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Caught in the feverish grips of illness and injury, Zhongli could only toss and turn amid pitch-dark oblivion interspersed with the occasional flashing lights, struggling weakly against bindings he already knew he couldn’t break— until, that is, he stopped struggling at all. It was no use expending his strength that way, he thought amid the last conscious slivers of his worn, tattered mind, when he needed that strength to keep himself alive.
Yes.
That was what he had to do.
No matter what, he could not allow himself to utterly succumb.
For the sake of the world, for the sake of its people, he had to cling onto that thread until it fully disappeared, and then frantically search for it before oblivion claimed him. No matter how much pain or torment he must endure, he would endure it, as he had always endured everything that had come before. Such was his fate— to endure to the end, no matter what shattered in between. His heart, his mind, his body…
Zhongli’s consciousness was fragile. It slipped in and out of his command, he was bound both inside and out.
Was this too his fate?
Had he ever been unbound?
And had he ever not accepted the bindings placed upon him?
Of course this was his fate.
He would endure.
He would endure even if the mountains crumbled and only dust was left behind.
He would endure for the sake of those who walked upon this world.
He would put aside his pain, as always, and endure.
After all, was it not his own daring to be selfish that placed him in this situation to begin with? If he had not stepped down from his duties, he would have never been able to be taken like this.
Once Zhongli had accepted these facts, things became easier.
The pain was no less great, but it was easier to bear. The fear did not vanish, but it tore less viciously at his mind. His thoughts, which had been reduced to a disjointed, pattern-less collective of near-madness, became more clear, and even his senses that had gone all but numb began to return to him.
The fire beneath his skin slowly, slowly began to fade away.
Of course… it was his “humanity” that led to this suffering, after all. How could it not become easier to bear when he remembered who he truly was? After all, though he might don the shape of a human and walk among them, he could not truly be one of them. The chains of fate still bound him— and they were too heavy for a human to bear. He was no human, he was—
A hand had come to rest on his forehead, brushing his hair aside from the terrible wounds where his horns had once been, something warm pressing up against it and sending a jolt of pain rushing through him.
Zhongli’s eyes flashed open, blinded by the sudden light, his body twisting as he tried to pull his head away.
Not there, not again—!
Something was different, though. When he tried to move, though his body was stiff, he could still move it. When he opened his eyes, there was no blindfold covering them. When he opened his mouth and screamed, it was not strangled by a painful metal gag between his aching jaws.
“Easy there, Zhongli-xiansheng!”
The youthful voice was familiar, mid-pitched with a thick northern accent and a cadence that stumbled together on some syllables and lingered on others.
“Hey— I’m not going to hurt you, alright? You’re safe now… I’m just trying to treat your wounds.”
Zhongli’s breathing was quick and fluttery as the haze in his vision gradually, slowly began to clear enough so that he could see fair, freckled features and rust-colored hair, blue eyes which reflected the Abyss— which also shone faintly with concern, and a hint of anger beneath that…
“… Gongzi?” he murmured. His tongue felt strange and swollen in his mouth, his throat aching as the syllables rasped against it. When was the last time he’d actually spoken?
What’s more… had that odd dream actually been real?
Dull golden eyes shifted from side to side as Zhongli slowly, carefully took in the surroundings. He was in a small room lit by a few lamps, tucked into a comfortable bed with a blanket covering his body… his body which ached all over, and yet was no longer contorted into an unnatural position.
The crimson ropes were gone.
Zhongli… had been freed?
He could hardly believe it, as his gaze shifted back toward the young harbinger that stood over him, sleeves rolled up, with a damp cloth still in hand.
Childe tried a smile. Despite the still-underlying anger and stress, it was remarkably cheerful.
“Oh good— so you actually do remember me, Xiansheng.”
It really hadn’t been a dream?
“… You saved me.”
Zhongli hated the way his voice sounded now. So small, so weak, he couldn’t stop it from shaking harder with every syllable, nor could he suppress the ache in his throat that kept building the more he tried to speak. It was even worse now than before, now that he was conscious, now that he was no longer bound.
