Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He is dying, he knows. There is a knive in his chest and blood in his lungs. And Max – Max is dying too. Her soft fur is wet with blood. Her pained whines hurt more than his own wound. He'd try to sooth her, but he can't feel his hands anymore. Despite the desert sun burning down at him he feels cold. Funny enough, he thinks. There was in fact a light at the end of the tunnel. And then –

Blinding light – shadows

A human form, but wrong –

Too many eyes, and mouths, and hands

The Hands invite him in, the Eyes crinkle, the Mouths smile and smirk and laugh

And God-Death-Life says

let’s play a game

He plays black, Death plays white and –

You won

The shadows laugh, and lead him across –

They are in front of him, beneath him, around him, inside him, and he realizes –

The tree 

He wakes up. It is dark, but the shadows don't have hands or eyes or mouths. There is a faint light coming from outside of – wherever he is. He remembers dying, and then – then he woke up again.

The material around him is hard, ungiving, and he strains against it, trying to escape, to breath. It breaks, and he is blinded by light, by noise – the hard ground beneath him is shaking. His body is wrong, too weak, his limbs too short, his neck too long.

There is rumbling above him, around him, like a landslide. He looks up, and –

„Welcome, little one“

Says the goddamned dragon.

And with a loud pinging appears a blue, transparent screen right in front of his face. „Welcome, Player!“, it reads.

He decides that right now would be a wonderful time to not be awake.

******

So, he has to say, this second go at life is not that bad at all. Granted, a large part of that is probably the fact that tiny baby dragons are surprisingly mobile. He would have hated lying around for a whole year. Instead he could weakly crawl around mere hours after his birth – eh, hatching. By the two weeks mark he was using his new parents as a jungle gym, to their great amusement and cooing.

Another thing: apparently he isn't a full dragon, but a half dragon. His other half being a mystical mountain goat. No, really, his father is a quilin, a species of mythical beings that live secluded in the mountains and swore off all violence. How he ended up with Jack's new mother, who made a sport of scaring away unwitting humans encroaching on her territority and was exactly as bad tempered as the myths suggested, was a mystery for the ages.

Though, he was surprised to find, you couldn't see his mixed ancestry at all. He was born with a long, noodly, scaly body completely in shades of blue without horns or even a mane – which would have been really cool. Granted, he is still tiny, he could grow into these things yet. But, as he is, he resembles his mother far more than his father, albeit being a lot more dainty than her. 

His coloring is a bit confusing, considering his mother's dark brown and golden scales and his father's sand brown and white fur, but then, what does he know about dragon and quilin genetics?

The ability to speak is still evading him. He blames his proportionately tiny lungs, since his parents are both perfectly capable of speaking – and singing in his father’s case. And damn, has he a beautiful voice. One of Jack's new favourite activities is laying twined around his fathers horns to listen to him sing, which his father accepts with an air of gentle indulgence. Though he certainly is not the only being captured by his fathers songs. He regulary has to defend his perch against birds and small mammals. Which leads him to an inevietable conclusion: his new father is a disney princess.

Exhibit one: Him being possibly the gentlest being alive.

Exhibit two: Animals of all kinds flocking to him like they are being drawn in by a magnet.

Exhibit tree: His romance with a knight in shining armor – eh, scales. Or would his mother be the evil villain keeping the damsel prisoner in their tower of doom? Not that they were in a tower, but the incredibly steep mountain their cave was in should absolutely count. 

But then, his father is so very obviously charmed by his mother that he is getting diabetis just by watching them. From the beautiful jewlery his mother made, over the plants, both medical and ornamental, that his father keeps in and around the cave, to poetry and (surprisingly advanced) technical gadgets that his mother brings back from her occasional visits to her dragon kin.

And it is obvious that they love him just as much as they love each other. He knows that he can't possibly be in line with whatever the normal development rate is for dragonets, which must result in him being an absolutely weird child. But his new parents don't seem to care at all, instead they react to every new, and mostly stupid, idea of his with delight and well-meaning indulgence. His old parents would have never – nope, not thinking about that.

All in all his second go at life is going far better than his first.

