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The Cloud Retainer is the Custodian of the Cloud, and she knows when the skies move and a message from the heavens comes to Liyue. The clouds speak to her. It says that it comes, in the soul of a wisp, speaking the tongue of the north, carrying prayers of humans seeking freedom, bearing a form of human buoyant with the gust of wind. She oversees from her place in Aozang but makes no urgent motive.The Retainer deems that there needs to be no hasty action of reporting this to Lord Morax, who is busy down in the humble villages encompassing Liyue Harbor. Earth always faces the Heavens and it knows when it is on the move.
And so she minds her business. She is the Unfettered and she finds empathy in this one that lives on the ideal of being free just like her. It starts with the loveliest tune of a pipa, then there is a sudden spike of geo energy; and she wonders what events may have led to this that encompasses the sudden arrival of the Anemo Archon.
Then, when young Ganyu would come and ascend back to her in the afternoon, Cloud Retainer will hear it like this:
“Lord Morax had rounded us up to greet him, thinking that Lord Barbatos may have been in trouble, but…”
For a moment, the Cloud Retainer just stares at her. Ganyu’s shoulders are tense, her jaw clenched, long fingers fidgety, lips pursed, eyebrows furrowed, eyes edged, breathing slow, deliberate—ah.
Ganyu was…worried? Strange. Though, she had strongly furled in an attempt to go against this.
"Speak child," Retainer says, dog-earing parchments of her engineering plans and setting it down. “This one will listen.”
Ganyu mumbles under her breath, a prayer of forgiveness to Lord Morax that he’d likely not hear anyway. “The Anemo Archon….he descended upon us." Pearly smiles, glory with his wings. It was a magnificent sight, but she won't say that. "Our Lord was ready to march for him, but Lord Barbatos he,” she purses her lips further and gestures “Just threw a bottle of wine and declared a drink for the both of them just like that! Lord Morax wore the most incredulous face.”
“Ah, there is no problem then.” Cloud Retainer pondered as she answered slowly, ruffling her feathers as she gestures for Ganyu to sit with her. “Yet why do you seem worried, Ganyu?“
“I thought they were gonna brawl!”
“Fight? How so?”
And so starts Cloud Retainer’s afternoon spent listening to the atrocious exchange witnessed by Ganyu. Repeating all the strange questions handed over by the Anemo Archon, retelling the equally strange answers handed to him by the Geo Archon. Propriety must be observed between archons that are equal to status of course, Ganyu presses on. It is only proper to welcome Lord Barbatos even if it is for unbecoming reasons, yet Ganyu does not really answer the looming question in the Retainer’s mind.
Did Morax agree to drink with Barbatos?
She thinks that the Geo Archon wouldn’t, but the Anemo Archon might just be a force to be reckoned with if ever he will be able to persuade her unyielding Lord. The Cloud Retainer laughs to herself. She has never seen the newly crowned Anemo Archon but she knows. The heavens do not bow, in as much as Earth does not tremble for it. Ganyu gives her a strange look.
“So, where are they now?”
Ganyu gives her another strange look.
“Ganyu?”
She receives no response. Only a stare, hands trembling, slowly stepping to awkward territory that told her she ought to expect some multitude of things. A foreboding, of sorts, comes to her. The wind gusts between the two of them that is cold, austere and,
These idiots. They couldn’t have sloshed mad until they made a fool of themselves.
Right?
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She is wrong, she is so very wrong. The Cloud Retainer follows Ganyu down to Liyue Harbor and the first time that she sees them, they are wasted inebriated fools like they are no masters of the elements. Morax still looks dignified, somehow, his masculine figure slumped over the cold stone chair, asleep with his geo arms crossed over his chest. Around him, the Cloud Retainer can’t quite piece together the prancing Barbatos, neglectful of his wings and words spreading all over the place.
