Work Text:
“Well, my friend, is the story inside that one worthwhile?” Morax eyed the ore sitting on Azhdaha’s palm after the earth dragon woke from his meditation.
Adjusting into a more conversational posture, he picked up the blue crystal on his palm and tucked it between his fingers, then raised it to align with the moon, a toast to the stars that bore witness to the history of all living things on earth. The light filtered by the radiant body of the gem danced on the eyes forged by the hands of a god, a bestowed gift to the one who yearned to see the splendors of the world and watch the stories of history unfold. He twirled the ore, causing the flow to refract and sprinkle stardust on his irises. It was as if the stars themselves were gathered in there and were twinkling in sync with the wonder on his face.
“Yes, it is worthwhile indeed.” A painting of tenderness on a chiseled face, “The memory this one holds is no longer vividly clear yet the snippets are enough to provide a glimpse of a wondrous tale.”
Like petals closing in, he closed his hand around the gem and laid it between him and Morax, “This one is an heirloom. It was mined by a father who wished to give something precious to his daughter despite barely having enough mora to provide food on the table. Being a man from a forge, he crafted the gem into a beautiful pendant. It stayed in the daughter’s possession even as grew up and built her own family. When her son was struck with an illness, it was given as a payment for medicine and treatment.”
Azhdaha continued, “It then ended up in the hands of a merchant. The son of this merchant held on to it after his father passed away due to an accident and brought it with him when he fought in the war. Unfortunately, he drew his last breath on the battlefield and this crystal was buried there for a century until we were able to unearth it.”
“Who knew that a long and fascinating tale could be stored in such a small ore.” The edge of a cup tipped on his lips and the warm tea’s exquisite flavor touched Morax’s tongue, “This is precisely why I sometimes find myself envious of your ability to see the memories of rocks, Azhdaha.”
“Which is also why I always find time to share them with you.” He poured the kettle into his cup, “I am aware of how you enjoy listening to stories.”
“And for that, I am grateful.” Swirling motions gently rocked the porcelain cup, “At least there will be someone who will remember these stories even if the people who wrote them are long gone and before the memories of ores are washed away by the river of time.”
Azhdaha hummed, “Such is the unspoken duty of those with long lifespans. For we are the ones who shall remain even if a thousand seasons pass and even if the mountains are remolded by civilizations.” The moon smiled back, “As beings of the earth, our memories endure. What is a greater use of it than to remember the stories of people who walked on these lands?”
“Then,” Morax stared at his face on the surface of the tea on his hand but a breeze blew ripples on it and distorted the image, “Can I entrust you to remember me as I am now?”
Curiosity pulled Azhdaha’s eyes away from the night sky, “What are you implying?”
Topaz irises basked in the fleeting light of the stars, admiring how it was akin to a final performance before they disappeared when dawn escorted them away, “The millennia may come and go, but even a stone may tire. Even the stars disappear when the sun arrives. Even operas end when the paper screens close.”
A cloud passed by the moon and made shadows fall on Azhdaha’s face, “You are pertaining about erosion.”
“Yes.” Morax drew circles with his cup once more and watched the stars reflected in the liquid get lost in tides, “Even the mightiest and oldest of rocks would eventually crumble, their features eroded into a past memory as they get molded by time into a shape far from what they once were. Only those who remember these rocks’ former selves will be able to tell the tale of how they used to cherish the earth they were born into.” The fireflies who were bound to lose their light at dawn sang their swan song, “When erosion comes for me, can I ask you to remember the man named Morax and put an end to the beast that I would become?”
Azhdaha downed the remaining wine in his cup and let it burn the bitter taste in his mouth, “I should be the one stating such requests. I, who has been born with the earth, will be escorted away first by erosion and not you.” He shook his head, letting the possible scenario be whisked away by the motion, “Perhaps the wine is muddling your thoughts, Morax.”
