Chapter Text
Andrius is the king of the north, and he is a bitter wind, and he hates mortals more than anything. The land that becomes Mondstadt is a wasteland with icy craters that decorate it like scars. Decarabian keeps his people safe inside his tower. Though blizzards rip at it daily for the chance to cleanse the land of its human blemishes, the wall of storms remains impenetrable. No man steps foot outside the barrier, and no cruel winter harms them inside it.
Decarabian is the god of storms, and he is windwrought to the core, and he does not know that the people bowing to him do so out of obligation. His winds do not sing. When they are loud, they roar with a crescendo of power. When they are quiet, they whisper promises of thinly-veiled ruin. There are tens of thousands of winds that howl over Monstadt, and the city of freedom never once sees the sky.
Barbatos is not even Barbatos then. He is nothing more than a shapeless spirit that sings of the sky.
It is blue. It is vast and open and blue.
The mortal boy who hears his song on a whim does not understand. He does not know of any alternative but the roaring tempest and the howling cold beyond it. He clutches onto his lyre and asks, will you bring me the sky?
No, the wind murmurs. It is barely audible above the endless drone. The sky is far too great for me to bring it to you.
Then I should like just a piece. A small piece of the sky. His hair is dark and thick, like the storm that encompasses all he knows. His eyes are blue, like the sky.
The nameless wind nods, though nobody knows but itself. I will show you the sky, it promises.
The lad smiles, bright, a foreign land of sunlight and dandelion. He sits in his tower and plays a wordless tune in wait.
It travels the barren lands. It serenades the biting cold of the north. It entertains the wildflowers growing determined along the cliffside. It sings to the migrating birds that search for warmer lands.
After a long journey, for time matters little to a wisp of wind, it returns to the storm-shrouded city with a single eagle feather. There is a war, he finds. The boy, who has grown into a young man with fervour in his eyes, leads the people in battle. They fight for the sake of song and for the birds and for all the souls living in that tower who have never seen the sky.
The feather never finds its recipient, except as a decoration in the breast pocket of a corpse. One of countless bodies slain fighting for a world they have never known.
Decarabian falls. With his dying breath, he believes he has protected his people from a crueler reality. He believes they still love him as he loves them. (Nobody ever told the anemo archon that man cannot love like a storm loves.)
Andrius stares at the vacant throne with hatred in his frozen eyes, and there is nothing kinder for him to do but refuse.
This small strand of wind, then, is the one to fill its seat. He takes on a name; he takes on a mortal form. He forms a lyre out of dreams, like the instrument so beloved by the human lad.
Barbatos is the anemo archon, and he is the god of freedom, and he sings of a nameless bard.
Plucking strings of spider-silk, he scatters the ice and snow that have gathered for so many eons. He splits the harsh mountains with a soft proclamation. He gathers the four winds and commands them to blossom the flower and vitalize the wildlife and yield the harvest. He declares the new capital city to be moved from the ruins of the tower, which carries so many heavy memories, to a new and unblemished land surrounded by a crystal lake. Once his work is done, he bids his people goodbye, with the faith and honesty of the nameless wind he used to be. Make Mondstadt into something beautiful. Somewhere he would have wanted to live.
Time means little to a wind spirit, and it means even less to an archon. It is not a careful watch that Barbatos keeps over Mondstadt, but a fitful one, motivated by almost childlike spontaneity. He returns to the island in the lake after a few lifetimes singing with the birds and dancing in the rain.
The people— his people, if he had not given up his claim so long ago—have grown so much. Barbatos regards the new city with pride in his strangely human heart. The sky is cloudless and blue. The sunlight melts over his skin. He plucks an apple from a tree and bites into it, inscribing its sweet taste into his memory. Sacrifice and bloodshed and the overturning of eternal tradition.
Barbatos conjures a rich cloak, green as the pastoral hills. He picks a cecelia bloom from the tallest cliff, breathing in the sea breeze. His braids swing in the breeze as he enters the bustling city. The traveling bard is nothing out of the ordinary, here in Mondstadt. New faces greet him, but the same energy of wonder fills the streets. He grins, and the residents wonder why this foreign boy carries unfettered joy like he has lived here for years beyond his lifetime.
He packs a basket with all the makings of a fine meal. His people are doing well, but it is no time to be resting on his laurels. Barbatos has an entire world to see, after all.
✦
The first stop of his many-nation journey is Liyue.
Morax is the geo archon, and he is the god of contracts, and his eyes gleam like polished gold. He stares at Barbatos as he descends in a flurry of wind as if he has never heard of the term fun before. As it turns out, the intricacies with which Morax knows every crevice of the city still in construction makes Barbatos doubt he has taken a day off for the past seventeen centuries.
It is only once they have gone to every tourist destination and several places that are off the map of any travel brochure that Morax’s patience finally runs out. When he speaks, his voice is a baritone that makes Barbatos think of infinite worlds and endless wisdom.
What is it that truly brings you here, anemo archon? Barbatos cannot help but smile at the man’s utter seriousness. I will gladly lend what help I may.
My dear Morax, you need offer nothing but your enjoyment of this wine. Barbatos pulls the bottle from his basket. With a childish carelessness, he throws it in Morax’s direction. Care for a taste?
Morax, for all his age, manages to catch the bottle gracefully. Barbatos supposes they don’t grant archon-ship to just anyone. Have you no duties to fulfill? He asks incredulously. Barbatos relishes in the way disbelief seeps through that sonorous, dignified voice.
The beauty of freedom , Barbatos starts, already popping the cork with a clever manipulation of air pressure. The beauty of freedom is that the only duties one must follow are self-imposed. There is no better motivator, Morax, than the internal compass of desire.
He thinks it’s confusion in Morax’s eyes, which frown like Barbatos is a particularly impossible dilemma. You are so young. And the lord of contracts says this like it is an undisputed truth. Young and foolish. Everything in this realm has its obligations. More often than not, your obligations will not give a damn about what you desire.
Barbatos quirks an eyebrow in a half-question. Why, all I ask is one night of enjoyment!