Ganyu had tried her best to lead Barbatos down to a seat, but all she received were songs and praises that sounded exactly like unintended flirting, though it is not quite addressed to anyone in particular. Morax groans droll, still some wayward mess from his seat when geo energy kicks in. A large rock manifests itself from the ground, just in time to send the giddy Barbatos flying, while strumming his next drunken song he proclaimed to dedicate to Morax.
The Cloud Retainer passes a cursory glance at the hazard that is these royal two. Barbatos was unfazed by the sudden boulder sent to his face and still had enough energy to crawl to Morax’s direction, complicitly nuzzling himself, murmuring warmth. Ganyu peers scandalously, the Cloud Retainer just vocalized her inner laughter even more.
Barbatos murmurs more words incoherently, but Cloud Retainer can make out some apologies, stretching to the words blockhead, and the rise and fall of his breathing is followed by lighten up, battle is done.
Cloud Retainer chuckles. She supposes that this is alright for now. They both did just rightfully win their battles in this war. Besides, it was quite amusing to discover that Morax could lower himself like this. And the Cloud Retainer is extra curious what his reaction will be upon waking to an Anemo Archon slumped over.
You can’t tell her she didn’t try her best to pry them both away. The Anemo Archon was just touchy like that.
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When they wake some hours later, Lord Barbatos makes do with his shamelessness and takes up a Qingce instrument to his arms, strumming a mountain song for the god of old. He claims to have dropped by the village, touched by the notes of a pipa retelling life with the paddies, of an instance where one meets another in the simplicity of life—a someone that stays.
It was time for him to leave when he finished, haphazardly flying that they worried he might slam onto the numerous peaks of Liyue. But he assures that all is well, the wind knows no direction but always has a destination. As his figure lingers away with the clouds, Cloud Retainer could only wonder how the Archons are truly a world of their own, of how easy it was for the Anemo Archon to learn a foreign instrument and bear a smile on the Geo Archon’s face.
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The Skybracer is the Guardian of the Sky When It Falls most loyal to the Geo Archon, but for now he appreciates the presence of the Anemo Archon that eases the heart of his Lord. He’s a bold and brazen one, brimming in delight when he saw Lord Barbatos bother the ever stoic Lord Morax, outright telling him that friendship with the happy god will do him good. Cloud Retainer pecks him, chiding him and his big mouth of the unspoken agreement between the adepti about the Geo Archon’s new found friendship. You big oaf, she glares. It was a good thing that Lord Barbatos was timely out of earshot when he said so, decidedly roaming around to find more things to source his odd questions from.
But Skybracer does not understand her sentiments, he was merely expressing approval. He’s simply being the big adepti that he is with an even bigger heart. He had been worried for his Lord who wore a blank face after every slaughter he had done, many of which had been his friends.
He doesn’t have a lot, the adepti remembers Skybracer expressing these words empathically, a melancholic sparkle in his eye present that the rest of them rarely sees. For all of his wealth, Lord Morax is destitute of warmth for the heart. He has many followers, many people cherish and worship him as god of many things. Adepti and Yaksha, many are we in numbers but it is simply not enough, we—
They couldn’t understand him, not entirely. None of them would dare speak of this. His heart is open, but only enough crevices that barely allow the light to touch. This war has left him an untouched god, but a marred man.
Another Archon, an equal to his status. Someone who understands the weight of the world on his shoulders. The adepti hopes that it should be enough to ease the burden of a lord that has been through much. To be understood by someone who’d reign over their people with love and kindness as much as the Lord of Geo would.
However,
“How would you rule over your people?” Morax’s voice had come across as inscrutable, welling up from somewhere a little sad and a little curious. It’s the otherworldly voice he has, guttering, low, and echoed. He must be resting in his dragon form now, the one that he uses to show himself to his people. Of course, Skybracer remembers. Today is the Rite of Descension to which the humble leaders of the villages come to welcome him and his guidance.
Skybracer overheard this conversation, one spring morning in the days that were young. It’s a conversation shared with the wind that he hadn’t meant to hear, the tune of what seemed like a Mingyun erhu reverberating, vacillating between weeping and exchanging a story being told. Skybracer should be going, it is not his place, and he did leave, but he had stayed long enough to hear the Lord of Anemo’s answer.
