#rex lapis x reader

Precious Gems of the highest quality and books centuries old lined the shelves of Zhongli’s home. But despite the unspeakable fortune that totalled his collection his home did not seem unwelcoming. The main reason for behind the comfort of his home lay in his partner, they enjoyed hoarding and purchasing pillows, blankets as well as plushies. So wherever there was a space it was decorated in thick blankets and comfortable pillows. In the late hours of the evening the ex-archon was out on his usual evening stroll leaving his partner at home. They were busy rearranging the pillows and blankets when an idea struck them. They looked at the open space created in the middle of the living room then at the pillows in their hands and around them. On a whim they placed two of the thickest blankets on the ground before gathering the bigger pillows and placing them in a oval shape atop the blankets. Over the blankets they rested another blanket that they stuffed around the edges of the pillows. Standing up and observing their work they frowned as comfortable as it looked something was missing. Quickly sprinting into their shared bedroom she found the solution, grabbing the pillow and blanket of her lover as well as her favourite stuffed animal, a Rex Lapis Dragon plush. Back in the living room they carefully placed the Pillow into the little nest covering themselves with their lovers banket. Cuddling the Plushie, their eyelids got heavier and they fell asleep.

Your poor forehead was itchy the entire day following “the incident”, it didn’t bruise nor form a  large bump, thankfully, but you still felt sore if you pressed on it… 

  “It looks fine, just be glad it didn’t poke your eye out, idiot,” Ming Hui says after having tugged your head down to inspect it. She’s thankfully not mad at you anymore, not after you offered her both the youtiao—about four boxes of it, four sticks in each… she berated you for the number of them for a few minutes but seemed satisfied when you offered to take one box for yourself. 

  You straighten again after she inspected it, and wonder if you should tie a ribbon around your forehead to cover the small raise of your skin. “I didn’t sit under its trajectory on purpose,” you grumble—how are you the idiot for a branch falling on your head? You don’t have the reflexes to knock it away or dodge… if anything, you just sat there and watched it plonk down towards you. 

  She turns around to grab some bottles off the table behind her, setting them on a tray before walking past you—while you’ve been… otherwise occupied, Ming Hui has been studying medicine and healing arts under Ground Mender. You feel a bit bad for missing out on the lessons, but perhaps you can convince Ground Mender to let you attend as well. “What are you doing?” you ask curiously as she pops open the jars and bottles.

  “Making a tonic that numbs your mouth,” she says and starts… just pouring all of the liquids into one larger jar, the colour is blue and a bit misty. 

  “Ah…” you make a sound of understanding. You’re not sure what it would be used for, perhaps oral infections…? “Does it not require more… gentle mixing?”

  “Doesn’t matter once it’s all in there,” she says, closes the lid, and shakes it wildly. 

  Sure. You’ll take her word for it. 

  In the few days after arriving, there wasn’t much for you to do—you feel like a war general in a province without war. There were no patients suffering from afflictions relating to foul energies in the infirmary, mostly just routine injuries that you helped dress, keep an eye on, and assist the patients themselves be comfortable.

  You’ve never been much of a nurse, always preferring the ‘you’ve been cleansed please go home and rest’ approach… 

  Just as you’re tossing out some dirty shirt— a poor man has been vomiting endlessly for the last few hours and always just barely misses the basin before it comes out, and thus has gone through a few shirts since the morning—you spot a white robe moving in the corner of your eyes and see that Ground Mender has decided to grace the infirmary with her presence. 

  She’s been busy, you assume, as she has barely come around the infirmary in the last days—so you seized the opportunity and quickly jogged after her. “Ground Mender!”

  At the call, the adeptus stopped and turned towards you, eyes curious. “Ah, my apologies—I’m in a bit of a hurry, I’ll have free time tomorrow if you want to chat.”

  She didn’t give any details, as usual—you don’t expect the adepti to tell you anything at this point unless it’s very important. “Oh, it’s okay, I’ll talk to you later then,” you quickly reply. You would like to ask her where she’s going, or what she’s doing, but Ground Mender is already halfway down the hallway by the time you could think of what to ask her. 

  Next time, then…

  Feeling so restless is annoying, you can’t even relax and read a book or take a walk after leaving the infirmary without feeling as if you should be doing something else, something more important… doing what you always do.

  There’s no one to cleanse in the capital, there’s no one—at least that has been brought to you—suffering from afflictions relating to foul miasma or strange energies… but you know that somewhere, in places outside of the well-guarded cities, there are people suffering, perhaps sick and unable to get better, because their illness is not the cause of bacteria or themselves, but a foreign energy invading their body.

  You kick a rock in front of you as you walk through the city streets, it bounces four times before you’ve approached it again give it a good swing, causing it to bounce ahead of you again. 

  Perhaps… it’s okay if you leave for a while—there’s not much for you to do anyway, you can always just be summoned again if something happens? 

  You’re not used to being so… tied down to a place, to feel like you don’t have the option to leave whenever you’d like—but you’re unsure why you feel like you can’t leave, it’s not like you’re being held here, you doubt you’d be dragged back kicking and screaming if you expressed that you truly wanted to leave. 

  But you can’t bring yourself to pack your clothes and depart. It’s been on your mind for two days now, and no matter how it bounces back and forth in your head like this stupid pebble, you can’t figure out whether you want to go or not. 

  Besides… who knows where that massive demon went, staying here for the time being would be the safest option—but you’ve never been particularly pressed about your own safety over others, what if he’s devouring people by the villages as you’re wandering the city streets and munching on rice cakes?

  Finally, the pebble you’ve been abusing for a while bounces off to the side and down a stream that hugs an empty home—you won’t go digging for it, so you keep moving. 

  Coming to the stall you were looking for, old man Zhou’s son has reached much popularity with his mixed cuisine, taking what he learned in the west and both selling specialties he learned there, as well as integrating them into local dishes. 

  There is a row of people that splits into two waiting to be served, and you can see the top of his head behind the stall, as well as two shorter heads running to people waiting by the side with their ready orders—his cousins, if you understood currently from your brief visit yesterday. 

  They had just closed the stall when you came here last night, so you were out of luck getting something warm—but Zhou’s son, Shi Hao, had told you to come again early the next day… it seems even leaving at sunrise wasn’t early enough to avoid the crowds. 

  Preparing to wait for a while, and taking a spot at the back of the queue, you couldn’t help but listen in on a conversation between a young girl and boy waiting in front of you. “—uncle told me there’s ghosts in the west, I wonder if the buns here are made of ghost hairs.”

  “What?” the boy next to her gives the girl a confused look. “Why would anyone make buns out of hair? It’s made of dough.”

  “Pigs have hair, why can’t buns have hair? When I poke father’s pig, it feels like I’m poking dough,” the girl shakes her head. “And ghosts have a lot of hair, you can’t cut your hair when you’re a ghost.”

  You decide to tune out of their conversation, every time you listen to kids talk you feel like you understand them less and less.

  The wait stretches on forever, you’re halfway into the queue and feel as if you’ve been waiting for two hours—though it could also have only been one. After an eternity of waiting, it’s very hard to wait when such delicious, strong smells of cooking are wafting by you every second. The sun has risen into the sky, but it’s not very warm despite the brightness… people are dressed in warmer layers as they wait for a hot meal or snack. You hear chatter as a woman behind you keeps rubbing her hands together to keep them warm. 

  Shi Hao barely notices that it’s you when you step up to the front, the headband he’s tied around his forehead to keep sweat from dripping onto the food news changing soon and his hair looks as if a dragon blew him away. “Good day, precious patron!” he calls as he ducks down to fetch more herbs from below. “What could I make for you today? Please look at the menu!”

  You already knew what you wanted, as you had visited the night before. “One traveller’s delight, please,” you lean a bit over the stall so that he could hear you—just as the man shoots up into a standing position and almost knocks heads with you. “Oh—”

  “Ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise it was you!” Shi Hao grabs your left arm and shakes it heartily, and you have to grit your teeth to not flinch—that guy’s grip is intense, and your poor arm doesn’t take shaking very well, not shaking like this at least! “I’ll get on it right away—Qi Xuan! Orders seventy two and ninety eight are ready!” 

  One of his cousins came running, it was far before noon and they already seemed as if the two had run three laps across the capital. Maybe you should fetch some water for them after having your meal. 

  You step aside after giving Shi Hao your order as well as setting the sufficient more in the little box on the counter to let the next person approach. While this stand seems to be doing very well… it’s blocking the narrow street that the entrance to Thousand Pots lies in quite a bit. The large crowd both waiting in line and for their food on the sides doesn’t make it easy to spot the small restaurant. 

  Making the mental calculation that your food would likely not be ready in the next seven minutes, you duck into the alleyway and see that Thousand Pots is open as usual, and despite the crowd outside there were still three people inside having a nice meal. 

  As soon as you took two steps in, something hard knocked you on the back, you make a sound of surprise and discomfort and turn to see what had hit you—only to be met with Zhou, holding a ladle, the offending weapon. “Ow… master Zhou, why are you—”

  He whacks you again, but the old man doesn’t exactly have good joints, so it makes it easy for you to predict the next whack and dodge accordingly—by almost banging your hip on a table a poor fellow is eating on. “A youngster like you should be able to fend off an old man like me more easily!” 

  You don’t recall making Zhou angry, and as you almost fall over when your foot hits a chair in the small space, the ladle whacks you on the forehead—right where you had been sore already—and you groan, halfway to falling to the floor and barely able to hold yourself up by grabbing the side of a table next to you. 

  “It was a small tap, don’t tell me you have a skull like a tea pot?” he taps you with it again, and this time you grab the long arm of the ladle and hold it away from you. 

  “Ow… why are you attacking me?” you grumble, rubbing your poor forehead as Zhou lets go of the ladle, leaving it in your care. “Isn’t the restaurant open? I didn’t break in.”

  Shi Hao’s cousin enters the restaurant behind the old man, holding a sealed basket—likely your much anticipated meal. “Gramps does that every time we do something stupid,” the girl says and hands you the basket. “Like when uncle was teaching me to make fish soup, but I forgot to gut the fish.”

  “I don’t recall fumbling a fish soup,” your eyebrows draw together as you’re suddenly holding both your food and the damp ladle Zhou had been using, you extend the ladle to the girl and she accepts it. “But I’m sure I would, I’ve never made one before.”

  Zhou makes a humph-ing sound and takes the ladle from the girl, but doesn’t take another swing at you—thankfully. “We heard all about your condition, and right as you were getting better, you up and leave! I had prepared a week’s worth of delicious meals for you!”

  “Ah…” your lips part, and you’re not sure what to say; for one, who is feeding this old man information from within the palace? You feel a bit bad immediately after his words settle in your brain, you’re not a very wasteful person, and knowing that food was prepared—or more likely, ingredients were prepared and would be used over the week—and were then not used makes you feel uneasy. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware…”

  “Of course you weren’t, it was a surprise,” Zhou said and walked into the back of the restaurant, the girl behind you left as well—and momentarily you were a bit lost as to what you should do, was the conversation over? Are you free to go? 

  Hesitantly walking past tightly spaced tables and into the kitchen, you just manage to see the short old man duck under a flaming pan with two other people preparing for lunch. “Now look at you, like a wet rat.”

  Though a bit exasperated by being scolded so much—especially when you just came out here to get some tasty food—having a elder berate you is a bit nostalgic. “I’m sorry, master Zhou, can I repay you for the foods you had prepared? I hate to hear it went to waste.” The kitchen is steaming hot, with one of Zhou’s daughters working at a broth and another person you haven’t seen before taking a jar that’s been prepared to ferment what’s inside, though already sealed, so you can’t see what.

  “Waste?” the old man popped up again, and suddenly plopped a fat, heavy dough wrapped in a dry bag into your arms—you barely had time to put your basket of ordered… and likely going cold, food aside on a clean surface to catch it. “Little Ming Hui gobbled it up like a starving beast, she didn’t let anything go to waste.”

  It was a relief that nothing went to waste, and you’re not exactly sure how you would repay him—you didn’t bring a lot of mora with you. 

  “That’s good,” you hum, but feel a bit out of place—you had got a taste of the kitchen-rhythm and were very self-aware that you were standing in the middle of it, possibly about to be in someone’s way any second. “Eh… why am I holding this?” you ask hesitantly, it smells a bit like dumpling-dough, and fresh at that.

  “Repay you can! Now come here and cut that dough into even pieces, I’ll teach you how to make my dear wife’s favourite,” he suddenly appears behind you, having rounded the tiny kitchen in seconds without knocking into a single thing, and is now pushing you through the tight space. Pots, plates and other dishware stack up to the ceiling on both sides, and you can really see why they decided to name the place “Thousand Pots”, you couldn’t begin to count them.  

  “O-of course, but, my food—” you start to protest. It’s not that you have important places to be, but what about that lovely smelling basket you just got?? How do you keep getting roped into such things?

  “Bah, Shi Hao can make you more later, put the dough on the counter before you drop it!”

  You feel as if the strings of fate have been forcibly guiding you into kitchens a lot recently, doing hard work with dough… and you feel like you’re really starting to get a hang of it too, though having to take frequent breaks to rest your arms has slowed your progress quite a bit.

  Heat emanating from behind you where Zhou’s daughter is steaming some vegetables makes you feel as if your clothes are sticking to your skin, you wipe your hands after stuffing another bun and look over your shoulder to find the old man, to tell him the buns are ready for the steamer—but your name is called before you could even open your mouth. 

  “In here,” Zhou walks back into the kitchen with a familiar man in tow—Morax ducks under the flaps at the entrance to the kitchen and lets his eyes wander over the pot-filled space before landing on you. “Ah, done already? Well done! Let’s get them ready,” the old man nods eagerly and scoops up about five buns at once from in front of you. 

  For a moment, you thought you were hallucinating—no one else seems to greet or notice him there, and you’re unsure how to test this hypothetical illusion… you kick the counter before you, and sure enough, despite the sting in your poor toe, Morax remains. 

  His eyes lower down to your foot, and then raise up to meet your eyes again with swirls of confusion. “Are you… experiencing jerking symptoms in your leg?”

  His confused and rather innocent question makes you feel a bit bad. “No, I just—it was an accident, my legs are fine,” you quickly say, wiping your sticky and flour-covered hands on your pants. “Why are you here? Er, I mean—are you here for any specific reason? Or, is it a coincidence…? No…” you started out too harshly, then got too specific and ended up asking a strange question. You need to socialise with wider circles on a more consistent basis. Maybe you should find a council to join and relearn how to be polite in a manner you won’t fumble so easily.

  Morax simply waits until you finish talking, no longer seeming confused or concerned—despite the fact you feel that you’ve been around him quite a bit more than many, at least many mortals like yourself, you still struggle to understand his expressions… or perhaps he’s the one who struggles to form them. “I was searching for you. Ming Hui told me that you had gone to taste young Shi Hao’s new menu, and the little ones outside told me you were put to work.”

  It’s a little embarrassing that he had to search for you, but you can’t be blamed too much—you got roped into kitchenwork, you can’t exactly abandon half-cut dough.

  “Searching for me? What for?” your fingers still feel sticky from the dough, and you look around for a washbasin or towel, but find nothing that seems to be for washing your hands, perhaps it’s behind the middle counter where the broth is being made. It must be somewhere—it’s a kitchen after all. 

  Morax notices your mild discomfort, searching around subtly—or so you think—as you wipe more at your clothes that are already powdered by flour. He chooses not to comment on it nor inquire what you need. “It is best discussed with more privacy, if you… have finished here, I would like you to accompany me.”

  You immediately nod. “Oh, of course.” but as you glance to the heap of chopped and worked dough next to you, a small part of you feels like you’re leaving a job only half-done. 

  Thankfully, before you can either ask the god before you to wait a moment or that you’ll come to him later—Zhou behind you calls that you’re done for the day, and that you can leave if Morax needs you. “I’ll save some buns for you! Come back later!”

  The air feels cold when you’re back outside, you didn’t realise how stuffy the kitchen had become until now. The fresh, cool air almost makes your teeth tingle as you follow Morax, his long feet allowing him to outpace you quite well. 

  The walk is silent between the two of you, but the streets are alive and loud with people as the afternoon brings them out from work and obligations, you have to shoulder past a few to keep in pace with him as you pass through a busy street and almost feel that you need to grab ahold of his clothes or arm to not lose sight of him—though the thought is equally as terrifying as it would be embarrassing would he turn with question or discomfort. 

  You refrain, you don’t make a habit of touching people anyway—surely you could just give him a shout and he’ll wait by the nearest street corner? 

  Thankfully you manage to follow Morax through the crowd until the two of you reach the high streets leading towards the palaces, where he looks over his shoulder to see whether you were still behind him—and upon seeing your form still trailing behind, he tilts his head slightly and turns back forward. 

  “Were you enjoying yourself?” Morax suddenly asks as you begin to ascend the stairs towards the palaces, he climbs them so easily it seems as if he were merely gliding upwards—meanwhile you have to fight to keep up with him, and hope he doesn’t hear any heavy breathing. 

