it's a wisdom that's passed between hands

You meet her at night, in a field of blooming Glaze Lilies.

You say goodbye to her in the same field, thousands of years later.



She is nearly as vibrant as the flowers that she holds dear, hiding a smile behind her overlong sleeves as she laughs, teasing you. She calls you the brawn to her brains, and you find yourselves gravitating around each other, so much like the celestial bodies in the skies above Teyvat. With every clever puzzle she throws your way, every invention, every challenge - you feel like she makes you better, showing you a different way of looking at the world.

"This is the mark of our pledge, and it is also my challenge to you," she boasts, holding up the kongming puzzle so that it floats above her hand. You watch it with mild amusement, letting the wind billow through her sleeves, your hair, the Glaze Lilies surrounding you. She continues, "All my wisdom is hidden within this stone dumbbell."

It seems silly to you, you think, for her to offer this, as if you have a formal contract. She is the one person that you've never thought to forge one with, have seen no reason to - you walk side-by-side, you and Guizhong. She calls you by every name that you decide to go by, laughing with joy but walking with a solemn serenity with you as the two of you establish the Guili Assembly, the foundation that would become the Liyue that you walk alone thousands of years later. A character from her name, a character from yours - the rest is history, as she writes the commandments for your people.

You let her, because she is the brains to your brawn. And they are commandments that you hope to live by for as many millennia as you can.

"To unite in ambition is to be steadfast and immovable for all time."
"Wisdom is like water, it nourishes all those who receive it and in it is a reflection of the truth."
"Fortify the bones, that movement be supple when the time comes."
"Virtue grows tall like a tree, though there be shade it will flourish forever"

And it prospers. Your home becomes a trading hub, boats ferrying up and down rivers. The civilization spreads across plains and mountains, diving into the depths of mining underground and spanning beautiful fields of agriculture. With these commandments, Guizhong's clever mind, and your power and protection... you almost feel unstoppable.

You know that you feel content.



You fetch her things from the nation of Khaenri'ah, when you happen upon them, or lead her to the automatons that make their way to the surface world over time. You listen as she and Streetward Rambler bicker and argue over the merits of technology creating music. You listen to her tease Cloud Retainer, joyous laughter filling the domain as Cloud Retainer's feathers are ruffled - and they all turn to you, to settle the score, to mediate disputes, no matter how joking or serious.

For all that you love Guizhong, in a way that perhaps you have never loved another being before in all the hundreds and thousands of years you have been alive, you don't let that bias your decisions. All of the adepti, in their myriad of personalities and appearances, trust you to be impartial, even when you judge with levity.

(Especially then, given the rigorous competitions between Guizhong and Cloud Retainer in regards to whose invention is superior, more viable, more ready for the world to see.)

But levity will only last for so long, in a world like Teyvat.

The Archon War begins, and it lasts for centuries, for an era, for thousands of years, and you lose so many friends and allies. So many gods go mad in their conquest for power, to attain a divine seat and become Archons; so many other beings, human and not alike, seek to take advantage of the strife and chaos to their own gains. You and Guizhong, you only want to protect your nation as best you can.

You've no interest in the divine seat. If it comes about because you are the strongest god standing, then so be it.

The two of you have worked so hard to protect your people, to build a civilization and nation with them, that you will not let it fall, you will not fail them. It is a contract that you forge with blood and stone and wrath.

And so, so much loss.

You say goodbye to her in the same field of Glaze Lilies that you met her in, and you can only hold her for so long as she dies in your arms.

Even as a weaker god that relied on her mind and her inventions, she is still a god. The adeptal energy that would be cast off of her, in her death, will destroy everything around you. The Glaze Lilies she adores. The people that she has loved with every fiber of her being. Your friends, those that you have had meals with for hundreds of years with her by your side.

Guizhong looks up at you, and she smiles through the pain even as your hold on her tightens. As if you cold hold the specks of dust that make up her whole together.

"Those little people are as small and fragile as dust."
"Because they are so small, they know not when they will lose their lives to disaster or strife, and so they are afraid."
"Because they are afraid, they try so hard to become more intelligent. This I understand."
"So I thought that since there is such a gulf between us in strength, I should use technique and wisdom instead."
"With your brawn and my brains, this city would surely become a great one."

