traveler, wait! it's dangerous to go alone, so have some zhongli thoughts for company!
i think life with zhongli as your significant other would be best described as the love behind every little action and gesture the two of you make. even with all the years you've spent at each other's side (either married or just simply together), the romance never dies. but it shifts and goes through changes, like stone giving way to the gentle embrace of time.
one such example is when the love shared between you calms into something that can blend in with the walls of your home. it matches the color of your curtains, the painted flowers on cups left on your tea table, the clothbound books and scrolls tucked away into the red cedar scroll shelf you had diligently sought after and haggled for when your lover had mentioned it once in passing. it's in the crinkle of your eyes in the morning when you sit at your table together and eat. it's in the shape of his smile when he returns from his work in the funeral parlor to you and the home you've made together.
when you grind ink for him while he works beside you, or comb and tie his hair for him in the morning when sleep still clings to the edges of his eyes. when he combs and washes your hair for you in soothing baths, or leans down to massage the stress of the day away from your tense shoulders when you come back home to him.
acts of service that don't really feel like acts of service — not to zhongli or you. gestures of devotion seem like a more apt term, now, when love is so ingrained in your lives that the word can no longer be used to describe it. you've turned the word from noun to adjective, from adjective to action. love is such a small word for such a boundless concept, but you manage to fit it in every word, every action, and every day leaves zhongli helpless and wondering in the dead of night of what to do with all the love he holds in his hands, specially made just for you.
it's a song and dance he can never quite stray from. even when his heart calms in the daytime and he can look at you with all the assuredness of a lover that loves and knows he is loved in return, all five thousand years of wisdom leaves him when night comes and you're asleep in his arms. he has loved plenty in his long lifetime. friends, family, even past lovers that he can only maybe recall when he can recognize a quirk or quality present in you. but it's in your presence that zhongli remembers that even an archon can become just a man weak to the war between heart and mind. what good is five thousand years of wisdom when it can't tell him what to do with all the love he has for you? how can he show it without scaring you away? you know who he is and you've said time and time before that it doesn't scare you, that you love him no matter what form or identity he takes but what if —
you shift in your sleep and all thoughts cease as he swiftly readjusts his hold as to not disturb you any further. in the dark of your room, zhongli counts each breath and beat of your heart and wills his own to match the tempo of yours. in the morning, he'll reprimand himself for entertaining such foolish thoughts while you hum and converse in front of your shared vanity. he'll share these thoughts with you as he always has, and you'll put down your comb and grace his face with crystalfly kisses as you always have in return. your routine shifts to make room for assurance during the times when he needs it, and the same goes for him when you speak your own fears and doubts as well.
it's part of the comfort of your life together, as strange as it may sound, that you live with all the joys and lows your love brings. sometimes, he wishes he can give you more and do away with all his mortal doubts completely, but a moment of contemplation reveals that it is exactly these doubts that make the softer aspects your lives shine all the more brighter. is this why you allow yourself to feel all your emotions, rather than push back and try to reason them away? is this why you've always placed so much importance in letting him know that should he ever need it, your shoulder is his to lean on? zhongli understands the rationale behind it and has given similar advice to mortals he's met before, of course, but it seems that even he is not immune to the irrationality of the heart. there is much wisdom to still be learned, he concedes. five thousand years is no match for an emotion that has existed since the dawn of teyvat, after all.
time doesn't completely erase all the insecurities of a man who has loved and lost so many in his long lifetime, but zhongli finds that he doesn't entirely mind. come trials and tribulations, he'll stand firm and weather it so long as he can keep holding your hand through it all.
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@f1rstcut cont. from here!
❝ come — on —! ❞ he slams his palms against the door, angry, grief-stricken. again, and again. he throws his shoulder into it. all it does it make noise, send bolts of pain radiating through his exhausted frame. the door doesn't budge. hasn't budged. they're trapped in this fucking room, still. he hits the door again, something like a choked sob catching in his throat. his hands feel numb. ❝ — please... i'm sorry. ❞ it barely comes out as a frayed whisper, this time.
