Work Text:
Zhongli finally lowered his brush, looking over his work with a hum. He was ready. His next Rite of Descension was prepared, unless the markets took some unprecedented turn, in the next few months.
A shift in the air behind him had him turn, just in time to see Xiao appear in his study.
“Ah, Xiao, I am glad to see you-”
There had been many questions on his tongue. Questions like “how are you?” and “are you taking your medicine?” and “did you enjoy your time with Wriothesley?”.
The questions all died, at the look on Xiao’s face, almost hidden by his hair.
Zhongli rose from his chair, slowly, so as to not startle his child. (Always a child, always that tiny, starved Peng he’d tried so hard to help.)
“Xiao?”
Xiao was crying. Xiao was crying, and instead of hiding himself away, he’d come here, to Zhongli, to Morax.
“My Lord, I-”
Xiao broke off, words vanishing in heavy breathing as he bowed his head even further, hunching his shoulders as though in pain.
Zhongli crossed the floor, stopping only when Xiao pulled away.
“It’s Wriothesley,” Xiao managed to say, and Zhongli thought his heart might stop. Not again, he couldn’t lose a child again, not when he’d barely gotten to know them.
“He’s alive!” Xiao hurried to reassure him, stumbling over his words. “Unharmed, if a little confused by my leaving, but I… Master. The ones who had him before...”
Suddenly, Xiao was fierce, staring up at Zhongli with a look that seemed to hunger for blood.
“Say they are dead, the ones who had him, the ones who harmed him. The ones who… who stole the very organs from his body, who taught him to-”
Xiao choked on those words, bowing his head again, sobbing openly.
Zhongli approached again, and this time, Xiao did not flinch from him, instead clutching at his robes, burying his face in them as he wept.
Zhongli wrapped his arms around Xiao’s shaking shoulders, as the Yaksha ground out the words to describe even more cruelties done to poor Wriothesley.
No wonder the child had run, no wonder he’d hated and feared Morax.
No wonder at all.
“If they yet live,” Morax spoke, when Xiao at last fell silent, and the truths were left burning in the air between them. “Then we shall hunt them down, them and all their ilk. They shall know why I alone remained, standing atop the corpses of gods.”
For every injury they had wrought upon his son by contract, he would have them pay sevenfold. Every wound, every drop of blood, every teardrop, every moment of fear and helplessness…
“They’re dead.”
Wriothesley’s voice rang out in the silent room, when he’d arrived Zhongli couldn’t tell. He stood in the doorway, at once seeming like the smallest child in all Teyvat, and as fearsome as any dragon.
“I killed them. That’s why I was… why the Chief Justice… why I’m here. I killed them.”
“Good,” Zhongli declared, with all the weight of a warrior god. “Then you have avenged yourself, and put an end to their gruesome trade.”
They would trade parts of a child in their care for Mora, defiling his very blood with that broken trust, that broken contract.
“I am proud, Wriothesley,” he said, opening his arms for another child. Both his living children in his arms, that was his wish, his need.
Wriothesley however, hesitated.
“I am a murderer,” he said, incredulous, as though either of them had somehow misunderstood.
Zhongli swallowed the threat of a whine in his throat, as Xiao moved, shifting from his arms to look at his new little brother.
“You had siblings, you said, in that place, yes?” Though it was phrased as a question, the Yaksha didn’t wait for an answer, and Zhongli was thankful for it, lest he rush across the sea to Fontaine and acquire more children. “Other children, who would have faced your fate, had those monsters been allowed to continue their cruel enterprise.”
Tainted mora, like poison in Zhongli’s very bones.
It enraged him, but he wouldn’t show it. Not now, not in front of Wriothesley. The poor child would surely misunderstand.
“They’re fine,” Wriothesley declared, defiant almost, always awaiting judgement, or accusation, or apparently, violence.
Zhongli should have seen his enduring defiance as what it was, terror, from a child who had been beaten.
“You saved them, my child,” Zhongli murmured, lowering his arms, but keeping them open. As much as he wanted this poor, brave child in his arms, overwhelming him would serve no good.
“They are fine now, yes, because you made it so. Did you think I would reprimand you for it? Dear boy, I am well acquainted with monsters wearing painted faces. My only regret is that they could hurt you before their deaths, and that the weight is so heavy upon your shoulders.”
Would that their blood was upon Zhongli’s polearm instead. He would not be burdened by a few more mortal souls on his consciousness.
Still, this clearly weighed heavy on Wriothesley’s too slight shoulders, and it fell to Zhongli, and Xiao, to support him.
Ideas swirled in Zhongli’s head, immediate and long term alike. He’d have to amend his plans for the Rite of Descension, he decided, with Wriothesley’s consent, of course. Some minor changes, one very big one, but that could wait. First steps first.
“My children,” he murmured, straightening himself, seeing as Wriothesley would not accept physical affection. Xiao followed his example, calm now, amused even, where once he would have riled at being called such.
Wriothesley remained weary, uncertain, but now, armed with knowledge and understanding, Zhongli would defeat the demons in his child’s mind. Soon.
“Did you finish your meal?”
He’d show Wriothesley what safety meant, how trust was earned and maintained and unbroken. What a family could be.
He finally had the piece he’d been missing.