Morax looks at him with a face like stone. Either Barbatos’ innuendo falls flat, or the man truly does not care for such mortal affairs.
What do you ask in return, foolish archon?
I assure you, nothing drives this action but the desire to see happiness on your handsome face! Perhaps Barbatos had in fact prepared two bottles of dandelion wine before coming to Liyue Harbor. Perhaps unforeseen circumstances involving the underestimation of his own boredom had caused one of the bottles to become mysteriously emptied.
Morax folds his arms. Do not take me for an idiot, Barbatos. I am not so easily swindled by a fleeting word.
So, no lighthearted flirtation. Barbatos takes it easily in stride, summoning a gentle gust to fly overhead the impassive archon. He dances, spins, flips upside down with the determined goal of simply annoying Morax into relenting. Every second you refuse my generous gift, I will spend it distracting you from such important, godly, affairs.
It is more than entertaining to see the blood flow from Morax’s own mortal heart to linger at the thin skin of his ears, at his normally-pale cheeks. Even his nose, in his bout of frustration, tinges red.
Had I known the new anemo archon would be so infuriating, I would have banned every gust of wind from the nation.
My dearest god of contracts, you ought to know better than to make promises like that! Barbatos wills the slightest of breezes to ruffle the man’s hair. He takes a long, gleeful drink from the bottle, before offering it tantalizingly to him.
Morax takes the wine like it is poison. Surrender is apparent in his voice. A contract in full, then. I drink from this bottle, and you leave me be for the next fifty years.
That sounds like a fair enough deal to Barbatos, who extends his hand from midair where he floats happily on his stomach. Be sure to enjoy it in its entirety. What is a decade but the blink of an eye? He thinks that Morax, for all the contracts he has made and seen through to the end, must know what generous terms he is offering.
Morax lets go of his hand with thinly-veiled disgust. The fifty years begins now.
Barbatos is gone long before the geo archon peers into the bottle and finds that only a third of its original contents are remaining. The sound of laughter floats down the harbor on an evening breeze.
✦
It is exactly fifty years later.
Morax knows, the same way Barbatos knows, that each rotation of the sun and the stars have culminated in the passage of time as unstoppable as the ocean waves and as minute as the grains of sand they crash upon. (Liyue has some beautiful beaches. Barbatos has been looking forward to this return.)
It is the exact same moment down to the millisecond that Barbatos pops into view, seated across from Morax and his cup of tea as if he has always been there. Nothing disproves this idea—the passerby all find their gazes sliding from the young man until they cannot remember what they were wondering about in the first place—except for the faint scattering of leaves along the pavement.
My good Morax! How have you missed me? He laughs and leans back in his chair. A sly eye wanders over the other man, taking in the unimpressed set of his face and the twist of his lips. Morax has not aged a day, it seems, but for the longer hair and the finer suit. Liyue’s continued prosperity has been kind to him.
Like one misses a stab wound, Morax tells him, dry as a Khaenri'an desert. Or a rodent infestation.
How attractive your sense of humor is , says Barbatos.
Morax looks like he is regretting some life decisions. He drinks from his cup as if his mouth will shoot off and say something unwise if it were not occupied. Barbatos follows in kind, though an observant bystander might realize his teacup contains not tea but some golden liquid smelling faintly of apple. He is fairly certain the tea had not been too astronomically priced, so surely Morax would not mind.
What has kept you so busy for fifty years?
Other than my repulsion towards you? Another sip, and with it an expression that suggests he wishes it were something stronger. Anemo archon, I regret to inform you that I have duties.
Yes, indeed, all that coin-producing must be immensely tiring.
The expression gracing Rex Lapis’s face is one that would be exasperation if he were not so godly . Do you think my daily responsibilities consist solely of willing mora into being?
No, Barbatos lies.
They stare at each other for a held breath.
And then he changes topics like a master. Say, how does it feel to have the entire world’s money named after you?
Do not be so ridiculous. Mora is nothing more than a common currency.
Indeed, he hums. And it is the catalyst of change across all these wondrous lands. It is the lifeblood that runs through Teyvat. Is there not something romantic to be found about it? Barbatos thinks he sees it. The gleam of gold in an ornate gift for a lover. The exchange of coins for a warm pastry on a cold morning. Barbatos thinks about an era long past, when the closest thing one got to currency was an apple and a bushel of hay, in exchange for perhaps a newborn fowl. There indeed is something comforting in the consistency of mora, just as there is something mesmerizing about its namesake. Barbatos thinks that as the archon of wind and of freedom, he should not be having these thoughts.
Morax shakes his head. I shall never understand your notions of romance.
A young woman, with clever eyes and an intellect bright enough to own the restaurant frequented so regularly by the geo archon himself, steps before them. She offers them a local specialty, winking at the foreign-clothed bard as his gaze travels the length of her long, elegant skirt. It is on the house, she says, for their distinguished guests. She bids him to enjoy his stay here.
I believed her to be an adeptus, Morax admits, long after the woman and her flowing skirts have left. His fingers are laced together like the delicate embroidery Barbatos sees on the lanterns that light up the night. Her intuition is… remarkable.
You underestimate mortals, Barbatos tells him. They are different in so many ways, the geo archon and the anemo archon. It is a topic of conversation for another day.
For now, there is a wonderfully-warm plate of exotic cuisine before him. Barbatos inhales the spicy-sweet aroma of the dish, appreciative. Then he inhales the dish itself. Even the stoic Rex Lapis stares at him with unfettered disbelief.
My metabolism is quite impressive, I’m told.
I pray your metabolism does not empty Liyue’s kitchens as quickly as it empties your plate.
✦
The archon war, which has been raging like a neverending typhoon at the back of Barbatos’ mind, ends. He is a child of the war, who has never known a world without the eternal toil of battle. The peace is deafening.
The world, once the dust settles, is much, much emptier. There is no god of storms, there is no god of dust, there is no god of the vortex or the salt or of anything except the seven. Victory tastes undeserved on his tongue, turns sour when he looks at Morax’s scars and Kimaris’ hollowed pupils and Astaroth’s shivering form. This is another thing that sets him apart from the others, then, the soft sympathy that makes its way up his throat.
