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localplaguenurse · 2 years ago

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— LOOK ME IN THE EYE ( AS BEDROCK TURNS TO DUST )

i. SYNOPSIS : there were stories in your village ; tales of the geo archon and his gaze of stone, of the statues that dotted guyun stone forest and how all of them sharing the faces of his fallen enemies. you, however, could care no less. for how could you look into a pair of eyes you couldn't see? ( zhongli x gn ! reader )

ii. WARNING(S) : inspired by the myth of medusa with a tiny bit of beauty and the beast. hints of abandonment and reader being used as an offering, reader is blind, zhongli turns people into stone, descriptions of petrification. otherwise, there's mostly fluff in here, hehe.

# masterlist | pt ii ; a thousand more tomorrows.

❝ you only have to look at the medusa straight on to see her. and she's not deadly. she's beautiful and she's laughing. ❞

- HELENE CIXOUS

Morax feels like loneliness when you caress his cheeks, etched within every detail on his face, from the shape of his eyes to the furrow on his brow and his inexpressive lips. His voice was heavy with it, wrought down by centuries of war and loss and defeats and victories ( and it always grew just a little thicker when he spoke of the deities he once knew, in a happier dream sometime before the beginnings of this thousand year battle ).

Beneath the covers now, you think, he feels like contentment. His sleep is untroubled and his face no longer holds his heavy strain. You sense a sting in your chest, of quiet unworthiness, delivering such cursory touches on what the people call a god, who is the recipient of supplication and offerings from his followers.

Shifting your body to the side, your hand reaches up with a dazed wave, brushing against the small table beside the bed before you grip the edge with a steadier grip.

( Sandalwood, Morax called it, and your eyes had lit up with familiarity when you smelt the woodwork. That was why he bought it for you; a piece of home within his realm, amongst so many other gifts he would bring you after his battles. )

“Morax?” you whisper slowly, when you find yourself trapped beneath his arms after a futile attempt at sitting up. “Morax?” the fond exasperation in your tone only increases upon hearing his protesting grunt while he pulls you in closer ( ever so starved, ever so clingy ).

Your fingertips brush against his smooth cheek, then his soft hair. “Morax, please wake up.”

You can feel the warmth of the sun slowly heat up your face, shadowed by the metal filigree of the window and how his steady breathing hitches and the muscles beneath your palm shift. A sigh tickles your face and his hand traces up your back with a quiet hum. Morax stirs from his slumber, the resting dragon slowly stretching out his body before his fond gaze lands on you, as it always did at the break of a new day.

“Hm?”

“It’s morning…” you point out. The sheets rustle and his hold on you leaves for a moment. Then it returns, unashamed and unapologetic, pulling you into his chest.

“I can see that.” he muses, tracing secrets and unspoken words between your shoulder blades. You can hear the fondness in his smile and the love that brimmed within him when he kissed your cheek with aching gentleness.

“Hm, yes, I know you can.” the corners of your lips lift up. “What is the sunrise today like?”

You could barely see through the haze in your mind and body when your hands came up to touch the smooth stone you had bumped into, trembling fingers mapping out the rigid lines of shoulders before it stops at a face, whose expression felt twisted, frozen in a state of eternal agony. Even under your sightless gaze, this figure felt wrong and ugly and sinister. Your hand brushes up against another effigy, then another and the horror, the cold, freezing horror in your chest rises when you realize you were surrounded by petrified men and monsters.

( They were always told to you in the safety of your home, when your father would give you warm soup on a night like this and the two of you would listen to the rain under wool blankets, singing old songs. You wanted to return to that comfort, to him. But you could not. )

The tales of Morax’s wrath and his gaze of stone were true then, you realize, as the drug in your body wore down your legs. Your cane could barely hold you up against the ravaging winds and the incoming rains. You do not notice it, not with the terror in your stomach, sapping away at your peace of mind like a parasite on a flesh wound.

You were going to die here.

Laughter bubbles up when he rolls over you and kisses your cheeks, then your nose, then your forehead, huffing affectionately and finally after a good moment of simply cupping your cheeks, he lets you go and you scramble forth by the window. The chilled mountain air was cold against your skin, a steep change from the warmth the room provides. You care little about it.