  You take two steps at a time to try and catch up to his side. “In the kitchen? I don’t know,” you admit. You just did what you were told, kneading was a bit straining—and not the most interesting thing you’ve done, but you were too focused to get too bored. “I don’t mind cooking, or baking. But I don’t spend time perfecting the craft…”

  He hums, golden eyes faced forward as you finally seem to match his pace. “Your dedication to your work is admirable.”

  You almost stumble face-first onto the rocky stairs, your poor toe impacting the step you intended to push onto too early. With a lack of grace you manage to steady yourself before cracking a tooth, or possibly breaking your nose on the ground. “A-ah, thank you…”

  The sudden compliment startled you, weren’t you talking about cooking? You suppose the reason you haven’t learnt the optimal ways of making your favourite meals and opting for the quicker route instead is because you are often more focused on getting back to whatever you were doing before dinner time… maybe you’re not as hard to read as you expected, or hoped. 

  You’re not sure what to say, and he doesn’t offer any more words as you continue to climb the stairs—should you offer a compliment in return? It doesn’t feel right to just leave it at that, but you haven’t directly done so before, wouldn’t it feel too forced?

  “The Guili Assembly has always been home to me, and I hate to see the people suffer unnecessary sickness,” you add. To have a healthy body, a fate unburdened from illness—and have it forced upon you by conflicts out of your control… how can it be fair? 

  You hate to see the pallid skin of a person who climbed a tall mountain to collect flowers for their love, the foreign ichor that crawls beneath their muscle and steals life from it. You wish for them to be healthy and whole again, as they are meant to be. Without the interference of a godly war for territories and strength—

  You hear your name spoken in front of you and realise you fell behind, a good eight steps between the two of you. Morax is staring at you, considering your words. “It is a noble thing, to devote oneself to easing the pain of others.” 

  A second acknowledgement, your heart feels a bit too noticeable in your chest—beating too firmly against your ribs. He seems like he wants to say more, but as a cool breeze pushes at your side, his eyes flicker from your face when a leaf flows between the two of you, breaking your eye-contact and he quickly sets a foot to the next step. “Come, I wish to show you something.”

  You’ve never been at the top of Morax’s palace, it’s mostly bare compared to Guizhong’s well decorated and pretty hallways. The wood is elaborately cut and polished, of course… but there’s a distinct lack of… soul within it. No artwork, no artefacts or curtains. You can’t help but wonder why as your gaze finds his back again. 

  The room you step into is shaped the same as the one Guizhong called you into a while ago, but whilst her was a blend of an office and workshop, Morax’s seems more of a war room. There is a map on a table at the centre, the Guili Assembly is outlined at the centre, the vast oceans to the east and the mountains that warp into a swirl to the southwest—many mapped lands that you have never set foot in, and some you have only heard of and never seen on a map. 

  The windows are tinted and closed, casting the afternoon sun onto the floor as unlit lamps hang from the ceiling. You feel like the air is a bit heavy, it could do with an open window…

  “He Shan disappeared into the western highlands, I did not manage to trace his exact location or where he has chosen to hide himself,” Morax says as he closes the door behind you, he moves past you and approaches a large cabinet sat against the wall to your left. It’s large and has a lot of different doors to it—you could imagine scrolls and small artefacts could be kept inside each one. 

  Opening one, Morax reaches inside and takes out an object wrapped in a cloth, golden lines shimmer atop the covered item as he taps it twice. The centre of the seal quivers before disappearing into particles, floating into the air and disappearing above your heads. As he unravels it, the object looks like a stone slab of some sorts. You approach the war table as Morax does, he sets the object down and your nose scrunches as a terrible stench emanates from it. “He leaves behind traces of himself, this is a chipped piece of his scales, likely torn from his body when moving around the landscape.”

  A scale? Well, part of a scale, the serpent was so massive you imagine one scale is half the size of your body—or at least the size of your torso, this chipped scale fits into your palm. “Why does it smell like this?” you ask, you don’t remember such a stench filling the air as the demon emerged from the mountain, only the oppressive weight of his resentment. 

  Morax is silent for a beat, before he turns the scale around—and beneath it is an inky, writing mass. It gleams as if it’s wet, but it doesn’t stick to Morax’s gloved hands, not leave a damp imprint on them. “In two villages I visited while following his traces, I found that their waters had been turned to sludge—they could not use the rivers to wash nor drink.”

  You looked at the mass on the inside of the scale again. “Is it safe to touch?”

  “Briefly, to my knowledge. But I have not tested prolonged exposure with mortal hands,” he says and gestures to the map on the table, his finger tapped on a dotted spot to the west of the Fangyuan mountains. “He moved from the mountains and west, past this village, as well as the town north of it,” Morax’s finger glides along the highlands separating the Guili Assembly from the deep forests further west. “I traced him to Tianqiu Valley before my path led to a dead end.”

  Your fingers curl at your chin, a hum leaving you. “Surely a serpent so large can’t just… hide?” it’s hard to imagine, he spanned so many kilometres you’re unsure how he would rest without leaving his tail in the open somewhere—or perhaps gods don’t require rest? You’ve never seen a god sleep, or an adeptus for that matter. 

  “Unfortunately, were he to hide further north there is too high of a risk to send scouts into foreign territory,” Morax shakes his head. “This scale, does this resemble the miasma you encounter during cleansing?”

  You eye the squirming mass, trying to gouge it from sight alone—you don’t really want to touch it, but just looking at it isn’t giving you much. It’s certainly more solid than the usual foul energies you pull out of people, miasma feels… slimy and wet, but not like you’re clenching a rat in your palm, even when it fights your pull. More like trying to grasp thick mist. 

  Reaching your hand out, you lay your palm over it—careful not to touch it as you feel for the energy. It’s much warmer than the usual miasma, but doesn’t shirk away when you get close… it’s definitely not the same, but has a similar tinge in a way that’s difficult to explain. “It is… different,” your brows pinch and you lift your hand away from the scale to see that the mass had lifted upwards and then deflated as soon as you moved—like bread being uncovered when it’s set to rest while making it. 

  “Different?” Morax moves the scale slightly, he didn’t quite like how it raised towards your palm. 

  “It’s got a similar aftertaste,” you wipe your hand on your clothes, it didn’t touch you, but you get an uncomfortable tingle from the thought of it. “Since he’s a demon, wouldn’t his energies be inherently different than the ones that infect the lands?”

  You’ve only dealt with a demon once before, and you didn’t stay long enough to get to know it properly—personally or in nature. 

  “Not necessarily,” Morax said. “The beings whose remains leave poison behind are all very different, many are classified as gods by mortals—it can be difficult to differentiate between them. Even Guizhong and I are very different in nature, but you would simply see the two of us as divine beings. Demons are similarly different among themselves.”

  You nod along as he talks, it’s surprisingly easy to listen to his voice when he’s explaining things to you. You did know that gods are very different in nature, rarely are gods one and the same. “I see… and we need to understand what kind He Shan is?”

  He nods and takes the scale from the table, wrapping it into the pale cloth again. “General Huang has extended contact to Mei Lan, it would greatly speed the process if she were willing to divulge their history. Facing the demon head on without any information of his nature is too dangerous.”

  After closing the cloth around it, the seal seems to close itself without his interference, Morax offers it to you. You blink at him, eyes moving between his expression and the scale. “... why are you giving it to me?”

  “The affinity you have for foul energies can be utilised for more than cleansing,” he says and takes your wrapped arm from your side, lifting it up and placing the wrapped scale in your palm. “Keep this in your bedroom, not by the nightstand, but on the desk.”

  Your fingers instinctively wrap around the clothed scale, but your eyebrows furrow. “Is it safe?”

  “I would not place this burden on you had I any doubts,” he shakes his head, and his warm hands leave yours. “Every evening, feel for its energies and move it from it’s spot every other night. When you wake, try to sense it across the room.”

  The pieces in your mind start to align as he gives you the instructions, clicking together in realisation. “You want me to be able to track him?”

  “My senses cover a large distance and can find a target’s location across the land,” his expression pinches as he talks, eyes narrowing slightly. “But as I reached Tianqiu Valley, his essence seemed to scatter, and each time I approached; it evaporated.”

  Some kind of trick, no doubt—you’re unsure how exactly you’re the solution to it, but you trust his foresight. “I see… you must forgive me, but I’m struggling to understand how I can be of assistance if you couldn’t find him.”

  You wince at your own words, maybe you could have worded it better—but can you be blamed for doubting yourself compared to him? 

  Morax doesn’t seem offended by your question, he moves towards a shelf and takes a book from it—it looks old, the cover doesn’t shield the spine of it and is made of a thick material you’re unsure what it is made of. “Many demons are proud beings,” he turns back towards you and holds the book out for you to take, you accept it with your free hand that isn’t clutching the uncomfortably warm scale. “They… over and under prepare simultaneously. You are not preparing for battle, do not worry overmuch,” an everso small tug lifts at his lips, so faint that you wouldn’t notice if you were not used to seeing his expression so lacking of one. “Tracking and cornering He Shan is the difficult part, but not the most dangerous. I will handle the rest swiftly afterwards.”

  You look down at the book, it seems to be a collection of old folktales, though they exaggerate, they can help give you an understanding of how demons behave around mortals. 

  Morax is asking much of you—that he knows well, to ask you to risk your safety to assist him. Defeating demons is mostly a game of mind, the physical battle will be a smaller feat for him; Morax has defeated many demons in the past. “If you are not willing, I will not force this task upon you,” he says, a mild concern touching his gaze by your silence. 

  Raising your head from staring at the book, you shake it. “I am willing. If it will prevent harm and disaster upon innocent villagers and townsfolk.”

  The small touch of a smile widens briefly, a gentle expression gracing his face—you truly wish he would be more expressive, every smile and soft gaze makes your palms sweat slightly, but they warm your chest as well. It might also make it easier for you to talk to him without feeling that you’re overstepping, or sounding silly. 

  “Very well, then I employ your assistance with this task,” Morax nods. “You will of course be well compensated.”

  Payment is always nice, but you hope he knows that you’re sincere when you say that you want to assist for the safety of others. You’re sure he’s only being formal. “Thank you. Is there anything else I must do other than… sleeping with this thing around?” you lift the clothed scale for emphasis. 

  “Yes,” he turns to the map beside the two of you again and meets your eyes briefly to ensure you’ve followed his movements before he gestures to the two villages he mentioned before along the western edges of the Assembly. “I did not manage to stop for long when I was tracking He Shan, the waters are likely still infected and must be cleansed. I requested supplies be sent from nearby towns to assist them, but it will not last for long.”

  It’s not too long of a travel distance, but you stay silent to let him continue. Surely you won’t be going alone? Not that you can’t, but what if the serpent decides to slide through again?

  “I cannot accompany you just yet, but I will convene with you in a few days.” Ah, as you suspected—you suppose it’s not so surprising, Morax must be very busy… He Shan is just one among many threats that the Guili Assembly faces in these times, many of which you are unaware of. “I will ask that Indarias join you, I suspect that He Shan’s potent energies will attract smaller demons that mistake it for remains.”

  You just nod along to his words, you don’t know who Indarias is but if they’re going to be joining you specifically because there might be demons about, then you suppose they must be capable. “When will we set out?”

  “Two days,” Morax straightens again, turning away from the map to face you completely again. “Indarias has been tasked elsewhere, but she will return quickly once summoned. I suspect two days will be enough—will you require longer to prepare?”

  “No… but…” a thought suddenly strikes you, something you hadn’t considered as you were discussing everything. “I lost my tools in the south, they were blown away at the start of the conflict,” you scratch your cheek awkwardly. Finding or getting cleansing tools isn’t a simple task, much less so crafting them from scratch, they need specific qualities and material to be effective. 

  Morax’s lips part slightly. “Ah, I see. I will speak with Ground Mender and see if she has any solutions, I will find you before you depart…” he pauses for a moment. “They were well used.”

  They were, well used and loved by your family, your grandmother before you and many before. You always promised to take good care of them… you swallow your saliva and just give Morax a nod. “Yeah, it was used by my family for a long time. It’s impressive how long it lasted, I suppose it was an eventuality.”

  Silent, Morax doesn’t seem to know what exactly to say. “I am sorry that you lost a family heirloom… it will not replace what was lost, but I can commission new tools for you. It will not do to be without.”

  It won’t be the same, but you will need new tools either way, you bow your head slightly. “Thank you, I’m grateful for your consideration.”

  You feel something touch your head—familiar and warm, a tinge of déjà vu prickling your mind. Morax had set his hand atop your head, giving it a small pat before retreating it again. “No need, it is my duty.” you gingerly raise your head again, head tickled a little from the touch. “Please use it well to continue your good work.”

Your feet touch the cold snow once more and your mind reels slightly after being suspended in the air for so long. Morax holds your waist for a second even after you both stand on solid ground—unsure whether you will keep your balance or not. The warm press of his body against yours separates and cold hair flows between you, immediately the shivers that have plagued you for days return, you hadn’t even noticed they had ceased during your proximity with him.

  The winds had settled, and snow fell gently to the ground—high rising peaks begin to show themselves in the distance, and though you had just barely seen enough to watch the massive serpent slither away between the mountains… you had no idea that the south of the Guili Assembly had such a massive reach of mountains, a range stretching as far as you could squint. 

  “W-what do we…” your words have barely left your chapped lips when Morax strides past you, you stutter a bit more as you see his back and quickly move your legs. The snow was shaken significantly and doesn’t reach up to your knees anymore—but you can hardly feel your feet anyway, the cold hums inside your bones and with every step that crunches the snow, a reverberating note of pain surges up your legs. 

  It’s awfully cold, even in the absence of wind. you can feel your nose hairs move with every breath and try to breathe with your mouth instead to stop the feeling. 

  Morax strides ahead, several thoughts swirl around in his head—he assumes you will keep up with him, he must investigate the site of the seal… rather, he should be making pursuit of the serpent and ensuring it will not cause harm. 

  Wracking his mind as he increases his pace, Morax doesn’t notice you lagging behind, breaths heaved as you try to trudge through the cold with aching limbs. There are countless tales of ancient gods and spirits beneath the land—of sealed gods and demons, being a serpent doesn’t narrow it down either, just as if it would have been many other type of spirit. 

  He makes it to the edge of the highest part of the flat mountain, where it sinks into the area where the seal had been placed atop a glassy ice… which has now broken away and given way for an all-encompassing abyss, a hole into the earth so dark one might there is no bottom. 

  Straightening slightly, as if perking up… Morax realises he doesn’t hear the crunch of snow behind him, not as closely as he expected at least. He turns to see that you’re a good distance away still, and a small tug pulls on his brows. He says your name and turns to walk back to you, momentarily putting his thoughts aside. 

  “Sorry… i-it’s just so cold,” you stutter slightly, though your clothes are okay for snow… they’re not exactly made for snowy mountain climbing. Your shoes are wet and practically freezing over again, and your nose feels like it’s about to crumble off your face at any moment. 

  Morax takes your hand, feeling the cold that practically emanates from it. He forgets the fragility of humanity often, even if he should be more accustomed to it by now. He must get you to warmth soon before you get sick—if he isn’t too late already. 

  You blink as you feel warm palms on your cheeks, the texture of Morax’s gloves are uncomfortable against your ice cold, sensitive skin… but as the warmth of his hands seep in and gently soothe your cold skin, you exhale in mild relief. If only he would pinch your nose and warm that too before it falls off. 

  He can assess the situation later… although Morax should do it now, he shifts his priorities—besides, he should ensure Moon Carver managed to protect the rest of the encampment with all the tremors that shook the mountains. “Come, I will take you back to the others. There will be fires and warmth there,” he assures, Morax’s hand finds your shoulder—but he stops before he can scoop you up as he intended. 

  You look over his shoulder and see a form crawling up from the now massive hole in the mountain, the slope has snow tossed everywhere and patches of grass poking out from underneath. 

  Mei Lan’s arms tremble as she manages to drag herself over the slope leading down into the maw of darkness behind her, she lowers and her torso finally touches the ground—splotches of red leaking from beneath her robes and into the white beneath her.

  A silence passes, you don’t dare move—you saw how fast she crossed the mountaintops—and Morax is still beside you, hand still resting on your shoulder. 

  The fallen god coughs slightly and hoists herself up to sit on the crunchy snow. “Y-you… this is your fault… I was focused—I held it well, it held for three hundred years,” Mei Lan didn’t raise her face to look towards you and Morax. The deep wound inflicted on her body bled freely, staining her clothes all the way down to her knees in a curtain of blood. “Four hundred years… gone, he’s free…” 

  Your eyes glance to Morax, his own gaze fixed on Mei Lan with a gaze sharp as steel. “You said nothing of a sealed calamity below the mountain,” his voice is even, a heavy tone that you haven’t heard expressed from his lips before. One guarded and distant. 