A chuckle, “Perhaps.” The wind caressed away the melancholy that sat in his eyes, “But can we have an agreement that whoever succumbs to erosion first, the other will intervene?”
“Is that a proposal for a contract?”
“No.” Morax raised his cup to his companion, “It will be a cruel act to impose such a heavy task on one’s soul. It is not an oath but merely a request if the other permits.”
Azhdaha rolled the gem on his palm before tucking it under his sleeve. The soft splash of liquid was loud in the silence’s presence. A wine was poured into an empty cup and was raised for a toast to its brother, “I understand, my friend. Let the moon be a witness to this exchange of words tonight and may the wind carry this will in the future.”
For mortals, the ‘future’ came swiftly, just like how ginkgo leaves wither by the descent of autumn and rebirthed into a golden splendor at the rise of spring. For those blessed and cursed with long life, a hundred festivals lit up cities, fifty toasts were clinked, twenty-five performances graced opera houses, fifteen expeditions sailed, ten poetry galas recited the valiant tales of heroes, and five gifts were exchanged as a token of friendship that was bound to end with sullied hands and tarnished memories.
One.
It only took one night for everything to crumble to dust.
Like a tree only one swing from snapping, a petal a breeze away from getting ripped from a flower, a dainty little boat with a second to pray before getting swallowed by a big wave, and a fractured glass about to shatter into a hundred pieces and create a galaxy made from splintered stars, it only took one night for erosion to fully reshape a man.
Azhdaha was alone. Even as the one he once called a friend was a few feet away from him behind the barrier the Lord of Geo made with his own hands, he stood alone in this subspace that the archon created to protect Liyue and the ones he cherished in it, robbed of the man who let him see the world and offered him companionship.
Morax knew.
When he conversed with him that night, he knew he was going to be the first one to go. Azhdaha brushed his words off for at that moment, he could not grasp the possibility of it happening for he solely focused on the aspect of seniority. He failed to take into account that although Morax was younger than him, he had spilled far more blood and had claimed a thousand lives of gods and beasts than him. Karmic debt was an accomplice of erosion hiding in the shadows and he never knew how far it tangled itself on the hero of Liyue until it had dragged the Lord of Geo down to the depths of madness and changed his cloak to a cape of a villain about to ruin the order he fought valiantly to create.
Morax once used his claws to tear away the tapestry of death that loomed over a land stricken with the plague of gods’ greed and conquest, but now, the same talons were madly ripping at the barrier that separated him and the ‘threat’ to his beloved Liyue.
“I will tear you down limb by limb!” The enraged deity spat through his bared fangs while the scales on his human skin sinisterly glowed like the nails trying to cut through the transparent wall, “Your corpse shall be the foundation of the land you destroyed and your blood shall nourish the flowers you reaped. Yes…” The craze in his eyes mellowed upon seeing a delusion of the past, “My beloved Guizhong will smile again as she tends to her garden.”
She would not.
A knife twisted in Azhdaha’s chest, as if it too, was a stone being carved.
Guizhong, the benevolent goddess whose tender and genuine smiles, which were as bright as the stars in her billowing sleeves, served as a lighthouse amidst the relentless storm brought by the tides of the Archon War. She was a pure glaze lily among flowers stained red. She was the one who lifted Morax yet also the one who brought him to his knees when she perished into dust long before the god was able to hold her in his arms and sing the sings written by his heart, a stone moved by hands who did not consider him a tool of war but a lovely soul that deserved to be loved. She was long gone. Her statue had long crumbled into stardust that blessed the birth of Liyue.
Yet in those eyes, in those pair that no longer saw Azhdaha, in those topaz irises dulled by mirages of the past and whose smile was rubbed away by erosion, he believed that she would come back to him.
“And my children…” The voice of a father who longed to embrace his kids seeped through the ramblings of a mad man, “Bonanus will weave flowers crowns for her siblings, Menogias will present new clothes to me, and Bosacius who will surely come up with an excuse to avoid wearing it by going off to train. Then Indarias will cook her favorite spicy noodles alongside the dishes prepared by Marchosius. Maybe Alatus will drop by too if we cook some Almond Tofu.”