Though the war has left much of the land in ruin, mortals are persistent. The ones that remain pick up their dead loved ones and rebuild. Some burgeoning cities are made over the past craters of wreckage. Some are built in new lands, untouched but for perhaps the wars of a previous world.
Mondstadt—with its remote location and cold which had persisted for so long—had remained unharmed until the eleventh hour, and thus has little need to salvage Decarabian’s tower or to rebuild their city in the lake.
Likewise, the city of Liyue Harbor, so ardently protected by the god of war in its new location by the sea, has remained prosperous. The nation as it stands now is the center of all commerce that flows through Teyvat. As past patterns dictate, so too does it become the port where information, language, culture exchanges hands as easily as the newly-minted gold coins.
It is this logic that brings all seven of them to Liyue, in the area that will be called Chihu Rock two thousand years in the future. The city has only grown more beautiful since his last visit, since the end of war opened more lines of trade and widened the road to prosperity.
It is under the guise of a wealthy merchant that Morax invites them in, of which there are no shortages of around the harbor. The table is fine mahogany, laden with steaming food in expensive ceramic. The floors are white marble veined with shimmering gold, polished to the point where Barbatos startles at his own round-faced reflection. He thinks briefly of what a strange party they must make, foreign garb in a myriad of ages, though he dismisses the thought. The caterers to the ludicrously rich have seen stranger things than a warrior in full armor dining alongside a casually-dressed teenager.
There is no better way to break a century of ice, Barbatos thinks, than with copious amounts of alcohol. Indeed, each archon’s nation of influence has its own food and drink to enjoy, something to keep them looking forward to the next meeting.
The next time they meet, it has been twelve years. The winter is harsh. It is fitting, then, that Snezhnaya offers a clear liquid called fire-water. Its name truly does not do its potency justice. Barbatos blinks at Naberius, feeling the acute heat in his stomach, and asks for a refill. Much to the cryo archon’s surprise and amusement. This is the night when Barbatos discovers the limits of his own tolerance—somewhere between eight and eleven shots, and still far less than Naberius, who only smiles with a flush beginning at his temples and with a pyramid of shot glasses growing by his seat. Barbatos discovers something about pride as well. Or his lack of it.
Divergence and convergence. This meeting is a warm spring night, three years into a global economic boon. Inazuma and its soft-spoken electro archon, Baal, bring an aged rice wine. She admits with static crackling in her hair and blush dusting her skin that she is not one for drinking, but that she truly wishes them to enjoy it. Barbatos hears the others discussing her singlehanded defense of the island nation during the war, how she was said to have cleaved the sky and seas with her blade of lightning. He learns this time about his weakness for pretty women who could destroy him.
Only a year later, they return to celebrate the inauguration of Sumeru’s new academy. The nation’s specialty, much like its varied landscapes, is at once terrifying and appealing. Astaroth carries the ornate bottle of snake wine in a cryo-powered contraption that Barbatos cannot make heads or tails of. When Barbatos makes an involuntary face at the frigid taste, he laughs with an ease that sets all the creases on his tanned face in the right way. Barbatos, then, thinks he can appreciate attractive faces in general.
It is twenty years later, after a particularly draining decade of natural—and manmade—disaster. The sweetened spirit from Natlan, its abundance of sun-ripened fruits, and the equally-sweet smile of Kimaris, do much to lift Barbatos’ spirits. Both, as it turns out after too many drinks, have a bite to them. Barbatos swears to himself not to cross the woman any time in the next lifetime.
The turn of the century nears. Fontaine, for all of its elegance, offers a red wine that Barbatos personally feels is inferior to the breweries in Mondstadt. Though he would never voice his thoughts to Eligos, who toys with her hatpin like she wants nothing more than to impale some poor archon on it. What was he saying, about pretty women and destruction?
They share their drinks, their warm dishes, and the unspoken solidarity of being the only ones to survive. This is when Morax can summon money from thin air, when the idea of an empty wallet does not even exist. This is when Barbatos laughs at the others, for being so old and serious, and they mock him equally for being so young.
He thinks, in reminiscence, the amount they drank would have been enough to drown a small city. In reminiscence, he should have treasured it more.
✦
In the span of eternity, they become accustomed to each other. They have conversations like this:
Tell me, anemo archon, how are your people doing?
Morax has found himself a new outfit, Barbatos notes. The coat shapes his figure with elegant lines not so different from the handcrafted furniture that Liyue exports, all tailored trimmings and timelessness. Terribly unsuited for their perch high above the open sea, but attractive nonetheless. And really, he muses as he flips backward, if one can fight like Morax, they need not worry about wardrobe anywhere.
My people? Barbatos raises an eyebrow and shoots a flurry of arrows. They are doing fine for themselves.
I have not heard of any mandates from you, Morax says, nor any guidance at all. His handsome brows knit together in a facsimile of concern. Perhaps it is a little unfair, that they are sparring entirely in Barbatos’ domain, but Morax has the decency to not speak of how horrifyingly short the battle had been on solid ground.
The people of Mondstadt do not need guidance from any deity, he says with pride. The wind picks up in a maelstrom surrounding them. And yet Morax tenses at the idea, hair whipping into his face, as if it is unthinkable.
A godless city, he begins. Whatever words he intends to follow up seem to cling to his throat. This is the man who wills mountains into being, who carves rivers in his footsteps, who shapes the landscape as easily as breathing. This is the eldest of the seven, who has lived the longest and seen the cruelest. This is the man that does not know what to say to the fleeting wind that disguises itself as a green-cloaked bard before him.
Morax, he says bluntly, do you not have faith in them? Do you not have faith in me?
The geo archon swallows. His spear shreds Barbatos’ cloak. You are dooming yourself to become the weakest of the seven. Weakness, for us — it is a death wish.
What is weakness to the free bird? He asks. An arrow, so close it disturbs the tassel of his left earring.
What is freedom to the blade of an archon? Morax shoots back. The lyre-turned bow is knocked out of Barbatos’ hand.
