Chapter Text
The snow glows white on the mount tonight, not a footprint to be seen, not if Keqing had something to say about it. She zaps across stones that peek above the snowcaps, as light as the air despite the layers of gear she wears, thick thermals under down jackets with sigils stitched into the lining, goggles over her eyes to protect from the near unnatural chill.
Out of all of the places her target could be, it just had to be far from any sort of human or adeptus, didn’t it? Of course it did, the damn bastard had retreated deep into karst-ed mountains centuries ago, and no one has followed. Even the horned adeptus who had been warden of the gates beyond reality had said no one had been bold enough to try to make inroads here, not in the centuries he has kept watch.
Keqing has been traveling for days without seeing a single person, and unlike the song that had sprung unbidden in her head again, she is not the queen of this stupid kingdom of isolation. Finally, she makes a final hop to a crag and lets out a relieved groan at what she sees. A familiar pedestal for activation lays before her, humming with Geo energy.
She steps onto it and waits for her arcane presence to light the sigil beneath her, scarcely glowing in the moonlight. She claps her hands once, twice, three times and holds them up in supplication, even as she rolls her eyes, to speak.
“Zhongli once of the Guili Assembly, I call to thee,” she intones with the long-suffering familiarity of an outsider faced with traditionalists, speaking an old name, and a group long past. The shit she does for her boss.
In the distance, there’s a rumble and the mountain before her shifts.
Oh, fuck her sideways. Immediately, Keqing calls up a field of electricity and pops forward, trying to race ahead of the impending avalanche. On instinct, her Vision becomes illuminated, and sees a thin amber tether, going down the mountain.
She follows it.
Ice falls, and with it stone and snow in a tidal roar as she chases gold like a desperate merchant, until she finds the tether take a sudden sinister swerve, leaving her pressed against dark stone as she braces for impact. As the snow thunders past her, the air pressure shifts, temperature rising.
Keqing opens her eyes, and finds that the difference in temperature has fogged her goggles. She pushes them up to her forehead with a relieved breath, one that still puffs white in the air. Beneath her is another pedestal, this one’s glow fading. She fucking hates dealing with older mages and this is exactly why. The whole lot of them are sadistic bastards who like to see anyone newer squirm, regardless how skilled they are, out of jealousy and regret.
She pulls off her gloves, flexing her fingers to force blood through, working out the stiffness. Her boots clack across the uneven floor. Magic prickles across her skin as she raises a sphere of crystal light for illumination, and she knows if she presses forward, she will have agreed to something.
Keqing nods and concedes.
The surface changes from uncut, natural stone, to the smoothness of worn years, to a room with crevices and not a single door.
“Zhongli of the Wangsheng, I call to thee.”
Her voice echoes in the emptiness and she sighs.
So he’s going to be like this, is he?
Keqing calls forth lightning and forces energy into her voice, crashing an electric-rimed blade against the nearest stone wall with a shower of sparks. If respect isn’t working, she is perfectly happy to opt for the utmost rudeness, “YO, ASSHOLE!” Keqing roars with the might of thunder, with the outrage of the well and truly insulted, “YOUR FUCKING ARCHON’S CALLING ON YOU, SO GET YOUR ASS UP OUT OF BED.”
Finally, she hears a noisy groan, the sound of stone grinding on stone as a person steps out of another crack, bundled in threadbare, ancient robes and peering at her behind a pair of delicate spectacles that Keqing is sure Ningguang could sell to a museum for a half-year’s worth of Keqing’s paycheck. He is tall and classically handsome, somehow still as clean-shaven as stone, with red-lined eyes and a wild mane of brown hair, pulled back into a sloppy bun, and now he peers blearily at Keqing.
“You,” he says hoarsely.
Keqing groans. Of course, of course he’s this outdated, invoking the name of Ningguang’s predecessor, Zhongli’s successor. Damn her Archon for this. “No, I’m not. I am Keqing of the Qixing, and you’re being called on by your new Archon, you stodgy old idiot.”
That makes his face blanch. Good, so his heart isn’t made of rock. “Did… did she step down?”
“Fuck if I know, I just work for the new one. Here,” Keqing thrusts a scroll into Zhongli’s hands. “You’re the oldest of us, and the only Archon who has walked away from your throne. The Geo Archon Ningguang would have you as a consultant, if you would be so willing. Something about letting us continue the tradition of Geo transitioning peacefully.” She rolls her eyes. People already did not accept Ningguang’s position, how was this man going to help? The world didn’t need more gods. “Though,” she tilts her head up and down to make it very obvious how old he looks, “I think it’s a terrible idea myself.”
For a moment, she thinks she is going to need to defend herself, that she has summoned the wrath of the man once known as the God of Contracts upon herself, a way to go back and say he refused, with injuries to prove it. Instead, his brow first furrows, thoughtful. Slowly, his lips curl up and he bows his head, then, to Keqing’s absolute shock, his body, folding into a perfect bow to an equal. “If my Archon wishes it, then so be it. It has been a long, long time, and I must pay my respects.”