You have to let go. You have to, much as it pains you. Because her body is turning to stone in your hands, and you can feel the roiling waves of power beneath the surface. You have to let the yaksha do their duty and contain her power until it fades, where it will no longer be a danger to the lands that the God of Dust has loved with her whole heart.

"It seems that our journey together has come to an end. As for that stone dumbbell, forget about it, would you?"

 

But you can't make this promise to forget. Even if your last image of her is a sad smile, so lonely -

"This is the mark of our pledge, and it is also my challenge to you."
"All my wisdom is hidden within this stone dumbbell."
"If you can unlock it—"

The Glaze Lilies dwindle, to this day, fickle things that never do well in a pot now so scarce in the wild you have to travel miles upon miles upon miles to see enough that would allow them to be called a field.

You never knew what she was going to say, in the end.

You never were able to unlock her puzzle.

The undeniable constant about war is this:

There will always be casualties.

You walk forward through the carnage of this particular battle, yet another god's blood on your hands and your spear, and you survey the damages that have been done to your beautiful homeland. It can be mended, of course. The backlash of the god's death has been contained, Stone Steles resonating with Geo energy to maintain the shield until the worst of it has faded, until the release of power has died with its god.

Actions beget consequences. The Wrath of the Rock is not only for those that dare to break their contracts with you, but also with those that enact such violence, such cruelty, so senselessly against those that can do nothing to combat it. That have no choice but to comply to tyranny. The Archon War is filled with more and more gods vying for the power of the gnoses, and all you wish to do is protect your home and those who would seek sanctuary within your watchful eye - if you attain the power of an Archon, then so be it.

There will always be casualties, one way or another.

You step over a part of the god cut in twain, before their death, and make your way towards one such casualty.



He is bloodied, battered, and bruised, but he is alive - better than what can be said for some of the other adepti that have been collared forcibly by a cruel god. Treated as their attack dogs, forced to kill and destroy and plunder. This one in particular, you know, has even been forced to consume the dreams of his victims, all because the god held so tightly onto a name, a secret, all to hold him under a thumb until he was useful against the god's foes.

Something is hollow, in this young adeptus, and you can see it in the weight of his forced sins on his shoulders. Wings clipped, a soul clenched in an iron fist and shackles of magic.

You take a knee in front of him, all the better to see him eye-to-eye with, and reach out to take his bloodied hands.

There's a flinch in those hands, but he seems powerless to pull away. You're not sure if there's any fear to it, but you think, perhaps, that there is resignation.

But you are no tyrant. Your touch is not to bring a new set of manacles down onto this casualty of war.

"Your false master is no more," you begin, gentling your voice like speaking to a fledgling fallen from the nest. "And you will not have another after them. This is a contract that cannot be broken, regardless of any powers that might come to seek you again."

You are Morax, the Prime Adepti, the God of Contracts - and your contracts are your word, your bond, your promise. You are held to the strict rules just as much as anyone else that forges them beneath your gaze.

A moment of hesitation, of silence, and the young yaksha lifts his gaze slowly, eyes haunted but... with the smallest glimmer of hope. There, there is the fear - the fear that to hope would be to damn himself again.

"... my name," he says, voice rough, battered, and you can only imagine why. This war has gone on for so long, now, and he has been made to do so many things, endure so much torment.

"A secret that will die with them."

And you can't help but squeeze his hands in yours, reassuring, certainly, but almost like the punctuation mark on the contract that you've written for a caged bird you wish to see flying free again.

"It will never erase what you have gone through, or what you were made to do. But I hope, with time, that you will be able to heal, that your own dreams will no longer haunt you."

Healing will always take time, and there is very little time that you can offer in the midst of every being in Teyvat vying for power. Still, you will try.

One hand pulling away from the yaksha's, you carefully thumb away some of the blood that has streaked across one cheek.

"We will protect you. And all I would ask for in exchange is help in protecting this land, and these people, once you are ready. To safeguard them from suffering the same fate as you once had. Besides that, your life is your own to live how you see fit."

That your victims had, you do not say. That is salt in the wound that is unnecessary.

Hesitation, and the hope kindles a little brighter with its uncertainty.

Then, a nod. You smile - and you finish the contract with something that will keep your new companion, your new pupil, safe from harm.

"In the fables of another land, the name Xiao is that of a spirit who encountered great suffering and hardship. He endured much suffering, as you have. Use this name from now on."