The knife plunged deeper and cut into Azhdaha’s soul.
Bonanus,
Menogias,
Indarias,
Bosacius,
And Alatus.
The yakshas. Of the five adepti who swam in the raging currents of war only one managed to reach the shore of the newly established Liyue. Five children who deserved to live long and peaceful lives after gods trampled over their former ones, but were given scars of honor instead of flowers, a set of insignias condemned with a curse as two killed each other in throes of madness, one consumed by her own flames, and another one doomed to sacrifice himself and die as a nameless hero buried under history. The sole survivor carried on but was burdened with the grief left behind by his brothers and sisters, their laughter hauntingly echoing every night and day as he alone carried on a task that would lead him to follow the footsteps of the other yakshas.
Azhdaha watched over them as well as they grew, treasured them as part of his family, and had witnessed them die one by one like withering leaves falling off a once lush tree. He wanted them back as well, to hear their bickering under a ginkgo tree, to see their faces through the same eyes that learned to memorize every detail of their visages. But they too, were gone, nothing but memories engraved in stone.
“All that needs to be accomplished is to tear apart the monster that took everything away from me…” Grief and erosion clouded his friend’s vision and shrouded his original wise nature with a thick haze of bloodlust.
Maybe I am indeed a monster, Azhdaha thought.
A monster that was about to rip the serene dream of a man who found solace in a rewritten history and pull him back into reality where only endless mourning awaited. A beast that would bite the hand that unearthed him from solitude and sculpted eyes for him to see the world above ground.
A traitor who stood there to take the life of the man who had saved him.
“Then, can I entrust you to remember me as I am now?”
A claymore bathed in the glow of pure geo appeared in a shower of gold.
“When erosion comes for me, can I ask you to remember the man named Morax and put an end to the beast that I would become?”
Fractures appeared in the barrier and ran like branches of meetings and partings etched in history.
“I understand, my friend. Let the moon be a witness to this exchange of words tonight and may the wind carry this will in the future.”
And the wind now whispered to his ear.
That the future had arrived.
Confetti of shattered stars rained upon figures of brothers-in-arms turned enemies and heralded the festival of bloodshed and broken bonds.
A polearm clashed with a claymore forged from the same gold.
Irises met with the same color of the eyes it once fondly looked upon. But unlike before, there was no warmth in the sculptor’s gaze, as if the sun had left and what remained was merely a husk for a cold moon. In the sea of delusions, genuine snippets of memories bathed in the tenderness of familial bond were drowned until only muted whispers could be heard. Even those were twisted into garbled ramblings slipping from a blind shark’s fangs.
Like a whale calling from the depths of the ocean, Azhdaha called for the adepti born from the blessing of mountains and clouds who found comfort among glaze lilies.
He shouted from the sculptor who dug him from the earth to see its splendor and carved him in the shape of co-existence,
For the ally who fought with righteousness in his blade,
For the listener who loved to hear stories of both grandeur and mundane, of the humanity in heroes’ tales and the simple beauty among the narratives of the common folk,
For the friend who toasted with him on nights when the moon came by to watch.
But the whale’s calls were lost in the roar of the enraged current.
It was overlapped by a growl as a beast lunged at Azhdaha with the sole intent of killing him. It was silenced by the clash of weapons biting at each other and the ripples of bone-shaking tremors that followed each strike.
Small clinks sang hushed songs as golden crystals fell on the ground where trampled flowers stained red laid like tombstones for each memory buried under a fit of rage.
Dragonfall.