Of course, there are unpleasentries. Like his parent's quiet conversations about the recent war; well, recent by their standarts, which apparently means about three centuries ago. According to the pieces of information he managed to gather a panthenon of invading gods came to Teyvat (his new homeworld) and waged war against the, until then ruling, dragons, and defeated them after years of war. Though, kindly enough the new gods, who his parents usually only called „The Throne“ or „Celestia“ didn't subjugate the dragons or tried to completly erase them. Instead they only demanded that the dragons live (mostly) peacefully alongside the humans they had brought with them. Which, in Jacks opinion, was a lot better than what could have happened.

The dragons, however, don’t seem to share that opinion. His mother alone is grumbeling about invading humans and the careless ways with which they treated their enviroment (which, fair). And she is one of the more tolerant ones. The king of dragons, some asshole called Nibelung, is apparently organising human-hunts. Which, to Jack, seems like a wonderful way to bring down the wrath of their new overlords. But, well. There is nothing he can do about that while he is about as large as a housecat. 

The pretty much only thorn in his side is the so-called „System“, which is being supremly unhelpful. In the trope with reincarnation and a system, the world is usually one you know from a game or something like that and the system gives you quests and items and stuff like that (Which he only knows because one of his teammates had teenage children and had been completly incapable of shutting up about them and their interests). But he had never even played video games! Apart from that, the system screen hasn't changed even once since the first time and now displays a steady

REACH LEVEL ONE TO UNLOCK

like an asshole. No information on how to do that, no timeframe, nothing. But, whatever. He could deal without a glowing invisible screen before, he can do it now.

Chapter Text

It's been about two months now since his rebirth. Keeping track of time has been unfairly difficult, since timekeepers like clocks or calendars don't seem to be a thing here, despite the technological advancement of dragonkind. Or maybe they just aren't in their house(cave)hold. 

He thinks he is coming along quite well: He can hold a steady noise by now, even if actual speaking is still beyond him, and his body feels no longer quite so foreign. He is getting used to his long, noodly body, stubby legs, and even the tail – though the last one is still a work in progress. The stupid thing seems to have a mind of it's own.

It is strange, though, that his parents haven't so much as given him a nickname, nevermind actually named him. In the beginning he thought that they would hold out with the naming until they were sure that he would survive infancy, like many medival human cultures did. But the longer this goes on, now that he is out of the weak newborn phase and getting stronger by the day, the more he thinks that there might be some cultural significance to naming conventions here. Or, possibly, that names aren't even a thing here, considering that he doesn't know his parent's names. But then, why would they introduce themselves to their toddler child?

That aside, it is reassuring that he grows as quickly as he does. He has the potential to grow into a giant, considering his mother, whose skull is about the size of a car. But he has no idea how old she is , and he does know that reptiles never stops growing, which probably applies to dragons as well. 

His scales are darkening from pastel blue to a beautiful sky blue. Not that he would have had anything against being pastel colored per se, but it is certainly more difficult to be intimidating while looking like cotton candy. Also, he is still holding out hope for his mother's glorious black-gold coloring.

He is currently trying to climb one of the higher ledges in the cave, when a loud pinging nearly startles him staight off his perch. A new system screen appears in front of his face.

LEVEL UP! LEVEL 1 REACHED, CONGRATULATIONS!

CLAIM THE FOLLOWING REWARDS

SKILL (2) 

ELEMENTAL AFFINITY

WEAPON

Well, looks like it has decided to be helpful after all. But also, isn't an elemental affinity inborn for dragons? He quite clearly remembers his mother telling him about that when he had looked at the jewlery she was making for his father, by, quite literally, creating metal and gemstones out of thin air. Only, she had explained, it wasn't out of thin air, but out of her own elemental energy. Every higher being, including dragons and quilin, had an elemental affinity and could manipulate or even create the according element in their enviroment. His mother has an affinity for earth, what she called geo, and his father for plants, dendro.

He, as a higher being, a dragon-quilin mix, should have an elemental affinity already, even if he can't use it yet, so what is this system on about?

A new screen appears with its truly annoying customary noise.

