Chapter Text
The first time they meet, he is bound across his chest with his arms behind him in chains made of basalt. The weight keeps his physical form tethered, making his body feel hundreds of times heavier. It’s unnatural for any storm spirit to be tied down, especially one as wild as he.
It’s the middle of the night. Bloodied and bruised — that bastard Osial really hadn’t held back — he’d crawled his way to one of the LiYue guard posts and surrendered himself. The guards had shackled him and he’d gnashed his teeth hard when those cursed chains had touched him. The two adepti who had brought him here — one half-stag and the other half-fox — shove him roughly into a room dimly lit with paper lanterns.
It must be the war room; it’s clearly designed for hours of discussion over the minutiae of each strategy. One deep-red table of some type of fragrant wood covers the center of the room. An enormously detailed map laden with figurines stretches across almost the length of the entire table. Low seats covered by plush cushions surround the table, already seated by the highest-ranking officials. He recognizes them as Cloud Retainer, Moon Carver, Sun Piercer, Skybracer, Mountain Shaper, and Starweaver. They mutter vaguely amongst each other and look disgruntled at having been disturbed so late. They do not deign to look at him.
At the head of the table sits a woman dressed in silk of an exquisite shade of pale gold and white. Her hair — the pale blue of a winter’s dawn — is combed into two braids held back by a delicate jade pin. Though it is deep in the night, she holds herself with a regal air and he recognizes her as Guizhong, Rex Lapis’s principal strategist and ruler of the large expanse of marshland to their north. Her milky white eyes are evidence of her old post as high priestess to her people before she became their immortal protector.
“My lady,” the two adepti behind him force him to his knees; one jabs him on the back with the butt of her spear to force his chest to his knees, which forces a trickle of blood out of his already red-stained lips. They bow deeply to her.
“Let’s wait for Morax to arrive before you two explain anything,” Guizhong says with a tilt of her chin, gesturing for the two guards to remain at ease.
As if on cue, the wooden door behind him slides open and although his nose is still being pressed to the floor, he can feel the change in atmosphere. The murmuring adepti silence themselves instantly. The footsteps behind him are soft and steady and he glances out of his periphery at the gold-trimmed robes swaying around the wearer’s black boots with every step.
There is no other who can command the attention of so many powerful adepti by simply walking in a room.
“Your Majesty,” the two guards address him with another deep bow. They are given permission to speak so they give their report.
They introduce him not by his name but by his rank. Osial’s second highest-ranking general, called Stormbearer because where he goes, lightning and thunder and monstrous gales follow. They found him heavily wounded at the southeastern outpost and immediately arrested him and brought him here.
As the guards finish their report, the half-fox lifts the spear with which she had been holding Childe down and he is given permission to sit up for questioning. That is how he gets his first glimpse of Rex Lapis, the god who had conquered almost all of the continent within a decade. This god, who had been sworn to no one and nothing had suddenly made an oath to the humans settled by the coast, where ocean meets land. He swept over the lands over which the gods had been fighting over for more than a century. It enraged Osial, the last major god standing against Rex Lapis, to see him claim the land which he could not and his old enemies crushed by another.
He was mine to kill, Osial hissed venomously at the news of the death of the bear demon to the west. For that, Rex Lapis will pay .
Childe understood his grudge. The duty to avenge family was something he understood very clearly. The bear demon slew Osial’s sister. With her last breath, she uttered a prophecy.
“Brother mine, melt my bones. Forge them into armor and bathe it in my blood and I will protect you always. No harm can come to you while you wear it.”
That’s why the war between Osial and Rex Lapis was always at a standstill. A war of attrition was one none wanted to fight.
Like all the other adepti here, Rex Lapis bears a few marks of his true form. A set of horns sprouts from his dark brown hair — they’re a deep copper at the base that gradate towards burnished gold at the slightly curved at the tips. And if Childe looks closely, he can see the light sheen of golden scales at the edges of his cheek and brown bone.
But it’s his eyes that are the most striking.
At his first glimpse at those eyes, Childe thinks he understands why Rex Lapis could do what others could not. It’s nothing he can describe; just something about the startling yellow eyes that glow like miniature suns. They’re inhuman in a way that spoke not of cruelty but of godhood. They held… a deep serenity. Untouched by the pettiness, jealousy, and anger that Childe saw in Osial.
Osial was ancient and cunning; none could deny his power but upon seeing Rex Lapis, Childe understood why his lord had devised such a backhanded plan and sent him here. Osial was crafty, sure, but he was never a coward. Childe did not serve cowards. Osial liked to win his battles through strategy and wit, using his true might to bring the inevitable to a swift and decisive end.
Childe can’t help but hold his breath in awe when stares at those dragon eyes. He thought they were only a legend. No one had seen a dragon in millenia. They were thought to be extinct. But here, before his eyes was the last of the dragons.
The questioning begins and to his surprise, it is led by Guizhong while Rex Lapis and the other adepti remain silent. She’s succinct and efficient, her questions striking at the heart of the matter and he answers her with the prepared story. Not too much detail, not too little.
Osial was going mad from bearing the weight of his famed armor. The breaking point had been the death of his sister’s killer. His lord had been robbed of the right to avenge his sister and so the hatred seeped too deep in his heart and made him vulnerable to corruption. He was no longer a protector to his people — the creatures that swam freely and lived in the depths of the ocean.
Childe had been banished over a cup of spilled wine. At a banquet celebrating their last victory at the battle over the eastern shoal, his elbow had bumped Osial’s cup and just like that, Osial flew into a rage. He had been beaten and humiliated in front of the entire banquet hall before being tossed out and told to never come back.