The crystal called Dragonfall, the same rock used to craft his eyes, was formed with each collision of elemental energy from the two dragons. They were tokens of friendship and betrayal. They were historians who recorded memoirs of the past and present and would keep them for the days that would arrive with spring in the future. They wrote the stories of each cut and bruise from the conflict as spears of stone rained down like unmerciful arrows that would not spare anything, not the flowers that wanted to see tomorrow’s sun, the barrier of rock raised by Azhdaha to protect himself, the left shoulder of the being the former archon regarded as his right hand, or the right horn of a brother, which Morax once regarded as a majestic crown for the other king who helped him create a prosperous kingdom.
Liyue. The nation spared from its own archon’s wrath when the God of Contracts sealed himself before his last thread of sanity snapped. The same land which he now believed to be destroyed by the beast who intended to end his reign.
Liyue.
The harbor that never saw its savior’s descent into madness and still regarded him as a respectable deity who was powerful, just, and loving.
“I will let you be remembered by the people you wish to protect as you were.” Azhdaha whispered through gritted bloody teeth while he fended off the mad dragon’s frenzy, which was a far cry from the elegance and calmness he held during his days of glory, “I will let you be remembered as Morax and not a nameless monster.”
The Dragonfall would remember.
Even though the newly formed crystals recorded the violence it saw, his eyes would write down the true nature of the person reflected in them.
“Claws sank in the flesh of the unearthed elemental being.” The pieces of Dragonfall sang in unison.
“I am lucky to have someone as capable and trustworthy as you by my side, Azhdaha.” His golden eyes saw Morax pat his shoulder with a proud hand, “Perhaps one day, we shall be able to see a dawn that rises from the still waters of a peaceful nation’s horizon. By then, maybe we can roam around the world so that you will see Teyvat’s unexplored lands. How does that sound to you?”
With a tight jaw and white fists grasping a claymore, he raised his blade and greeted the former archon’s polearm.
“A toast for us, Azhdaha.” Two cups bump each other as Morax spoke, “Victory has been won, though not without sacrifices. I just wish…” A sigh, “That my children could have left in a less agonizing way. They, at least, deserved a rest filled with peace, yet they perished with their souls in peril.”
“Does regret knock on your door, Morax?”
“Yes. Often. Way too often.” The moonlight lit up the tender sorrow in his gaze, “Guizhong, Bonanus, Indarias, Menogias, Bosacius, Alatus, and many more.” His words wept with each syllable, yet like the sun peeking after a long cold night, he smiled, “I wish things could have been different but unpredictability and regrets are part of life’s nature. The end comes without notice, but that is why we learn to treasure aspects of every moment. We remember because they eventually disappear.”
Azhdaha’s blade cleaved the polearm in two and sank its fangs into his opponent’s flesh.
“I find it astonishing how you still find beauty even in the midst of war.” Gem-like eyes stared at Guili Plain’s border in the distance, far where bloodshed lurked, waiting for the opportunity to strike.
“War is not a pleasant sight to behold.”
Azhdaha lifted his gaze to the source of the voice.
“Battles themselves do nothing but tarnish the magnificence of the world, smearing chaos like a spill of ink on a scroll. However, in the mortality of people is where the beauty lies. It is in their perseverance, in the hopes and dreams born from the ashes, and their capability to reach endless heights for those they hold dear.” He smiled, “I, too, became stronger because I found something I want to protect until my very last breath. I found a family who taught me what love is and made me feel it.”
Even as chunks of Dragonfall were soaked with crimson, the very first pieces in his eyes saw how a man named Morax helped create kites for children, gave advice to the storyteller in a restaurant, laughed at Cloud Retainer’s stories of her disciples’ childhood, smiled as he tended to the glaze lilies with Madame Ping, and fondly looked at the lanterns glittering in Liyue’s festival as if he could see every tale in each one the way Azhdaha read the narratives etched in stones to him every night.
“Are you not afraid of the end, Morax?”
“I may not have existed as long as you, but I lived a full life nonetheless. I met and parted with friends, saw nations rise and fall, watched the children grow into old age, and witnessed countless tales as many as the stars in the sky. It is a life well-lived. And now that everything has settled into a steady cadence, if the end comes knocking and the door opens to invite me, I shall take my leave in peace.”