Q&A

HIGHER BEINGS HAVE INDEED AN INBORN ELEMENTAL AFFINITY, BUT THE PLAYER HAS THE ADDITIONAL PRIVILEGE OF CHOOSING THEIR FIRST ELEMENT, AS WELL AS GAINING MORE ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES LATER ON!

Looks like he can interact with the system, which is probably quite useful. Also, the system can apparently read his mind, which is all sorts of unnerving. Apart from that, more than one elemental affinity would be insanely powerful, considering the damage you could do with only one.

Since the system could apparently read his mind he tried to think very hard in its direction. /Level up rewards page/

The page appeared again with its noise.

CLAIM THE FOLLOWING REWARDS

SKILL (2)

ELEMENTAL AFFINITY

WEAPON

/Wait, can you turn down the volume?/, he tried to ask.

Q&A

PLAYER CAN ADJUST THE MECHANICS IN SETTINGS!

/How do I open the settings?/

Q&A

SYSTEM SETTINGS ARE UNLOCKED TOGETHER WITH THE REST OF THE SYSTEM BY ACCEPTING INTRODUCIONARY REWARDS!

He could swear that the noise of the rewards page opening again was even louder than before. Looks like the system can be annoyed.

/Ok, Ok, sorry, the skills?/

SKILL: APPRAISAL

Allows the user to view the stats of artifacts and weapons

SKILL: GOD'S EYE

Allows the user to view the stats of enemies and allies

/What does ‚stat' mean?/

He could swear that the system is taken aback for a moment. Well, tough luck.

Q&A

‚STAT' REFFERS TO STATISTIC PROBABILITY. IN OTHER WORDS, YOUR ATTACK POWER, HEALTH, AND ABILITIES ARE MEASSURED IN NUMBERS TO EASE THE UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR RELATIVE STENGH IN RELATION TO OTHERS.

Well, that is somewhat usefull at least. Humans are all somewhat similar to each other in terms of physical capability, but that probably wasn't the case for dragons, quilin, and whatever other overpowered beings exist in this world.

/Alright, let's continue. Elemental affinity./

CHOOSE AN ELEMENTAL AFFINITY! 

Geo (Earth)

Dendro (Plant)

Anemo (Wind) 

Electro (Electricity)

Hydro (Water)

Pyro (Fire)

Cryo (Ice)

PLAYER SHOULD NOTE THAT ELEMENTS REACT WITH EACH OTHER WHEN APPLIED AT THE SAME TIME! ELEMENTAL REACTIONS HAVE DIFFERENT EFFECTS!

Appears to be wonderfully complicated. /And what are those reactions?/

Q&A

ELECTRO, PYRO, HYDRO AND CRYO REACT WITH EACH OTHER IN VARIOUS WAYS. ANEMO AND GEO EACH ONLY REACT WITH ELECTRO, PYRO, HYDRO AND CRYO. ANEMO CAUSES ‚SWIRL', WHICH CAN FURTHER CAUSE REACTIONS BETWEEN MULTIPLE ELEMENTS IN THE RADIUS. GEO CAUSES ‚CRYSTALISE' WHICH CREATES A SHIELD FOR THE USER. DENDRO FORMS CHAINREACTIONS WHEN APPLIED WITH HYDRO, ELECTRO AND PYRO IN ORDER OR INDIVIDUALLY.

So, what he can take from that is that geo, anemo and dendro require other elements and are very specific in their reaction. The other four appear to be sort of ‚base-elements', and considering that he can get other elemental affinities later on it would probably be for the best to pick one of these first. And, well. He's tiny and still weak. An inbuilt taser would probably be for the best.

/Elecro/, he tells the system. /Then, the weapon./

FIRST WEAPON!