“I won’t.”
Skybracer left immediately afterwards, but uncertainty lingers in his heart. He doesn’t understand that kind of answer Lord Barbatos gave. He won’t serve his people as Lord Morax does? How could that be, when Skybracer had known nothing about him but benevolent that can equal that of his Lord? Is his love for Mondstadt and its people less than Skybracer hoped?
Had he been wrong that Barbatos would understand his Lord more than the adepti would?
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Skybracer is up on the peak of Tianheng, observing the village below. It’s rather booming now, mostly women and children passing their time with errands or entertainment. He likes them a lot, he’d happily admit, more than the other adepti who had sworn to protect this land. Humans are quite fascinating to watch. They're fundamentally different in the material of their souls. There are those who are jagged and soft all at once, dark and golden, unknown and transparent. Skybracer looks down at them and marvels.
He settles himself on a large rock, the sunset is most peaceful, Skybracer remarks offhandedly in his head, and decidedly does not think about how many years it's been since he last observed these people he had sworn to Lord Morax to protect. He thinks of how the winds don't feel as cold anymore when the old Wind God has been overthrown, or how a headache is starting to pound relentlessly against his skull.
The Anemo Archon teaches freedom, but to choose to completely abandon his people...is this the extent of his ideals? Is this no different from the harsh upbringing of Decarabian, when Mondstadt is in need of proper divine leadership the most?
He can’t quite comprehend it, but Skybracer is sure that there is something great about humanity, fragile creatures they may be. There is no other reason for the Geo Archon to dedicate much of his life to guide them and maybe someday he would find the path that could lead him to this answer.
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They're fundamentally different in the material of their souls, he thinks about humans when the end was coming nigh.
The clash between him and an arrogant god, who continued to oppose the Geo Archon despite winning his battles, perhaps had gone to heights he least expected. The village he had peacefully marveled at had been in danger. He berates himself for it, reminded of the mighty dragon haloed by the grace of the light that had looked down at him in mercy, and heeded for his service to protect these people. And he withdraws himself from his guarded pride to do what he must.
Now, he squirms in his place on the base of Tianheng, languidness slowly coming to his limbs, blood trickling from the place where his antlers had been broken off. The air was feeling to be stagnant as life from him slowly ceased. It magnifies everything—the wide shape of a human’s eyes are wider, the gleam in their eyes is duller, their shoulders are tense. The things he could say are innumerable.
“Leave” he tells them in the end, when they had only wanted to help him - they cannot - Skybracer wishes to say. But humans are fundamentally different in the material of their soul, they are stubborn creatures who refuse despite logic and understanding thrown at their faces. They express their wish to accompany the adepti that is illuminated by death in his wake.
A last song, my lord, from the gods themselves we learned.
It’s the song of an erhu the Anemo Archon played for the Geo Archon.
Humans are fundamentally different in the material of their soul, had the Anemo Archon seen through this and decided that no divine intervention could ever compel? This, my Lord should learn someday.
The light that his eyes sees are dimming, senses diminishing, he somehow recalls that hearing is the last to cease in the moments of death, but the Skybracer musters enough to see the last of a grand dragon haloed by the light. It reminds him of the first time he felt at awe of the world.
“It is his time.”
“Allow me to play a song.”
Skybracer is the Guardian of the Sky, his strength carrying the burden of the Heavens may it not tangle in war with Earth, but in the last of his breath he feels the lightness of it, the weeping tune of an erhu embracing him as he crosses the bridge to the other side.
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The Mountain Shaper is the The Perfected Lord who Guides the Waters and Shapes the Mountains and he hates the intricacies of human life. Generations have passed since the final Archon had taken their seat and the inanity of human antics has been increasing in gradual ways. He likes to think that he’s not being particularly obvious about his stance, at least as compared to Cloud Retainer, but exasperation has been harder and harder to maintain once growth has set forth in the once humble villages of Liyue.