“And peace I shall offer you, my dear friend.”
Azhdaha wiped the blood on his lips with a tattered sleeve and summoned a bow forged with geo, a weapon crafted by the illuminated beasts, with an arrow whose golden tip was capable of subduing a weakened archon. Steadying his shaking hand, he pulled the string and pointed at the dragon writing in pain on the ground.
“I trusted you, Azhdaha.” The former archon pushed his injured limbs to stand, “I considered you my dearest friend and my brother.”
I am still your friend and you are mine, no matter how much you have forgotten it.
Venom dripped from Morax’s raspy voice, “And yet you betrayed me! I gave you eyes only for you to see me as an enemy, as a rival in your quest for dominion.”
I never sought dominion, only a life spent with my family.
“I regret meeting you, Azhdaha!” Erosion spat out.
I do not regret meeting you, Morax.
But I regret the fact that I am the one who was left behind,
The one who would slay you to save you.
“I will kill you!” The mad dragon roared as he ran towards his sworn enemy.
With a tearful shaky breath, Azhdaha’s fingers let the arrow loose.
It sailed in the air, slipping through windows of time.
“It might be a shallow reason but initially, I gave you a body and set you free because you were making too much noise near my resting place. However, that was not all. I once wished for a friend. As I roamed the earth as a newly born spirit, I found the world lovely. There were only flowers and mountains that waved at the fields, the sea that only whispered greetings, and birds that occasionally sang songs. It was beautiful yet it left me lonely. And so I wished for someone, for a friend. Then I found you.”
“Can I ask your assistance in quelling the argument between Cloud Retainer and Mountain Shaper? I am afraid such disputes are beyond my expertise–Pray tell, why are you laughing?”
“Did you know that these flowers meant remembrance? You are falling asleep, Azhdaha. Did I talk for far too long?”
“This will be our final battle. If one or both of us would not survive to see the dawn of our triumph, at least these rocks would remember us.”
The radiant stones of Dragonfall watched as the arrow pierced the rampaging dragon’s chest, its blade embedding into his heart. From where it struck, light seeped in to illuminate the parts of a man’s soul that were buried under the darkness, giving a glimpse of clarity in a perpetual state of confusion.
“Azhdaha…?” Glimmer returned to his eyes and familiarity rushed in like a river.
Ignoring the gash on his left leg, he ran as fast as he could and caught his friend before he collided with the ground.
“Forgive me.” Regret swam in Morax’s hazy gaze, “In the end, you were forced to carry this burden. I…” A wet cough as blood tricked down his lips, “I should have sealed the subspace even tighter to prevent disturbing the world outside.”
Azhdaha shook his head, “Even if the barrier did not break and alerted the adepti, I would still hear your cries.”
“Ah…the Dragonfall in your eyes. I should have known it would imprint a connection to the one who shaped it.” A weak smile, “Then take my utmost gratitude. Though it would never be able to repay the burden I would leave you with, at the very least, I would like to thank you for ending this madness.”
His eyelashes fluttered as he continued, “In the end, I was terrified. It was as i all the memories I held slipped between my fingers, into cracks, into the abyss where I could no longer reach and retrieve them.” The endless void of the subspace domain stretched far beyond his fingertips like a sea of sky without any stars, except for the pieces of Dragonfall staring at him, their radiance mingling with the tears welling up in his eyes, “I will forever be grateful to you for returning them to me in my final moments.”
“I gave you my word.” Azhdaha swallowed the thickness in his voice, “That I will remember you as you are. My eyes, the gift you have graciously bestowed upon me, shall keep your tale. Not of Rex Lapis or the Geo Archon, but simply as Morax.” He steadied his trembling hand and fished a cor lapis that shone with the light of the sun from his pocket, “But before the sun sets, before the road forms a staircase that leads to the end, let me give you a gift. So that you may recall the beauty of the world I saw before you depart.”
