#m. archoniic

[windgesang]

@archoniic sent: Chaos; fire and carnage lay all around them. Yet atop a stone bridge stood two very old souls. One with fire in his heart and a yearning for vengeance; another that held sadness and a look of defeat upon his face. One who held all the freedom; the other who’s hands had been bound more than once. Even here, there was very little he could do.      “I am sorry, but if you persist then you will have to face me first.” For what could he do in the face of a contract? Bound by his own rules. This fight was not one he wished to have; despite their differences, he wouldn’t wish to harm the Anemo Archon. 

“Walk away, Barbatos… please.”

The land he once built lay in ruins, every blade of grass turned ashen by the flames of the wanderers burning everything in their wake, the once so lively city made desolate. Even the screams of agony, the desperate prayers of his beloved people that had torn his mind asunder as they died one by one had grown silent, leaving nothing but a dead and empty wasteland where once the land of freedom had flourished. That same desolation was inside him, the spirit of love and freedom twisted and fractured beyond recognition.

There was nothing but grief and madness then where life and joy had been and no amount of hope could bring them back. They were all gone like the smoke in the wind, faster than Barbatos could hold on to any of them; wiped out like whispers in a storm long before their time.

It hurt. It hurt like nothing he’d ever felt before; worse than his betrayal of the king, worse than any sacrifice they had made in the name of freedom. Worse than the loss of his only true friend. It was unspeakable, unbearable agony, like a claw through his chest that grinded his heart to dust and left scars on his soul he would never recover from.

The winds were howling around them, screaming his pain and growing with his rage. They carried the fires across the land, swallowing everything in their path - but it mattered not. There was no life left for them to take, only ruins and charred broken earth.

When he spoke his voice was broken, silent and yet roaring like the raging storm around them. He was shaking with unbridled emotion, tears streaming down his face for all his children lost. The wings on his back swayed in the violent winds, the tips of their feathers burned like the land around him.      “Step aside, Morax.” Behind him Andrius’ claws dug into the earth as he growled with his master’s pain, a terrible broken sound that pierced marrow and bone like the ice his paws spread over the ground.

What was Morax’ betrayal in the face of this destruction? All memory of friendship burned like the towers of the brave city of Mondstadt while he stood there, blocking the way. Immovable as he’d always been. Soulless, vile, TRAITOR-- the winds seemed to call as they grew stronger still, tearing trees from the ground and causing the very water from the river to rise high into the sky.

He would not save them from justice; he would not fulfill his word this time. If his life was the price to pay then so be it - no power in this world, immortal or otherwise, would stand against Barbatos’ vengeance.

“I will make them face my storm.. and you will not stop me.”

[ozeanum]

@archoniic​​ sent: ❛   perhaps it is the greater grief, to remain on the earth when another is gone.  ❜  

Osial does not respond right away. He takes his time - time that was stolen from him as he lay in the deep, alone and banished - to look at Morax’s face and make note of every detail that differs from the image in his memory that was preserved inside him like an air bubble trapped underwater. Some days that memory was the only thing that retained his will to endure; on other days it was enough to incite a rage inside him that would have shaken the entire sea had his powers not been petrified.

Morax’ hair is different and yet the same, his eyes like liquid gold and amber, as captivating as they have ever been, but the look in them has changed. It neither carries the fondness it once held for him nor the anger he last faced before the world turned dark around him. There is wisdom in it that carries the mark of time - time lost to one and won to another - and sadness that carries the mark of loss and grief beyond imagination. The grief of one facing the solitude of eternity all by himself.

“There is no greater pain than watching that which you know fade away,” Osial responds. That which you know and that which you love, he’s found, in the end turn out to be the same thing. Whether it is another, who walks the same earth, or yourself who fades away, it leaves behind only a shell of what once was and can never be again. Pain fills the vastness of his being, a space once filled with wisdom, understanding and a curiosity for the ever-changing world. Pain for all that he’s lost and all that he is; pain for the dreams he dreamed in the deep and will never see come true.

Gods do not die when when mortals cease to remember them; what a foolish notion to have. How could a thing as fickle and frail as human’s memory hold the power to wipe them from existence? It is the gods themselves who must forget and only then will they be forgotten.

For one last time Osial reaches out, with a hand he never quite learned to see as a part of himself but an extension of his being nonetheless; yet he does not touch. For centuries he longed for his warmth, his forgiveness, his apology. For centuries he whispered and screamed about them to himself in the dark, until rage turned to acceptance and he began to understand. He could be trapped for a day, a thousand years or all of eternity: the world would keep changing and racing against time. There is no need for him to be in it and perhaps there never was. A god may move heaven and earth but in the end he, too, only is because he knows himself to be.

This world has changed and left him behind - or maybe it is him who has changed and become something beyond being a part of it. Recognition tugs at his limbs and his thoughts and as he looks at those golds and ambers, warmer than the sun, for the last time, he ceases to fight and allows it to pull him apart thread by thread.

“Maybe we will meet again, my friend; when the stars above have faded and this world is born anew.” Osial pulls back, and as he does the skin of his mortal form begins to turn pale, the tips of his hair curling up into clusters of white foam. “But I think not,” he ends and before it disappears forever his voice fades into an echo inside of Morax’s heart. Where he stood is but a pillow of seafoam that clings to the sand at Morax’s feet before it is taken by the next wave and washed away, insignificant and fleeting.

And the sea remains, forever silent.

[delusionaid]

@archoniic​ sent: Movement caught his peripheral, a slight glance would have a dash of red catch his eye. Even just the briefest of looks; that was a red he would know anywhere. The smallest hint of a smile, eyes close for a moment as a laugh escapes. Of course he would return with the festivities, no doubt lively as ever. Then would he turn, the gaze warm, “Welcome home, Ajax.”

Leaving Zhongli becomes harder each time Ajax has to do it, but no matter how much he has to stretch his heart between Liyue and Snezhnaya he will endure it. His loyalty to the Tsaritsa remains unshaken and when she calls he follows - even if it means saying goodbye and never having the certainty when or if he’ll see Zhongli again.

But there is one good thing about leaving and it is these three words that Zhongli utters every time he returns to him.

Welcome home, Ajax.

Ajax never expected to find a place anywhere in the world that could even remotely feel like his childhood home does, filled with warm memories, promises and innocent dreams as it is. But when Zhongli welcomes him home it pulls at his heartstrings in a way only seeing the familiar shape of his family house and hearing the sound of his siblings’ laughter has done in the past. It makes him feel warm and safe and wanted.

A smile spreads on his features as their eyes meet and in his chest his heart beats to a rhythm it learned only for Zhongli. “Did you miss me?” he asks cheerfully, dropping his bag on the ground and pulling off his coat. He breathes in the distinctive scent of incense and slowly the memory of frost and snow begins to melt away under Zhongli’s warm gaze.

For a moment he pictures a future version of himself stepping through these very doors and seeing Zhongli by the window, greeting him with these three words he loves to hear so much. And on that day he will finally be able to say the words his own heart longs to say.

This time I’ll stay.