RUBY ORB *** (LEVEL 1), CATALYST

ATTACK +40, ELEMENTAL MASTERY +20

WHEN CAUSING AN ELECTRO-RELATED ELEMENTAL REACTION, ATTACK IS INCREASED BY 20% FOR 12 SECONDS

EQUIP NOW? YES / NO

/Yes. Uh. A question. Well, a few. What do the three stars mean, is to signify quality? I can level up weapons? What is a Catalyst? What is elemental mastery?/

Q&A

WEAPONS AND ARTIFACTS HAVE DIFFERENT QUALITY, WHICH IS SIGNIFIED BY THEIR NUMBER OF STARS. THE LOWEST QUALITY IS *, THE HIGHEST *****. HIGHER QUALITY WEAPONS AND ARTIFACTS HAVE MORE AND BETTER STATBONI. BOTH WEAPONS AND ARTIFACTS CAN BE LEVELED UP. NECCESSARY MATERIAL CAN BE AQUIRED BY COMPLETING CHALLENGES. DIFFERENT WEAPONTYPES EXIST, OUT OF WHICH THE CATALYST IS THE ONLY ONE THAT DOES NOT REQUIRE PHYSICAL HANDLING. ELEMENTAL MASTERY INCREASES THE DAMAGE OF ELEMENTAL REACTIONS.

Look at this. Not only is this apparently a pretty good weapon for a beginner, it is also near perfect for him personally. Looks like the system wants him to succed. That is good information to have.

TUTORIAL COMPLETED, STATUS PAGE UNLOCKED!

PLAYER: ?

HP (HEALTH POINTS): 1050

ATTACK: 64 (24+40)

EE (ELEMENTAL ENERGY) (EE IS SPENT WHEN USING ELEMENTAL ATTACKS BEFORE THEIR COOLDOWN IS OVER): 10

EM (ELEMENTAL MASTERY): 20

AGILITY (INCREASES ACCURACY AND SPEED): 20

PASSIVE SKILLS:

APRAISAL

GOD'S EYE

ACTIVE SKILLS:

LIGHTNING BOLT (Level 1):

Shoots a lightning bolt. Deals Damage equal to 30% Atk.

MORE SKILLS CAN BE OBTAINED AT LEVEL 5! PLAYER IS ENCOURAGED TO WORK HARD!

Oh, wow, the system was amazingly generous with that weapon! But that is absolutely secondary, because from the moment the status screen appeared he could feel static energy running across his body. It feels like the moment right before you get a static shock from a doorknob, but the shock itself never comes. 

Experimentally he tries to direct the power outward, away from his body. It doesn't do much more than making him spark, since the current almost immediately returns to him. Then he carefully extends his frontpaw until it is mere centimeters from the cavewall and attempts to reach it with the electricity. It works, a slight electric line forms. He pushes more power into it, until a tiny lightning bolt hits the wall with a slight bang. He does it again and again – only to master this new skill of course, not because it's fun. 

He is so focused on this, that he only notices his mother when she lets out a rumbling laugh – which is impressive, considering that she is only about two meters away from him, watching him with an eye as big as he is long. He squeaks, the most consistent sound he can make yet, and jumps at her. She catches him, of course, and her laugh gets louder, until the walls around them shake.

„Look at our little genius, love!“, she calls to his father, standing a bit further away, and he – he doesn't look happy at all. His good mood gives way to unease. 

His father comes closer and noses at him, before he turns to his mother. „It's too early. We can't present him yet.“

His mother grows somber as well. „Better now than later. Even they can't pretend to be mortally offended by a hatchling. He won't have to interact with them and I can keep him close to me – he will be safer.“

His father seems to wilt before his eyes. „Yes, but – I worry. They have reason to dislike him already, without him being a prodigy putting their children to shame.“

Mother lets out one of her deep rumbles and inclines her head. „We cannot hide him.“

******

Turns out that he was right about names having cultural significance to dragons. Apparently when a dragon first gains their elemental affinity, they are presented to the sovereign dragon of their element, as well as the dragon king, who grants them a name symbolising their hopes and potential. The more unique and unusual, the better.

Which leads them, him and his mother, his father staying at home, to the capital. The capital of the dragon civilization is appropiately grand, not only in size but also in ornamentality and technological advancement. The vendors in the market are AIs, for heaven’s sake! He very much feels like a country bumpkin, riding on his mothers head as she walks through the wide streets.