Childe simply shrugged his shoulders with a light, easy-going chuckle. “Well, of course I did! How could I just leave you there after I found you like that? After all, don’t think I forgot— I still have a score to settle with you after…”
His voice trailed off, the smile vanishing from his face in an instant as he started to reach out toward Zhongli’s shoulders, then quickly drew his hands back as the former archon flinched away from his touch.
“Hey… what I meant was…” Childe sighed, then went on, awkwardly now, “You and I are friends. Of course I had to help you out.”
Zhongli didn’t know exactly why he felt so suddenly uneasy, like his throat was closing up, why his breath caught in his lungs, why he felt like he wanted to curl in on himself and hide away, or why his eyes were stinging and his cheeks felt damp…
Was he crying?
Everyone ought to pay their debts, wouldn ’t you agree?
That light voice, carrying the ghost of a thread, filtered in through the back of his mind. Zhongli flinched once more, shutting his eyes tightly. He shook his head a little, lips silently forming the word “please” before he understood what he was doing.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Childe insisted, wiping away the puzzled, slightly disturbed look on his face with another good-natured grin. “Sure, you might owe me a sparring session, but that can wait until you’re all back to normal. Now… can I finish cleaning your wounds?”
Zhongli, still trembling, let his muscles go completely lax. Without another word, he simply gave a small nod of his head, and tried his best to quell the panic he felt as Childe wiped off the throbbing, aching wounds on the sides of his head, on his forehead, on his neck… there was hardly a single place that wasn’t injured in some way. His mind had gone fuzzy again, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his breathing rapid, unsteady. Not for any fault of Childe’s— to the young harbinger’s credit, he was extremely gentle. Aside from that which was unavoidable, Zhongli didn’t suffer any further pain. He vaguely recalled Childe mentioning his younger siblings… perhaps that was where he had learned to be so gentle.
So why was Zhongli still so afraid? Why did he flinch every time Childe’s hands came close to his body, to the point where Childe took notice and began to announce his intentions before even reaching out.
It was embarrassing. Zhongli thought he had given up on shame and embarrassment at Regrator’s hands weeks ago, but now that he was free— now that he was with someone who had, at least at one point, seemed to admire him— it all came flooding back.
He had been tortured, beaten bloody and senseless, humiliated beyond recognition, but was he not still Yanwang-dijun?
No. As a matter of fact, he was not.
Dignity? What dignity? After he had been rendered so weak and powerless, did he truly even deserve something like that? He had been beaten— soundly, too.
It was around a month or so that he stayed in Childe’s rooms at Zapolyarny Palace. Well, not counting the several weeks he’d been unconscious. The young harbinger had told him where he was shortly after he woke up— as soon as it seemed he was coherent enough to actually take in and process new information. He’d only been here a few times before— most recently, of course, to meet with the Tsaritsa in regards to their contract.
How long ago that felt… he was an entirely different person now than he had been then.
Back then, he had still been the Geo Archon, Liyue’s bedrock, the impenetrable wall that guarded his nation. Now… what was he, anyway? Was he even “Zhongli” anymore? When he thought of that person, the guise he wore that he had been slowly growing accustomed to, he now felt distant from it, like a stone that had once been engraved with intricate carvings that had been cast into the sea, only to wash up years later with the carvings worn away, all but unrecognizable as what it once was.
Not only had Zhongli’s body been broken and his mind strained, but the ordeal seemed to have scarred his spirit as well. After his bindings had been removed, Zhongli should have healed in little more than an instant. His fever, however, had held him in a fitful slumber for weeks, and the wounds on his body remained well after he’d regained consciousness. He was an elemental being— a somewhat unique one, but an elemental being nonetheless. So why were his senses still muffled, why did the earth’s embrace still feel so far away? He was an adeptus, the first ever to open his inner eye to the Way, so why was the adeptal power within his body stagnant and slumbering? Even when he tried to circulate it, he was unable to maintain the flow for more than a moment at a time before it felt like something would snap, before his insides recoiled in dread.
