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"Barbatos, my friend," Rex Lapis had told him over a bottle of dandelion wine, "if I die, may my funeral be a brilliant celebration, and you're invited."
Externally, Barbatos had laughed and accepted the invitation, but internally all he could think to himself was "If he dies? Great, the first party I've been invited to for centuries, and he might not even die."
"We are gathered here today to remember the life of the Geo Archon, Rex Lapis," Ningguang spoke from her podium, as she overlooked a crowd of teary-eyed Liyue residents. "He has served our lands well for millennia, and in turn we served him dutifully. But today marks the end of our contract." A bourgeois trader let out a shrill wail, and Ningguang winced. "...would anyone like to spare a few words for our late Archon?"
Said late Archon was in a giant scaly heap on the floor behind her, as they could only fit his head into the coffin. Childe had stuffed it in there and declared that it was actually a tradition in Snezhnaya to put the deceased into a 'funeral hat' and then promptly gave up on helping to prepare the body. Hence the current situation, where the revered 'god of contracts', slayer of gods, was sitting on the floor with a coffin on his head.
"I would like to have a word, if I may." Zhongli stood and approached the podium. Ningguang stepped aside. He was the one who organized the funeral after all, there was little harm in letting him speak for the departed.
He cleared his throat and addressed the crowd. "Rex Lapis, the Geo Archon, will be dearly missed." The crowd nodded along. "As he was the most powerful of the Archons." More nodding, a bit slower this time. "As well as the most attractive."
"Hey," Venti protested from the back of the crowd.
"I heard once that Rex Lapis had an eight pack," Zhongli continued, "that Rex Lapis was shredded. As well as very handsome."
Paimon chirped from where she floated next to the traveler. "Oh, one time the traveler started crying in front of one of the statues, because his 'tits looked so firm'!" Paimon was then immediately grabbed and shoved into a lit cooking pot.
"But alas," Zhongli went on, as if he'd never been interrupted, "all things must come to an end. Rex Lapis has left us to go to the great Cloud District in the sky."
"The what district?" Childe tilted his head to the side.
"You don't visit there very often, you wouldn't know."
Venti stood up on his seat to feel taller, as he had chosen an absolute manlet to be his mortal form for some reason. "Rex Lapis was cool and all, but we all know Barbatos is the best Archon!" The few Mondstadt locals in the crowd cheered in agreement.
Zhongli's expression hardened. "Don't be ridiculous. We all know Barbatos went out to buy cigarettes three centuries ago and never came back."
"A deadbeat god..." Ningguang sighed.
"Flying types can't be hit by ground types!" Venti puffed out his chest.
Childe snickered. "Yeah, but you got fucked up by an ice type."
"You wanna go, little man?" said Venti, who had no right to call anyone 'little'.
(Not having a gnosis was inconvenient, but it actually ended up alright, as the hole in his chest where it used to be made a great place to hide secret emergency shots of liquor. )
As Childe and Venti set up their Pokemon cards on the mat, Zhongli continued with his speech. "Since Rex Lapis was the best Geo Archon to ever reign, there will actually be no replacement for him. Because there is no one that could be more powerful and sexier than Rex Lapis."
"That's... not how that works." Ningguang put her head in her hands.
"I have a letter here from Rex Lapis himself--"
"Isn't he still dead????"
"--that states 'anyone who tries to become a better, cooler Geo Archon will be killed by a short, green-haired man filled with disproportionate rage to his tiny body'," Zhongli finished.
Xiao nodded sagely from his seat, which had a circle of empty seats around it because nobody wanted to sit next to him.
"Your Charizard's fake!" Venti cried, before flipping the card game mat.
"Your Jordans are fake," Childe countered, which prompted an ensuing brawl.
"Thank you all for attending my--I mean, Rex Lapis' funeral." Zhongli bowed politely, except he did so with a bit too much force and ended up smacking his forehead against the podium, which caused him to slump over unconscious.
Madame Ping wiped a tear from her eye in the crowd. "The most beautiful Rite of Parting I've ever witnessed."