He can feel glares on them, on him, the whole way. They clearly have something against him, or maybe it's just that he is too young? He is by far the youngest dragon around here, the smallest others he can see are about half his mother's size, which is still several times his size. But that would be wishful thinking, considering his parent’s conversation before they'd left. They have something against him personally, though what, he has no idea.

The guards at the giant ornamental doors of a building, (which he assumes is the palace on the sole grounds of this being the biggest, gaudiest, tackiest thing he had ever seen. The walls, floors and ceiling are covered in gold and gemstones, for fuck's sake!) inform his mother that they would be received in the throne room, which she takes with the stoic grace of a woman walking to her execution.

The throne room is, impossibly, even gaudier than the halls. None of the decorations, however, can distract from the doomsday event masquerading as a living being. Look, he thought his mother was big, and she is, no question. But she has nothing on goddamn Ancalagon. The dragon lounging mid and center of the room and taking up a good tenth of it, while their eyes, as well as those of the peanut gallery around, bore holes into him and his mother. That must be Nibelung, the king of dragons.

His mother inches forward, low on the ground, as if that would make any noticeable difference, and starts recitating a formal sounding speech which boils down to: here is my child, please name it.

Nibelung is quiet for a long while, following the speech, before he snorts (a sound about equal to a hundred helicopters taking off at the same time) and sneers down at them.

„So this is your halfbreed.“, he rubles.

And, wow, yeah, looks like the reason for all this tangible hatred was good, ol' racism. A murmuring and hissing breaks out from the peanut gallery.

„Elecro-natured, hm?“, the giant asshole continues faux-thoughtfully. His eyes gleam with his sadistic delight. „I know just the name.“ His teeth are showing, and Jack knows that whatever comes out of his mouth next will be as mean as he could possibly make it. Which would be alright if it wasn't his fucking name. „I name you Raiden.“

He called it. The asshole had literally named him ‚lightning'. As uncreative a name as it comes, lacking any sort of deeper meaning. It said ‚you will never amount to anything more than your element, and you even having an element was notable enough to name you after it.‘ It’s the height of assholery. 

He decides then and there that he would never answer to it.

******

Just about a month after the naming shitshow, Jacks parents decide that he could spent a night alone while they have a date night. A questionable decision at best, with how troublesome he was proving to be. Always getting into things he really shouldn't. He would be more annoyed by this if his mother didn't place a near unbreakable shield on him while giving him a knowing look that said she knew exactly that he was going to sneak out; and also if he didn't know how much the dragons' rejection of him had been weighting on them. They absolutely deserve a bit of time for themselves, with how much work he had been since. 

He had been working hard on leveling up – which, in effect, meant that he had been electroducing everything in reach. Though, after an unfortunate incident in which he learned exactly what the Aggravate reaction was, he learned to leave his father‘s plants alone. 

Though his hard work, a lot of fun, and a jumpscare or two he had reached level 5. The system had promptly rewarded him with a skill called ‚battle ground' which reduced his enemy‘s electro resistance while in a specific radius around him. It lasted 30 seconds, with a cooldown of 40 seconds.

He also got access to the system’s map function. Only a small part is unlocked for now, but that’s alright, since in that small unlocked part so-called ley line anormalities are marked, which means in effect that there are enemies for him to fight.

(That of course had led to a discussion about what ley lines are and why they could have anormalities with the system. The answer about them being basically blood vessles of the land – with the blood being life force – was… disconcerning, to say the least.)

So, as soon as his parents take off, he does as well. It doesn't take particulary long to reach the anormality he had been aiming for, even with his tiny body and inability to fly as his mother does; the thing really is all but in their backyard. The system had updated him on possible monsters he could be facing there like slimes, cicins or even vaniloquas if he’s unlucky.

What he does actually find is a group of hydro slimes – which he thinks lucky right up until one of them catches him in a bubble. He manages to get out, only to stumble head first into the next one. He destroys them with extreme prejudice after, and is faintly grateful that nobody had witnessed that display. His parents would have never let him live this down.

Which is of course the exact moment he notices the person leaning against a tree only a few meters away, wearing the exact sort of serene smile that means they are going to tell everyone they know about what they saw.