His touch is still there; it always was, only just hovering in anticipation. You rest your chin against the woodwork and breathe in the smell of Qingxins. “The sunrise.” you urge with an impatient drum of your fingers. Morax chuckles.

“In a moment, love…” he soothes, placing the blanket over your shoulders. He pauses for a moment or two to kiss your shoulder then sighs. “The sky is clear today…like a smooth surface of marble.” he begins, his voice soft against your ear.

It tickles you, his breath, but you still listen, completely and utterly enraptured. The low cadence of his voice rises and falls through his description. “The sun is rising between the mountains like it always does, just flickering in and out like warmth spreading out from a hot center.”

A pause, he speaks up once more, even softer now.

“It’s beautiful today…like the fire in our oil lamps rimmed with silkflower pink…just splayed across the edges. It’s slowly deteriorating…the shade is hard to miss and soon it will be gone.” he hums. “Cloud retainers feathers catch some of it as well…she’s standing at the top of the mountain peak keeping watch. She looks like she could be a part of it…”

You smile. “Do you think she’s enjoying it too?”

Morax falls silent again, considering it. “Perhaps…”

“...she’s not, is she?”

He laughs. “She’s far too busy with her own responsibilities to care for it, love…” Ganyu is with her as well it seems…you woke us up quite early.” his chest rumbles against you and a weight slithers onto your lap. You pat the end of his tail and trace his scales and the ridges that travel up his spine. Morax purrs.

The rain froze your skin and everything felt too much. The panicked screams from the forest life, the thunder in the distance, the squelch of the mud beneath your feet, your very heartbeat ramming against your ribs like a caged creature scared beyond its limits. But it is the presence that looms over you, the shadow eclipsing the howl of the wind, that tears you down. You fall to your knees, hands clasped together.

You try not to think of the foolhardy men that came before you, of your old god who challenged this ancient being with arrogance on his lips. You try not to think of the statues surrounding the two of you, and of their last moments. Was it painful? Feeling their organs and skin turn into stone? Was it worth it? Looking into those deathly eyes, spoken so often in stories from wandering merchants and wayfarers?

“Rex Lapis.” you rasp. “Lord of Geo, I was sent by the settlement once ruled by the Lord of Clouds. We ask you for your mercy. I have been offered to you as oblation in return.”

The storm continues. You shiver in your clothes.

Then Morax, the lord of geo and shaker of the very earth, spoke.

“I’ll be going to Liyue Harbor today.” you say, tying your hanfu carefully while you absently trace over the crane embroidery at the hem. “ Alone .” you add when you sense he was about to speak. He settles a hand on your shoulder, none too pleased about it.

“Are you certain? I can send Streetward Rambler with you. She knows the city well.”

“So do I.” you argue back, moving on to reach out to him. His hair feels like silk against your hands, and you tug at it till he lowers himself to an easier height. You start your braiding. “I have lived there long enough to know its people and my way around. There is no need for you to be so worried.”

And Streetward Rambler gossiped too much, you almost add but the words wisely stay in your mouth. Morax tilts his head and you almost drop the braid. Grimacing in annoyance, you reach out again, your hands brushing against his cheek and you can feel how they pulled up at the corners in a cheeky smile. You purse your lips. “What are you doing?” you ask carefully, almost afraid of what answer he would give. Morax hums and he tugs you closer. You drop the braid, to your chagrin and you almost scold him for it. But he rests his forehead against yours.

“Looking at you,” he whispers. “At how beautiful you are.”

“How charming.” you smile. “Now stay still, I must finish doing your hair.” He does not move, ever so stubborn like the geo he fashions in his hands. He holds you still with his steady grip, humming a soft tune. Your chest swells with a strong emotion, something so engulfing and overwhelming and familiar and you rest your hands on his shoulders.

“Look at me…” the request is gentle and he takes your chin, guiding you to face him. You let him and he gives you a long, hard stare, his thumbs brushing over your cheeks and tucking any stray hair away from your face. You feel the desperation, the concern, the scrutinizing and you smile.

“I am not turning into stone.” you assure.

Morax falls silent. He breathes in; it’s heavy and suddenly he feels like loneliness again and concern, something of a tragic mix and blur of feelings. He breathes out as he takes your hands and kisses your fingertips. “Good.” He finally says. “I can take you there myself. There is no need for you to walk.”

“As Zhongli?” you ask.