The Harbor had become large and sustainable, quickly becoming a center of trade and business in all of Liyue. Mountain Shaper harrumps as he takes a brief look down on the city as he searches for the Geo Archon in disguise, inkling disdain when he looks at a particularly crowded area. This is one that Rex Lapis would’ve loved, though. An inexhaustible charm to a city that is frayed by the trickle of mora, and a city that never stills, bustling and ever inclusive to the long life of their god.
It is only natural for Liyue to prosper as it does now, the adepti would all agree. It didn’t take long for all Teyvat to accept the unparalleled value of Mora. With the continent wide currency flowing in the blood of their Lord, what fate is waiting for the land that he governs but prosperity and wealth?
All these things that humans enjoy are a product of His Highness’ greatness and he is at least satisfied that they revere to him in a manner befitting. Rex Lapis, Ganyu tells them one day over tea and osmanthus cakes, that’s how they call Lord Morax to recognize him from Mora.
Rex Lapis
He liked the sound of that. The treats also tasted good. Mountain Shaper supposes that the humans have done well this time around.
Still, it does not redeem them of the inanity they devolve themselves into. The dichotomy that is to dislike human nature and to protect them is not lost to him. And now, the Mountain Shaper will be meeting with Rex Lapis, to extend the news that he has heard from indisposed humans. Gossip, he is very annoyed to say, the uneven rise and fall of hushes and toned down words between the people of Liyue. No one speaks of it, but at the same time they do, and it is too prevalent now to avoid notice. There must be some pieces of truth to it then.
That is to say, must Rex Lapis really choose to talk to him near the human dwelling on an evening of a full moon? The sigh he omits is uncountable for every second that he spends near the mortals. Mountain Shaper cannot do anything about that.
He finds him, on a hill not too far from a place that plays an echoing tune of a Wuwang guqin. Eerie and slow plucking of its strings, somehow overpowering the chatter of a bustling place. Mountain Shaper gives the direction of it a second glance, before he finally faced the man he had been looking for.
“Rex Lapis”
His Lord looks tired, and he does not upon a first glance, but Mountain Shaper is an adepti and they are the ones that knew their Lord the longest—even if not the best. The vessel he wears now is not something the Mountain Shaper has ever seen before but is familiar with: a classic merchant of every textbook definition, albeit younger and more refined looking knowing who he is, one that Rex Lapis will throw for another when the situation calls forth. Mountain Shaper is acknowledged with a curt nod and meek groan, urging him to continue.
“It seems that the Anemo Archon’s pranks had gone too far. Even the humans had caught wind of his forgery of signatures and had been talking about some treaty relating to Mondstadt being sold to you.”
Mountain Shaper will not forget the first time the Anemo Archon had shamelessly pranked the Geo Archon, some several hundred years ago before his slumber. The adepti had been left aghast at the situation, thinking of how magnanimous their Lord may be but mess with contracts and you shall deal with his wrath. Yet Rex Lapis had only groaned in annoyance, reaction generally innocuous, gripe exuded on minimal. Had he only been patient for a fellow archon?
It had devolved into many things ranging from faking signatures, messing with Rex Lapis’ hair or his beverage, his divine spear of all things and none had seemed to truly faze his Lord.
Mountain Shaper noticed the hard clench of Rex Lapis’ fist.
“Barbatos,” Rex Lapis says. “Venti—” he almost sighs this time. Mountain Shaper distantly recognizes the present calmness of his mind as the gap between comprehension and chaos. He's running on automatic and Mountain Shaper doesn’t know for how long. Venti?
“Centuries of slumber and this is how he greets me.” the chuckle Rex Lapis omitted had sounded old and familiar, the vertigo of centuries fast-forwarded years with a bubble of unrestrained loneliness is hinted. It takes Mountain Shaper in a sort of surprise.