He weakly hisses at them, too exhausted to wonder who or what they are, since the look vagually human, but also very much not; something feline in their eyes and animalistic in their posture, and undeniably beautiful. But, what they most definitly are is a smug asshole, which becomes clear as they saunter over and pick him up. Also, rude.

Turns out the rude asshole is named Oboron and would like to train him – which is as far as they get before Jack bites them to slink back home, feeling very much like a drowned cat.

Chapter Text

The next few years pass in a strange dichromity of drawn out relaxation with his parents and short bouts of battle against whatever creatures the system considers appropiate to pit him against, often shadowed by Oboron.

Oboron, it turns out, is a Seelie. Their people seem somewhat similar to the fae of his old world, in that they are nature spirits that guard nature and maintain the ley lines. Luckily they seem to be playing less violent and cruel tricks on humans. Also, and quite importantly: They are sworn to Celestia. Celestia had brought them to Teyvat together with the humans. Oboron didn't seem to have anything against Jack's ancestry though, they never even commented on it, despite their apparent generall inability to shut up for more than five minutes. 

But Oboron had been giving him useful tips, so Jack grudgingly decided to tolerate them. For example, he figured out that creating a set combination of attacks enhanced the power of the individual attacks. 

The system promptly rewarded those experiments with a new skill called ‚Basic Attack', which allows for a mixture of physical and elemental damage. Now that he’s a bit bigger, his claws, teeth, and, surprisingly, his tail are coming in wickedly sharp, so he is using them to his best advantage (meaning he has been using his tail like a whip. The possibility had been an accidential dicovery while dodging an vaniloquar that had suddenly appeared beneath him.)

On that note, he also figured out how to speak, even though he doesn't do it often considering that he sounds like he's on helium all the goddamn time. But he did it, and his first word had been „Father“, shortly followed by „Mother“. There had of course been no nagging about the order, since his mother was of the firm opinion that all good things in the world should belong to his father.

His third words had been „Shut up“, to Oboron, unsurprisingly. The asshole had of course laughed themself to tears at the pitch of his voice, and Jack had used that opportunity to escape their incessant chattering. Not that it had helped much, the asshole had caught up quickly and been even more annoying than normal.

Sadly, his hopes for his scale color had been dashed. His scales had settled on a deep blue that was so dark it was almost black, with indigo highlights almost the same color as his eyes. Which was a sick color sheme of course but it barely even resembled his parents'.

His physical and magical growth rate had gotten him to a solid level nineteen by now. Which would have impressed him more if he hadn't used God's Eye on his parents and found them at level 953 for his father and level 2546 for his mother. He kind of regrets not taking a look at Nibelung when he'd had the chance, but at the same time not at all. It would have probably given him horrible nightmares.

That being said, the system had warned him in advance that he would need to do a ritual with specific materials to continue leveling up once he hit level 20. It is not a lot, thankfully. Three pieces of night jade, a gemstone he could find pretty much right in front of his door, a bit of vaniloquar nectar, and a tiny bit of condensed elemental energy, which he could get by cleaning out ley line anormalities.

He shakes off a bit of slime residue clinging to his tail as he takes a look at his status window. His health, attack and agility have all increased, while his EM and EE remain as they were. He supposes those increase only with either the ascension or with boni of weapons or those artifacts the system mentioned. 

Oboron comes up behind him to comment on his performance – actually useful stuff. They might be a blabber mouth, but they certainly know their fighting moves. They had also learned a while ago not to take his kills. It had taken a generous amount of bites, but in the end they had leared. He suspects that it has less to do with fear of his teeth and more with amused indulgence, but as long as it got results.

******

The first ascension had gotten on without a hitch. Smuggling the materials back into the cave with him had been the hardest part, really. But that wasn't going to be a problem anymore since the ascension had the system unlock the Inventory. A sort of spatial magic that allows him to store materials, weapons, food, artifacts (once gets any) and other stuff.

That, however, isn't the real highlight of the ascension. No, that title goes to the shape shifting skill he got. Finally, a human form! Shape shifting, much like elemental affinities, is inborn for dragons, but the system allows him to create models that he can shift into quickly, instead of creating the wheel over and over again evertime he wants to take a specific form. 

