying to sink you, but what I really want is to sail with you.”

“I do not—”

“I mean it.” Beidou’s voice dropped, just a bit. “I want to stand beside you when the sky cracks open. I want to argue with you until we’ve rewritten philosophy. I want to flirt so shamelessly that the Millelith have to look away out of respect.”

“You do that already.”

“Then I want to do it forever.”

Ningguang was very still.

Rain traced the line of her jaw. Her umbrella tilted slightly to one side. Her hands, always so still, so precise, so calculated, fidgeted at the hem of her sleeve.

“I could have you arrested,” she said, softly.

“You could,” Beidou agreed. “And I’d flirt with the guards too. But they wouldn’t look half as good in high collars and disappointment as you do.”

A pause. Then:

“Get on the boat,” Ningguang said.

Beidou blinked. “What?”

“You built this vessel and dragged half the harbor into our mess. You might as well take me aboard.”

“I—wait, really?”

“Before I change my mind.”

And just like that, they stepped aboard.

Beidou offered her hand like a knight in a drenched folktale. Ningguang took it like a queen deciding, for once, to say yes instead of no. Their fingers brushed—deliberate, lingering. There were no fireworks. No crescendoing violins. Only rain, and the slow, steady thud of two hearts that had finally stopped pretending they didn’t know the same rhythm.

Inside the small cabin, Beidou had placed a single chair, one bottle of plum wine, and a woven blanket stolen from her quarters.

“This is your idea of romantic?” Ningguang said, eyebrow arching.

Beidou shrugged, wringing out her coat. “My ideas are usually loud and half-baked. This one’s... wetter.”

Ningguang sat.

Beidou didn’t. Not yet.

She watched the rain for a moment, leaning on the frame of the door. “You know, I thought of kissing you.”

“I’m aware. You think of it every time we’re in the same room.”

“I thought of doing it now.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

Beidou turned. Met her eyes.

“You’d stop me.”

Ningguang held her gaze. There was something in her expression then—soft, unreadable, sharp as regret.

“I might not,” she said.

And Beidou—warrior, captain, storm-chaser—was struck still by the weight of it.

“Say that again,” she whispered.

“I might not,” Ningguang repeated, slower, more deliberate, as if testing the shape of the words. “But I haven’t decided yet.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“And you love danger.”

“Only when it looks like you.”

This time, Ningguang smiled.

Not a smirk. Not the polite tilt of lips she gave at banquets. A real, quiet, crooked smile—like something she hadn’t meant to let out but did anyway.

Beidou stepped inside.

She poured the wine.

And then they sat there, on the little boat named The Ningguang, while the rain fell around them and the city below forgot, for a moment, that it ever wanted anything more than this.

Beidou didn’t kiss her.

Ningguang didn’t stop her.

And somewhere between maybe and almost, something settled—an understanding, as fragile and strong as a mast in stormwind.

They would circle each other like sea and stone, again and again, until one of them forgot which was meant to stay still and which was meant to move.

And when they both moved at once—

Well.

+1. Ningguang Returns the Favor (and the Wine, and the Kiss, and Maybe Everything Else)

It had been a week since the boat.

Seven days of silence, not absence. Seven days of tea ceremonies and contracts and whispered updates across the harbor. Seven days where Beidou didn’t push—because gods knew she’d pushed enough. She waited. Which for her was unnatural. Which for Ningguang was a test. And which for the entire city of Liyue was agony.

There were rumors.

Whispers that the Tianquan had smiled fondly—fondly—at a shipment of windwheel asters from Mondstadt. That she’d inquired after pirate fleet movements not for security reasons, but to track someone. That the Jade Chamber’s private garden had a new trellis shaped like a sail.

Still, Beidou didn’t go to her.

Didn’t barge in with flowers, didn’t throw a lantern in her window, didn’t shout across the harbor like a lovesick buffoon (though, by the Archons, she wanted to).

She gave her the dignity of space.

And so she was entirely unprepared when Ningguang walked onto the Alcor.

No messenger. No warning. Just a quiet stir of startled deckhands as she stepped on board at dusk, hair pinned in place with red gold, the faintest smear of dusk-toned gloss on her mouth, and a coat that definitely wasn’t made for sea weather.

Beidou was elbow-deep in grease, trying to fix a cannon mount that had been misaligned since a certain fated kraken incident. She looked up with smudged cheeks, shirt rolled at the sleeves, hair tied back in a sloppy bun, and very nearly dropped a wrench on her foot.

“…Am I hallucinating,” she said aloud. “Because that would explain a lot.”

“You aren’t,” Ningguang said. Her heels clinked lightly on the planks. “Though you look halfway to madness.”

“Most days, yeah. It’s called running a pirate ship.”