It is when the once-archon of war is pushed to the boundaries, then, that he is the strongest. He strikes. His spear dances forward, ruthless, until Barbatos finds himself with metal pressed at his throat and a rough hand pressed at his back.
Barbatos feels a sorrow that he should not feel. Not when he has known and lost so little. The war has ended, Morax. Let your troubles rest.
The blade digs into soft flesh. You are a fool, then, to refuse your power. To even entertain the thought of resting. To pretend the future will become your utopia. The metal-tipped spear catches the sun to reflect warm backlight onto his face. How the words fall from his lips like hailstones. Morax glares at him, not with transient spite borne of stubborn tradition, but with careful bitterness that divulges lifetimes of mistakes and failings. Barbatos wonders whether he is qualified to judge the difference.
Barbatos’ chest heaves with exertion. Is it not something we should all strive for?
Morax blinks, once-twice, and he is stone once more, like a practiced mask that slides on without even a seam to catch onto. I was young, once. But I was never so idiotic. The spear disintegrates in a shower of golden sparks.
Barbatos swipes his tongue over the corner of his mouth. Copper and sea salt. Morax extends a gloved hand to help him up.
Hope is not idiotic!
It is not quite banter, what they fall into.
Naivete is.
But for two gods that have the rest of time to talk things out, maybe it is enough for now.
✦
Morax is the geo archon, and he has lived a far longer eternity than Barbatos, and he acts like he has never set foot on the planet before. They are enjoying the almost-chill in the air, as the entire town holds its breath waiting for snow to appear from the bright white sky. They are flushed, as mortal bodies are wont to do. They are standing before a street vendor, holding onto skewers of grilled tiger fish, and Morax is looking into his pocket with a dead-eyed expression that Barbatos has come to dread.
It appears, he intones, I have forgotten my mora once more.
Barbatos can only shake his head in disbelief. How are you alive?
I suppose the heavens, upon having witnessed my survival for three millennia, find it amusing to continue my suffering.
He laughs, light as the lingering winds of summer, and pays for their food. There is something tragically wrong with you.
Yes, I am stricken by a headache that refuses to leave and goes by the name of Barbatos.
They stroll down the lantern-lined street. The silk flowers bloom particularly bright at this time of the year, Morax tells him. Then he tells him much much more about the flowers, trivia that Barbatos would never have known and cannot imagine himself remembering. Red and its symbolism of auspiciousness, scent and its connotations. The best way to grow a particular strain—he had not even known there existed so many variants of the same flower—and what each is best suited for.
It is times like this that Barbatos can fully appreciate the distance between them. Morax walks Liyue’s streets and carries with him thousands of years of knowledge, every piece minute and equally important. The correct temperature at which to boil bamboo shoots for the optimal mouthfeel. The year that the bank had to close down for renovations due to a particularly humid summer. The cargo once carried by the decrepit ship bobbing at the water’s edge. He wonders what it is like, for the people of Liyue to know with certainty that their god walks amongst them. Does it contribute to the sense of bustling life in the air?
How Morax talks about everything and nothing. His voice, if nothing else, distinguishes him as the lord of geo. It departs with it a certain sense of security, in its sonorous baritone, in its steadfast cadence. Barbatos thinks he would give a million cecelias to hear Morax sing.
The sun slips across the sky, surreptitious.
The harbor is most beautiful at night. Morax says. In the light that reflects off the water’s ripples, he is glowing and ethereal. Every bit the patron god of the seaside city where the water runs gold. The lanterns are not only aesthetically appealing and effective at lighting but flameproof as well. They have bamboo frames, over which stretch dyed silks sealed with wax. I remember the artisan who —
Oh, to say something so romantic and ruin it immediately, Barbatos huffs. The darkening sky brings a slow drop in temperature that condenses his breath. This is what he stares at, the little clouds of steam that dissipate so easily, instead of the archon at his side.
Spoken like a true uncultured drunkard.
It is a wonder how your people do not see through your facade immediately, Morax. He leans, languorous, over the rickety fence that stands between the pier and the water. You have no idea how humans act.
His eyes pierce like the lance Barbatos had watched him wield in a red-tinted dream. Maybe it is not so surprising, for Morax—the god of war and of slumbering mountains and of the many precious ores that lie in wait beneath the earth—to speak humanity like a foreign tongue. Barbatos. It would do you well to call me Rex Lapis.
Barbatos laughs, because he does not know what else to do with his mouth. So all it takes, then, is an accumulation of insults?
Morax—Rex Lapis—turns away. His ears are red. It is what my people have elected to call me.
And so I shall, Rex Lapis. He beams like the sun gracing the horizon.
✦
Barbatos pranks him.
Rex Lapis throws him off a cliff.
✦
Barbatos is the anemo archon, and his desires are fleeting as the wind, and he has been rightfully punished for his greed.
Rex Lapis opens his doors to find a drunk bard slandering the name of love. Perhaps there is something about Barbatos that makes Morax pick him up as if he weighs nothing. He is set down on something plush, no doubt worth more than he would make in a month as a wandering bard. Barbatos presses his wine-heated cheek against the cool leather. He thinks something spiteful about life and the games it plays. (Nobody ever told the anemo archon that man does not live as a song lives.)
Rex Lapis frowns at him. Tell me you did not come here solely to cause a scene. His words do not carry the hard edges they once did.
Barbatos wonders if he could have known. He feels strangely hollow, despite the alcohol that burns in his poor mortal vessel. It would appear, Rex Lapis, that I have learned about love.
Rex Lapis stares at him with eyes that glow just enough to remind Barbatos that he is not human, no matter how well-camouflaged under flesh and fine silk he may be. He cannot quite recreate the human emotion of pity as he looks down at Barbatos, but he tries.
Barbatos continues. Such a bewildering thing, is it not? This strange matter which compels mortals to weep at its feet and to compose songs in its honor. His mouth twists in a joyless smile. Perhaps it is something adjacent to godhood.