“Lord Barbatos has always been a good friend to you. I am sure that this is just one of his many tricks, knowing that he does not govern Mondstadt as you do. It is bound to give him ample time to come up with them.”
“Barbatos is good to everyone. What about me, Mountain Shaper? Had I been a good friend to him?”
The answer for that had been most obvious to a puzzled Mountain Shaper. Of course he had been. He had been there since the start with a welcoming arm, willing to come to his aid in one of the many times Barbatos had come on a whim, before Rex Lapis would realize that he’s just there to get wasted. Mountain Shaper rights his Lord with assurances that are most sincere, even if it does not necessarily come to the stirrings of a heart. But he had been genuine in his views of him. They are master and servant, adepti to an archon, but even then Rex Lapis had never been short of a kind friend to them all.
“Before he slumbered, we had...” Rex Lapis croaked.
He hadn’t continued and he didn’t have to. The adeptus knew of their argument even if there were no other words replied. It had always been some sort of fluctuating clash of ideals between the two that was inevitable. They were Heaven and Earth, two entities that could never mix but always coexist. It is just for Morax to remind Barbatos of power that he limits himself to, to remind him of people that looked up to him, and yet Barbatos’ retaliation is nowhere from wrong either.
“Morax…”
Mountain Shaper’s eyes widened at what he said when his Lord had turned his merchant’s face on him.
“My apologies, I hadn’t meant to be disrespectful to you Rex Lapis.”
It's been impossibly long since anyone's called him that; the familiarity is a stretch of time bridged too suddenly, too messily. Mountain Shaper is only met with laughter that eased the lines on this vessel’s face. The guqin that he managed to drown in his background had come to his senses again in his shame and has given him a better respite of the situation, a rather melancholic tune than the eerie song from earlier plays. Morax supposes that it is time to go back to the matter at hand.
"Regarding the gossip, there is some truth in them. In the name of Mora, I become the guarantor of the people's hard work, wisdom, and future. What is the future of Mondstadt if they are to forever be ruled by tyrants? I shall overlook this action from Barbatos.”
"Tyrants?!”
Mountain Shaper had never cared about the political climate of Mondstadt. Why would he when the Anemo Archon had never once bestowed a divine ruling. He is not interested in human ways of governing, but to listen to Rex Lapis’ succinct explanation of the uprising in Mondstadt had him wondering. What was the Lord Barbatos thinking? To come up with a secret treaty and stir rebellion in his own people, dragging the name of Rex Lapis down the line!
And yet here is Rex Lapis, listening to the sound of a guqin brought by the wind with no clear source, weathering a rock that had once withstood, having no interest in stopping Barbatos’ whims. It does not quite weather the defenses of Morax, but it did pass to him like a storm meeting a mountain. Freedom and Contracts, two ideals that could never mix but always coexist. One could only wonder if this is where they could have gone mad. When relationships that ought to have concrete definitions are restrained by having too many meanings.
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The tides are calm under the moonlit gaze and the Moon Carver, that is the Perfected Lord of Descending Sun and Ascending Moon, allows himself to be illuminated under its soft bidding. It is a good evening to be at the mercy of the celestial, to ponder his place in this world and to honor the bountiful year of memories and longing. But he has a task to do and the viewing of the moon’s ascending will have to wait.
The Moon Carver needs to seek an audience with the Geo Archon, Xiao has been feeling burdened again by the poison of karmic debt. Except now, the wounds are maddening that it’s no longer bearable. There is frightening intensity in the screams Xiao direly suppresses, and one could only do an act of mercy at the debilitating scatter of him.
Never being able to truly be close to the last of the Yaksha, there is only so much that Moon Carver can do for him. Nevertheless, he makes do of it with an urgent display of careful keeping.
Moon Carver is to look for Rex Lapis. They wish not to speak of it, but Xiao had always been the one that barely clings, and yet he does. So the silence of the city in the dead of the night is an inclination to Moon Carver. There are only a few Millelith guards who stand unperturbed, and some he disdainfully thinks of to be slacking, when he finds the barest of light in the middle of the sea navigating the dark water on the way to Guyun Stone.
