There is a knocking at his door, hours into deep sleep. Morax chalks it up to his imagination, curling further into the person that sleeps at his side. This is one of the few nights when the creeping frost chooses to slow its progress through his veins, and he plans to savour it.
This action is not without consequence. Guizhong shifts in her sleep, mumbling a curse against him. Morax shuts his eyes resolutely.
Then someone outside his door knocks again. Guizhong pokes him in the side, making him flinch. ‘Don’t keep Xiao waiting.’
‘My lord,’ says his loyal commander, and Morax wishes he had explicitly forbidden any exceptions to his rule of not heeding any requests after dark. ‘Someone is here to see you.’
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s the mercenary, my lord.’
‘Tell him it can wait.’
‘My lord,’ says Xiao, and if he were a braver, or more foolish man, he would be sounding exasperated. ‘He has threatened to kill me and set fire to the keep if you do not see him.’
Morax sighs, burying his face deeper into Guizhong’s shoulder. She clears her throat, giving him a firm shove on the sternum. ‘You can learn to take care of this yourself. I won’t always be here.’
Sighing again, he drags himself from his bed and prepares to get dressed. The chill hits him as soon as Guizhong no longer touches him, but he cannot afford to hurry to the fireplace; looking for flint in the dark would take far too much time. Instead he grits his teeth, slipping into his usual robes, before hurrying out of his room and gesturing for Xiao to lead the way.
The sconces are mostly unlit, but Morax is familiar enough to find his way into the main room. A single point of light floats before the double doors, a torch held aloft by a pale hand. With an inelegant movement, the visitor shakes off the red scarf from his head.
‘My lord,’ says the mercenary who calls himself Tartaglia.
‘Since you found it fitting to take up my resting hours, I would assume that you have something very important to tell me.’
Neither of them miss the threat. Tartaglia extinguishes his torch, plunging the room into total darkness apart from the shrouded lantern Xiao is carrying. Morax moves to the centre, seating himself upon the armchair that is the only piece of furniture in the room.
‘You may go, Xiao.’ The commander bows, heading back down the corridor, not before leaving his lantern hanging from a sconce. What’s in a name indeed, Morax thinks idly to himself. Swift and efficient, a truly valuable asset. And a foreigner as well, easy to dispose of should he ever think of betraying his lord.
Morax banishes the less cheerful thought and turns his attention back to Tartaglia. He catches the strange yellowish glint in the man’s eye once again before he turns away, staring off into space.
‘I ask of you,’ says Tartaglia. ‘To revoke my pay.’
Morax hides his surprise. ‘And why is that?’
‘I wish for compensation in another form. Please, my lord, is there somewhere safe my family can go?’
Tartaglia of all people, begging. But that is to be expected, if his family is involved. Morax clasps his hands together. ‘I am afraid I alone cannot guarantee the safety you seek.’
‘I will be in your service for the rest of my life,’ says Tartaglia. His scarf flutters as he goes to kneel, head bowed. ‘Just for this one favour.’
‘If it is favours that you want, you should have asked for Lady Guizhong.’ Morax stands. ‘She understands more of mercy than I ever will.’
Tartaglia remains kneeling. ‘I ask for an amendment to a contract, the same one I made with you, so many days before.’ He lifts his head to meet Morax’s eyes. ‘Mercy is not something I am acquainted with.’
Ah. To think that he would find a kindred spirit here, of all places. ‘I will see what I can do,’ says Morax. ‘My alliance with the Redmanes remains steady. Until a better option presents itself, move your family to Caelid within the next two days. Ask for Castellan Jerren, and tell him I sent you.’
The tension visibly leaves Tartaglia’s shoulders. Morax cannot help but chuckle at that.
‘Rest assured,’ he says, placing a hand on the mercenary’s shoulder. The effect is electric: almost immediately, Tartaglia gives a full-body shiver. Morax continues, ‘I keep my contracts. Even if you yourself turn traitor in the future, by the word of this contract, your family will not be implicated.’
Is he imagining the clench of Tartaglia’s jaw?
‘Thank you, my lord.’
Morax lets go of the mercenary’s shoulder.
‘When this old Order is toppled,’ says Morax. ‘Your heresy will be forgiven. You have nothing to fear, not within my walls. Yes, I know,’ he says, watching Tartaglia take a step back. ‘You hide something. Something forbidden. But I will turn a blind eye to the order of Gold. After all, your prowess in combat is unmatched, as of now.’