The crimson ropes had been cut free from his body. So why could he still feel their influence restricting his meridians?
Slowly, almost as if he were an ordinary mortal, his broken bones began to heal. The cuts lacing across his body began to close, and the bruises began to fade. Even the terrible wounds on his head and at the base of his spine improved, though Childe kept them bandaged up for longer than most of the others, routinely changing the bandages and applying a cooling salve that eased the pain. Zhongli still couldn’t properly sit upright, and when trying to rest he would almost invariably be seized with agonizingly painful spasms in the tail that was no longer there. That was a particularly difficult place to treat, and once or twice Childe actually had to wrestle him down to clean the wound and reapply the bandages. He apologized afterward, of course… but that didn’t stop Zhongli from eyeing him with a look of suspicion and betrayal for some time after that, until his mind calmed down enough to rationalize once again.
Moving proved difficult too. He’d spent so long bound up tightly, his limbs restrained, that his mind and body seemed to have forgotten that it truly could move— or rather, he feared that if he tried, it would only end in more pain and strain.
After realizing that Zhongli would hardly do so much as change positions, Childe started to slowly extend and retract his arms and legs, bending his elbows and knees until he started to remember what it was like to dwell within his own body.
Of course, all of this was only more and more shameful. How could he have been reduced so far that he could not even move without assistance?
“I apologize,” he murmured hoarsely, as he attempted to flex his fingers without Childe’s assistance. The bandages had just been removed— and the wounds that remained from where Regrator had cut off the claws that sprouted in his partially-transformed state had vanished as though they’d never been there to begin with. He could still feel the pain, though, beneath the facade of flawless skin… he couldn’t help but shudder when he thought of it. “I’ve become a burden upon you now. I cannot forgive myself… for being this terribly weak.”
Childe didn’t say anything at first, just meeting Zhongli’s gaze briefly, then looking down at the ground. He released a faint chuckle.
“Weak?” he asked. “You know… not many people would be able to survive all that. It’s impressive, especially for some delicate, refined gentleman who can’t even handle haggling with the aunties at the market.”
“Childe.”
He was teasing, Zhongli knew, trying to make light of the situation… he always did that. Only a few times since his rescue had he seen Childe actually take something seriously. He could only suppose that the youth was trying to make himself feel better… because his teasing rarely actually helped Zhongli much. Not that it made it worse. It simply put the more serious considerations aside until later— whether or not that “later” would come was its own debate.
“Alright,” Childe sighed, raising his hands in a gesture of yielding. “I guess I know what you mean. It’d be like if I managed to get beaten up by some common back-alley thugs… but you said you don’t remember how you got there in the first place— there’s no way it was a fair fight. I might be able to take you on, but Regrator’s not really one for fighting. He must’ve cheated in some way. So you don’t need to beat yourself up over it.”
This didn’t help much. Zhongli, however, simply nodded his head and dropped the subject.
It made Childe uncomfortable, seeing him so weak, even thinking about him being so weak. It made Zhongli just as uncomfortable, maybe even more so, to think that Childe had seen him in the state he’d been left by Regrator. Especially since Childe was one of the few who knew his true identity…
He didn’t seem like the sort to delight in trampling others beneath his feet— especially with his remark about a “fair fight”— but Zhongli still couldn’t help but wonder if he felt some kind of disgust, or worse, if he were gloating internally the way that Regrator had done openly about seeing the great Geo Archon rendered so utterly helpless and frail and desperate.
Zhongli just shut his eyes and went back to sleep. Or at least, he tried to, and put all of his willpower into trying to so that he wouldn’t have to think about anything else.
Eventually, his condition actually began to improve. He was able to move his limbs again, even if they still froze up on occasion, and his stomach had begun to tolerate food once more— he’d even gotten to the point where he could quietly instruct Childe on how to make congee, after the first few pots he’d made had turned out… mediocre was a generous description. Though he could not yet stand for long periods of time, and though the phantom pains hadn’t gone away entirely, he’d mostly regained his powers of speech so that he could hold an ordinary conversation, and could even make his way here and there around Childe’s suite of rooms to pass the time while the harbinger was away doing this or that.
