✦ pairing — zhongli x reader, morax x reader
✦ notes — just finished historia antiqua: act II and was moved to tears to write this.
✦ synopsis — a beautiful partnership with morax that ended hundreds of years ago in tragedy. you meet again at the end of his life. or is it the beginning?
✦ song — all that matters ; justin bieber (just fucking listen, okay?)
“you may live forever, doomed to a lonely existence…yet even this is temporary. when you reach the end of time, those people, those past and future relationships predetermined by fate…they will be waiting for you.” - azhdaha, to zhongli (i think i got the last line right. i accidentally hit the space bar ingame before i finished typing the quote ahaha oops.)
you had children together…the memories of having lost all of you still rips his heart asunder. he loved you all fiercely. but it’s been so long now, he can hardly remember your face; he’s all but forgotten those of your children. but he remembers your voices. the laughter of his younglings as they played, running in circles around his legs, filling his heart with the swell of love.
he can still hear your veracious heartbeat against his ear as he lay his head on your bare chest after making passionate love to you; the sensation of your naked bodies lying together, skin on skin, sweaty and spent...he can’t remember it anymore. but he can still hear your sweet voice whispering next to his ear,
“morax, i love you endlessly.”
when his time on earth finally comes to an end, he makes his way along the path of the afterlife. his way is trimmed with gold and crystals of such fine quality that even he, the old god of geo, cannot fathom. as he lumbers along, he hears the distant sound of laughter. his heartbeat quickens; he hadn’t conjured that angelic sound in lifetimes, but he knows it when he hears it.
as he continues along the path, several figures emerge ahead. one is taller than the others, and surrounded in light. the smaller bodies playfully circle the hem of its flowing ankle-length dress, tiny chuckles surrounding what, by all rights, appear in zhongli’s eyes to be a goddess. as he draws nearer, he recognizes your voices but his mind dares not allow his heart to be so presumptuous or hopeful.
“funeral parlor consultant?”
his knowing smile widens at being found out, a chuckle threatening to escape.
“you faked your own death so you could retire in peace…but forgot to set aside a retirement fund?”
“it seems you’ve been keeping an eye on me.”
your laughter puts his old broken heart back together. “indeed! you’ve always had the most idiosyncratic sense of humor and forgotten the minutest of details. perhaps if you had been the dendro archon, you could better see the forest for the trees.”
morax would make a fool of himself a million years over to be the source of your joy. his heart blooms at the sight of your smile - more beautiful than the most meticulous painting; more moving than the most lifelike sculpt of the finest artists; the sound of your laughter more celestial than any song ever performed in all of teyvat, including that of the drunken, insufferable bard that, for reasons he will never comprehend, his old friend barbatos chose to inhabit as his vessel.
he averts his eyes as the reel of his most recent past plays in his mind. had you also seen him with his subsequent lovers?
as though having read his mind, you close the gap between you, bringing a hand - glowing an ethereal light blue - to his face. “it’s okay, my love,” you assure him. “i’ve only ever wanted for your happiness. i never expected to be the last love in your long life.”
his amber eyes find familiarity in your gaze, a sense of home in your touch. “but you'll always be the best,” he says, taking your hand in his and kissing your wrist, your scent there reminding him of home as well.
you smile lovingly as you eliminate what little space remained between your ethereal bodies. the cherubic voices of his young children now dance around the bare feet of both their bearers. with your attention drawn to them and their obvious love and affection for their father, you ask him, finally,
“will you be staying with us, morax?”
“yes.” he cups your delicate jaw in his golden hand. “there is nowhere else i would rather be, my love,” he mutters, the warmth of his breath dusting your face before he reclaims your lips, relinquishing the entirety of his past - his rise, his reign, his ruin - to his final resting place, with you.
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