As he said this, Childe clenched his fist and let anger seep into his voice. It’s genuine because although he is not skilled in the art of deceit, he is actually angry. He had always disapproved of this plan, even scowling in blatant disrespect when he first heard it. The thought of it still put a sour taste in his mouth. Stealing a gnosis rather than dying with glory and honor at the hands of a worthy opponent…
When did you become such a coward, Osial?
“I come to pledge my allegiance to your cause. My master… is no longer fit to rule over his dominion,” Childe says in conclusion.
The room is silent as the adepti assess him independently. He can tell what they are all thinking: even if his story is true, he is still a traitor. Despite all the reasons he’d given, it doesn’t discount the fact that he betrayed his master. Of course, the most likely reason was that he had seen he was fighting a losing war and defected.
Once a traitor, always a traitor.
To everyone’s shock, Rex Lapis stands up and comes to a halt in front of Childe.
Childe doesn’t dare to breathe; had he already seen through it all? Was it possible that from a single glance, Rex Lapis could tell why Childe was here?
Childe holds his gaze steadily, chin tilted up, internally bracing himself for the executioner’s blow. It strains his aching ribs but he will die with his head up. If he has to die on his knees, he will do so with his head up. He waits for Rex Lapis to hold his arm out, for his spear to materialize, for him to raise his arm and strike.
Instead —
“What is your name?” a low, placid voice asks him. It sounds like powder jade. The cold, fine dust of a precious stone.
For a moment, Childe is stunned. Then he wants to laugh. He’s already woozy with blood loss and the adrenaline from thinking he was about to die makes him say something stupid.
“Call me Childe,” he replies, the grin he can’t suppress showing on his lips.
It’s beyond rude, to not only refuse to give his real name when demanded of him, but to tell Rex Lapis to call him by his alias under Osial.
He pays for his disrespect. He’s met with a fierce stab to the back that almost topples him over and he spits out a glob of dark red. The scrape of a chair against the floor tells him he’s angered someone important. With difficulty, he pulls himself back into a sitting position, panting heavily. Looking up with a smirk, he sees that it was not just one but two important people he’s angered. Skybracer and Sun Piercer. The temper in their eyes tells him loyalty runs thick in their veins and he admires them for that. They seem like warriors he would like to someday face or fight alongside.
He notices he’s drawn the attention of the blind priestess as well. Her sightless eyes are fixed on him and though her face remains as dignified as before, none of the blatant anger written all over Skybracer and Sun Piercer, there is slight frown on her lips. Slight, but utterly chilling. Childe makes sure to remember not to get into her worse graces because he knows that if she wanted him gone, he would disappear silently, permanently, and most like very painfully.
The only one without reaction is Rex Lapis himself. In fact, if he’s taken aback at all, he doesn’t show it.
“Childe,” Rex Lapis repeats thoughtfully, enunciating clearly and drawing it out to its full length. He looks as if it feels foreign on his tongue and it must, for whom has Rex Lapis ever had to call the title of something akin to “young master”?
“You will lead the next charge against Osial.”
And then he’s gone, with a wave of his hand towards his flabbergasted generals and advisors, as if to say “You figure out the rest.”
The room erupts into an uproar as soon as Rex Lapis leaves. Only Guizhong remains silent, her face pensive. When she speaks, her murmured “Perhaps we can take this opportunity to test him” cuts through the rest of the cacophony.
“This battle,” Guizhong continues, pointing to the mountain range currently separating Osial’s territory, “We can afford to lose.”
“Yes,” Cloud Retainer muses, “We wanted to take the mountains for high ground but… there’s another way, isn’t there? If Osial is going mad… Well, there’s no sense in fighting a war against a madman, is there?”
“You’re saying we should aim directly at Osial?” Starweaver asks incredulously.
“But his armor. It’s impenetrable,” Skybracer counters, crossing his arms with a scowl. Childe knows he’s remembering his face-off against Osial in the southwestern ruins before they took it.
“Not at Osial” Cloud Retainer says. “If Osial is going mad, there will surely be those that want to usurp his seat. Either they will succeed in sabotaging Osial or they will drive him to paranoia and he will execute his own army. All we have to do is wait for them to tear each other apart.”
“...How do we know he’s really going mad?” Starweaver asks again.
Guizhong takes a placid sip from her porcelain cup and finally speaks up. “There are those who have… corroborating reports.”
Spies.
Osial, of course, knew about them and had put up a very convincing performance of lunacy that day in the banquet hall. So convincing that Childe wondered if some of the story he’d made up was not really made up.
“Then do we plan on losing this battle? Why sacrifice any men at all, then?” Starweaver asks.
“Whether we win or lose, that depends entirely on him.” Guizhong nods at Childe. “We won’t be sacrificing any men. The only one we’re sending is him,” she says placidly.
“Just him? It will be him against over one thousand men!”.
“He’s not worth the risk of having a spy in our midst. He’s already given us all the information we need, if it’s even true. If he lives, he will prove himself a valuable enough asset. If not, we don’t need him.” Guizhong says simply.
Even Childe is surprised at her harshness. Behind such a gentle demeanor and pretty face, Guizhong hid much more callousness than he thought
“Have someone look at his wounds,” Guizhong orders the two guards who had made themselves scarce. With a wave of her hand, she adjourns the meeting and the adepti gather themselves and just like that, his first meeting with Rex Lapis is over.