  “Why would I have to say anything?! These mountains have been mine for long!” she pounds her fist against the covered earth, with every exertion of her muscles, fresh blood pours from her torso. “Foolish humans climb the peaks in search of blessings and stir his conscious! They build and aggravate the earth above his tomb!”

  Your lips part and you want to say something, but nothing but the sound of your clattering teeth leaves you—if Morax weren’t practically holding you on your feet by your arm you would have fallen into the snow. 

  Morax’s head turns only slightly, but he doesn’t fully look at you. “Whose tomb have you been protecting?” 

  How would it be a tomb, if that massive thing slithered out of it? You nearly shudder (more) at the thought of it not only being a malevolent being, but also a ghost! 

  “He Shan,” she says the name with such vitriol you almost feel the burning heat of her hatred in your skin—it’s almost a relieving warmth, if you had fully felt it. “A bitter, violent creature that has had centuries to churn it deep in his soul.” You’re amazed she still seems so… full of energy considering how much blood coats her and the ground. Perhaps blood to gods is just decoration…? You wonder. 

  A low hum leaves Morax’s throat. He doesn’t recall the name—there are many gods that have risen and fallen within a handful of a hundred years that have names the winds of time have forgotten. Mei Lan has been atop this mountain range for a long time now, but the Guili Assembly is still relatively young, all things considered. Its borders have changed much in merely the last two centuries. 

  Steps approach from behind, boots crunching snow that diverts your attention from Mei Lan’s form and towards an approaching Moon Carver. “Lord Rex Lapis, what happened? This one did not anticipate such terrible shaking of the mountains below our feet!” 

  “Moon Carver, excellent timing,” Morax’s hand on your shoulder shifts to your back and he practically turns you around towards the adeptus. “Please take our friend to safety, I assume the others are well. I will finish asserting the situation here.”

  “Of course,” Moon Carver is quick to agree, despite his question going unanswered. He could practically feel your freezing skin beneath your winter robes as he approached the two of you and took your arm. 

  You would’ve loved to not be passed along like a child, but your feet feel frozen solid, you can’t promise yourself you won’t tumble and faceplant in the snow were you to attempt to walk all the way. “Ah, I’m sorry for the trouble—”

  He only shakes his head and you stop talking immediately… you feel like you’ve caused trouble, again, and lower your head slightly. First taking off and getting your feet swept from under you in Quiche, now rushing outside into the storm and letting a massive serpent loose…

  “Hey,” a finger flicks your ice cold cheek and you jump, head snapping up as an; “ow!??” leaves your lips. Moon Carver's expression is unimpressed. “Stop sulking, let’s go.”

  Morax watches the two of you silently as the adeptus practically drags you with him, not being as gracious as the man you’re leaving behind by offering to carry you—as Moon Carver responds to your complaining, you shouldn’t have rushed out into the cold if you weren’t prepared to trek back on your own two feet. Maybe it’ll teach you a lesson (unlikely).

  A small sigh leaves Morax as he turns his attention back to Mei Lan, whatever hint of emotion or gentleness directed at your presence is now gone in its absence. “Tell me everything.”

–

Thankfully, no one below the sheltered cliffside was injured badly, a few people toppled over each other and someone fell against one of the braziers and burned their leg quite harshly—but all things considered… they were safe. 

  Discussions of new locations were already rumbling along the half-crowd, but you didn’t pay much attention to the chatter—Moon Carver had tossed his own robe over you after you sat down by a reignited brazier, you were shaking like a leaf. You hadn’t even realised how cold you were until the warmth of the fire blossomed over your ice-cold skin, the last of the adrenalin faded and you were left like a pile of shivering bones, you wondered if your nose was still attached. 

 “A large serpent?” Moon Carver touched his chin in thought, despite being stripped of his robe, he doesn’t seem very cold nor bothered. He doesn’t recall tales of massive serpents in this region… but he hasn’t spent much time here either. 

  The more you think back on it, the more you shiver—even as the flames from the brazier start to warm your wet, frozen clothes. Your eyes hurt as you rub them, exhaustion settling in as the adrenalin from the day wanes away. “It could encircle mountains, I’ve never heard of a serpent so large,” you say as you tuck your hand back into your robe.

  “Hm,” there seemed to be a lot of thoughts wrangling in his head, and you really want to close your eyes—thus as Moon Carver falls into a silent thought, you allow them to droop. There’s not much to lean against, but you can probably get a shut-eye like this, sitting on the ground with your knees tucked up to your chest.

  You didn’t get very far into your rest—or that’s what it felt like, as a hand touched your head. 

  Jolting up and almost knocking your forehead into his jaw, Morax leans back in surprise when you suddenly start at his touch. His eyes are slightly wide and eyebrows raised. “Ah, my apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you—I merely meant to make sure you had warmed up enough.”

  A bit embarrassed by your own reaction—you’re not sure why you keep jerking so harshly when surprised, every instance of being caught off guard seems to make your entire body tense up and lock for a brief second. “N-no, it’s alright. I’m sorry,” you lower your legs to sit cross-legged before him, where Morax has kneeled by you. “What happened?”

  Moon Carver stands in front of you by the brazier, arms folded as he watches the exchange silently. 

  Morax stands gracefully. “She gave me valuable information before departing, we will need to reestablish an outpost along the mountains—but as we will not be pushed back further, we can settle with more practicality.” It’s strange how pristine his robes are, considering the events of the day—there’s hardly more than a few dots of blood on him. 

  “Departed?” Moon Carver asks. 

  “Into the mountains, she has not left for the Dark Sea,” he clarifies. “It seems she used a rather flimsy seal that requires the user to uphold the prison mentally at all times—it makes the seal powerful, so long as the user’s will to contain is strong enough… the wound she sustained tore her attention and broke the seal.”

  They don’t seem very concerned that Mei Lan has simply retreated and not departed entirely, perhaps they came to some sort of agreement before they separated… you hope—in any case, if Moon Carver and Morax seem relaxed about it, you shouldn’t worry either. 

  “Where did it go?” your voice sounds, turning the attention of both adepti to you—momentarily you feel a bit embarrassed for distracting them from the conversation.

  But Morax doesn’t hesitate to answer your question, though it wasn’t much of an answer. “I lost track of the serpent’s energy after he disappeared beyond the mountains. I must search the land and assure that he has not begun wreaking havoc.”

  “This one doubts someone that has been sealed for so long has the strength to unleash terror so soon,” Moon Carver adds. 

  “You are likely right,” Morax agrees. “Yet I must ensure the Assembly’s safety. Allow us to find shelter for our people before I depart…” he pauses before turning, eyes moving between you and Moon Carver. “At sunrise, you must return to the capital and inform Guizhong of what has occurred. Both of you.”

  Moon Carver nods without resistance, and thought you feel you should resist… what is there for you to do here? You suppose you could help rebuild, but you’re hardly a skilled enough carpenter. You nod your head as well.

–

It was amazing to see—with a simple raise of his hand, Morax created a shelter of stone. It wasn’t the long winded labyrinth that you had stayed in before, the rooms were a bit uneven and not split properly to allow for barracks… but simply being able to raise a shelter for the amount of people that had come unscathed was impressive. 

  Quickly braziers were lit inside and large cloths used to seal off the entrances. It was rather dark, but it brought shelter from the cool breeze. You finally managed to lie down and get a shut-eye for a while, but hunger eventually woke you… taking away the little peace your slumber brought. 

  As you’re handed a bun that had been prepared some days ago in the routine emergency, your cool fingers warm on the soft dough, heated above the fires raised in one section of the shelter. As you find a place to sit down, you hear two Millelith behind you chattering between themselves as they eat their own buns. “He made it look so effortless, I wonder if lord Rex Lapis could build a castle in a day.”

  “Perhaps… his interior skills might do with some improvement,” he other grumbles, mouth half-full of food.

  “... well, it must be hard to design something on the inside while you’re outside?” the first hums after a brief pause. 

  Though the conversation occurring behind you is amusing, you start to tune them out once they begin to argue the “right way” to design a home, and the first Millelith pulls out at every stop to remind the other that he built his own house as therefor knows exactly how it should be done, despite the other Millelith reminding him that his wife took take of the decorating and he just built the tables and chairs. 

  You wipe your hands on your pant legs after finishing the last bite of your meal and stand up, you’ve already explored the shelter and there’s no crook you haven’t stuck your nose into in curiosity. The hall has been properly warmed and your fingers and nose don’t feel like they’re about to fall off either, which is a relief—you were definitely starting to suspect you might have frostbite. 

  After some searching, you find Moon Carver again. “Will we depart in the morning?”

  The sun has long sunken down below the mountaintops, dawn should be making its way any time now… though it has been quite the long day, perhaps Moon Carver is too tired to leave right now.

  “We leave at noon, rest as much as you can,” he replies without turning to face you. Curious, you try to peek at what he’s doing… only to see him trying to scrub soot out of his robe.

  … the robe he tossed on you earlier this evening. You were leaning so close to the brazier you dirtied it—that robe looked older than you! And crafted so carefully it must be worth heaps of mora for the care alone!

  Immediately, you step next to him. “Gods—I’m sorry, I dirtied your robe after your kindness, allow me to clean it…”

  “It is no matter, one has nothing else to do with his hands,” Moon Carver tells you off easily, so easily that you feel like he just picked you up by the back of your robe and set you aside. 

  “Well… shouldn’t you rest as well? It can’t be good to travel without sleep,” you inquire hesitantly. The thought of Moon Carver dozing off while you’re a kilometre in the hair makes you shiver slightly.

  His movements halt for a moment before he continues. “Adepti do not require sleep.”

  … sure, you’ve heard that before. “But… it’s better, surely? It must give some energy.”

  You’re not entirely sure why you’re debating him on his own energy, but you want him to rest—have you ever seen an adeptus sleep? Or just close their eyes and lay out on the grass for a while? 

  You suppose you’ve been hallucinating a mini-Rex Lapis for a few months now, dozing around like a limp noodle. Maybe you’re going crazy. 

  … though, Moon Carver had been with you. “Moon Carver…”

  Hearing the uncertainty in your voice, he turns his head, but doesn’t fully look at you. “What?”

  “Can… lord Rex Lapis… turn into a small dragon? About the size of a forest snake?” you feel like you’re a toddler asking your grandmother if vishaps are real… again. 

  Moon Carver blinks at you for a moment, his expression rather confused both towards the contents of the question, as well as the rudeness of it. “One supposes he could, adepti choose their forms… why do you not ask him yourself?” The expression you made must have been amusing, because the corners of his lips quirk up. “This one is certain he would find it entertaining, at the least.”

  Entertaining… you had felt like a real weirdo in your first meetings, and then just as you feel that you’ve somewhat started to build up your reputation to at least seem like a relatively normal person—Moon Carver wants you to ask Rex Lapis himself if he indulges in naps as a pocket-sized dragon?

  Absolutely not. 

  “I’ll pass, thank you for the suggestion,” you say, and turn on your heels. What a dumb question, if Moon Carver mentions this to him, you’ll put peppers in his tea—you regret asking immediately.

–

  Soaring into the ice-cold air atop the Fengyuan Peaks, you clutch the Moon Carver’s mane as if it was the only thing between you and certain death… you’re sure he could catch you if you did slip and tumble off his back—but you’re not every excited to test that theory.

  Your eyes quickly dry as cool wind brushes against your face, you turn your head to the side to avoid facing forward and hopefully spare your eyeballs when your eyelids fly open. “Moon Carver! Look—do you see it?”

  The earth between rising mountains, usually filled with deep snow and dark ravines… have flattened, rounded under the weight of a god so large and heavy he broke the sides of cliffs and left behind markings of his movements. 

  “This one has observed our surroundings,” he confirms, but doesn’t move his head to look down.

  It makes your skin tingle, Morax had taken the two of you back far enough that you hadn’t been crushed when He Shan broke free—but seeing the marks he left behind somehow made him seem far larger than you had thought, even in the same vicinity. 

  The earth beneath is darker than you would have thought the land should be, even though the rocks and stone of the mountains even under the sun of day is dark… it feels as if the night sky is below you, streaks of white dragging into the black, creating an unnatural formation between the rising peaks of the mountain range.

  You turn your head into the adeptus’ fur as the scenery fades to high rising trees in place of stone… you don’t wish to see Quiche from above right now. 

  Though you felt a bit bad leaving the peaks of the mountain behind considering the recent events, it was very comforting to arrive back in the capital… the air was still warm, despite the colours of autumn, and the city was lively as always.

  As soon as you set foot inside the courtyard, both Ground Mender—features covered as always—and Ming Hui were waiting. You felt like you were about to be scolded like a child… 

  “You!” Ming Hui quickly approached you, poking you in the stomach repeatedly—it’s about as much ‘poking someone in the chest threateningly’ as she can get with such a short height. “I had to do every single one of your chores while you were gone! Without warning!”

  Ah… you hadn’t really thought of that. Though, you also hadn’t really been re-assigned chores by the time you left…? “I’m sorry,” you blurt out. “I’ll take your workload for a while.”

  “Uh-huh, and you’re going to stand in queue for that limited seasonal rice cake that’s been super popular—which I haven’t been able to get all week because of your chores,” she pokes you three more times before then jabbing her finger towards your nose. “Idiot!”

  You blink down at her for a few seconds, you haven’t seen her so expressive before—Ming Hui has been rather quiet and focused on her work since you met her… it’s a little amusing to see such a contrast to her (though she had been very patient and kind by your sickbed), but your guilty conscience of making her work twice as hard outweighs your amusement. “Of course, I’ll buy four—”

  “—five!”

  “Five,” you agree. “What is it anyway? Are people really queuing for it?”

  Ming Hui, finally lowering her hand—for a moment you thought she might just curl her fist and give you a nice knock on the belly. And she’s so strong that it might actually take you down. “Chestnut-paste filled youtiao,” she says and tugs on her clothes to straighten them.

  You’ve never tried that particular combination before… but since so many people are excited about it, it must be at least decent. “Okay, I’ll bring them to you for lunch tomorrow.”

  Ming Hui, who had been about to turn away and let Ground Mender’s turn begin to scold you in some form—you hope it’s not more poking—turns and squints at you. “Tomorrow? The queue is too long for you to make it back before lunchtime.”

  “Then I’ll start waiting before the stall opens,” you say with a little bit more conviction than you probably should for such a little thing… but it’s not so little, you feel. When she gives you a look of doubt, you feel a deep need to right it. That she shouldn’t doubt your ability to do such a simple thing. 

  She sets her hands on her hips. “So long as you don’t hurt yourself, I guess. Remember that you were in an infirmary bed not long ago.”

  She probably doesn’t realise it, but the reminder does make your chest—and arm—pinch a little at the thought. You’d rather not think about it more than you have to. “I’ll be fine.”

  It kind of feels like you’re the twelve year old between the two of you with this scolding and then voice of concern of your well-being and ability to so… such a simple thing and walk to the city and purchase some fried dough sticks. 

  “Hm, I believe you,” she finally gives in and sets her hands down again, the robe she’s wearing today seems far too large on her than it should be, the sleeves are tied back but they still droop below her elbows.

  As she finally takes her leave, you realise you’re left standing alone in the courtyard—not counting guards passing between buildings and attendants leaving out the gates behind you. Moon Carver and Ground Mender have gone as well, hadn’t you just been looking at Ground Mender a moment ago? 

  Perhaps adepti have better stealth than you give them credit for.     -

  Your room feels even more bare than before, as you shut the door behind you and walk inside, allowing yourself to sink down on your bed—it’s far more comfortable than you’ve given it credit for in the past—before you kick off your shoes and toss your thick travel robe on the chair by your desk.

  Falling backward and feeling the mattress against your back, you stare at the ceiling for a good long time.

  The memory of the terrible, strangely fleshy sound of the massive serpent slithering between the mountains makes your muscles tense up briefly before relaxing… the thought of that terrible demon slithering on the outskirts of the Assembly makes you anxious—even more so when you know there’s little you can do. What could a small human like you do against a demon?

  You try your best to not think about Quiche, the more your brain tries to claw into your thoughts and drag them out of the little hole you put them in during the last few days, the more you resist and try to think of something else. 

  But the only other thing that comes to mind… is your empty hands. 

  Returning to your room without the weight of your cleansing tools in your hand feels as if you’ve left parts of yourself behind, the old and crooked shape of that old bell was so familiar against your palm that it had felt as if you were holding your own hand.

  You feel as if you’ve been stuck inside your head for weeks, perhaps even a few months—yet you don’t feel as if you’ve been thinking of very much at all. 

  Raising your left arm to the air, the bandages around your skin are loose and you can see peeks of skin between them. Your palm and fingers look healthy and fine, and there are no eyes watching from beneath the white cloth—but you don’t dare unravel the rest. It has been days, enough to see improvements, or the opposite. And you’d rather not know, so long as you can’t see the state of your skin and tissue, it can’t trap your mind. 