I would like you to recall our first meeting, Rex Lapis says. He sits down next to Barbatos and hands him a cup of needlessly expensive osmanthus tea. I called you something along the lines of “idiot”.
Barbatos sobers up with incredulity. Is this what you imagine comforting words to be?
No, it was “foolish archon”, Rex Lapis corrects himself. If he weren’t so emotionally distraught Barbatos might have throttled him. I repeat myself, but sometimes redundancy is acceptable for the sake of emphasis. You are an idiot and a fool, for allowing this to happen.
Yes, I know.
Do you know what the price of godhood is, then? Rex Lapis closes his eyes. The time-worn creases between his brows, the translucency of his eyelids, the bobbing of his throat as he swallows. Now it is easy for Barbatos to pretend he is fragile and vulnerable as any mortal. You cannot love, Barbatos. Love is reserved for those that live and die, and to imagine anything else is to choose the path of greatest destruction.
So he is a source of ruin then. Barbatos stares into the tea. He wonders if the steam is rising of its own accord, or if his own emotions are mandating its winding motion.
You loved somebody once.
Yes.
Rex Lapis lives alone. He walks the streets under countless faces and names swapping like clothing from an infinite wardrobe; a young nobleman with knowledge of the markets far beyond his age; the short-haired gambler whose coin purse sings louder every time she is underestimated; a menial worker whose smile gleams with honesty and something else that his coworkers cannot understand. He speaks in commoners’ tongue or in royal dialects, lives in luxury or in huts with no roofs, but he always lives alone.
Barbatos sits on a plush couch meant for two. The scent of osmanthus winds through the lonely chamber.
Rex Lapis tells him about his love.
Guizhong is beautiful. She is wise and human in all the ways he cannot understand. She is stunningly intelligent, and Rex Lapis is a fool with his bloodied spear dripping into the garden of glaze lilies, in the nation that they build, where the sun shines gentle and the river flows slow. She teaches their people how to coax the soil into yielding ten times what they sow. She tells him how mortals are small and fragile like dust, how they are so afraid for whatever disaster may come next. She devises a clever contraption to protect the dust-grain humans. She loves them. He does not know what love is, and he tells her as much, but that is alright.
She painstakingly builds him a heart.
She is beautiful, and Barbatos sees why Rex Lapis loves her.
She is dead.
So when Barbatos loses his composure and cries into Rex Lapis’s embrace, he thinks it is not so selfish. He ruins the fine suit and upholstery. He cries like the world will end. He cries like he is not an archon but a heartbroken boy. He cries like he is shedding all the unshed tears for the man that holds him, who has not cried in three thousand years.
✦
Barbatos appears one summer morning at Rex Lapis’s office. To be precise, he flies headfirst into the fourth-floor window.
Why are you here. Rex Lapis does not even bother to look at him, instead staring into the ceiling as if contemplating summoning a meteorite to crush them both. Barbatos supposed they are friends now, as he has not yet been crushed by said meteorite.
I have an important invitation for you. He cannot believe it has been so many summers and he has not yet extended it to the brooding man sitting before him. How fickle memory can be. The Ludi Harpastum festival is beginning its celebration in a week’s time, and I beseech you to enjoy it with me.
Rex Lapis, the useless trivia encyclopedia he is, blinks and clears his throat. Your town’s annual celebration, no? If I recall correctly, some foolish newly-crowned anemo archon lost a feather in the middle of the street, and the people of Mondstadt decided to converge upon it as a blessing from their absent god.
Barbatos pouts and petulantly blows a stack of papers over. How you wound my pride, dear Rex Lapis! And here I am, extending such a kind hand to you—
Silence, you imbecile, Rex Lapis sighs, with a familiar resignation that makes Barbatos grin even before he continues. My itinerary is not so overflowing that I cannot take a few moments’ break, I suppose.
You humble yourself, Barbatos grins. No doubt the revered Rex Lapis has more than a few decades of vacation time squirreled away. I would bet, in fact, a year’s worth of Mondstadt’s finest dandelion wine.
Please do not tempt me to regret my decision, Rex Lapis says, which means Barbatos is absolutely right in his assumption.
I assure you, it will be well worth your precious time! In his excitement, a gust of wind flaps the curtains and rattles the framed paintings on the walls. Fine food, fine drink, fine music! Perhaps if you ask kindly, the resident bard will compose a song in your honor, he adds cheekily.
I shall pray, then, that he does not tarnish Morax’s name as he tarnishes Barbatos’.
Barbatos escapes through the still-opened window. White feathers flutter to the ground with the echoes of his laughter.
✦
Rex Lapis arrives in Mondstadt the following morning, with no fanfare and no extravagance but for his imperial gaze and regal stature. It is more than enough for the citizens to part around him like a martyr, whispering of the handsome tourist who steps over the cobblestone like he owns the place. The winds carry their rumors well, and so Barbatos knows about Rex Lapis’s arrival long before he enters the courtyard with long hair billowing and his eyes gleaming.
My favorite blockhead! He cheers, fingers paused over the lyre. I do hope you are aware, sir, that your timepiece is off by a week. Give or take twenty-two hours.
Rex Lapis stares at him with the deadpan to end all other deadpans. You addressed me as “blockhead” and “sir” within the same breath.
Barbatos’ heart flutters with his laughter. They do an equally fine job of encapsulating you, my dear. There is no shame in wanting to see a friend!
Hm. He coughs and turns away, frowning. Barbatos thinks perhaps his features only know how to frown; for all he has known Rex Lapis, his moods only seem to vary from absolute neutrality to dignified incredulity. It is a miracle worthy of the archons indeed, that his face remains smooth as it is. I only arrived here to lend assistance in whatever may be needed. Celestia knows what kind of disaster your people consider “planning” to be.
They drink in the spring-morning air. Barbatos feels the ridiculous urge to take hold of the man’s hand as they walk side by side down the gleaming stone path.
This town befits you, Rex Lapis says.
How so?
It is indeed worthy of its name as the City of Freedom. The architecture, the cuisine, the people… Your windmills turn, not only with the northern current but with the airs of liberty. He muses like an anthropologist, like an engineer, like a scholar and a painter and a historian.