Tartaglia bows once more, too stunned to speak.
‘You may go,’ says Morax.
Tartaglia pulls his hood up over his head, half-scampering towards the double doors. Morax watches him close the door behind him before unleashing a long-suppressed shiver.
The cold creeps way too quickly nowadays. This time it stops before his bones as he rushes back to his bedchambers, seeking out his lady’s warmth once more.
~~~
Bright sun on the fragments of ruins. Banners, torn and tattered, atop battlements dark with ash.
And amongst the pale hope of rebellion, the trail of death.
A Misbegotten, too small to be an adult, lies at his feet. Ignoring every instinct he’s beaten into himself, Zhongli steps over it, carefully avoiding the whimpering, half-dead dog next to it.
There was once a time when he would have been responsible for these corpses strewn across the castle grounds, hewing down any who dared presume that their status as a servant was negotiable. Yet as this land’s God-Queen shattered her old Order, he found that he could suppress his flames no longer.
They burn at his fingertips, but he ignores them in favour of the man standing in the middle of the courtyard. His scarf is stained a crimson deeper than the original fabric’s hue, and as he scratches at his blindfold with bloodied gauntlets, Zhongli cannot shake the feeling that this is right.
This was where he was meant to stand: triumphant, his opponents nothing but a brief stain of colour in his ever-turbulent life, washed away the next day with careful hands and replaced with the same brilliant crimson. Zhongli takes a step closer, about to call out to him.
Childe’s head snaps in Zhongli’s direction. He curls his other hand around something, but Zhongli catches the yellowish tint of the orbs.
‘Is this what you desire? Cutting down weaklings who pose no challenge?’
He keeps his voice as impassive as possible, as if they will hide the intention behind his words. Childe rolls the eyes in his palm before undoing the laces of his pouch, sliding them in with an empty efficiency.
‘I’ve simply found something else to fight for.’
Zhongli finds himself counting the corpses scattered around him. Ten, twenty… each and every one of them affected by the flame of frenzy. This world births despair by the mouthfuls now, the very act of staying alive a challenge.
‘Let me give them a proper burial.’
‘One thing first,’ says Childe. ‘Come with me.’
The skies carry their red tint, a remnant of that one-armed Valkyrie’s final, desperate stand. Childe steps over the pustules growing out of the ground, tough and fleshy.
Zhongli had performed an autopsy once, pulled something large and twisted and wrong out of one of his men. A tumour, he supposed, would be a fine word for this existence.
Within the castle walls, a small stone hut stands. The grass around it is wilted, and more bodies are scattered across the ground. He had been here once, at Childe’s request. He told Zhongli that night that his family were blacksmiths, smiling despite the scorching trails of yellow dripping down his face.
Zhongli’s hands close around phantom eyeballs.
Childe kicks down the door without much ceremony. ‘Look,’ he says, pointing. ‘Look here and tell me what they left behind.’
The house has been completely ransacked. What remains of the bedframes is scattered across the stone floor, taken to fuel the efforts of the rebellion. The stove sits silent in the corner, dust and bandages sitting in the fireplace. There are a few more wood fragments, presumably from other furniture, and feathers flutter up around his footsteps as he takes a step further into the house.
‘There should be a trapdoor.’ Childe rushes in, heading to the stove and tapping a stone tile with his foot. Before Zhongli can offer to help, he throws himself onto the floor, shoving shaking fingers into the gaps between the tiles. The stone slab slides open with a resounding screech, and Childe is reaching a hand into the cache, looking for—
His face falls. Zhongli watches him pull out a sword, then a small hunting bow, both rusted over with age.
Zhongli opens his mouth. ‘I’m sure they got away—’
‘Don’t do that. Don’t give me hope. My father would never…’
Childe inhales deeply. ‘Leave me alone.’
Zhongli takes a step forward, but Childe is reaching for his blindfold, slowly undoing the knot at the back of his head.
‘I will be getting back to my duties,’ says Zhongli quickly. ‘Please, do not hesitate to call out for help.’
The blindfold drops to the ground. Childe has his hands over his eyes as he slowly turns to Zhongli. ‘Thank you.’
Zhongli closes the door behind him, cold beginning to settle in his bones once more.
got a new laptop WOOHOO now i can finally start posting again
anyway i'm going to try and get this one out before november or they'll eat at my brain throughout my finals