Admittedly, Zhongli was quite anxious about being left alone, but he pushed that anxiety down as far as he could. However worried he may be, he would not give any indication of that in front of Childe, nor succumb to it in private. He would not ask his companion— his friend?— to forgo his duties on Zhongli’s account.
All things considered, by now Zhongli was doing quite well. Recalling the way Xiao had tried to reach him in his dreams, as soon as he’d recovered enough to gain some command over his adeptal abilities, he sent dreams back to those friends of his in Liyue to inform them that he was well and they need not worry for him. Of course, he obscured the true weight of suffering he had endured. There was no reason to trouble them needlessly, especially after it was already over. Nor did he wish the Adepti to know how he had crumbled.
That, perhaps, was the more pressing concern upon his mind.
Even just Childe knowing was bad enough— and Zhongli did his best to keep as much as possible from him, to hold himself as though he were not so unbearably tarnished.
His wounds had healed. He ought to return home soon… after all, he hadn’t asked Hu-tangzhu for a leave of absence.
He was contemplating these things in an orderly, methodical fashion as he sat in Childe’s study one day around a month after he had first regained consciousness, reading a book and sipping from a cup of tea. He was still slightly reclined, and pointedly ignoring the ever-present stabs of pain and spasms in his lower spine, the throbbing in his head, the ache in his jaw and the burning in his fingertips. His energy flow had returned roughly to normal, but wherever pieces and parts of his adeptal form had been cut off, the pain remained— even though his form now was fully human, without even scars left behind to indicate where the injuries had been left.
Perhaps time was the only solution to that.
As it was, he could just about say he had fully recovered. Save the skittishness that lingered around the edges of his gaze and his expression, Zhongli’s body bore not even a single mark from all of his torments. His daily life ought to return to normal as well. Certainly, he would be more cautious than before, place more protective sigils about his home, keep a closer watch on the shadows that surrounded him… but what more was there to be done?
As he thought this, the door to the study opened to a sound of unfamiliar footsteps. Zhongli jolted a bit, eyes flying wide open. His elemental sense was still muted, so he hadn’t noticed someone approaching— until a mask-wearing Fatui agent stepped into the room.
She paused, doing a double-take as she noticed Zhongli sitting on the chaise of the rarely-used study, then said, “Ah, I was unaware that Master Childe had guests.”
Zhongli was frozen, his heart pounding fiercely in his chest, blood rushing through his ears. What was she here for? Was she one of Regrator’s agents, here to drag him back? Would he even be able to fight back, or would he just be taken again?
He couldn’t speak, he could barely breathe—
But all she did was place a file on Childe’s desk, tell him not to look at it, then left the room.
Several moments passed before Zhongli’s muscles, all wound as tightly as bowstrings, finally relaxed, and he collapsed, gasping for air, choking on his breath, desperately trying to quell the rising waves of panic that tumbled him over and over and over again, dragging him back down into that horrible, pitch-black cellar.
In the end, he managed to calm himself down again before Childe returned. She hadn’t tried to take him away, nor had she said anything that indicated she even knew who he was. He had simply been “Master Childe’s company.”
Still, Zhongli’s mind remained once more distant and hazy, impossible to fully reign in all through dinner and the light conversation they shared— which, as usual, was mostly Childe talking and Zhongli listening. Quite different from the first time the two had spent their days together. The moment he’d laid eyes on the agent’s mask, the eyes beneath obscured, all of that fear, that shame, had come flooding back into Zhongli’s body.
He said nothing of it.
How could he? His body was recovered, he shouldn’t have such lingering effects— and if he did, he should be able to ignore them, to push them down and back and out of sight like he had with so many other painful memories.
Was he really so weak that something so small as this could shake him?
Of course he couldn’t tell Childe, when he picked up the file, skimmed it over, and sighed unhappily. Apparently, it was a message sent from the Jester summoning the present harbingers to a meeting— something that Childe considered to be a bit of a waste of his time.