  Letting it fall back down and land on your stomach, you let out a small huff of discomfort as the impact reverberates through your arm and up your shoulder. Ow…

  Sitting up with a groan, you decide to leave your room—you’re tired, and should probably sleep… but now that you’re in a calmer place with enough space for your thoughts to gather, you’re a bit afraid of what that could lead to.

  The air has definitely gotten cooler as the sun sits down, it was comfortably warm when the sun was up… but it was definitely warmer than on the mountain despite the chill. You took a long good walk around the courtyard, it seems the last days of moving so much has really helped your muscles—though you’re sure any doctor or healer would have suggested you re-train your muscles normally, with slow and progressing exercises. 

  Looking to the skies once you’re between thick trees and bushes with yellowing leaves, you squint up at the moon… it’s brighter than usual today.

  Your nose stings, and you rub at it—but it doesn’t stop the filling of tears in your eyes. Damn it… you had come outside so that you wouldn't cry, and now look at you. The tears bubble in your eyes and blur your vision, you quickly wipe them away but as you lower your head—they seem to flow out. 

  That damned bell… why would you leave it in your room? You should’ve had it on you the entire time, even when there wasn’t really a reason to, you weren’t at home, you shouldn't just leave things lying around—who knows what could happen? Perhaps you should even have predicted the attack to happen. 

  “Take good care of it, jiao jiao,” the old, worn hands of your grandmother present the bell to you, even back then, it was old and rusted at the bottom. Her larger hand supports your open palms as the other lowers the bell into them. “Your great-grandmother was very talented, and she will be delighted to see you grow to be like her.”

  “It’s old…” you had said, small fingers rubbing the bottom of the bell and feeling the uneven metal scrape against your skin. “If I drop it, will it break?”

  Your grandmother smiles, and she sets her finger on the ornament atop the bell, where one would hold it to ring. “It’s a resilient thing, your great-grandmother was given it by her father, who received it from his mother. I’m sure someone has dropped it into a bowl of oil before.”

  “Who was cleansing bowls of oil?” your face pinches in confusion. Could spirits and demons even inhabit food? In all the books you’ve read, they go for people or weapons, sometimes even trees or rocks. 

  “Well, the family kitchen doesn’t have much storage space… perhaps you will find a better place to keep it,” her large, wrinkled hand pats your head, the warmth from it clear against your head as you give her a big smile. 

  You shake your head, as if the memory was a snowflake on your hair you’d like to toss off. Don’t think about it, the more you think about it, the more your mind recognises what used to be real and no longer is. 

  Running a hand down your face, and dragging any tears or snot that formed in the meantime into your palm, you blink a few times to gather yourself. You can probably have your tools replaced, perhaps you could even chip the bottom of a new bell to make it look like the old one. 

  Then, maybe then you’ll keep pretending it’s the same, that it’s fine and you didn’t lose them. 

  You don’t want to go back to your room… perhaps the youtiao stall is still open so late into the evening, or perhaps you’ll find something else to distract you on the way. You take a long breath, willing away the tightness in your chest and the ache of your clenched jaw, before turning and leaving the serene gardens.   

  The last thing you expected once you stepped past the gates to the palaces after avoiding conversation with either guard there, was the sound of bare feet tapping on the stone steps behind you—you don’t know of many people who walk around barefoot, so only one guess comes to mind. 

  Stopping and turning to look behind you, you see Guizhong hopping down the steps towards you at… concerning speeds. Her dress is longer than usual, going below her ankles so that you can’t see her feet, but her sleeves always sway far below her hands as usual. “My lady—” you extend a hand to steady her in case she stumbles on her dress, she’s taking more than two steps at a time.

  But thankfully, she stops easily as soon as she reaches you, and takes your extended hand. “There you are! I was preoccupied when you came back, I haven’t had a chance to speak with you properly… for so long! Too long, come!” 

  She seemed very energetic, did she get more energised under the moon? 

  She gave you little choice as she began tugging you down the steps behind her, and you quickly brought your mind back on pace to control your legs before YOU started tumbling down. Falling down this monstrous amount of steps would surely finally be the end of you. “O-okay, please slow down,” you pleaded as she began to hop down the steps two at a time once more. 

  “Slow? We’ll miss our window, no time to hang around!” she simply laughed at your concern. 

  Your mind felt like it was spinning, the emotions of the day being churned around in your head like laundry being washed in a basin. Just moments ago you had been fighting the tightness of your chest and hoping to find a distraction that could occupy your attention until you were too tired to think comprehensive thoughts. 

  “Window…?” you weren’t aware you had anything planned with her today… or ever, Guizhong is lovely—but she’s far too busy to be making friends with someone like you. 

  She doesn’t let go of your hand, grip surprisingly strong even if it’s holding you through her sleeve. “Once the moon sits at its highest, it creates a lovely sight along the river, I always visit it when it’s at its brightest—and since you’re here anyway, you’re coming with me!” 

  You suppose you have no choice, then. 

  Your legs complain as Guizhong picks up her running pace as soon as you leave the long steps behind, but you’ve been pushing through for so many days now that feeling that ache in your thighs is familiar enough to not stop you. 

  Despite it being before midnight, the streets of the city have quieted—they’re never completely silent, with cats meowing loudly at the back of a meat-shop as they clean up after the day until the owner finally comes out with some leftovers to let them nibble on. Some streets are lined with taverns and bars that stay open well into the night for rowdy patrons, with bright lanterns lighting the entrance. Standing on such a street can even feel as if it were daytime with how bright and lively it is. 

  Other streets are dark and still, where people have retired to bed and closed their windows. Signs sit outside closed doors with opening times, and a crafts shop has a sheet laying over the clay pots left outside for the night. 

  Guizhong only slows once you finally pass a large building that looks like a rice-wine making business, at least if the smell is to be believed. “Here, through the little path,” she lets go of your hand and motions for you to follow her. 

  Her body is smaller than yours, so you have to lean a bit down where she doesn’t. It reminds you of the path you took upon visiting the city proper at first, except your face and head is thankfully safe from any cobwebs or insects upon exiting. 

  “We came very far for…” you start, a little annoyed that Guizhong just had you tun halfway across the capital in a few minutes, lungs burning and thighs twitching in discomfort. 

  But your words halt halfway once your eyes adjust to the clearing, it was rather dark at first sight, but now reveals itself to be a small garden of sorts. Vines climb up the back of buildings that face away from each other, the river that flows through the city widens significantly before narrowing again a few houses down from where you entered. 

  A few large trees stretch from three different gardens, and the orange and red leaves create a strangely warm hue from the cold light that illuminates the clearing from the moon. The leaves from the trees litter the ground, making it appear like a warm cushion instead of the hard ground that is surely beneath them. 

  Guizhong walks towards the riverside, where the ground rises above it. She tugs her dress up and lets her feet touch the cool water before looking back to you. “Come, sit with me.”

  Attention taken away from your pretty surroundings, you approach Guizhong and sit down cross legged beside her, not wanting to wet your shoes. “Did you bring me here spontaneously?”

  “Oh, yes. I just happened to spot you on my way out,” she kicks her feet against the flowing stream, small splashes sounding below. Across the river, two children and a dog come out from another little path between homes, they don’t pay either of you any mind as they run up along the river until you don’t see them anymore. 

  It’s… nice. Peaceful. “I see… I suppose I wasn’t on my way to do anything important,” you say, and truthfully, it was very optimistic of you to assume the youtiao stall was still open so late.   

  Guizhong leans back, sleeves resting on the leaf-covered ground. “I thought you’d be resting early, you’ve had quite the trip.”

  … you’d rather not talk about it, if you were to be honest. “As did I,” you simply say. You feel a tingle in your bones, you hadn’t considered the “returning home” of your plan. So desperate to figure out what happened in Quiche, you didn’t think of any consequences to yourself or others. “I will rest soon.”

  “Hm,” a small hum simply leaves the girl. Despite being a god, so many unimaginably long and difficult years older than any mortal in this city, including yourself. She looks so youthful, not a single mar on her porcelain skin. 

  She doesn’t say any more, not for a while. As the moon stretches to the top of the heavens, settling for what feel like mere moments as the light of it illuminates the small garden. The light reflects off the water in the river and creates a projection of waves on the underside of the leaves above your head. As if you were in the ocean itself, swimming along the stream. 

  The scene is undoubtedly beautiful, but you find your mind distracted, occupied with less beautiful things. You wish you could close it off, silence the workings of your mind and simply exist as the moments come and go in front of your eyes. 

  To act as a human living on limited time, and experience time as it exists in your body. Not the ever-slowing clocks of time in your mind, clinging onto past memories—

  You’re torn from your strange thoughts as something dark above you moves, and as you stare at the trees, seems to grow bigger—

   THUNK

  Your forehead throbs as you let out a sound of surprise, a dry, heavy-looking branch bounces off your head and onto the ground with a dull thud. 

  Guizhong looks at you with large eyes as she shuffles closer, sleeve raising to touch your head. “Are you okay? What a misfortune, we should make an offering to the river to ward it away,” she says with a half smile, rubbing her sleeve on your forehead as you squint your eyes. 

  “How is a small branch so heavy… I feel like I just got hit on the head with a staff,” you grumble, your head throbs with a headache that spreads down to your neck. Taking a nicely shaped brown leaf from next to you, you blow on it before uttering a phrase of offering and sending it off on top of the river.

  After it flowed a few metres away… it sank under the stream. 

  Guizhong gave you a sympathetic look. “Perhaps you should wear a red string for a few days…”

Kaeya

Kaeya is the type of person that after a certain point at night, his brain ceases functioning. There is just no one up there when he is tired enough, which has lead to some midnight shenanigans. (Cue my other fic)

This particular night he was forced to work overtime and so you just went to bed, not feeling like waiting for him. As Kaeya says “I need my beauty sleep” you decided that perhaps you should let yourself get inspired by him. A few hours later you hear shuffling coming from behind you so you expect to see Kaeya, which you do, with him starring at a-….

“…why the f*** is there a cat in my bed Kaeya??”

“I was honestly about to ask you? I just arrived and was about to lay down, almost sat on the poor cat.”

“Just- put him downstairs. I will figure it out tomorrow-“ you say as you collapse again.

Put in short, that’s how you two got a cat. But after some time, you got used to him being weird after midnight. In fact, at this point you don’t pay him any mind.

It was late at night and Kaeya had already fallen asleep before you. You were simply enjoying a book, when you heard him shuffling around and turned to look at him. While sometimes you do hear him mumbling in his sleep he’s never sleep walked before so you assumed he is awake. After a few seconds he reached over to the side table to get some water, but sadly the glass was empty.

Kaeya sighed and wobbled up from the bed. “I’ll get some water.” He said to you, and headed towards the dark hallway. So you went back to your book when you suddenly heard a loud thud, followed by another and another. Basically a tumbling sound, coming from the dark hallway…from the direction of the stairs…

You jumped out of bed and yelled for Kaeya. “Kaeya? Are you ok??”

Silence.

You threw your book on the bed and sprinted towards the staircase to check up on Kaeya, to see him sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey! Kaeya, are you ok?!” You sprinted down to him and turned him over on his back.

Nothing. Complete silence…until-

“I’m fine, just…trying to collect the rest of my dignity from the floor.” He chuckled.

“You- dumbass! I thought you died!” You stood up from his side and headed towards the kitchen.

“Hey, cmon. I was messing around.” He stood up and dusted himself. Around the same time you came back from the kitchen with a wet towel.

“Freeze it and put it on your head, it will otherwise swell up even more.”

“Are you suggesting I have a big head?”

“I’m not “suggesting”. I’m stating it as a fact.” You replied groggily and headed to your bedroom once again.

A few minutes later Kaeya went up and into your shared room again, there he saw that you had put your book away and are now trying to fall asleep. He tiptoed to his side of the bed and laid down next to you.

“Are you still upset?”

“I wasn’t upset, I got worried.” You replied quietly.

“Don’t you worry, I have a thick head. Or did you say big?”

“Haha. Funny.”

“Maybe that fall messed with my memory, please enlighten me.”

“Shut up and sleep.”

Zhongli (( _ _ ))..zzzZZ

Zhongli and you don’t exactly ’require’ sleep. You can live off for months without resting for even a minute. But sleeping is an efficient way of letting some time pass, which you have an abundance of. Apart from that, you two also get a chance to relax.

But you, most of the time don’t let yourself. Instead you let your thoughts run wild, often come up with the craziest things Zhongli has heard, and he’s been alive for quite some time. Which, he would never complain that he is listening to you, he enjoys it in fact. But he is the type of man that if he sets his mind on something, he has to do it. So if he sets his mind on sleeping at night, he wouldn’t be happy if something someone is in his way of achieving that goal.

“Are we really immortal beings, or just really stubborn ones that refuse to die?” You ask, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“We can debate over that tomorrow.” He says, used to your late night ramblings. But this specific question leaves him wondering, you do kind of have a point.

5 minutes pass in complete silence, both of you just thinking about it. “Maybe anyone can be immortal if they put their mind to it.”

“Please, let’s not do this now. I’m still wondering about your last question.”

“If for a week, all gods switch their powers, who would handle it best? Who would cause the most chaos?”

“Barbados and chaos go together, no matter the circumstance.”

“How intelligent are slimes, really? Do they have basic necessities? Do they have family relations?”

Alright now this is becoming an issue. He loves you and all…but he is becoming irritated that he can’t do what he’s set his mind on doing. Also overthinking your internal debates. He doesn’t have the heart to tell you that though, he would never. So he sits there listening to your rambles and taking notes on them, so he can further discuss them in the morning.

Suddenly you sat up in bed and looked over to him. You turned around for your back to face him, and laid down on his abdomen.

…

“Do you think that prayers have an expiration date?”

Oh archons, you are still at it.

“I’m unsure, dear.”

Another half hour passed, and you suddenly got up and out of bed. Zhongli got confused when you left out of nowhere but didn’t question you. He just closed his eyes and hoped he can drift off before you-

Clank

Oh dear, what now?

He got up and headed towards the origin of the loud noise and saw you standing in the kitchen with the stove on, boiling water, and looking for something in the cabinets.

“Isn’t it a little late for this? There will be time tomorrow for you to make your snacks.”

“Me? Oh, I’m not hungry.” You said, and went back to rummaging through the kitchen.

“Then…what is it you’re doing?” Zhongli further inquired.

“Your stomach was rumbling, I’m making something for you. Ah- there it is…Ahem, excuse me. I was about to doze off and noticed since my head was so close to your stomach.”

Zhongli felt horrible. There he was feeling irritated at you for keeping him awake, yet you were out here making dinner for him. So he just sat down on the dinner table and kept silent for a moment.

“I don’t believe slimes have family dynamics.”

“What?”

“You mentioned that earlier, or do you not remember?”

“I thought- you weren’t listening.”

“Of course, I listened.” He smiled at you.

“Even the part when I wondered if you could turn into a hilichurl?”

“You what-…when did you-“

“Well I guess you did fall asleep after all.” You chuckled and placed a bowl of noodles in front of him.

…

The next morning Zhongli headed for work early, at the end he didn’t sleep at all. You two sat in the living room and talked about all sorts of topics. When at some point he started sharing old stories that you knew very well, after all you had been there with him. But you just fell asleep without even noticing that you felt tired.

So he carried you to bed and since it was around 5 in the morning he just decided to go to the Funeral parlour. There, a few hours later people started to show up and questioned why he came to work this early, he just said that he was had a pleasant conversation that kept him up.

He definitely didn’t doze off on the couch when he came back.

Do I make a part 2???

Treading through the snowstorm is no easy feat, your feet are ice cold and hauling your body forwards is a feat of its own. You walk far behind many of the others in the long line towards the slanted hillside that leads underneath the cliff, Moon Carver is only a few steps behind you.

  You didn’t find any ink, nor did you find any parchment to bring with you. All you have are the clothes on your back and the Luo Pan tucked in your robe… you kind of feel bad for your missing noodles, you didn’t get a chance to taste them. 

  A sharp gust of wind blows directly towards you, and you have to turn your face away and into the fur of your robe to be able to catch your breath, the snow reaches up to your knees as you try to tread into footsteps someone else had made already and you’re so damn cold. 

  A small slope faces your gaze and you bend your knees slightly to not slip and slide down into the group before you, and just as you had made a few steps down—it’s there again, that brain-throbbing tug. You shake your head, but it just makes it worse.

  You can see where people are gathering in the safe area, curtains and covering have already been set up—this was an emergency spot that was planned for for a while. Your steps halt halfway down the slope and Moon Carver nearly walks into your back. “Why are you stopping?” he grumbles, he dislikes this weather as much as everyone else… if more, human skin sucks at retaining heat outside of its organs—in his sophisticated, furred opinion.

  “I want to see something,” you say and start to trek up again. If you are to set wards or a barrier of some sort to protect against falling essence—you certainly don’t want anyone to suffer from the heavy afflictions that struck the soldiers at the western border… and more importantly, you are on a blind mission to make up for what you did wrong, you’re ready to do anything to try and rectify it.