Who could be this fearless mortal—
Moon Carver knows instinctively who this one is. Yet he finds himself frozen into place, chancing upon Rex Lapis stepping down out to the shores of Guyun. There is a change in the air afterwards, and Moon Carver is frozen deeper when he realizes that his Lord is donning a vessel of a woman, tresses of long hair, flowy brown sleeves and even looser trails unmindful of Guyun’s sand. If she would turn around, Moon Carver can just make up amber eyes ever present in any form she takes.
It's starkly familiar, the curve of her mouth, the slow lift of one corner before the other. He knows, instinctively, the opacity of it—the one thing the adepti had always wondered about her. She is so open, and not at the same time.
That’s when Moon Carver hears what seems to be the reason why Rex Lapis ascends to Guyun, like a moth to a flame. There's a shift in Moon Carver' eyes, then. He's heard it before, the subtle spike in Anemo energy, a reassessment, an unconscious demand of himself woven into his inherent transparency. It's a flutter against Moon Carver's memory—a laughter, wind, wings, a Dihua Flute that Rex Lapis worried if it had been enough, more laughter that is not his, I’ll do my best to play it!
Xiao’s predicament has moved from Moon Carver’s mind and he sees the subtle silhouettes of the femininity of Rex Lapis and the resigned bearing of Lord Barbatos in a corner of Guyun.
In this time, Rex Lapis is beautiful and there is uneclipsed femininity of her in the way she crooks her elbow and lifts her chin when she smiles.
He’s imposing, he just knows it. Moon Carver knows he shouldn’t be here when the Dihua Flute stops, and they are intimate, knowing, fitting and just, even if there is a veneer of hesitance, and yet—
When Moon Carver finally looks away, this is what happens:
Morax parts her lips, rouge tainted, then shakes her head and looks away when Barbatos puts down the flute. Watching the uneven rise and fall of her chest, Barbatos falls back into the first time they met since thousands of years ago. He thinks back to a bottle of wine flung open for the first time, wonders about a memory he couldn’t quite forget. He trails his hands on the intricate dihua flute in his hands.
“You’ve kept it.”
“I did.” Barbatos replies resolutely, unfazed by the feminine voice of Morax that he isn’t used to.
He's been stripped of his skin, this Archon before Morax. Left bare and bloody by the rawness of their differences. Morax watches, and decides.
"Stay," Morax whispers. "Just for a moment. Durin is dead, we can drink if you want. You’ve nothing to do—"
"Not going anywhere," Barbatos reaches out to the tresses of her hair and runs his fingers through, rubbing the glowing brown edges before he presses his lips on it. And then, he tiptoes to reach her and leans into her lips. "I’ll stay."
They kiss like it's an inevitability. The soft and unhurried brush of their lips speaks of patient longing, something they waited for so long, too long. It’s more of something chaste, a mockery of nonexistent innocence. It's never quite like anything Morax has ever felt with Barbatos—it lacks that edge of yearning, distance, and the vagueness from before. This time, the point of contact between their lips is thrown sharply into focus.The solid veneer slips when Barbatos catches Morax’s lower lip between his own, noting the taste of plum flavor of her rouge. It reflects to Morax through the lightest moan, a shudder, whispering Barbatos’ name like a wind that she mourns would slip away from her grasp.
The air of Guyun is dry; Morax's heat is crawling under her skin, slithering past every defence she has. When they break away, it persists, hot and coiled in the pit of her stomach. Barbatos is calm, because of course he is. He had always been better with the matters of the heart. It made her want to tear him out of his wings, she wants him here and hers. For all of her difficulties with emotions and the way Barbatos accuses her about it, the intensity is maddening when it strikes.
The heavy feeling outweighs her mind that they are archons and it is okay, because this is nothing short of a fantasy of the ascending moon.
Nothing more than a fever dream. It doesn’t happen.