The incident was forgotten.
That night, though, despite the medicines that Childe had provided for him, Zhongli found himself thrown into nightmares, picked apart piece by piece as he was encircled all around by vultures and jackals, their eyes reminiscent of the obscured eye-holes of a Fatui agent’s mask. Golden ichor flowed ceaselessly from his wounds, turning to a flood that ravaged the land and toppled the villages, and Zhongli, pinned beneath the claws and talons of wild beasts, heavy chains binding his limbs, could do nothing to stop it, or even to help those being swept away amid the flood.
He tried to fight back, but his limbs moved too slowly, any blow he landed feather-light, not even causing his assailants to flinch— though he tried desperately to exert all of his strength.
Was he really so weak?
Was this truly all he amounted to, the legacy he left behind nothing but a sea of pain and destruction?
“Xiansheng! Zhongli-xiansheng!”
Childe’s voice broke through the din of battle… wait, what was he doing here?
Suddenly, Zhongli felt hands on his shoulders. Pinning him down, fingers wrapping around his throat, blades being drawn across his skin, cutting into his flesh—
He woke in a cold sweat all of a sudden, gasping for breath as pain crackled beneath his skin, shaking like an earthquake.
“Hey— calm down!” Childe was saying, his voice finally cutting through the haze of the nightmares. “It’s alright— you’re only dreaming!”
Zhongli finally regained control of his breath, the flickers of light in his vision fading away to the dim light of a lantern as he looked up once more at Childe, who was in his nightclothes with an anxious, pained expression on his pale face.
“There… can you see me now?” Childe asked.
Slowly, between gasping, shaking breaths, Zhongli nodded.
“Good. Good,” Childe went on, then grimaced. “Then… would you mind letting go of my arm?”
Zhongli looked down— only to see that Childe’s right arm was a bloodied mess.
Specifically, because Zhongli had, in the throes of his nightmare, grasped hold of it so tightly that his fingers had torn through clothes, skin, and muscle alike.
Seeing this, Zhongli was absolutely mortified.
“Oh… oh I…” he stammered, in shock for a moment before attempting to carefully extract his fingers from Childe’s flesh.
Childe, for his part, couldn’t tell if he was more shocked by the pain, the way Zhongli had actually attacked him— and he’d let it happen— or the fact that Zhongli was stammering.
Of course, he knew that Zhongli was in bad shape. He’d been utterly terrified after first waking up, and as Childe had carried him away from Pantalone’s horrible little bunker, he had murmured incoherently the entire time, sounding terribly like he was pleading— no, begging for mercy. Childe had pushed that thought directly out of his mind.
This was Zhongli, Yanwang-dijun himself, and seeing him reduced to a bloodied, battered, sobbing mess was almost too much to bear.
That was the worst part of all of this.
He’d been stabbed before— and a rifthound’s claws were much more painful than Zhongli’s.
That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, though, and Childe grimaced as he hurriedly wrapped a tourniquet around his upper arm, pulling it tight just before Zhongli extracted his fingers. It didn’t help much— the gouges were deep, and blood quickly sprayed out all over both of them, and the bed.
“Looks like your strength is back,” Childe noted, still with that cheerful voice as he tried to ignore the absurdity of the situation. If he thought about it too much, he’d start seeing Zhongli as someone who needed protection— and for the golden god with the impenetrable shield, wouldn’t that just be an insult? He already knew Zhongli was self-conscious about all of this.
Zhongli did not respond, only staring down at his fingers, now slick with red blood, quickly turning tacky as it dried.
“I… am sorry,” he finally whispered. “I thought that… I didn’t… It was not my intention to lash out in such a way. I thought that I had stabilized— but I am still finding it difficult to maintain even my own mind.”
His voice was quiet, solemn, yet small. Oh, so very small… had he ever sounded this small before in his entire existence?