Azhdaha smashed the crystal and let the wind take the dusted fragments from his open palm. Shattered pieces turned into ginkgo leaves that traveled to a tree that sprouted near them. A breeze swept the ruins left after a decisive battle and from crushed bloodied flowers, a field of glaze lilies emerged to greet the orange-tinted sky above. Familiar faces from the old days rolled by like passing clouds as history told through the eyes of a dragon played in succession. Countless meetings and partings, numerous seasons, and hundreds of falling tides. Flowers bloom and wither, just as snow fell and thawed.
“It was a wonderful dream.” Morax’s dulled eyes shone with joy as he and Azhdaha leaned on a tree, the same one they used to sit under while watching over Liyue, the haven that they molded with their own hands, “It was indeed a life…well-lived.” Whispered by a faint breath passing from pale lips.
“Morax!” From the distance, Guizhong waved, her smile as bright as the setting sun behind her. Gathered around her were the yakshas: Bonanus weaving flowers as Menogias sewed a new coat, Indarias cooking with Marchosius, and Bosacius apologizing to Alatus who just finished washing off the ink from his face. They all stopped from their tasks to look at Morax, with their warm smiles inviting him over.
“Go.” Tears rolled down Azhdaha’s eyes as he felt Morax’s breath shudder, “They are waiting for you.”
He hummed. His face was painted with exhaustion and joy, “Thank you…for everything.”
As another drop plummeted from Azhdaha’s lap, he felt Morax’s head fall on his shoulder. Through his sobs, he wrapped his arms around him and held him tight, for he knew that he would disappear the moment he loosened his embrace. He wept. In the subspace, his heart grieved while flowers waved goodbye to another star. The wind led the the falling ginkgo leaves and took the last traces of the mirage, of a family, away into the horizon.
Under the sunset, a mountain wept a river for the departure of its sculptor, the one who showed it numerous paintings of sceneries and told him countless poems of heroes and common folk.
He cried from a friend,
For a brother,
For a family.
A family that he would join once more in the future.
Not now.
Not yet.
Not when he still had to remember the past,
Not when he still had to preserve the memories embedded in the pieces of Dragonfall gathered by his side and in his own eyes, the stories the world would remember even after he, too, was gone.
“Thank you.”
With a final whisper, with a smile that mirrored the one on his friend’s lips, he untangled his arms and let go.
In a shower of gold, Morax bid his final farewell and disappeared with the wind, into the past, into a history etched in stone.
A history that had been passed down to the next generations,
Into a tale that would later on be called, ‘Dreams of Dragonfall’.
“It’s a wonderful story isn’t it?” Bittersweet but beautiful.” A young pair of hands held the golden crystals.
A boy with topaz irises and hair dyed with the brown hue of aged trees nodded, “I think so too. Even though in the end, the earth dragon chose to end himself before erosion took over him, he passed on fulfilled.”
“Yeah, which is why the pieces of Dragonfall still exist even today and the ‘dreams’ these gems saw are still alive.”
“I heard about this rare talent when I was younger but I think it’s amazing that you can see these memories through the ores, Kun Jun.”
“I’m just lucky to have the same abilities as Azhdaha.” He grinned at the boy a few years younger than him, “And you can wield geo too, Li Zhong. Isn’t it cool that we’re like Azhdaha and Morax?”
The brunette beamed and raised his arm to invite the other boy to a fist bump, “Then let’s continue being friends until the very end just like them.”
Kun Jun replied with a gesture, his own fist gaining contact with his friend’s, “It’s a promise.”
“Kun Jun! Li Zhong!” A girl with short sandy hair dressed in a hanfu that matched the color of the glaze lily pinned to her chest waved at the boys, “Indy and the others are done cooking. Let’s eat together!’
The two nodded at each other and sang in unison, “We’re coming over, Guli!”
Memories may fade and rocks may erode,
But from sediments, a new stone can be formed,
And from bygone history, a new story can unfold.