i'm terrible at posting here even though it's much more enjoyable to be on so here take this offering of oc art (xiao for scale)
this is saoirse, she's the archon of the abyss, cursed to immortality after making herself a right nuisance to celestia. the abyss is sapient, and it knows a lot. it's the one with all the power, but it's also cursed, to eternal sleep this time. (its mind is still active though- think the great old ones in the lovecraftian mythos)
she's just its main vessel. there are other gods in the abyss, ones that she sheltered during the archon war. they're mostly based off irish pagan gods (and scottish ones sometimes, they overlap a lot)
but bibble, i ask myself, isn't the abyss evil? hasn't it made itself clear that it's a terrible, powerful force that just wants to murder the traveller, all the humans and take over teyvat for itself?
yes and no :))) i've been filling some plot holes, don't you worry (it seems like most of this fic is filling plot holes that i didn't create..)
so, some context. david is the name of the primordial one, he's a bit of a shithead so i won't dwell on him. the reason there are so many beings in the abyss that aren't on teyvat is because he throws everything he doesn't like down there and cursed the surface to drive abyssal creatures insane, thus making them out to be all bad and keeping them down there.
everything the abyss has done was not 'the abyss' as a whole, it was like three fae who went up to the surface for too long, went mad and swore bloody vengeance on all humans because they mistook them for david, because to be fair he did make them all in his image.
david is christian by the way. the genocidal type specifically.
anyway, back to saoirse. she's been alive for honestly too long, millions of years at this point, and she's really just tired. she met venti very recently in the scale of her life, and he made it significantly better because now she can bully morax with a friend. and it's a balanced relationship- she gets emotional support and someone to say 'yeah, mood' whenever she laments about missing a home that doesn't exist anymore, and he gets to bring her wherever he wants so she can intimidate people into doing things for him.
they're both rat bastards when they want to be and being friends makes it even worse. xiao is the only one with a speck of dignity in the trio and he HATES it, he's not built to be the voice of reason at ALL- saoirse literally can't die so she does dumb shit constantly and venti's borderline suicidal in like. a desperate laughter kind of way, so you don't notice as easily when he does reckless self-destructive things.
they're all broken from one point of view but they're happy with each other and if making jokes about your impending doom to deal with the stress of an all-seeing god breathing down your neck helps then so be it.
xiao's friends with her because she's easy to talk to, makes great tea and is one of the only people big + strong enough to give hugs that he actually likes (how to do that: u have to crush him. if it feels like his bones are about to shatter you're doing it right) i feel like he enjoys those types of hugs because they're completely all-consuming and probably make him feel safe, like being in a small space does.
uhh also she alternates between calling zhongli an old man and saying 'i'm your elder how dare you young man' whenever is convenient.
also she makes great stew.
she's really tall, this is her smallest form. venti gets a massive eldritch form later in the fic as well so xiao has to deal with his bf and best friend both being enormous eldritch beings and him being human-sized
he does appreciate venti's size though. it's nice to be held like a small bird with a broken wing sometimes.
her and xiao and venti are all friends, xiao and venti get together after like 500yrs of boring her to death w/ their pining.
also she's gay asf. lesbian fanart coming soon once i figure out a design for her gf
(her name is aisling, she's based off malaysian culture/clothing bc i have someone to be a sensitivity reader, she's the second descender and she forgot everything- including her name- when she landed in teyvat so she was named by a terrifying crow-like woman she met while wandering teyvat. she later attempted to fight david, nearly won, and was yitten into limbo for the next like couple million years.)
