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It’s moments like these when Zenyatta feels… at peace.
He floats serenely over the grass, speckled with the cold dew of early morning, tousled by a gentle wind that stirs against his sensors, giving him various reads of his surroundings; temperature, wind speed, weather patterns. It might rain soon, he thinks. He can almost taste the coming storm, the way it hangs from the fingers of the worldly Iris; not oppressive, but persistent.
It’s a familiar feeling, he thinks, hearing a sigh caught just under the whisper of a wind. Zenyatta stirs from his meditative trance, momentarily severs his connection to the world and the soothing song of the Iris. Genji notices his master’s lapse in concentration and tilts his head in curiosity, following suit soon after.
“Is something wrong?” Genji asks. He turns slightly to face Zenyatta and the omnic allows himself a selfish moment of delaying the answer in order to admire Genji’s face. His student has long since felt comfortable enough to remove his visor in Zenyatta’s presence, but it is a sight he finds he will never grow tired of. His eyes are wide and a deep, beautiful shade of brown, glimmering with life and the touch of the Iris. Genji purses his lips, still waiting for an answer, and Zenyatta takes note of the laugh lines creased into the edge of Genji’s mouth, side-by-side with the scars latticing his skin, a show of the happiness he has found- with Zenyatta.
He feels something stir in his chest, growing like creeping vines through his servos, brought to life by an inconsequential, passing thought. It’s not the Iris, but it still carries a sort of ethereal permanence to it.
Zenyatta ponders it, then identifies it, and it blooms warmth in his soul like the petals of a lotus. He doesn’t bother to hide the smile in his voice when he replies, “Far from it, Genji,” and returns his gaze forward, to the dawn brimming just beneath the distant horizon.
“What do you mean?” Always so curious. Zenyatta chuckles.
“I just have a very pleasant feeling.” Love , he finishes, and the force of it tips and spills, a glowing warmth flowing through him, passing through binary and soul alike, liquid gold and so, so vibrant.
Genji smiles as the Iris shimmers to life between them.