I admit, for a godless land, it is appealing.
You flatter me so. A breeze drifts between them, carrying the scent of wildflowers and freshly-baked bread. Is it not apparent, nonetheless, that this could not be further from a godless place? He sees it in his people’s smiles, in their easy conversation and in their quiet hopes for the future.
Well. Rex Lapis lapses in his step, as if there is something remaining to contemplate for a man who has lived a thousand lifetimes.
Barbatos squints at him before grabbing his wrist. Come. I shall show you.
He clatters down the streets and side alleys which he knows like his own circulatory system. No doubt they scare a few stray pets on the way. If not for the good mood that permeates the air, he’s sure they would have garnered more dirty looks. Rex Lapis, he briefly thinks, is in remarkably good shape for the old man he takes form in.
I… I see.
They stand centimeters apart before the newly-constructed statue of the anemo archon, hands outreached as if he has something to offer, so incorporeal it cannot be grasped by the human eye. Even after all he has seen, it is something to marvel at. Barbatos finds something beautiful in human ingenuity, how they sculpt light flowing fabric from the firmest of heavy stone. Their devotion at once inspires and bewilders him. He supposes it is a cornerstone of humanity, to grasp with all their faith, to find comfort in their beliefs, to carry that conviction so that it may sustain them for the entirety of their finite lives.
Barbatos wonders if archons can ever feel that desperate conviction. He wonders if Rex Lapis has ever had the same questions run through his mind.
They finally rest at an old wooden bench. He turns towards the man, boastful. For all the godliness that walks its streets, Liyue has nothing like this.
It is you. He frowns in a way that Barbatos finds hilarious. It is… wildly inaccurate.
Barbatos rests back in his seat, idly swinging his legs. Is that truly all you have to say?
As if to spite him—though the great geo archon is surely too dignified to fall to such pettiness—Rex Lapis manages to sit up even straighter. I did not realize your ego was so starved .
You are block-headed, Rex Lapis, not blind.
It is beautiful, Rex Lapis concedes, hand at his chin . Much too beautiful to capture your infuriating likeness.
How childish, he chastises, biting back mirth. You should know to look beyond physicalities. Besides, it stands as a worthy testament of how loving and talented their god must be, does it not?
Your people deserve better than their lazy archon, he finally sighs. Still, Rex Lapis stares up at the stone figure’s vacant eyes. Is there an answer he searches for, one that the real Barbatos cannot give him? Barbatos is gripped by the terrible urge to scour the deepest corners of the earth and furthest edges of the skies to find it.
He has been told, by a mortal with a conviction too bright and too fleeting to make him think of anything but a long-gone bard, that he loves too easily. But it is the nature of the wind, he thinks. It thinks everything is its dominion, and so it makes its way into the most hidden crevice, singing and dancing with unbound energy. It is the lingering breeze of a pretty girl’s perfume. It is the breath of a stolen kiss. It is the soaring of his heart at the smallest bird and the simplest gesture, the eternal foolish song of love love love.
Barbatos looks at the man out of the corner of his eye. Rex Lapis is marble apathy, but he thinks perhaps this is a man who has learned a little more about love than the one who stood bloody over the god of dust.
✦
The next time Barbatos travels to Liyue, he does not stop laughing.
I see you have acquainted yourself with the new installations. Rex Lapis sounds more dead than he has ever heard in their shared millenium.
How, wheezes Barbatos, will I ever look at you with decency again?
The statues are many and they are detailed. The archon of earth leans back in his throne of gravity-defying rock, inspecting the chiseled cube in his hand as if it holds the mysteries of the known universe. His pose is one of almost lazy confidence and self-assured power, as befits the god of the wealthiest nation of Teyvat. He is cloaked in elegantly draping fabric which shrouds his face in shadow but of course does nothing to conceal his generously-carved abdominals.
As Barbatos refuses to stop mocking him about. To think, the citizens of Liyue find you so dear in their hearts, they would—
Rex Lapis buries him in a pile of jade.
Imagine the disappointment, he says, slightly muffled, when your people find out their handsome playboy archon is actually a bitter old man who hasn’t—
It is a fine piece of cor lapis that shoves itself in his mouth. He spits it out and grins, gleeful. So how accurate exactly is this depiction?
I am this close, Rex Lapis threatens with an absolute lack of emotion, to put it colloquially, throwing you out.
Barbatos peeks his head through the pile of expensive ore. Your fingers are touching.
Yes.
✦
Glaze lilies have been balancing at the edge of extinction for a very long time. Perhaps this is why Rex Lapis takes the carefully-potted plant with a tender frailness that Barbatos has not ever seen.
This… he clears his throat. Tell me you did not go to foolish efforts to obtain this.
His gloved hand hovers over the unfurled petals, as if the slightest touch will send it withering. It does not help when the blue petals of the flower quiver at his hesitance. His eyes shine. His jaw is tense.
To be fair, most of my actions can be considered foolish. Barbatos jokes. As an archon, he fears little from the other god. But as a man, he fears the reception of his gift to a friend. Is it… out of line?
The geo archon had spoken before how he finds anniversaries—most dates of import, in fact, but especially anniversaries—pointless. He would shake his head in disapproval of the confounding and incessant need for mortals to latch onto any minute event and celebrate it, year after year. What are times and dates but arbitrary numbers? he would dismiss. Barbatos, then, would reply, would the god of commerce and wealth not find these numbers useful?
Whatever lines I may have, you manage to draw over all of them. Rex Lapis sighs.
Naturally, Barbatos finds anniversaries delightful. Despite the ire they evoke—or perhaps because of it—he has become particularly attached to celebrating the birthdays of the disgusted archon. Usually, it is a haphazardly-wrapped box left somewhere on a mist-shrouded peak in the land of the adepti, or under the thick ice of a rushing stream that sings of death. This year, Rex Lapis approaches four millennia. This year, Barbatos meets him face-to-face for the first time in many moons.
I spoke to Xiao. He mentioned this type of flower— and by “mentioned” Barbatos means “threatened to disembowel him with”— and I thought it would be a suitable gift.