your fault. your fault —
his ears ring. he knows the dripping sound is from their dead friend, in the room over. leland almost doesn’t hear maria speaking to him. everything sounds so underwater, warped and pitchy, and maybe like it’s happening to someone else. god, he wished this was happening to someone else. his eyes take a moment to meet hers, glassy and snapping to focus. she’s scared. so is he. and he doesn't know what to say. what will make any of it better. what the hell will bring their dead friends back. he feels like he can't breathe without tasting rot. blood. feels the sick spatter of it on his face, where the fissure in the wall hadn’t spared them the mess of chainsaw teeth tearing through flesh and organs and— god. god. what the hell is happening to them? he can still hear her fucking screaming.
red, red light, red room, red hair, limp and tangled around connie's shadowed face. this is all your fault, you should have been there —
his knees want to buckle, sudden headrush making him sway slightly on his feet. his stinging palms slide down the cold metal, defeated as he stumbles back from it. maria’s hands coming to frame his face are the closest thing he has to an anchor on reality, and leland crumbles apart easily at her touch; ❝ sorry, i’m — i’m sorry. ❞ he stammers out, voice a strained rasp. ❝ i should have. i didn’t… why'd i let her go alone? why — ❞ he didn’t realize he’d started crying. quiet sob shaken from him as hot tears spill down his cheeks, over maria's hands. she bleeds into water colour in his vision.
he should have been able to protect them. at the campsite. here. when they’d gotten separated, caught out by the monsters hunting them through these god-forsaken tunnels. there were too many of them. he couldn't keep her safe. can't stop thinking about how scared she must have been. thinking she was all alone, when they were so close. so fucking close, and he couldn't do anything while that monster —
his mouth runs senselessly; ❝ i can’t — we can’t leave her out there. maria, we… it’s not right. we have to do something, they can't — ❞ he's half incoherent, shaking badly through the shoulders. he knows, maybe, there's nothing he can do. he knows there’s nothing fair about this. despite how his world tilts and falls away around him, he tries to use what he's feeling for something. anything to keep his grip on reality. mindlessly, he brings his hand up to the side of maria’s face, mirroring her. carefully thumbing away the fresh blood. connie's blood. she was so hesitant to come along on this trip. she knew it could be dangerous, but she came anyway and —
leland feels sick. he remembers talking in the light of the campfire, not even half a day ago. with their sleeping friends all around them. they had thought they were safe.
unsteady, he refocuses on maria, dragging in a harsh breath as he tries to listen to her words. she needs him here. she needs him to keep it together. she's alive. you found her. you have to be strong. and if you can’t be strong for real, you just have to fake it. just keep faking it.
leland blinks fast, nods minutely; ❝ o — okay. ❞ confirmation is weak, and hiccupped around the overflow of tears. but he steels himself as best he can. tries again; ❝ okay. y — yeah. okay. ❞ he can. he has to. he can’t let maria down. can’t give up. can’t feel sorry for himself. he has to get them out of here. keep moving. keep breathing. don't think about it. don't think about it. his head still pounds. pain lances up flaring knife wounds all along his back. but whatever he was feeling must be nothing compared to maria.
teeth press together stubbornly against the threat of another bout of welling in his chest. he looks to maria, half-helplessly. ❝ what... what should we do? ❞
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why should it hurt so much? + diallos
❛ Why shouldn't it? ❜ Vyke returns the question back to Diallos, a little more bite than there should have been within his voice as he does so. Tarnished are still coming in, still pushing through the mist and carving deep into the Lands Between. Why should they not? It is not as if you have burnt the thorns yet and claimed the throne. It is not as if there are others more fitting. More Runes to be had. More demigods to fell. More more more more more—Vyke grits his teeth, a breath comes out in a quiet hiss as he smothers an echoing voice and drowns it in his empty mind.
The cover of his helm is enough to calm.
❛ Give me a person here still in their right mind who found no ills within this land, ❜ he continues, reflective almost with nothing of the short anger he once held. ❛ Give me a person with no ills and only success following their steps, I will rethink everything I have come to know of that which lays beyond the sea of fog. It is only pain you will find. Broken minds and sorrow—if you have yet to find it yourself, it has already found you. Hounding you from the shadows. Behind every corner, ready to attach itself to your back and dig, and dig, and dig, until that once sturdy spine of yours breaks. Just like the rest of them. ❜
He blinks.
Returning to the present. Vyke stares at Diallos through the slit of his helm, clouded blue eyes with a pale red hint.
❛ Keep that question for later. You will not be able to ask it when your mouth is filled with the blood you say your oaths to. ❜
@saovaene !
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