  None of those people know what you did, none of them know you’re trying to set up a safe zone for them—but it doesn’t matter, it’s not for them, not truly. It’s for yourself, a selfish need to fill the hole in your stomach that is so damn cold, so cold in a way even these winds and the cold flakes against your neck can’t stand up to.

  Moon Carver watches as you practically climb back up, the snow so deep you’re almost using your hands to push snow away to make the climb easier. He sighs and turns to continue down the slope.

  You stand by the cliffside and take a look around… but there’s not much to see, the brush of harsh winds hit your back and you wobble slightly, it carries snow in its direction and it mostly obscures your surroundings. You’re sure there’s many mountains around where you are, some likely larger than what you’re standing on—both beautiful and mighty.

  But you can’t see any of them, all you see is white and flashes above your head. Morax’s golden glow moves far more aggressively than before, when you saw the standoff first—he’s no longer waiting for an opening and allowing the winds and snow to obscure his vision.

  But Mei Lan is fast, the white-blue glow of her form dashes away every time he advances, she ducks and weaves like a fly. 

  You lower yourself down, crouching in the snow as your knees sink into it. Your hands are cold, but you ignore the dull sting that goes through them with every movement and swipe, flexing and making a claw of your fingers to try and keep some movement to them so they don’t get frozen still—you hope, at least… you’re not too experienced with such extreme cold.

  You have no ink, not parchment to stick to the ground. Perhaps you can use just a little bit of your spiritual energy to set a simple barrier over the safe zone—if only to guard against the initial drop of essence.

  Grass and stone greet your eyes beneath powdered snow, cold and frozen in time. You set your palm against the ground and close your eyes.

  It’s terribly difficult to concentrate with the hissing song of the wind rushing past your ears, small flakes of snow settle on your eyelashes and shoulders as you try to from some semblance of a sigil into the stone… you feel your energy tickle at your elbow and wrist before it spreads from your palm into a warm sign in the ground.

  Letting out a breath, you feel that you need to inhale a longer one to follow. You open your eyes and the ground is partially covered with snow again, but a faint silver sigil has formed over the pale grass.

  If you can just put a few of those around…

  You stood and began to wade through the snow again, when the tug of your mind seemed to pull down. Your steps halt and you move your legs slightly… below you? This headache is annoying, but it’s not too dissimilar to how you can pinpoint miasma within a body—it never hurts, and usually you just use your hands. 

  You kneel down again and swipe as much snow away as you can, and instead of stone and grass… you see ice. Not too unsurprising, but it’s far more blue than it should be—just how long has there been snow and frost atop these mountains? 

  With more precise wipes of your gloved hand, you squint as darker streaks reveal themselves to you. They’re too practiced to just be an air pocket beneath the ice, or a depth difference. You use your teeth to peel your glove away to reveal your bare right hand and touch your fingertips to the streaks. 

  They’re elevated from the ice, as if sharp winds had cut around the streaks and elevated them. You frown slightly as you trace the line, there’s a strange energy within them… not the same as the foul energies released by the death of gods, but very similar in emotion.

  Anger. Resentment. 

  You will need to see more of these streaks if you’re to decipher what they are.

  First, you need to complete the setup for this barrier… you can kind of see a good area reach for it—if you set down three atop the cliff and then two on the ground by the alcove, then a ward should form around it at the slightest hint of essence dropping from the skies. The snow almost reaches your waist at one point, and you have to kick and swipe like an idiot to get enough out of the way for you to dig to the ground. 

  None of the area left of the streak has more—neither is it particularly wide, only about the same as your forearm. 

  It takes a lot of energy to leave sigils like this behind, and by the third sigil furthest from the hillside leading down, sweat is forming on your forehead. You haven’t exactly eaten in a while—and using energy like this requires a lot of consumed sustenance in return. 

  You set the final seal down and your palm feels like it might start to freeze over if you don’t cover it, the icy cold ground zapping all warmth from your body through the slightest touch of skin. The winds are getting faster and you have to hold your robes close to retain some heat.

  But before you can continue to crawl around and dig snow out of the way like a dog, you hear your name called from far behind you. Moon Carver stands by the cliffside where the slope lowers beneath it. The wind is too loud to hear anything specific that he’s trying to shout in your direction, so you stand and wade your way towards him—it takes a good three minutes to get through all of it and nearly every step you leave behind fills up immediately afterwards. “What is it?”

  “They’re getting too close, you need to stay under the shelter if you don’t want to get blown away,” he says—and as if on queue to his warning, light flashes overhead. You both look up and see a bright line of every fly over the skies and impact something behind the blanket of snow obscuring your field of view of the surrounding terrain. 

  The impact causes a loud rumble to sound from the direction, but thankfully nothing beneath your feet shakes. You share a look with Moon Carver and nod, following him down under the cliffside.

  “There were weird signs in the ground,” you mention as you open the flaps to the small shelter. Some fires have been lit to bring some warmth, the heavy cloths containing it inside as the wind blows from behind the cliff and mercifully shields the small alcove. 

  Moon Carver tied the flaps shut behind you. “Signs?” 

  “Long streaks, as if trailing towards something,” you put your glove back on your hand, it’s a bit tricky now that it’s rather wet and nearly frozen over. “I’m not sure, but I want to get a better look…” it sounds like the winds have gotten stronger, you might have to wait it out.

  The adeptus next to you sets his hand closer to a nearby fire, he doesn’t say anything for a moment before letting out a soft hum. “Perhaps it will reveal a weakness.”

  You weren’t sure how to respond to his musing, what kind of weakness would it be? you’ve primarily seen the god of “sharp winds and piss cold weather” in the skies, what could possibly help her on the ground? You’re not particularly versed in… the abilities of gods, or their sources of power. Your contact with them is beyond death, where they poison the living.

  The little safe zone beneath the cliffside was very cramped, carpets had been laid out so that no one was sitting on cold snow or stone and the fires lit were protected inside braziers made of bronze, allowing flickers of warm flames through slits but kept it safe from the chilling breeze.

  You sit down close by one of the braziers, tugging your knees up and folding the robe behind your legs so that there’s no open slit for the wind to slip in. A shiver tingles your shoulders and travels down your spine, spreading along your limbs and torso as you peel your gloves off against to feebly blow at your cold fingers—your left hand is still being wrapped in bandages that provide a small additional layer, the cloth wrapped laxly around your fingers is damp as well and you’re tempted to peel it off… but as you move to do so, you hesitate.

  It’s not very… polite, to expose something so unsightly in a dense crowd like this. You can handle the chill for a while. 

  The storm doesn’t calm for a long time—long enough that you found yourself dozing off. It’s barely warm enough being two people away from the heaters… but you sit and endure, waiting around… twiddling your (ice cold) thumbs…

  Argh! You can’t do it anymore!

  Standing to your feet—though careful to not knock anyone over—you stride over to the tent flaps and untie them to leave, the same Millelith soldier that had dragged you along earlier stands there and grabs one flap before it can fly from your hand, a sharp gust of cold wind forcing its way into the shelter. “Where are you going??” he looks at you as if you’re a madwoman, and perhaps in this moment it’s such a very crazy thing to assume. 

  Perhaps you are, there’s been something prickling in the back of your brain for a while now, demanding you tread forward and don’t stop—that you do something. 

  “Out,” you don’t give him another glance and step outside into the wind—immediately your breath is stuck in your throat and you press your lips together. The wind has gotten stronger, but so has your will to do something. You can’t continue sitting around while Morax fights overhead—it’s none of your business, technically. You don’t exactly have many stones on the board when it comes to territory disputes between gods and demons, but you do have a strong sense of responsibility that’s been beaten into the ground recently.

  And now you feel that you must uplift that poor sack and fill it with something else.

  So you climb up the slope that reaches around the cliffside, you grab fistula of snow to try and shove it out of the way and make it easier for your legs to climb—it’s not too steep, perhaps a twenty degree incline at best… but with the wind in your face and snow settling in your sleeves and collar, it’s far more difficult than just climbing a normal grass hill.

  With a heaved breath, you make it back up to where you were before, your sigil is still in the ground and the darkened streaks have been covered by snow again. 

  You look up to the skies and squint, you don’t see them… no matter if you turned your eyes in any direction—you could hear the sound of grinding steel and rock, of heavy thuds and sharp energies cutting through the air, but you could not see them.

  Which is far worse, in your opinion, than seeing them close by—because they could be in any direction and potentially not know you’re there. 

  After having warmed a little inside the shelter, you feel better swiping away so much snow. The more you reveal, the more the streaks begin to shape something—only a few metres away from where you were, you found another long streak identical to the other one.

  This was placed here, cut deliberately into shapes… but for what? They’re angled slightly towards each other… as if they connect further away.

  You sure hope this discovery is useful to your current situation, and you’re not just chasing ancient artefacts that have nothing to do with the—

  The thoughts surging through your head are cut short as the ground beneath your feet trembles. You quickly duck down into a crouching position and try to grab onto whatever you can… which is nothing, there is only loose snow around you.

  Thankfully the rumble doesn’t last for long, neither does it knock you over… but it came from the mountains around you. The earthquakes have been originating from here, you can feel the deep tremble from beneath the stone—as if the mountain itself is shuddering. You quickly stand again and hurriedly begin to swipe at the ground, revealing the length of the markings—you follow them several metres until you can’t see the cliffside behind you anymore, you find two more, they’re all leading in the same direction, pointing closer to each other the further you get.

  A choked sound of surprise leaves your lips and you fall backwards into the snow as something large and heavy drops into the ground to your left—a massive and sharp pillar of stone is embedded in the ground mere three feet away from you, your heart races as you look to the skies. They’re directly above you.

  The winds are lesser under them and the stone pillar crumbles into dust, for a moment it almost seems as if you are in a safe pocket—before the bright star in the sky descends and approaches at rapid, very concerning speeds. You scramble backwards a bit and stand to your feet as sharp winds follow behind him and shape into sharp spikes dense with frost—until they appear as long icicles. 

  Unsure what to do, with several things coming into your direction, you simply turn and run—your instincts taking over as tension and fear grasps your spine like the ice heading your way. But before you can fully stand to your feet, arms wrap around your torso and you’re hoisted up into the air. 

  The ground disappears below your feet and you yelp in alarm, throwing your arms around Morax’s shoulders and holding on for dear life causes the god of geo to grunt at the tight hold, but doesn’t say anything. 

  Your feet touch ground again behind a mountain you had no idea was there, a small alcove high atop the peaks where the air is thin—but where the winds are less as well. You exhale in relief, and take a deep breath… and realise you’re still clinging onto Morax’s torso as if you were attached to him.

  His chest heaves slightly against yours and you quickly let go, taking a step back—but there’s little room in this little alcove and your back hits the cold stone wall. “Y-you—” you weren’t sure what to say. You’re caught again where you shouldn’t be… to be fair, he didn’t particularly tell you not to stand out there like an idiot.

  But that’s usually left unsaid and rather implied. 

  “There’s sigils,” you blurt out as he opens his mouth to speak. As soon as you do, Morax’s lips close together again—his hair is a mess, hood dropped down to his shoulders and frost forming on the edges of his cloak. He must be cold. “In the ground, I don’t know what they’re for—but they look like they form something,” you wave your hands vaguely as you explain it. 

  “Sigils?” Morax’s eyes move to the direction he had taken you from and his eyebrows furrow. His mind seems to turn as if he’s thinking deeply. “Stay here.”

  “Here?!” you nearly exclaim. Surely he’s not going to leave you at a mountaintop you can barely breathe at—what if something happens and he won’t even be able to fetch you?

  “The wind is lesser here, if I take you to the others she will find them,” he tries to sound assuring, but you’re not sure he can tell how thin the air is up here. 

  “Let me show you,” you take his arm and Morax blinks twice in place once at the contact, golden eyes flickering down before raising again to your face. “Maybe it can be of use, maybe it can weaken her!”

  “Perhaps…” he doesn’t seem entirely convinced, but you need to try everything you can to get him to take you down again. You still hold onto his arm and your palm, even through your gloves and his clothes, feels the warmth of his skin beneath it. Despite the frost on his clothes and the snow dusting atop his hair, his body temperature is high. 

  Morax considers you for a moment, eyelids narrowing slightly until he lets out a breath. “You have… a talent—” your eyebrows shoot up and you tilt your head back a little. “—for finding trouble—” your eyebrows drop down again. “—yet you have also proven yourself in other matters.”

  It doesn’t feel quite as nice to hear the last part with that first sentence there, but you suppose he has the right of it. You understand what he’s saying, even if he has not fully completed it—you are not supposed to be here, and yet you are, so you have to take forth what makes you useful and use it.

  “Then let me help, I can read the sigils if we can reveal them better,” your voice is stronger than your spine, but you put all the courage you can muster in your body towards your mouth. “Don’t leave me behind.”

  Something in his firm gaze changes, but you can’t tell what. “Very well,” he nearly immediately accepts. Surprise colours your expression at the easy acceptance, but you have no time to respond to him before his hand takes yours that still holds onto him, and tugs you closer. Morax’s arm encircles your waist again—and suddenly you’re airborne without a single warning. 

  A near silent sound of surprise leaves you once stable ground disconnected with the soles of your shoes and you grasp his robe so tightly you worry in the back of your mind that you might rip it off—at least he doesn’t seem bothered by the cold. Chill winds whip past your face and you have to close your eyes as they tear up, the onslaught of gusts and snow making them sting as Morax descends with you in his arms towards where you had left before. 

  Mei Lan is nowhere to be seen, but you hear distant howling that could be either wind or screams. 

  Your feet finally touch snow again and you immediately drop to your knees to brush the fresh powder away from the streaks in the ground. Your heart thrums in your chest as Morax stands above you, his head raised to watch the skies and glowing eyes flickering back and forth to try and assess where the threat might be. 

  “Here,” you pant, not aware of your own breath quickening. You trace the dark streaks with your fingers, eyes locked on the shimmer of the ice below them. “they’re not natural formations, like wind cut around the ice—but it’s so precise…” a frown tugs at your lips, the top of the streaks has lines in it… like a script. “It almost feels like…”

  A deafening crack interrupts your words, the sound flashing through your brain as your head snaps upwards—a spear of ice larger than you’ve ever seen flies barely past your positions and crashes into a mountainside above you. The ice shatters and thuds against the hill of the mountain… directly above your heads. 

  Morax’s arm shoots out and a barrier of gold materialises above the two of you—the ice thuds heavy against the barrier and Morax steps forward. “Move,” he commands, and you immediately listen. 

  Scrambling to your feet—slipping a bit but managing to stand upright, you move behind him as he steps forward. His eyes flick between areas of heightened vantage, between thicker curtains of snow as well as thinner… Morax’s eyes lower to the ground where you had revealed the elevated streak and his eyes narrow—but there’s no time to inspect them further. 

  A white and blue blur streaks across the sky and Mei Lan’s voice carries on the howling wind outside the heavy shield encircling you like a bubble. 

  “Leave this place! It is a barren wasteland!” her words are ones of warning, yet the snarl of her face begets a fury you’ve never seen before. She is dressed in white silken robes far longer than her feet reach, making her appear twice her own length. The ribbons and flowing material off the old-style garment  flutter erratically with the sharp winds and her dark hair is unrestrained. 

  The storm beyond the shield intensifies as she clasps her hands together, the long sleeves on her robe twirling until they almost appear to have tied a knot together. “Will you not leave—I will have to depart your souls from this plane!” 

  That sounds like she’s about to conjure something big. You glance nervously at Morax and his gaze is fixed on the woman in the skies. “Hide as soon as I release the barrier.”

  “Hide? Where?” you look around quickly, but there’s nothing but snow around you—there’s not even a big rock!

  You don’t receive an answer as the golden shield fades into shimmering dust and Morax bends his knees—and before you can protest he launches himself skyward once more. You click your tongue and turn to run, at least you can create a distance, perhaps Mei Lan will be too busy to consider you… you hope she hasn’t been considering your presence at all. 

  Mei Lan ducks and weaves past Morax’s attacks—until he finally gets into melee with a sharp strike of his polearm, the glowing blade’s edge just barely cuts her cheek and she shrieks in alarm. You lose your footing as the ground shakes with her scream and you fall into the soft snow, getting a mouthful of cold powder before you can turn to see that Morax has finally closed in and chases her through the skies. 

  He’s relentless, she erratically tries to escape the field of reach of his spear, but as soon as the storm does not hide her from his sight and the winds do not blow his strikes away—he is on her like a hunting dragon. “You oaf!! Do you not understand?!” a spike of ice materialises as an extension of her arm, engulfing her limb. “You should not be here! No one should!”

  There is no response to her cries, she swings uselessly, but the counterstrike of the firm pole of his spear shatters any and all ice she tries to form. As soon as he has you within arms length—it’s over. 

  The lights in the sky fly like twin shooting stars, golden and blue as you finally get to your feet again and rush towards the streaks in the ground. It takes you a moment to remember which way they were leading, but as soon as you do—you sprint as fast as you can. It looks like a seal, but if it is, then there must be sigils at every interval where the streaks connect that describe its function. 