His shoulders raise a fraction of a degree, before dropping. (It is a wonder, Barbatos thinks, how immortals can be so utterly mortal in the messiness of their histories. He shall have to investigate with the murder-eyed adeptus in the future.) The glaze lily once flourished across her — across our lands. The acidity of the soil; the humidity of the climate. And the music. It is said that it blooms bearing the weight of the beautiful memories and prayers of the land. It is also said to translate the memory of the land into fragrance.
The scent of the flower is airy and subtle. To Barbatos, it brings him to a balcony in Liyue at the beginning of the war, far before they lose so many. It is a small tea shop, where water runs clear to the west and the sun rises warm to the east. He thinks that even then, Xiao had despised him.
Rex Lapis stares at the flower with eclipsed melancholy. Barbatos questions what the scent brings him.
She used to sing to them. I thought it nothing more than a foolish endeavor. Since the war… there is not much good intent to be heard.
Well… Barbatos toys with his braids.
It is nothing short of presumptuous, to deliver me such a thing.
I would like to sing for you, Barbatos says, voice catching. Rex Lapis stares at him, golden eyes and parted lips. He thinks he is running himself off a cliff.
Barbatos picks up his harp of dreams, and he strums its spider-silk strings, and he sings. He does not sing of love. Or of death, of any nameless bard, of a beautiful woman before she crumbled into dust. He sings of a dawning day. He sings of a better future, of nights under the glittering constellations, of daybreak with the multicolored sunrise, of afternoons under the shade of a great and ancient tree. Evenings in warmly-lit taverns and the free flow of food and drink and laughter. Mornings with open windows and white-gold sunlight and a fresh breeze that wanders in.
He sings for four thousand years. He sings for one hundred eighteen seconds.
The glaze lily unfurls, a delicate hand-painted porcelain, a strange blue-white silk spider. Rex Lapis looks at the flower with his head downturned and his brows furrowed. It is a faux-demure air that his gaze brings through lowered lashes, like the iridescent wings of a poisonous insect.
She would have enjoyed your company.
And Barbatos watches with rapt horror as he smiles . It is a hurricane. It is a massacre. It is something that should not see the light of day for how terrible and beautiful it is. It is—a good thing Barbatos is immortal because it is quite a long moment before he remembers how to breathe.
✦
There is some law, discovered by a sleepless prodigy in Mondstadt some hundred years later, that states sufficient collision between any two particles in a system will inevitably initiate some reaction from the encounter. It is applied to molecular theory, to elemental energy studies, to laws that dictate heat and motion.
It applies to two archons for whom their system is the entire universe for all of time.
The collision theory also states that the collision, whenever it does happen, must be sufficiently vigorous to carry enough kinetic energy for change. Barbatos has no interest in such rigorous examination of their world and how it behaves at the smallest scale, but he imagines energy building up with each preceding intersection. For them, it is every wine-steeped debate; every time they have fought, be it alongside or against each other; every meaningless glance and fleeting touch.
Perhaps it is not so much one singular interaction, then, but the aggregation of every collision over a thousand two hundred fifty-five years.
Not that Barbatos is keeping track.
✦
Rex Lapis is the geo archon, and he is the god of wealth, and he discards his million-mora coat like it is nothing.
Barbatos relishes in the warm gasp that flutters over his nape. He digs his thumbs into scarred skin, the gaps between bone and breath like the mountains and valleys of a sacred terrain. He thinks he can hear Rex Lapis’s placeholder heart beating, rhythmic and steady and almost human. A facsimile of love.
A woman sitting alone at the apex of Starsnatch Cliff remarks to herself how the winds have picked up recently. Her grip tightens on her hat.
Barbatos grips at the sheets like he is going to slide off the edge of the world. How Morax shifts under him, molten eyes and tectonic plates. His lips burn, insistent, into his memory. Holy blasphemy, archaic reverence, tumbling off his tongue like so many priceless jewels. His hands are tender and they reach for him like the stars. The points at which they meet become hallowed ground.
Who is there for a god to pray to?
Barbatos sobs a wordless descent.
After, they lay side by side. You are so loud, Rex Lapis tells him. All the time.
And you are a buffoon even in bed. He smiles at the ceiling.
✦
Barbatos is the anemo archon, and he has not seen Mondstadt in so long, and he returns to a land that speaks of freedom like a memory.
He thinks, overlooking a mockery of the kingdom he had left king-less, that he understands a little how Rex Lapis feels about mortals. Perhaps he had overestimated them; how little they treasure their own precious short lives, how little they treasure one another. They are not gods, and they cannot afford the casual cruelty that immortality lends, but they certainly don the fanciful masks like they are.
It is Ludi Harpastum, the days of celebration meant for the common man. It is distorted into something Barbatos can barely recognize. His beloved city, which his innocent self had believed would eternally bloom free, is a dungeon in a lake. The winds tell him what his negligence has missed. The once-great families that ruled Mondstadt, whose desires have strayed to the road of depravity. The wandering troupe with harps for bows and flutes for swords. The failings of their rebellions, and the whispers of resistance spurred by the blood of the fallen.
A war. It is so familiar to him, like old lyrics submerged in his hazy memory. They fight for song and for love and for every slave under the ruling class who dreams of open fields.
Barbatos slips into the holding cell of a flame-haired gladiator, one who hails from the lady of war but is shackled by the rulers in the land of freedom. Rot and bone cover its floors, great stone slabs which were never unearthed to hold such weight of confinement. He wrinkles an unseen nose.
I need to fight only one more battle, Venessa mutters to herself. Even the wicked Lawrences must concede to their own contracts.
It is a familiar song plagued with sour notes. What has become of freedom and contracts?
The warrior rises with the sun to face a being of monstrous proportion. Ursa the Drake is nothing but a death sentence, as the peasants furiously cry. Barbatos takes in the resolute acceptance in Venessa’s eyes, the practiced way her scarred hands grip onto her weapons, and wonders how mortals continue to surprise him with their atrocity and their bravery.