“As Zhongli.” and you think he might be smiling.

“A sacrifice?” he repeats. “Have the mortals truly sunk so low into depravity? I have no use for you in wartime. You may return to your village and deliver my message.”

Your breath is seized. He sounds apathetic, distant and a part of you screams in protest when he utters those words of damnation. You look up at him, met with the usual darkness, you can hear how his breath seems to hitch, hear the dirt beneath his feet crunch when he approaches, hear his clothes rustle as you feel warmth surround you and lift your chin up.

“Look at me,” he said. You try to, your gaze unfocused with your misty eyes, a set of dim color worn down like clay rubbed too thin. His hands are warm and something in the air shifts, a tune that sings of mild shock, of an old epiphany being unearthed from a long buried grave ( perhaps an idea he had abandoned to loneliness ). “Oh…”

You did not turn into stone.

“Will you return home?” he asks after what seemed to be millennia of bated silence, of waiting, of growing questions teetering into a dangerously high pile. “Will they let you back in?”

“No.” no, they will not. You were sent here to die in his hands, and to return would warrant wrath and discourse. They will only send you back once more and you may not be lucky a second time. You knew it from the distant howl of wild beats, of the monsters and spirits that roamed these parts, ruling their own kingdoms and territories told through macabre tales.

He falls silent and if it weren’t for his heat, of the power that he radiates, of his hand still gently cradling your chin, you would have thought he left.

“I will take you back to Liyue harbor then. You may build a new life there under my blessing. However, there are conditions to be met, all of them reasonable obligations.” His voice echoes into distant thunder, like an incoming avalanche. The storm hardly compares now and you feel something slowly rise in your stomach; curiosity and hope and distrust, indecisive thought filtering through that questions his charity.

“What are they?”

He takes you there as the mortal Zhongli, as your husband who wanders too much and whom the old ladies you speak to tease as he hides beneath his veil and closed eyes. They speak of young love and you and Zhongli share a secret smile and a squeeze of your hand as he pulls you in and lifts the cloth obscuring his face long enough to kiss your forehead.

“Stay safe, my treasure.” he says below the bustle of the harbor and the hawking or vendors and the clamoring crowd. You see him off at the gates, listening to his fading footsteps before they disappear completely You turn around, your cane tapping against worn stone and wood. You miss Zhongli’s — now Morax’s — stare from his perch; but you feel it in the back of your neck, in that comforting, assuring steadiness that he holds you with.

When he returns again, he brings a gift. The paper is unwrapped when you are seated on your bed and he waits next to you, helping you with the harder knots and the frayed ends of the thread till it comes undone and you feel the contents inside; a wood carving.

“I met a traveler who wandered too close to Jueyun Karst,” he said. “He looked a little like you.”

You fall silent. You knew who it was.

Morax wraps an arm around you while you map out the wood carving, a rabbit caught amidst its play. Your father was always good with his hands, and with his voice. You recognized his work from the toys he’d make you when you needed a companion by your side. “Oh…” your eyes sting and your cheeks feel warm from the tears. You feel Morax wipe them away.

“He did not wish to see you…he does not believe he is deserving of it.” he said. “I have sent him off with a sigil, should he wish to return.”

You only place the toy on the sandalwood table, with your other piece of home. Morax wraps his arms around you. “Tell me, how does it look?” you ask. He kisses your cheek.

“It looks determined, and it looks happy.” He begins. “It looks like you.”

“Spare me a few visits.”

You blink, too shocked to let it sink in. He says it gently, his tone seeming to steep into a silent plea. Morax suddenly feels like loneliness, bound by a stare of stone and years of loss and war. He feels like a man waiting, waiting, waiting for an end to things and you find yourself nodding, your throat tight.

“I agree.”

His hand does not leave your chin but you sense the smile in his voice.

“Then we have a contract,” he surmises, helping you to your feet. You wobble a little but he steadies you ( and he will keep doing that for you as you would for him ). “...to be upheld till the end of eternity and till bedrock itself, weathers down to dust.”

“Till bedrock turns to dust.” you repeat.

❪⠀🎬⠀❫ AINE SPEAKS ;;

i wrote this hal asleep istg i'm sorry if this seems all over the place. but yeah, the weekly post i promised is here! next week, we might have some *gasp* soulmates???

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