  Your lungs burn as you wade through uncovered snow, the ground beneath you rumbles softly with every strike that just barely doesn’t tear her skin apart and split her bones. It dips, and suddenly your shoes slide beneath you—the hill tilts downwards and you lose your balance with another shake of the earth, rolling down the rest that is thankfully just a few feet… or two full rolls, as you counted with a mouthful of snow. 

  Dusting snow off your shoulders and head, you swipe at the cold powder beneath you, frantically pushing it away and revealing every curve, every stroke. Your eyes widen as the character is revealed and the streaks that cut through it, continuing further along the floor… you remember this character—it was the second one in the poem sung by the performer in the tea house.

  A tale of a young cultivator, winds and cold slopes.

  You turn left and find the streak next to it, it cuts through another character, the first one in the poem. The threads connect further away from you where the centre of the seal must be. 

  The winds in the skies sharpen, the gusts quicken and there’s no rhyme or rhythm to them anymore—Mei Lan is desperate to gain distance and better ground. Morax notices her frantic movements and continues herding her away from the peaks she could hide behind towards the open sky. She raises her arms, wind swirling around her long sleeves and gathers in thick elemental energy—and he takes the opening. 

  His spear runs through her, blood splatters across the white robe and the ribbons stiffen—as if part of her body. The drops freeze in the air and fall to the ground as pearls, dotted in the snow. 

  The sound that leaves her body shakes the earth, the scream makes even Morax’s ears sting as he tears his weapon from her body and provides safe distance for himself—the attack shouldn’t be enough to kill her, but many gods would tuck tail and flee at a wound like this.

  But she doesn’t. 

  The whirling wind leaves the ground, it retreats towards Mei Lan’s body and gathers within her until the air is completely still. She clutches the wound and suddenly her eyes dart downwards. “The seal—I must—!”

  Below them, the ground lights up. A sharp and glowing blue ignites beneath the snow and evaporates all cool powder that lays atop its streaks. Morax understands the symbol of the seal before it begins to unravel… he has laid forth this seal many times—though his own is more complicated, the foundation is the same. 

  Something—or someone, is sealed beneath the mountain range. 

  His eyes dart to where he left you behind but finds the shape of your coat nowhere. Where are you? 

  Before he can scan for you further, the winds sucked into Mei Lan burst forth from her—sending Morax flying away with a stronger gust than she has released in even the earlier days he fought her this week. He just barely catches himself after many metres and immediately darts down to the earth—the seal is moments from releasing and he must find you before it does. 

  He searches near frantically, until he finally hears you shouting his name from afar. “Morax…!” he just barely sees the top of your head above some snow as you try to climb up the steep hill you slid down. The seal is directly below your feet—if whatever is contained beneath it bursts forth, you will be shattered among the ice. 

  The ground shakes violently and you lose your grip, your shoes slip and you slide back down right where you started, breaths coming in quickly as the streaks of the seal begin to shatter and crack—a deafening sound coming from beneath as the prisoner beneath the ice awakens. It’s not a roar you would expect a beast or demon to make, nor is it human. 

  You flinch back as Mei Lan suddenly appears by the sigil, her blood drips down in heavy splashes and the ground shudders again. “Stay yourself! You will not be released to this world again!” her hands press onto the seal and for a brief moment, you thought she might have reinforced it at least a little—but the light engulfing the streaks brightens. 

  The ground around the seal is a lid of ice, sitting atop something boiling beneath—simmering for release. The flat and blue floor cracks as something large opens beneath your feet. A glowing eye, red and craving release. 

  A large crack forms between your feet, but before you can take a step back—you’re ripped up into the air in the same moment that the floor cracks open beneath you and another, far louder and more deafening roar shatters the mountaintop. The shaking of the mountain from above does not look like an earthquake anymore. 

  It’s shifting, shaking and shuddering—movement, something is pushing its way through the ice, pushing through bedrock and stone. The blinding glow emanating from the streaks launches into the skies, creating walls of light until they reach the centre… and the light emitting from Mei Lan’s body coalesces into a form so vast and wide that it makes her look like a spark next to a bonfire. 

  The malevolence, the fury and the resentment that releases through the seal is crushing—you feel bile building in your throat as Morax tightens his hold on your waist. Your head pounds and you feel as if it will break you apart. 

  The head of a serpent rises from the depths, body white as snow and eyes red as demonic fire. The shriek that parts its mouth shakes the mountains so terribly that snow trembles away—avalanches roll down the sides of them and crush against cliff sides. “W-what is that?” you barely croak out. Just the head of the snake is as large as the palaces in the capital. 

  “...” Morax doesn’t reply, his gaze fixed on the creature as it lowers. Its body slams against the flat mountain and its body muscles twitch and move—as if it were moving for the first time in a long time, before it slithers between two high peaks and into the depths of the mountain range. It takes several minutes for its entire body to leave the unsealed hole, tail leaving behind a deep streak in the snow. 

  Something terrible just escaped the earth, and you can feel the malevolence it’s mere presence left behind.

The skies wash overhead like waves lapping at sand, leaving behind wrinkles in the darkness that light up like faraway cosmos. Your eyes stare into the vast expanse unblinkingly, the drops of white stars hanging from the heavens like little lanterns.

  Dirt kicks over your eyes, they sting and burn as it soaks the moisture of your eyes, laying heavy on your sight until enough is stomped over to blacken your sight completely. 

  Silence. Somehow lacking any sound outside the crunch on the earth around you with every creak of the trees above, while being impossibly deafening, blaring your eardrums apart until you can feel them squeezing out of your skull. 

  It feels like an eternity, buried beneath the earth under suffocating layers of dirt and earth. No concept of time nor the cycles of day and night. 

  Not until heavy thumps of steps shake the highest layers of soil, a bone-shaking tremble that stops above your grave… dirt is tossed into the air, moved aside and dug out of the way.

  You look up at yourself, the reflection of your body beneath the earth in the familiar eyes staring at you from above ground. The same face, the same eyes. The same ache and soul. 

  It’s you.

The air is humid and stuffy in the little room you wake up in, despite that… it’s also incredibly cold. You hoist yourself up into a sitting position and rub your eyes. Where are you? You don’t recognise this room, the architecture isn’t like the palaces, nor Cuihe village walls.

  There’s no window on the room and strangely lacking a lantern as well, after squinting a little you do spot some candles on a small table by the foot of the bed. The room is so narrow it’s barely a closet with a thin bed and desk… if it can be called a desk.

  Your head hurts, pounding with every small movement and travels down your arm, pricking the skin like little needles digging deep into your skin and scraping against your bones in small circles. The memories of what you were doing before the darkness only made it hurt more… what a mess. You thought the talisman you left with the bird had been enough to hold off.

  There’s an uncomfortable, sinking tug at your stomach. Corpses inside their homes, not wanting to leave, hoping it would simply pass by… 

  You swing your feet over the bed and stand up—a bit too quickly, a fresh pound to your head staggering your steps slightly, but you push on to a small bucket sitting on the small table. There’s a dry cloth next to it which means it’s likely for washing, so you cup your hands into it and wet your face generously. Your eyes sting, your thighs ache and your entire body feels like it’s been pushed a bit too far. 

  Not unsurprising, you did push yourself the last few days… you were anticipating feeling like tossed laundry. 

  There’s nothing nearby to light the candles in the room, just your shoes under the bed and your cloth bag under the desk, there’s no real indication of where you are. For a moment you wonder if this is some kind of containment or prison? You’re not sure what you would have done to garner imprisonment. 

  Thankfully, tugging on the door swings it open easily—though with a loud wail from the hinges that make you cringe. You peek out into the hallway, which is equally windowless and dark as your room is. Little to no decoration or indication of ownership. Lanterns, but unlit. You push your legs forward despite their protests, every step sending rattling up your bones, but you just step softly and look around. 

  There’s doors on only one side of the hallway, and you can hear the harsh brush of winds on your left side, where there are no doors. The building holds fast, but it still feels like it rattles when particularly harsh gusts knock against the wood—or perhaps it's just your bones trembling with every step.

  Reaching the end of the very ominous, dark hallway, you face another one…

  Time to go back. 

  Turning around to head back to your room—you forgot to count the doors, you hope you remember which one—you see a shape deep in the darkness. Instinctively, you jump behind the corner of the hallway to hide before whoever is there can notice you… since the door was unlocked, it’s probably not that you’re not allowed to wander around, but even in the palaces in the capital, some Millelith would give you suspicious at worst and curious at best looks for wandering about in the nightlight. 

  Not much light here, neither do you know if it’s night or not.

  Steps thrum down the hallway and you consider turning heel and running—but considering your legs are BEGGING you to lie back down, you would likely just tumble on your noggin if you tried. 

  So, you wait…

  The steps come closer, and you hear the shift of clothes as well small clinks in what sounds like armour, your skin shivers and the cool breeze of the already cold hallway makes your fingers twitch—a tall man appears around the corner and he almost walks into you as you stand there, but just barely steps aside. “Ah, my apologies,” he simply says, and continues down the hallway, walking past you.

  Oh. It’s just a Millelith guard, he didn’t even give you a second glance. 

  Relieved, your shoulders lower—you didn’t even notice they had raised up to your ears in tension—and you turn back to your original hallway. Your elbow traces the wall next to you as you lean against it, you feel like you just rolled down half a mountain…

  Still unsure of where exactly you are, you practically drag your feet back to the room you were in before, a bit reassured to see familiar armour.

  Your experiences with the Millelith are rather scarce, but it’s never been unpleasant. They paid you well for your cleansing some time ago, and the ones you’ve passed in the capital have mostly been too busy tending to their duties to have small-talk. They’re rather rare outside of border outposts and the capital anyway, you’re unsure where exactly you met your first elaborately armoured guard. 

  Finally hauling your ass back into the room, you lower down onto the bed and stare up at the dark ceiling, it feels like your mind is a second behind your body—by the time your head hits the pillow, you still feel like you’re only seeing yourself halfway towards it… why is there no light in here anyway? It must just be the middle of the night, but surely the hallways would be lit? If only to ensure no one hurts themselves walking into something. 

  Rolling onto your side facing the wall, you fish for the layered blanket that rested on your body when you woke, it’s so damn cold. Your feet and toes sting in the aftermath of the cold floor and you tuck them deep into the soft blanket… should’ve put your shoes on.

  You didn’t intend to fall asleep, you had only meant to warm up a little and then get back to exploring… but you’re so awfully tired. 

  The candles on your desk are lit when your eyes open again, the room is still cold, but not as much as it was before. Doesn’t change that you feel like shit even after the… nap? How long did you sleep?

  Sitting up, a pulse of a headache follows your head upwards, slapping against your brain like a bowstring pulled taut. You rub your temple and squint around the room… nothing has changed except for the lit candles and a shallow bucket of water with a dry rag folded next to it.

  Practically dragging yourself to the water, you dip the cloth into the bucket and wring it a little before dabbing it against your cheeks and eyes. 

  The grogginess and general tug of your muscles down towards the earth vanished slowly as your senses perked and your immune system twitched from the frankly, ice cold water. A near permanent tickle of shivers keeps tugging at your skin and you blow on your fingers to try and warm them a little.

  “You’re awake.”

  Never have you jumped so high in your life, your knee collides with the board of the desk and the bucket topples over as you elbow it in your hurry to turn around—your heart nearly hurts with the way it leapt into your throat, and your body instinctively tensed by the sudden approach. You wouldn’t usually be so on edge, but the last time you got jumped—behind you, stands Moon Carver looking as unimpressed as usual. “This one always knocks.”

  He either knocked and didn’t waste a single second to enter, or is lying to you. Then again, he would vehemently deny ever lying, as usual. 

  You take a good long inhale and let your breath out to encourage your heart to slow, it’s just that stupid stag… glancing down at the bucket on the ground, you bend to pick it up, setting the rag on the ground and wipe at the water with your foot over it. “Where are we?” you didn’t really have much interest in small-talk before getting an idea of where you are right now… and also annoyed that he scared you so much and doesn’t even seem to notice. 

  “Fengyuan Peaks,” he would show you, but there’s neither a window nor a map in the room—thankfully you recognise the name, the mountain range that separates the southern borders of the Guili Assembly from the lands beyond it. The rise is high enough to be seen from Cuihe once you step away from the forest and the peaks have never been without thick clouds and heavy snow. 

  Not to mention the stories of the harsh winds you’ve heard in passing from both locals and Millelith. 

  “And…” you prompt, seeking an answer as to why. Why did he drag you all the way up there? Surely it would’ve been easier to reach a nearby village that wasn’t a vertical climb towards a raging storm.

  Though you thought it was a perfectly reasonable thing to expect, for him to continue his explanation—Moon Carver didn’t seem happy… or perhaps it wasn’t the question that made him annoyed. “The winds were too strong to fly just yet, and the direction of them engulfed the nearby area—it was the safest direction to go with dead weight on this one’s back.”

  He had been ‘generous enough’ to let you ride his back before, and at least then you were rather respectful, but he hadn’t signed up for having a flailing meat slice on his back ready to slide off any moment!

  “Ah…” you weren’t exactly sure how to answer, should you apologise…? “My bad.”

  “Your bad indeed,” he crossed his arms over his chest. “Now, allow one to see,” suddenly, his fingers are prying your eyelids open and nearly touching eyeballs with you—faster than you could humanly react.

  “Wh—” you immediately grab the back of his collar and try to pry him away. “Why are you so close?!”

  “Cease your resisting. This one is merely observing whether you have any excess damage,” he argues and is, unfortunately, stronger. “Dropping dead on the ground for two days is not usual, and your condition certainly has not done you any favours.”

  Someone clears their throat in the doorway and the both of you turn to see an older man staring at the two of you with… entwined feelings of exasperation and exhaustion. You recognise him, dark hair and tanned skin despite being stationed atop a gloomy mountain for at least the three years you’ve been down south. “Mister Huang!” you greet, or ask for help—you’re not entirely sure if you actually need it but you certainly don’t want to touch eyeballs with this oaf. 

  “Breakfast has not been served yet, please don’t wake your neighbours earlier than you must,” he says evenly, his armour is a bit grander than the regular Millelith guard—in a way that’s supposed to be flashy and perhaps not as practical as it could be, fur lining the collar and a deep red cloak that might be caught in things. 

  Despite the formality of his uniform, Huang has always been very polite and kind. 

  “O-oh, sorry,” the words stumble instinctively from your mouth, still half-choking Moon Carver by way of pulling his collar back. 

  He didn’t seem to want to involve himself any more, and thus left you to handle it on your own. Fair enough.

  Thankfully Moon Carver didn’t actually touch your eyeball (small mercies) and soon enough you were following him through confusingly winding hallways and through small doors that looked like they led to rooms—but in fact only opened to reveal further hallways. Lovely. 

  It wasn’t until it seemed you exited the labyrinth and found an open hall with sliding windows, there were people dragging tables about, likely preparing for a large serving of breakfast for shift-changes, and some Millelith passing over the hall to enter the mass of hallways you just left. 

  Moon Carver gestures for you to come closer to one of the windows that he approached, and slid it slightly open. Ice cold gusts of wind blow into your face, and the adeptus pushes you slightly so that you aren’t directly facing the slit like an idiot. “Raise your eyes,” he gestures towards the top of the window frame, towards movements in the clouds.

  It’s difficult to see, flashes of gold and white as sharp winds tear their way inside the hall, quickly fizzling out and giving way to the hearths warming the grand area. But it’s unmistakable, a long line of gold forms in the heavens above the clouds and tears through them, parting the misty skies and just barely missing its target, landing heavily in a cliffside that gave the ground a soft tremble. 

  “That’s…?” you squint and try to make out the shape in the air, you knew the answer to your own question before you voiced it, but you’ve never seen someone so high in the air before. The air is already rather uncomfortable so high on the mountain, to be in the sky as well…

  Moon Carver leaned against the mostly-closed window, arms crossed yet again over his chest. “He has been out there since before we arrived.”

  “He must be cold…” you shiver just thinking about staying out there for so long, just having the window open a sliver is making you rub your arms to try and keep them somewhat warm. 

  The adeptus is silent for a moment, gaze fixed on the looming battle above them. “This one spoke with general Huang, the heavy snow and sharp winds are greater hindrances than her attacks.”

  You’re not exceptionally privy to the tales surrounding the Fengyuan mountains, a child once told you of a long ocean worm that swims down the rivers of its highest peaks, but that’s all you can remember. And you certainly aren’t sure what god or demon happens to hold it. 

  “Is she the one that keeps pushing the forward camp back?” you want to close the window—it’s terribly cold, but you also can’t tear your eyes from the small speck of gold in the skies, darting like a shooting star when the fight moves further east. 