Childe took a length of bandage and wrapped it tightly around his wounded arm, grimacing sharply as he tried to flex his fingers— oh, good. It didn’t seem like anything was irreparably damaged. If nothing else, he could at least say he’d taken a blow from the Geo Archon and lived…
He paused though, listening to Zhongli’s words without meeting his gaze. He wouldn’t have been able to if he tried— Zhongli’s head was ducked down, staring toward his bloodied hands as they gripped the bedsheets.
With a sigh, Childe filled a basin with warm water and picked up a cloth, then soaked the cloth and wrapped it around Zhongli’s hands— all using only his uninjured arm. It didn’t seem difficult to him, but with a personality like Childe’s, he got himself injured quite often. Just… usually it would be on the battlefield.
Once the blood was washed away, Childe sat down. He was quiet for a moment.
“When I was a child, I fell into the Abyss,” he said, then.
Slowly, Zhongli lifted his head. The harbinger hadn’t talked much about his past before, just as Zhongli hadn’t shared his own. That would explain his strange, lightless eyes, though— something that had caught Zhongli’s interest even at their first meeting.
“I was there for three months… during that time, there was hardly a moment to rest. I’m sure you already know how it is… endless monsters, the constant pressure of Abyssal power against my mind and body… I had to fight every moment I was there, even while I was asleep,” Childe went on, lounging back now in his chair. “When I came back… I couldn’t go back to normal. I would constantly seek out fights with just about everyone I crossed paths with… even my brothers and my father. Ha… that’s why I ended up joining the Fatui.”
Zhongli listened to Childe’s story, his breathing slowly beginning to even out as his mind followed the steady flow of words through a familiar voice.
“… Unless I am mistaken, is that not still your temperament to this day?” he asked. His voice was still soft, but it had stopped trembling at least.
Childe paused, then shrugged his shoulders with another chuckle. “I suppose you’re right,” he sighed. “What I’m trying to say, though— sometimes things happen, and they change us, and we can’t get over it right away. You just need more time— and that’s not a bad thing.”
He took the towel from Zhongli’s hands, finishing wiping away the blood from his fingers.
“I’ll get you another shirt to change into. It’s a good thing we’re about the same size,” he said, then, moving off toward the chest in the corner of the room. He took out a soft silk shirt— it was one he’d purchased back when he was in Liyue, talking about wanting to look the part for any kind of “official business.” Zhongli remembered that day when they’d gone out to the market, and how he’d pointed out all of the different shops, particularly those he’d been especially fond of in generations past…
It had all been so long ago. Things were different now. Almost unrecognizable.
Childe placed the shirt down on the bed next to Zhongli.
“Remember, you’re not an Archon anymore,” he said, sitting back down and tilting his head. “You’re human. Humans take time to heal— so go easy on yourself. You’ve got to get back in shape by the time my arm heals. I still want a proper sparring session, you know?”
Zhongli blinked once, carefully reaching out to take the shirt, to feel the softness of the silk beneath his fingertips. It was exquisitely woven, the threads fine and delicate, the fabric soft as a cloud. Then, he looked up at Childe again and released a long, slow breath.
He nodded his head once.
It would take time.
He had lived more than six thousand years… and though he may have thought he changed little across that long expanse, that wasn’t entirely true. He had changed before, he would change again. In time, all of this too would become nothing more than memory, a past stored, like so many others, within the endless history he carried in his mind.
“Once you’ve healed, and I have as well, then I’ll allow it”— he replied at last— “but no matter how many times you challenge me, I still will not fight you with my full strength.”
Childe looked at him, then sighed, raising his eyes toward the heavens above in exasperation.
“Fine. But at least make it interesting, alright?”
Zhongli’s features relaxed, allowing the faintest of smiles to tug at the corners of his lips.
“Very well.”
It would take time. And perhaps he would never be precisely the same as before— just as the land was not the same after the great wars that ravaged it, just as the seven nations were not the same after the Cataclysm— but nonetheless, there was the past, the present, and the future. Each had its own place.
Someday, the present would be the past. Until then, he simply had to live each day.
Just as he had always done.
After all… was this not his fate?