Just as Barbatos was to lean onto Morax’s lips, Moon Carver was awakened by the epiphany of a screaming Xiao in his head. He snaps himself out for his duty of looking after his fellow adeptus and he marches towards the direction of his archon. Apologetic, head bowed by way of explaining, he is evasive of the embarrassment in Rex Lapis’ eyes and the vexing of Lord Barbatos' body language.
Moon Carver’s intention is understood nonetheless, and they finally make their way. Leaving the empty tune of a Dihua Flute in their wake.
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“We will not speak of this”
A pause, then heartbeats two of them beating in Liyue. Moon Carver's isn't as loud.
And then, it is just one.
“Yes,Your Highness.”
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(Two kilometers away from the mainland, Morax stands in Guyun.
He comes back as a man. The air is stale, and he gazes back to the place where he had shared a moment with Barbatos. Morax is still, eyes beseeches for understanding, thinks of Liyue behind him, Mondstadt to his left, and the comparison is jarring.
He thinks of how assured he felt that Xiao is safe, in the way the young adeptus had looked at him both in fear of his disposition and gratefulness of his Lord's presence. He thinks of how he leaves them for a promise to Barbatos that he will be back, he trusts that Barbatos will stay as he told him.
He doesn’t think of how the rock where Barbatos sat down to play the Dihua Flute is now empty. Unlike Morax, Barbatos didn’t really promise, anyway.)
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It's not a thing to be named, so they don't name it.
Moon Carver would like to say that nothing has changed, but that's not quite true. The shifting and inverting and breaking is irreversible. Though, someday perhaps, Moon Carver would have the courage to subtly ask Rex Lapis about what transpired between him and Lord Barbatos.
Xiao is with them, alive and well for some divine reason, and he looks like he knows but he would rather keep it to himself. His eyes flicker and narrow; the silence strikes a rebellious chord in some unnamed place inside of him. Xiao simply looks at the sky after he greets the adepti. He has been through a lot, perhaps more than any other adepti. Moon Carver would respect that.
And he respects when Rex Lapis looks at the sky too. Moon Carver knows what he understands and what the adepti doesn’t. The ideals that damn them is what binds them together. It’s what makes this forever.
Moon Carver had known it during that night when the moon ascended in Guyun and he never forgets.
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Fourteen moons before the time of the Lantern Rites, Rex Lapis dies and the height of emotion is high in Liyue. Then, before the stillness of Liyue’s peace would forever change, he suddenly isn’t.
The adepti are caught in that odd limbo between stagnant disposition against humans and a spring vitality of working alongside them. Osial is gone once more and the Illuminated Beasts are perfectly still and composed and just living back on their mountains, into their hives of hiding from humanity but not at the same time.
The afternoon after the Liyue Qixing tells the adepti that Rex Lapis has visited them in a dream accounting of his perceived passing, the easiness stirs foreign in the adepti. They’re not one to revel in defying expectation; they had always prefered to lurk under the surface and dignify their choices with privacy.
It’s not something you can blame them for. In so long, Liyue isn’t the only thing that Rex Lapis had held together in place. The adepti disliked human affairs for much of their service to Rex Lapis, but it held them together by having belongingness, meaning of existence and purpose. And for this sense, they had clung to their contracts with him for that which their Lord loved will be something they protect.
They wonder about the other things that Rex Lapis had loved.
So soon after the incident of one of Lord Barbatos’ Four Winds almost destroying his city, they allow themselves to feel the breeze. It’s a smattering thing, considering how much Anemo and Geo do not make do, just as Liyue is to Mondstadt, but the comparison is jarring still. The dissonance of two elements put together by fate, as neighboring cities yet interlock with more than just geography, but through the web of meanings between the archons that look after them.
It’s going to be different now, with Rex Lapis stepping down. They recall the petty arguments, ridiculous, insensible, breathless inconclusions, some of the most difficult conversations Rex Lapis had to engage in that was all with Barbatos.