  Moon Carver nods. “Mei Lan. She has always been defensive about her mountaintops, yet only in recent decades began to conjure heavy storms that affect the Assembly,” he finally slides the window shut, but the bone-chilling cold has already festered deep in your skin, even as you hug your robe closer. “A flood that swept away an entire village and killed many, snow in the middle of harvest for another, sharp winds that cut through homes not built to withstand them.”

  People suffering, mortal casualties and hardship at the hands of a god—a common tale in the last few hundred years that have survived word of mouth. 

  “Does he kill them?” the question slips from your lips before you can think about it further. 

  “Sometimes. Most often, gods that rose to power by strength alone and not courage will accept mercy and flee towards the Dark Sea,” without telling you to follow or where he’s going, Moon Carver turns—you follow anyway. “Some will fight to the end.”

  You’re given a brief explanation of the place—a simple outpost, hastily built and put together as the borders keep getting pushed back and forth, the last outpost had been destroyed by an avalanche and this one was built much higher and away from sharp peaks to avoid the same risk… but being in a more open area makes it vulnerable to dangerously sharp winds as well as being clearly visible. 

  A healer comes to examine you further later in the day, and after that morning you don’t see Moon Carver again… bastard didn’t even say bye, assuming he departed back to the capital. 

  You feel as if you’re being tossed around the Guili Assembly. Never have you been on such far ends of it in such a short time. Perhaps you’re a bit angry, but it’s difficult to tell where it’s coming from—is it anger at yourself? For the terrible misstep that led to the deaths of innocents? At Moon Carver for bringing you to a mountain that you can’t descend by yourself? 

  Or perhaps just in general, that if you hadn’t left your quiet but relatively fulfilling life for the bright bustle of the city. 

  Shaking your head, you rub your temple. Lamenting past choices right now isn’t particularly productive, and do you truly regret your choices, or do you just feel like shit right now? 

  It’s hard to tell, you do feel like you’ve been stuffed into a basket and kicked downhill, but that can be said for how you’ve felt for a while now. The cold doesn’t exactly help aches and pains.

  You don’t particularly sleep well either, restless and unsure of what you’re exactly doing here—no one seems to pay you any mind, the healer was quick and to the point; you didn’t hit your head when you passed out. They had gotten a bit of a startle when you asked them to check under the bandages over your arm in case anything had changed (you feel nauseous looking at it), but everything seemed as it had been for the last days… otherwise, you get food either given to you—you slept until noon the day after arriving—or go to the main hall to eat among the soldiers there. 

  Never have you just… been somewhere. Without a purpose or role. It’s weird, you don’t like it. You feel that you should be doing something, but you hardly have many things with you—and nothing here needs any cleansing! That’s… most of your skills and purpose in a given place!

  Not to mention that this place sucks, it’s built like a containment box, and while you understand that windows would get torn apart and would let the cold inside, you also want to go outside, or at least get some fresh air. 

  You wonder how the soldiers and staff make it through the winter months here. Or a month in general.

  On your third morning, you start to become rather concerned… Morax is still outside. Surely, even for him, staying out in the cold for so long isn’t good—you hope his fingers haven’t frozen off, you’ve been inside the entire time and yet still you feel as if your toes are perpetually cold, and might remain so for the rest of your life. 

  Something has been tugging on your brain, you tucked it down to a headache, gods know you’ve had plenty of those recently… but it feels like it’s literally TUGGING. It pounds against the back of your skull when you lie down in bed, it throbs in your right temple when in the kitchen… sometimes it’s unbearable, sometimes it’s dull—usually during the night does it lessen and provide a small blessing.

  This really sucks. 

  By utter coincidence, you find Huang again during the shift changes you’ve noticed occur in the early morning when heading to the kitchens again. “Huang,” you call as you approach him, neglecting any formalities—fatigue from always having to set up that formal front has settled in, you were never quite used to being around figures of high authority for long and having to keep formalities in place in the palaces is exhausting. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bother—is there anything I can do? Help the kitchens? Housekeeping?” 

  You didn’t really know what to suggest, you have basic skills of cooking and cleaning for yourself or your space—it’s the least that you can offer.

  Huang turns to you after the two Millelith he was talking to have left. His hair is short and perfectly trimmed so as to not get tangled with his helmet that sits under his arm. “If you wish. Master Moon Carver told me you needed rest, I assume you have been adhering to that.”

  Moon Carver never told you to do that, but you suppose you didn’t really need to be told to do so—your screaming legs demanded it, but you feel better now after two nights of moping around. Even your headache is gone. “Speaking of him… where has he gone?” did he actually leave? You feel like he surely could have taken you with him to a place that wasn’t going to freeze your nose off if he was able to just leave. 

  “I have not seen him much,” Huang admits. “But master Moon Carver is still here, it would be foolish to descend the mountain while the fighting continues.”

  It’s a mild relief that you weren’t just left behind in the middle of nowhere… only way for you to get back down is to lay flat as a board and roll down, which you doubt will be successful.

  “If you wish to help, I’m sure the kitchens or housekeeping will be delighted.” You’re torn from your thoughts as he speaks. “Though I’m afraid I must be on my way now, please leave a letter on my desk if you require anything.”

  You tried to ask the housekeeping, but they told you to come back in two days for deep cleaning, and your next step was to help the kitchen prepare for future meals, yet all they had asked you to do was knead some dough… and your arms are practically dough themselves. Of course, you did your best, tossing yourself into kneading and pulling as much as you could. But even after just ten minutes you were beat.

  Your arm hurts, your eyeballs even hurt for some reason—your back is killing you… maybe you’re not made for this difficult kitchen work.

  As you sit by the half-kneaded dough, defeated on the floor and sulking for not being able to do it properly… it’s still so mushy… a hand suddenly claps onto your shoulder and you jerk up. One of the kitchen ladies stands above you, her arms are much thicker than yours with far more muscle and fat. “You can help cut the vegetables, I’ll handle this,” Yixuan, you remember her name being, practically hoists you up under your arms like a sack of rice and ushers you towards another table.

  The kitchens are full with people coming and going, chatter and calls from across it nearly ring in your ears minutes after they were shouted over your head—you had no idea kitchenwork was so intense. The sound of utensils and tools clanking against boards, bowls and woks, the intense scent of spices and the sweat of the person next to you. At least the space is very warm, it’s better than the empty hallways.

  You’re far better at chopping than kneading, the knife taps along the board as another batch of chives is taken from your side and you reach for some mushrooms to handle next.

  “Coming through!” you just barely duck under a steaming tray as it’s carried behind you, as well as shuffle only a little to the left as a chef reaches past you to grab some jars on a shelf above your head. 

  The day was hectic to say the least, but you started to understand where to stand, how to stand and when to move when something was carried past you by the end of it—especially to keep your elbows closer to your body, you accidentally elbowed the person to your left and nearly caused them to drop a full bowl of broth. As soon as you weren’t like a headless chicken, it became far easier for both you and everyone around you to do your work.

  As a reward Yixuan hands you a big bowl of braised pork noodles—big enough to feed four people. “Where do I put this?” you ask her, the woman is slightly taller than you and her apron is miraculously clean despite the long kitchen day.

  Yixuan, already turning to pile up things for washing, looked over her shoulder at you, her wrinkled face scrunching further as she squinted at you. “What do you mean? On a table and you eat it.”

  “... all of it?” 

  “I wouldn’t eat it all at once myself, but you’re welcome to,” she says and carries some pots and bowls to a washbasin. “There’s storage jars in the closet over there, everyone has extra food on hand—storms come in frequently and some years ago the kitchens were wrecked.”

  Emergency supplies… you can’t help but think that prepared pork like this doesn’t really last for long in storage. They’re really planning short-term with such measures. But it does smell good, the thick scent of the pork and the heavy noodles were more delicious than you imagined supplies to be on average. 

  You were exhausted when you returned to the room you’ve had for yourself here… the lack of a window—or any proper window in this labyrinth—is really making you feel uncomfortable. Somehow, you’re even more tired after a rather average day in this cold place than you get in the middle of humid summer, which easily zaps you after a mere hour outside under the sun. 

  Changing clothes, you take a look over what you have with you… your usual cleansing tools, thankfully spared any destruction the weather might have brought on the way here, as well as only a handful of clothes.

  That’s it… you fold the clothes you had used today after changing, and move your little makeshift bag under the bed again when your fingers touch something smooth and firm—it’s in one of your robe pockets? You reach in and pull out the Luo Pan. It fits perfectly in your hand, wood smooth and cold as the needle trembles faintly and points north… you move your torso a little, and the needle stays towards the north. It’s pointing towards something, clearly—but without a window or sense of orientation, you have no way of guessing towards what.  

  Tucking it into your robes again, you push the bag under the bed and rise to lay on the mattress. 

  Urgh, you don’t even want to try and understand it right now. You just want to fall into a deep sleep where you won’t notice your cold toes.

  Turning on your side, you pull the thick blanket over your body—you’re tempted to pull it over your head, but it’s just barely not long enough to cover your feet if you tug it high enough to your head. Your blanket at the palace was plenty long enough… but on the offside, it’s not cold enough there for you to need all of it. 

  You lie there for what feels like an hour, trying to clear your head and sleep, you’re not even thinking about anything in particular… your mind races through heavy curtains as if fleeing from tangible thoughts.

  Finally, your consciousness seems to sink into a dreamless sleep, yet it continuously drifts between wakefulness and bleary sleep. Thoughtless passage of time interrupted by painful awareness of your eyeballs behind your eyelids, loose strings in the blanket tickling your neck and the brush of cool breeze against your eyelashes. 

  You struggle to tell apart the times where you are awake or not, the darkness is the same. 

  Despite the trouble, you keep in the same position, moving means exposing your skin to slivers of a raised blanket, allowing cold air inside your little bubble of slowly growing warmth. You try to settle better and drift away again, for the ever uncountable time. 

  The next moment that your tongue touches your teeth, your awareness returns, you’re far warmer than you have been for the last nights. your body feels soft and warm—not tight with a shivering chill as it has been for far too long. Something warm rests against your stomach, your arm unconsciously slung over it… perhaps you had pulled your pillow from under your head in your sleep, it wouldn’t be the first time. 

  You’re too tired to care, to think of whether it be your pillow or a crumpled side of the blanket, you pull it closer to yourself, hoping it will bring that warmth to your upper arms better. 

  It wriggles and moves, settling again and your eyebrows twitch, you squint your eyes open—moist and heavy with sleep as you see a snout below your chin, brown with a twitching wisker as your breath brushes its scales. 

  It looks like that tiny creature you saw when you first arrived at the capital. A small Rex Lapis.

  You must be dreaming. 

  Closing your eyes again and choosing to believe that your brain conjured your pillow to look like a little dragon from old illustrations and tales of gods and monsters, you sleep again. 

  You wake once again to something touching your forehead, your eyes open and you nearly shoot up into a sitting position as you comprehend that Morax is sitting at your bedside, his hand extended where he had been touching your forehead.

  He almost seems equally as surprised as you are, eyes opening slightly wider as you shoot up. “Ah, my apologies. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  He looks different, his usually smooth and slightly tousled hair was now messy, sticking in many directions atop his head—his long locks weren’t contained within a gem-band and instead fluttered down his shoulders and back like thin ribbons. His skin is pristine as always, but there is a hint of tugs at his bottom eyelids.

  Considering how long he’s been out in the storm and how warm his hand is, your worries seem to be unfounded.

  “No, it’s alright… what time is it? Perhaps I should have been awake already,” you say, rubbing your eyes—urgh, your voice is groggy and you look positively half-asleep. Do you ever look presentable? You feel like you haven’t met face-to-face with someone after being properly prepared to do so in a while now.

  A small hum sounds behind his lips as his hand lowers. “It is still early morning, you may rest longer if you wish… after you relay to me how you got here, and perhaps why while you are on the topic.”

  “Ah…” the hand that was rubbing your eyes covers them with embarrassment. You were kind of hoping Moon Carver would explain it to him… but it seems they haven’t crossed paths, or he simply sent Morax straight to you. “Ehm…”

  Though Morax’s eyes are not unkind as he stares at you, awaiting you explanation… he is also clearly not happy, or just neutral. He had explicitly told you to stay in the capital, and you defied it. You’re at least glad he’s not angry. 

  “I… couldn’t stay,” you mumble, your words just barely loud enough for him to hear. “I felt bad, and if I didn’t go, I’d feel worse.”

  “Do you feel better now?” he examines your expression, as if gouging every single change in your muscles.

  Of course you don’t—it was all your fault, not only was the ward not strong enough, but you burying that bird with a weak seal that expedited the corruption in the earth and drove it into the village, finalising its fate. Into the water, into the crops. Into their homes. 

  Your lack of response and downcast eyes are all the explanations he truly needs, yet still he waits for you to speak. You wished he wouldn’t. “No. My failure caused it. I killed—”

  His hand closes around yours, removing it from where it was picking at your skin as you spoke. Morax’s eyebrows are drawn together. “Perhaps your mistakes led to an exhorted process, but you did not kill anyone,” he says, his voice steady and level. Not firm or pressing, but neither kind nor sympathetic. “Mistakes are to be learned from.”

  “But… how can I not place the blame on myself?” you asked, your hand rather lax in his grip, and he holds it in the air between your chest. “That dead bird’s corruption didn’t absorb into my seal, I left it there to seep into the earth and water!” 

  Morax sighs, a gentle exhale of his breath. “You will find uncountable ways to point the blame to yourself, if the doubt is left in your mind to fester—”

  “But the blame IS on me!” you don’t even notice your voice rise, you can’t remember when you properly raised your voice last—fuelled by anger and frustration towards yourself. “I—it was MY seal the failed, I decided to place it there instead of cleaning it myself and then disposing of it, if I had—” 

  Your nose stings and your face scrunches. You’re about to cry—you can’t cry, how pathetic will that seem?

  Unfortunately for your dignity, Morax seemed to notice the prickle of tears in your eyes as well, the held up emotions and thoughts contained tightly in your chest threatening to burst forth—days of wallowing around and trying not to think of your mistake on the verge of overcoming your strength of will. 

  His hand around your wrist lowers and slides your palm against his. “Squeeze my hand.”

  “Ha?” you’re not entirely sure you heard him, squeeze his hand? Despite the confusion, his small nod makes you look down, and you squeeze it. His hand is surprisingly… fleshy. It squishes between the bones but holds fast when he curls his fingers and squeezes in return. “Ow. Your grip…” your bottom lip juts out as you try to squeeze back harder.

  You don’t even notice that you’re practically bruising each other’s hands until he stops squeezing you.

  The tightness that had been coiling itself around your spine and making you tighten up and burst through the seams with misery has lessened, the energy spurned through your right arm and into the squeeze. You don’t really feel better, but you don’t think you’re going to explode anymore. 

  “... thank you,” you mumble, hand still resting over his gloved one, but now rather limply compared to the desperate squeeze.

  “Of course…” he slowly slips his hand from under yours and you wish he hadn’t, the cool air brushing against the flesh of your palm that had significantly warmed against his. “Your grip is… weak.”

  The expression on your face must have been either explicitly annoyed or deadpan, as Morax only smiles. A rare hefty tug of his lips—almost smug? No, surely not. Mock innocence? It’s impossible to read this man. “Have you not been tending to your muscle exercises?”

  “That’s the other hand, why would I need to squeeze with this one?” you have your right hand vaguely. “This one is normal.”

  “Hm, being bedridden affects all muscles, you should consider all of them when strengthening what atrophied,” he nods, mostly to himself as he reaches under your bed and takes your makeshift bag from under it. Your clothes rustle and the cleansing tools tucked between them clink as they touch against each other.

  “H-hey, that’s my clothes…” you don’t really stop him, more curious what he’s searching for rather than hiding… what? Some robes? Your bell?

  After going through your bag—does this guy not have a concept of respectful privacy?—he sets it back down just as it was, folded and everything. “No ball, no flute… you are neglecting your recovery.”

  That’s what he was looking for?! Bringing that yarn ball wasn’t exactly on your mind when you hurriedly packed up… Morax sure is feeling looser than usual, he wouldn’t normally be so forthright as he’s been since you woke up, your cheeks warm slightly as you avert your eyes from his. “Well… I forgot it… in my cupboard…”

  “Hm, I will find a replacement,” he touched his chin in thought.

  You pulled at the blanket pooled over your lap as silence settled between the two of you, but you didn’t allow it to linger for long. “Are you… displeased that I am here?”

  Morax’s eyes turn towards you, but his head doesn’t follow immediately. His legs crossed, his position next to you on the bed almost too close—the bed isn’t exactly wide to begin with. “Yes. Not because of your presence, of course. But because your safety might be at risk. You would be well cared for and safe in my palace.”

  He pries your hand from pulling at the blanket, you had loosened some seams. “But… I can not fault you for leaving. Stopping humans from following their hearts is… challenging, I’ve come to learn with exposure.”

  You feel slightly sheepish—the heat of your cheeks from earlier had just begun receding and now flares again, but he only shakes his head. “Then… will you allow me to help now?” your question is slightly reluctant, as if not sure whether you should ask it—or perhaps you were concerned that it would bring a crease to his brow. 