Barbatos sheds his guise in a flurry of wind. It is an earthshaking gale that forces back the beast. With the memory of a happier summer, the forgotten corpse of a northern blizzard, the faith of a long-ago people, the anemo archon strums his harp. He is the weakest of the seven, perhaps, but still his veins do not flow with blood but with divine power. He sings. He sings of the outrage of people that do not know of freedom except as bound by newer chains, of tyrants and their towers that have no choice but to topple.
Ursa flees, for even the strongest of mortal monsters cannot withstand the storm of an archon’s rage.
The onlookers, incredulous, turn towards the strange bard with prayers on their lips. But he is already gone, dissipated into the wind. So they give their gratitude in heaps to the hero Venessa, who smiles as bright and powerful as a lion. It is joyous, this glimpse of freedom, but one warrior cannot free an entire kingdom. Barbatos, whose birth as an archon began with the faith of the people, knows he must revitalize the people.
The wind carries many things. It carries the pollen of a freshly-bloomed flower; the fragile wishes of a dandelion; the strains of a faraway song.
The wind carries, in this instance, a sheet of paper. Barely a scrap, in fact. But it is enough for the nation to be overturned with betrayal and fury. Nothing is whispered, now, of this secret treaty which seems so awful when held up to the light of day.
Indeed, the news travels faster through word than wind that the aristocracy has betrayed the city—they have forsaken the wind entirely! The people hiss the words colored with wrath— to save their own pathetic asses, they have sold everything—their land, their soldiers, every barbatos-damned thing—it’s all gone towards the geo archon to the south, have you heard—
And who could disprove it? The inimitable symbol at the bottom of the page shines clear as day. The great and terrible Morax, the god of contracts himself, has sealed the treaty.
How easily wildfire catches, when the tinder has been drying for six hundred years.
Barbatos takes his place atop the clouds and watches. The soldiers of the royal militia, who brutalized the slaves with such ease, feel for some reason compelled to protest their own imminent slavery. Hypocrisy of man aside, it is with their aided efforts that the oppressed people of Mondstadt rise up like a valiant sun. Soldiers and slaves and peasants alike burn through the tyrants. Bone-dry grass becomes consumed by flame in seconds. He learns it takes less time for a false king to be torn to shreds by a mob.
It is adjacent to joy, what Barbatos feels when the remnants of the aristocracy flee in terror, in shame. Though not a speck of blood is on him, the euphoria of revolution pulses through his body.
So the anemo archon is not incapable of brutality either.
He does not bother to turn around. If it is for the sake of freedom…
I have seen far worse in the name of far less, Barbatos.
He exhales. Are you angry, perhaps? Did I not do your insignia justice?
How an archon can stand to play such a childish prank on his own people… Rex Lapis sounds hilariously exhausted. Barbatos hides the smile that surfaces at the memory of how irritated the man had been when he had fallen victim to his pranks so long ago. Time manages to jade even further the most jaded of souls.
I implore you not to smite me from the sky, Barbatos says, only half-joking. Or give it away.
Your forgery is but a pale imitation. An imperceptible shift in the winds. Rex Lapis takes a seat next to him, legs folded dignified and proper.
They are two gods, overlooking a world on the eve of a new era.
The flame-haired gladiator lets her sword rest. She stares with pain-hardened eyes into a cyclical future, one of infinite corruption and revolt, and establishes a new order. The Knights of Favonius. The unchained Church. She plants the sapling of an oak tree at Windrise, which will one day grow into something wondrous and grand.
It will take them no longer than a year to discover the truth.
A light breeze runs its fingers through long hair. My dear, how your faith in my people gladdens me so.
Rex Lapis sighs. They do not move apart.
Mortals are fools, perhaps, dying so easily and for so little. But immortals are more foolish than anyone.
Rex Lapis says nothing about the contract. The people of Mondstadt do not figure out the false insignia for another seven decades.
✦
This is another conversation they have:
Do you miss them?
They stand side by side at the highest peak in Mondstadt. The air flows cold above their heads, and the earth is solid beneath their feet. The rain carries a forgotten song from the sky to the soil, with a frenetic drive that speaks of moments cut short. The cataclysm stings at their backs, for not even five centuries can dispel the ache of knowing they are the only ones left.
It is the rain that makes you sentimental, Rex Lapis says. From the haze of mist that does not touch either of them, the glow of his eyes has been subdued to something nebulous. Although I would be hard-pressed to find anything that does not make you sentimental.
Barbatos sighs. You avoid the question.
When it is your duty to continue living, loss is an inevitability. To miss… it is a weakness. It is a mortal concept. Rex Lapis turns towards him. His hair is down, gracing his usual severity with a degree of primordial softness. It confounds me, Barbatos, how human you pretend to be.
You blockhead, he says, void of any ill-intent.
Rex Lapis twitches his lips. I… I suppose I do regret certain outcomes.
That’s not what I asked, Barbatos protests. I could ask the same of any topic in the world and your half-answer would be equally meaningless for all of it.
The winds pick up. Still, Rex Lapis stares off the cliff with only an infinite desolation. Barbatos loosens.
I miss them. It is almost-whispered to the only being in the world who can understand.
I miss them too. He rumbles. The sky rumbles in like. Electricity flashes, bright and angry. Her loss is still young.
I sometimes wonder if the newcomers know what kinds of emptiness they must fill. For some of the thrones, it has been multiple exchanges. For others, the originals have long gone, and they cannot be rightfully called newcomers anymore. Five hundred years… what is five hundred years to a god?
Then it is a true smile, the one Liyuean scholars and historians would pay anything to know of its existence. The one which had once made him so nervous. You were like that, once. Back then, did you not also carry immortality as a prize?
It is better for one’s dignity, Barbatos exhales, to wear it as a crown and not a shackle.
How we used to drink, back then. Faux dignity and high spirits. It is not like Rex Lapis to become so nostalgic. Barbatos has known him now for a long enough eon that he recognizes the stirrings of a plan.
Perhaps archons are closer to mortals than you think.
Perhaps it is not so hard to miss and to love, for a bygone god.