“You’re not a pirate.”

“That’s... oddly intimate of you to say.”

“I did bring wine,” she offered.

Beidou blinked.

“You brought—”

Ningguang lifted the bottle slightly, a rare vintage, its seal still intact, imported from Fontaine.

Beidou’s voice went high. “You brought me wine?”

“I brought us wine.”

There was a pause in which Beidou’s brain tried to reboot itself.

Ningguang smiled, just faintly. “You’re going to keep standing in that oil puddle and gawking, or should I go drink it alone in your quarters?”

Beidou didn’t remember tossing the wrench. She only remembered grabbing a cloth to wipe her hands, nearly dislocating her shoulder from how fast she scrambled to clean up, and saying something like, “Right, yes, of course, gods, yes, come on in—make yourself at sea.”

---

Inside the captain’s quarters, the air smelled like salt and spice and lamp oil. The space was cluttered, charming, aggressively Beidou: maps half-rolled on a desk, a dragon tooth stuck through a compass for no apparent reason, a hanging charm from some Mondstadt vendor promising “good luck in bed and battle” (Beidou said it worked better if you didn’t separate the two).

Ningguang wandered in as if she’d done it a thousand times. She set the wine down. Sat. Crossed her legs.

Beidou remained standing.

“…So,” she managed.

Ningguang turned to her fully, slowly, like the motion itself was a gift. “You’ve spent a great deal of time trying to seduce me.”

“I’d say that’s an understatement.”

“You’ve flirted. Repeatedly. Publicly.”

“I like to keep morale high.”

“You declared your intentions in front of the Liyue Qixing.”

“In my defense, that was a metaphor. Mostly.”

“You once described my eyes as ‘the kind of dangerous that should come with its own lighthouse.’”

Beidou scratched the back of her neck, bashful. “Okay, that one was solid. I stand by it.”

Ningguang was quiet a moment.

Then she said, “I’m here to return the favor.”

Silence.

Not the good kind.

The stunned, breath-stopped, gods-help-her kind.

Beidou’s ears buzzed.

“Wait,” she said, very faintly. “What?”

Ningguang stood again. She walked slowly, like a poem with no end punctuation, toward Beidou’s desk. Her fingers drifted over the maps, the scattered notes, the hand-scribbled poems Beidou never showed anyone.

“I’ve thought about you,” she said lightly, tracing a sea route Beidou had labeled ‘might get eaten here’. “Even before your antics. Even before you made my name into a boat.”

Beidou’s throat felt dry.

“You did?” she asked, trying not to sound like a girl on her first crush.

“I did.”

She picked up a page. A poem, scrawled and unfinished. Something about thunder. Something about gold.

“Do you always write about people you love like this?” Ningguang asked.

Beidou choked. “I didn’t say I loved—”

“Don’t insult us both.”

Beidou said nothing.

Ningguang set the page down, came closer.

“You told me you wanted to sail beside me. Through storms and wars and slow mornings. You flirted like a fool, but your heart’s been honest from the start.”

Beidou swallowed.

Ningguang stepped closer. They were inches apart. Not the tense inches of battles and banquets. The soft kind. The kind that bent time and gravity.

“So let me be honest with you, too,” Ningguang said.

She reached up. Took Beidou’s face in her hands, gentle as anything. Her thumb brushed over a smear of grease near her jaw.

“I find your chaos intolerable,” she whispered.

Beidou couldn’t move.

“I find your noise exhausting. Your ship smells like old socks and heroism. Your metaphors are criminal. And I—”

She leaned in.

Kissed her.

Once.

Soft. Precise. Like sealing a contract. Like opening a door.

Beidou’s knees buckled.

Ningguang pulled back, lips still barely touching. “I adore you.”

Beidou forgot the word for oxygen.

“I—oh,” she said.

Ningguang smiled. “That’s all?”

Beidou blinked rapidly. “I—uh—do you want the bed? I mean—not like that, I mean yes like that if you want, or not, or gods—”

Ningguang laughed.

Full, rich, not biting. It was the most beautiful thing Beidou had ever heard.

“I want the wine,” she said. “And then I want to lay down beside you. Just to talk.”

“Talk.”

“Maybe kiss you again. But slowly this time.”

“I’m going to need to sit down.”

“I’ll allow it.”

So they drank.

They kissed.

They talked until dawn—about ships, and strategy, and how terrifying it is to want someone so much it threatens your sovereignty. Beidou cried a little. So did Ningguang, but only when Beidou wasn’t looking.

The sea rocked them. The sky turned. And the next morning, when the crew discovered their captain asleep with her head in the Tianquan’s lap, both smiling like idiots, not a single person was surprised.

Only thrilled.

The bets were off.

And Liyue would never recover.