  But he lets out a breath, almost as if amused. “Hah… well, you are here. It would be remiss of me to not utilise free fingers.”

  Your nose scrunched slightly. “Fingers?”

  He inclines his head sideways only a little, bangs tilting over his eyes as a long lock from the back of his head slides from his shoulder to his back. “I thought it inappropriate to say; a pair of functioning hands.”

  “Right,” you let out a breath yourself this time. “Perhaps, when you’re concerned whether you should say something or not—you should not immediately reveal what you thought was ‘inappropriate’.”

  In a way, you’re relieved that Morax is both back and not outside in the storm anymore, and also that he isn’t truly upset with you… but as soon as you told him you wanted to help, he put you to work.

  He clearly expects you to know your own limits and certainly seems to be testing how far you will go to prove yourself—while also observing whether you will mind your health at the same time. 

  You don’t intend to sit around anymore, not when you see him give orders to Millelith and attendants alike, as if anticipating that this conflict will peak soon.

  You tug your thick robe around yourself tighter and step outside the open door before you—snow and sharp wind immediately stings your cheeks and you lower your face into the fur lining further. It’s nearly impossible to see in this storm, even just your feet are halfway obscured by the flying snow, out of sight.

  You manage to drag yourself towards a few closed, large jars sitting by a wall and grab the rope that binds the cloth lid to drag it back inside. Thankfully the snow is soft and powdery—it also means you have to squint a lot to not get it directly into your eyeballs—and the bottom of the jar slides easily as you tug it inside, the loose flakes parting easily for your feet. 

  The howling wind suddenly picks up in a sharp gust, and you grab onto the wall next to you, if you weren’t holding both the couple of tens of kilogram heavy jar as well as the wall of a building, you’re sure it would have knocked you over and potentially put your face in the cold snow. 

  After a few seconds of heavy gusts pushing at your side, firmly attempting to push you over and into the heavy snow, it seems to lessen for a moment and you take the chance to drag the jar the rest of the way inside.

  The kitchens appreciate the help you’ve brought over the last days, but you feel like just tugging heavy jars full of frozen and stored meats inside isn’t exactly ‘helping’ in the way you want to… and your body is positively aching from the labour, not to mention your poor (damned) hand. 

  You’re just barely starting to wrap this labyrinth around your head and after taking only two wrong turns to run to your assigned chambers to fetch some fresh socks—you always pack two pairs—you finally find the hallway that you were seeking. 

  Closing the door behind you, it had just clicked into place before your brain rattles.

  Your mind can’t keep up as it happens, creaks and cracks bellow in your ears as the hallway before you is torn apart. You cry out in surprise and fall backwards in both surprise and a sudden shake to your balance as wood and splinters fly past you—pain shrieks from your skin as one hits your shoulder heavily and you duck quickly to not get torn apart alongside it. 

  Winds howl and shriek along the shattered beams that tick into the outside world, the hallway is cold as it’s laid bare to the cold air—the entire rest of the building in front of you has been blown away, leaving only stone and torn wood.

  A single gust of incredible wind tore it apart, you shudder and shake as you stand, blindly grasping for the door behind you, unable to tear your eyes away from the blanket of white before your eyes. 

  “Depart this place!”

  “There is nothing for you here!”

  A voice travels alongside the winds, brushing by your ears in a scream that makes them sting. You finally find the handle and stumble backwards into the hallway behind it. The door swings closed before you and you only notice now that you have been holding your breath.

  Your room was in that direction, torn apart and blown away. Your clothes, your tools—cleansing tools that you have been using for years, some that were gifted to you when you began practicing. Gifted to you by old hands, passed along and guarded for so long.

  A hand on your shoulder tears you from your thoughts, a Millelith soldier shakes you and doesn’t wait for you to turn, he takes your upper arm and drags you alongside him away from the door. 

  You have to run to keep up and you’re tugged along through winding hallways, recently memorised and suddenly foreign—you can’t remember what direction you’re going. 

  Many bedrooms had been on that side of the camp, people finishing their shifts asleep or waking to change with others. The storage, the infirmary. 

  How many people had been taken away by that gust? Been torn apart? 

  The main hall is full of people, they are experienced with such destruction and sudden attacks and have mobilised quickly. “She has found us again,” general Huang stands at the forefront of the mass of people, the Millelith that dragged you along finally lets you go and leaves. “Take everything that can be carried and descend under the cliffside, it will provide temporary shelter until we can determine where is best to relocate.”

  Immediately, people began to move even as Huang continued to speak, you look around—feeling both a bit bare without anything to go back for and grab, as well as not knowing what is important to take. Food? Medical supplies? 

  As you take a mere step to try and find something to take, you spot a familiar, very much out of place, green streak of hair. You hurry and shoulder through the crowd of people until you reach him. “Moon Carver!” you call as he’s about to turn away.

  The adeptus stops and faces you, his expression is unreadable and he’s wearing a thick robe—not very different from yours, only far more expertly crafted and likely far more expensive, though at a price of comfort. He waits until you reach him. “Go with the attendants and hide beneath the cliffside, I will be at the rear.”

  “Where is Morax?” his name slips from your lips, never have you merely called him by what his presumed name is. 

  Moon Carver doesn’t seem bothered by the informal address. “He engaged with Mei Lan moments after the attack, one hopes it will not be several days of chasing flakes in the wind,” he looks over your head as a Millelith guard calls for him. “Do as you are told for once.”

  A small bristle comes to you involuntarily, you’re not a misbehaving child! “I want to help him.”

  How you will do that, you’re not sure—you have scarce experience in combat, you could swing a bamboo stick in a mean swing when you were younger and lived in a dense forest for a while populated heavily by snakes, but you aren’t exactly on par with godlike beings.

  The adeptus sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, he doesn’t have time to convince you—who knows if he even can, if there’s one thing he’s learnt over just the last week is that you’re far too stubborn to just convince with normal means. “And in what way do you wish to help?”

  You open your mouth, and then close it… you rattle your mind for ideas, for something—a good throw of a rock at the opposing god? A distraction? Are you even worth being distracted by? Your lips part again with an idea, but Moon Carver is quicker than you. 

  “Your skills are best utilised at the battle’s end, if Rex Lapis were to fell the enemy we will all be within direct effect of its fallen energy,” he says—another shout for him and Moon Carver turns his head. He sighs and gives you a look, you’re not entirely sure what it means, but can guess it’s along the lines of ‘do as this one says’. “Perhaps you can prepare a barrier to protect the ones hiding from the initial drop of energy.”

  … that’s a great idea, but…

  “My tools…” you point sheepishly towards a door that leads to the side of the building that was practically obliterated. 

  “... ah,” he starts walking away, he can’t be held up much longer—the hall is already halfway empty. “Either figure something out or hide, just don’t go close to the fighting.”

  The tug in your chest appears again as you think of your poor tools, you have no cleansing bell, no parchment for talismans or seals… the only way for you to prepare proper wards without seals is to directly use your own energy for it—which is flimsy at best and entirely unreliable. You’ve gotten away with it a few times before, but it’s exhausting… and exhausting yourself in that snowstorm doesn’t sound like a bright idea. 

  You cross your arms over your chest in thought, you hadn’t considered the fact that Morax might simply slay Mei Lan… in that case, all of you are far too close to go unscathed—and you don’t fancy becoming sick from exposure again… neither do you have any tools to remove it from others.

  As your arm moves over your torso, you feel something hard inside your robes. Looking down and reaching into the flaps over your chest, you pull out the Luo Pan… you don’t recall having placed it in this robe—in fact, it had been tucked between robes in your bag.

  The needle is still pointing north unwaveringly.

  At least something from your belongings remained, you sigh and tuck it back into your robe securely. You need to figure something out… you rub your temple as that damned headache rises again against your left temple, there’s not much time to sit around and ponder—everyone is leaving. 

  If only you could find simple parchment and ink…

“I was JUST in the kitchen!” He suddenly understood the meaning of the visit to the kitchen. But where are you?? He suddenly jumped from the bed and shouted your name, now slightly concerned.

“Huh- what? Where?” You jump up from the ground…from the other side of the bed, still clutching one of your pillows you brought down when you slid off the bed and hit the ground. Somehow not waking up.

Kaeya looked towards the source of the sound, puzzled for a moment, blue eyes staring down at you, head barely visible from the disheveled bed sheets.

“How…how long have you been there?” He asked, voice raspy from just waking up for the second time.

“I have no idea..” you said looking around yourself on the floor.

“You scared me for a moment there…don’t do that again.”

“You think i fell on purpose or what??”

(( _ _ ))..zzzZZ

Diluc

Having a not so pleasant dream about dealing with drunkards in Angel Share, Diluc woke up from a sudden loud Thud sound.

Jolting up he looked around the dark room, at first not noticing anything until he looked over to the other side of the bed, not seeing you there…? In his half asleep brain the only logical explanation that popped up is a fatui attack. And they must’ve taken you away as revenge. At least that’s what he thought in that very moment.

Jumping out of the bed he summoned his claymore and prepared to head out of the bedroom to look for you and end fatui lives. He very carefully opened the door to his room as to not alert the nonexistent enemy, and poked his head out to scan his surroundings. Not noticing or hearing any other sound he headed down the staircase as silent as he can be.

Oddly enough to him, he didn’t see a single soul anywhere in the winery. He decided to walk up to the door and check the lock, thinking they must’ve headed out, when suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder.

Turning around he ignited his great sword and pointed it at-…you?

“Whoa…ok- me snoring sometimes isn’t reason enough to end me is it?”

“I- i thought…the fatui- wait where did you come from? You weren’t in bed. Are you ok?? Did they hurt you?!” He was looking at you, still unable to connect the dots but obviously concerned for your wellbeing. Unusual for the great master Diluc to be seen in such state.

“Actually, i fell.”

“Fell…?”

“I was on the floor, heard a noice and saw you being…weird. Also, the fatui were here?” You say now slightly worried.

“Let’s go back to bed, i will explain tomorrow.”

“So you won’t point swords at me anymore?” That comment earned a side-eye.

(( _ _ ))..zzzZZ

Wriothesley

On the rare occasions Wriothesley is able to get out the Fortress of Meropede and visit you he would always sleepover. A part of that experience is you not being able to settle down in bed and just twist and turn like a raccoon stuck in a trash can. But Wriothesley is fine with that, finds it slightly funny even.

On this particular night it’s no different, after 40 minutes of not being able to find a good spot to sleep in bed you decide that perhaps the bed itself is the issue. So the only obvious solution is plopping on top of the Duke and using him as a mattress.

After 30 minutes of complete silence, both of you finally drifted off to sleep when very slowly you start sliding off him to the side of the floor, dragging both him, the bed sheets and a pillow along. And no one noticed until mid air you wake up, but alas too late to save yourselves.

Thud

“You’re…crushing me-“

Wriothesley shifts a bit, not exactly realising what happened, somehow doesn’t wake up- until he feels a slap on his arm.

“aIR- OFF OF ME!” You whisper yell at him.

“Oh, my apologies.” He gets up from you and stands up still a little confused. You stand up as well and dust yourself off, rubbing your head thanks to you hitting it on the night stand on the way down.

“You ok there?” Asked the Duke jokingly, grabbing your hand away from the spot you’ve been rubbing in an attempt to soothe it a bit and checking it.

“I don’t know which is worse…the concussion or getting crushed by a full Clockwork Meka. I might not make it after this.” You exclaim dramatically, putting your hand up on your head as if you’d faint any second now.

“Oh, but of course, we should take care of your life threatening injuries as fast as we can. Shall i call for Sigewinne to assist?” He joked with you, now completely awake. “Or maybe even start preparations for your funeral?”

(( _ _ ))..zzzZZ

Zhongli

Sometimes even a king sized bed isn’t enough for some, a great example - the dead geo archon, who when in a half human half adeptus form takes up almost the whole damn bed.

Especially that damn tail. Don’t get me wrong, you love it, it’s very fluffy and warm, but you swear it has a mind of its own. It sometimes just decides that it should push you off the bed, and the past 2 weeks that has happened…Every. Single. Night.

You’ve debated with yourself if you should just tell Morax that in his sleep he his tail attempts to end you on a monthly basis. But he seemed so comfortable in this form you decided against it and that maybe enduring the attitude of his tail is bearable.

So after a long day you finally head off to bed, not because you really need it as a god, it simply helps calm your nerves. Finally you drifted off to dreamland, where people can’t bother you at least for the time being. At least that’s what you hoped.

Upon Zhongli’s return home he starts to look for you and after a moment he spots you in the corner of his eye, you were taking a nap. He heads towards your shared bed, picks up a blanket and drapes it over your sleeping form. Staring at you for a moment before he decides on joining you in your nap time.

2 hours later you wake up from the impact of hitting the floor…and that was your last straw.

Zhongli as well wakes up from the sudden THUMP sound and notices you on the ground- absolutely fuming.

“IN OUR 3400 YEARS TOGETHER I’VE NEVER HAD THE URGE TO THROW YOU IN THE SEA SO BADLY I SWEAR!”

“What are you talking about-“ Zhongli gapes at you, shaken from your tone.

“THAT.” You point towards his tail. “That THING has been pushing me off the bed for decades. Actually that’s an understatement- CENTURIES! I will move to the desert i cannot stand this anymore!”

Zhongli finally realises why you’ve always preferred being on the opposite side of his tail. All this time together he has been the reason you cannot properly rest, which leads for guilt to wash over him.

“I truly apologise, I shall do my best from now on to refrain from bothering you with my tail and I promise to you that I am going to make up for this. You know i would never disturb you in your sleep on purpose, right?” He began apologising and explaining himself. Getting up from the bed he headed towards you and enveloped his arms and tail around you.

“Ugh…I cannot stay mad at you. But if this happens one more time you will sleep in Guili Plains from then on out.” You say without a single hint of joking in your tone.

*Gulp*

First ever one-shot, also first post here ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶ Should I make another part?

It was another mild, serene day in Liyue Harbor. Ships glided across the sea's turquoise waters, and the market was rife with the usual hustle and bustle. Zhongli felt the gentle caress of Barbatos' breeze as he sat on the patio of the newest up-and-coming tea shop in the city, with notes of chamomile, orange, and Qiaoying's signature black blend dancing on his tongue. He watched with quiet affection as a young man proposed to his lover on the streets below, and the sun warming his face brought forth a small, content smile.

Zhongli had, admittedly, become quite fond of fading into the background and watching the lives of everyone around him play out. He felt a sense of duty to know the ins and outs of every person residing within the city he had personally fostered and protected for centuries. Off the top of his head, Little Xia would start school soon. The ship with the blue sails had caught a large haul of fish and would be allowed to stay in the harbor with their families longer once they returned -- it had been many weeks and he knew their spouses could hardly wait. Hu Tao had seen an increase in business in the past few days. Yun Jin had just completed the production of her newest play. His birthday would be approaching in the coming weeks and with it, the tide of a new year.

Preparations for the lantern rite festival had already begun, and stalls selling both materials for making and completed lanterns could be found scattered down along the waterfront. The man took another slow sip of his tea, but before he could muse further, the familiar babble and laughter of children roused him from his reverie.

"Mr. Zhongli! Mr. Zhongli!" Little Lulu called, running up to where he sat, her playmates in tow.

Zhongli made the timely decision to set his teacup down as the young girl barreled into him, wrapping her small arms around him in a tight hug. Zhongli's smile widened into a surprised grin.

"Little Lulu, how lovely it is to see that happy face. How are your parents?" he asked, gently patting the top of her head.

"Everything's great! 'Cept my daddy forgot my mommy's birthday and their anniversary. But she told me not to tell anyone!" she beamed, and Zhongli's smile faltered ever so slightly.

"Ah... I see," he chuckled awkwardly before gazing at the two other boys waiting patiently for his attention.

"What's the occasion? Surely you didn't run all across Liyue Harbor just to give me a hug."

Little Lulu detached herself from Zhongli's side as Little Fei pouted. "We were playing pirates again, but we couldn't come up with a good story... and then we remembered you're the best at telling stories, so we came and found you!"

"So it's a story you seek, is it?" He said, leaning back in his seat. "Must it be about pirates? I'm sure Captain Beidou has much better tales than I about life on the sea."

"Anything will do!" Little Fei exclaimed, crossing his arms. "We're just bored, but your stories are always entertaining."

Zhongli's lips quirked at the young boy's compliment. "Hmm... have I told you about the Rabbit on the Moon?"

The children nodded.

"I see... well then, what about the Hare and the Tortoise?"

"You've told us that one, too!" Little Meng said, coming up to lean on Zhongli's knee. "We want something new."

"Yeah! Something new!" Little Lulu parroted, jumping excitedly.

The man brought a finger to his lips as he contemplated. Something new... a story he had never told anyone before...

"Perhaps I have the perfect story after all. It took place here, in this very harbor, not far from where we sit now..."

The three children quickly drew nearby stools and took their seats before him, exchanging excited smiles.