It’s funny how, in the end, the fate of Liyue would go hand in hand with Mondstadt.
And in the coming days, it’ll be as natural as the waxing and waning of the moon.
Ganyu arranges papers, runs back and forth around the temporary place the Qixing would attend to their duties. The piles and responsibilities had become larger without the guidance of Rex Lapis. Nonetheless, her lips speak of his name as she is blessed.
Cloud Retainer looks at her marble table, at the three empty chairs and the memories. They are bygones now, the moments she shared, but that idiot Morax is still alive and well, and wherever it is that he frolick unto, she hopes that he comes back for an afternoon tea.
Mountain Shaper watches with menial interest how mortals gather familiar materials. It must be that time again down in Liyue. Once again, he will be annoyed if one of those lanterns gets caught in his amber.
Moon Carver peers from Tianheng, the exact place Skybracer always loved to relax on, and observed as the Mingxiao Lantern slowly came into form. The humans have done an excellent job, that show-off would have loved how big his dedicated lantern is.
Xiao is hesitant, but he stays by the cliff side of Liyue Harbor anyway. The number of lanterns flying to the sky had increased over the years, and he wouldn’t admit it, but it has been a spectacular display. This is the first Lantern Rites without his master.
Whether he be an archon, a dragon, merchant, a young lady, or whatever he may please, Xiao just hopes that he will live the rest of his life to his desires.
.
The adepti shared a conversation with Lord Barbatos sometime, a little too close to heart for their liking,—admittedly never talking to the Anemo Archon without the presence of Rex Lapis.
Morax, that bastard, had yet to show himself.
The seconds that tick without him appears as fracture to the static of watching Lord Barbatos look at them with beady green eyes, ones that told them he knew too much and too little at the same time.
But either way, the conversation held on.
It's a silent nervousness on their part, the archons had always been a sky above their own, but Lord Barbatos had simply laughed at their unfounded trepidation.
It's not unfounded, they'd want to argue. Asking another Archon to watch over their Lord is not something that one labels to be groundless.
"In any case, if it wasn't me, it can be anyone else!"
Maybe, not one of them says. But it's you.
.
Somewhere back in Guyun, they hear a bewitching tune of a lyre. It doesn’t escape the ears of the adepti, archons know for how long they’ve acquainted themselves with that song. It sounded awfully familiar and again, the atmosphere is that they’re in the Archon War. A bottle of wine had been flung with a flick of a wrist, Morax looks up to the skies when he catches it and he sees Barbatos, all toothy grin, nuzzling wings, hair glowing and haloed by the descending sun.
Sometime, they’ll know of him as Zhongli, a form he wishes to last longer than the others. He looks at this one who had always chosen to be called Venti, and there is no hearty laughter or bouncing joy in his words. Venti’s gestures are frigid, caustic. Zhongli stressfully runs his fingers through his hair. There is one last thing he will have to deal with, after everything Liyue has been through, after all.
“Never thought you’d be reckless.” Venti says, tired, “I thought this brand of abandonment was mine. But here you are faking your death without telling me. Naturally, I don’t really matter forever. There is no eternity when even Liyue’s Archaic Lord has passed.”
“You do.” Zhongli replies quietly. “But do you think this means more to you, than it does to me?”
Venti sharply snorts, tries to stop himself from gripping his lyre too strongly. “Maybe”
The swell of frustration is easing, soundly replaced by the kind of resigned contentment. Zhongli’s back is to Liyue, the time for them is done. This time, it is theirs.
“So this one you speak of, is that your way of saying, that I’m going to matter for eternity, then? To you?”
Zhongli pulls him closer. Venti, failing to hide a grin, slithers right past Zhongli's defenses, creeps onto his lips unbidden. “Manipulative bastard. Leaving your city and adepti, now playing words with me.”
“And you’re a disgrace to the arts. Playing with words is supposed to be your job.”
Zhongli says that, but the adepti knows that is naught of the hindsight that he is a song only Venti could play.