It's not perfect; since the shape shifting skill is still level one he can't take a perfect form of another species. He will keep his tail, his claws, his eyes and possibly even a few scales. But it should be good enough to go down to the human settlement at the base of the mountain. The humans are well used to higher beings poking around.

Turns out shape shifting is a disconcerting experience. He hadn't thought that his dragon senses had been much different from his human ones, but boy had he been wrong. He feels blind and deaf for a few moments, before his mind catches up with his body and his surroundings come into focus again – though much duller than before.

He carefully tries to stretch, but his body feels far too stiff and ungangly. He apparently got used to the ergonomic movement of his dragon body. Additional to that, he doesn't have the body of an adult man as he had planned on, but rather that of a young child, he finds as he looks at himself in the mirror. About 11, with dark hair and slitted indigo eyes, and, yes, his tail swinging behind him and small scales in his hairline, on his cheeks, and covering his hands and feet completely.

Well, good enough. The children will probably find it cool.

******

The children do indeed find it cool. And cute, as one of the older ones coos.

They swarm him as soon as they spot him and drag him into one of their games that involves trying to jump on the other children's feet. It's surprisingly fun, but he takes care to not accidentially scratch them with his claws, or put too much power into his jumps. He is perfectly capable of leaving deep gouges in solid stone, nevermind fragile children's limbs. 

After they exhaust themselves, he shows them a small mountain stream with a patch of human-save wild berries, to their great delight. 

By the time the evening comes they have firmly adopted him and make him promise to come meet them again tomorrow, which he does.

Within a few weeks he has a following of small humans dodging his steps, consisting of three girls (Mai, Sayu, Tia) and two boys (Mika, Roku). They are a bit younger than he appears to be, and adore him. Their parents know that they meet up with some sort of mountain spirit, and are happy enough to let it continue, as long as their children come home safely. His own parents too know that he has been meeting up with a few of the human children and they didn't protest much. Though his mother made him promise to teach them respect for their surroundings.

Of course he doesn't meet up with them every day, he keeps on training as well. He's still terribly weak. Oboron knows where he goes as well, but he doesn't say anything at all about it.

******

He is six when he reaches level 40. For the second ascension the system requires him to have a Crimson Feather, drops from a boss monster called Blood-Red Commander. The system teleports him to a strange room, where a knight with deep red armour waits for him. The monster's stats are capped to level 40, but the fight is still brutal. He manages to beat it, but he is more exhausted than he ever was before in this life.

After the fight, the system screen pops up. The noise much lower by now, since he had, after a grueling battle, finally convinced the system to tune it down.

CONGRATULATION! SECOND ASCENSION COMPLETE!

USER HAS UNLOCKED THE FOLLOWING FUNCTIONS:

ARTIFACTS

User can now equip artifacts. Artifacts have primary and secondary boni. When full sets are equipped user gains additional set boni.

WEAPON LEVEL UP

User can now level up and ascend weapons.

SKILL LEVEL UP

User can now level up skills (max level: 2)

DOMAINS

User can now enter specific challenges for weapon, artifact and skill ascension material

Oh, useful.

FOLLOWING REWARDS GAINED:

NEW WEAPON:

SOLAR PEARL **** (Level 1) CATALYST

ATTACK + 42, AGILITY +60

DAMAGE DEALT WITH BASIC ATTACKS INCREASES DAMAGE OF OTHER SKILLS BY 20% FOR 6 SECONDS AND THE OTHER WAY AROUND

EQUIP NOW? YES / NO

/Yes/

STATUS PAGE

PLAYER: JACK

HP (HEALTH POINTS): 6109

ATTACK: 181 (139+42)

EE (ELEMENTAL ENERGY) (EE IS SPENT WHEN USING ELEMENTAL ATTACKS BEFORE THEIR COOLDOWN IS OVER): 30

EM (ELEMENTAL MASTERY): /

AGILITY (INCREASES ACCURACY AND SPEED): 90 (30+60)

PASSIVE SKILLS:

APRAISAL

GOD'S EYE

ACTIVE SKILLS:

BASIC ATTACK (LVL 1)

BATTLE GROUND (LVL 1) (COOLDOWN: 40 SEC; EE COST: 5)

AFTERIMAGE (LVL 1) (MIMICS THE ATTACKS USED WITHIN 10 SEC BEFORE ACTIVATION FOR 10 SEC, COOLDOWN: 30 SEC; EE COST: 10)

Afterimage is a skill he'd gained at level 35. It could be incredibly useful once he got more than one element, which the system had informed him would happen at level 90. For now he'd concentrate on leveling up his skills and weapon and getting artifacts. Otherwise the Blood-Red Commander would wipe the floor with him at the next ascension.

******

His eighth year he spends pretty much in and out of domains. On gathering good 4* artifacts (turns out that even artifacts he had thought good turned out less so, once he leveled them up, because the artifacts gained sub-boni for every four levels and some of those boni really were better than others.), weapon ascension, and skill ascension material.

But even so he makes sure to spent at least a few hours every day with his parents and to visit his friends every other day.

When he challenges Blood-Red again he does much better.

******

When he's ten, he notices that Roku is a whole head taller than him, and the others not far behind.

******

He's twelve and reaches level 60. Sayu and Mika are quite obviously in love.

******

He's fifteen and still locks like eleven. Mai gets married. She invites him. It's the first time he enters the village.

******

He's sixteen, Sayu and Mika get married and have their first child. A baby girl. They allow him to hold her and she is beautiful.

******

He's eighteen. He grew a bit, but not much. Tia leaves the village. She wants to explore the world. All his friends have settled down.

******

He's nineteen. Level 70.

******

He's twenty-three. Riku dies in an hunting accident, leaving his three children, between four and one, fatherless.

******

He’s twenty-six. Tia returns with a woman from another village. They marry and settle down.

******

He's thirty-one. Sayu and Mika's eldest daughter looks his age.

******

He's fourty. He reaches level 80. He beginns talking to Blood-Red, even if they don't answer. Some of his friend's children are dead, from accidents or sickness. Sayu died in childbirth.

******

He's fifty. He still looks fifteen. Mika and Sayu's grandson looks his age.

******

He's seventy. His friends have great-grandchildren.

******

Out of his remaining friends Mai dies first. Mika is not far behind. He never quite recovered from Sayu's death.

******

Tia and her wife die within days of each other.

******

He's eighty and he watches from the treeline as they tear down Tia's old leather workshop. He can spot at least seven of his friend’s great-grandchildren in the crowd. Oboron sits down next to him, a quiet comfort. The same pity in their eyes that Jack had pretended not to see for all those years.

******

He's -

It really doesn't matter. He goes home.

******

He gives himself a few weeks of wallowing in self-pity within his parent's healing embrace before he makes himself get up again. He goes out to train, meets up with Oboron again. He reaches level 90 within the next five years. He chooses Pyro. The system gives him a self-healing skill, and the instruction to smithing a 5* weapon it calls his signature weapon. Apparently every being over level 90 has one even if they don't know about it. Collecting the required ore as well as learning how to smith takes far longer than he would have thought.

******

He's a hundred and twenty when his parents call him back home. In his mother's nest lies the most perfect creature he has ever seen. A tiny dragonet with light brown and yellow scales, who blinks up at him with giant amber eyes.

He falls in love with his little sibling then and there.

Chapter Text

His little brother is a delight. He is growing far slower than Jack himself had, in what he asumes is normal dragonet development. He is also far less inclined to get into trouble – and create it, if he couldn't find any, as Jack had at his age.

No, his baby brother is happy to nap away his days in their father's horns, listening to him sing. He too has to contend himself with small animals taking up the prime real-estate of his father’s horns, but he seems to tolerate them, instead of chasing them away. He seem truly curious about them too, blinking at them with bleary eyes.

He also, on occasion, rolls himself into a little ball of cuteness and cuddles up with Jack, while he tells stories about the outside world.

He takes care not to impose on his parents too often, now that they have a real child, but he can hardly stay away from his brother.

Also, he decided almost the moment he first saw his brother, Nibelung would not get to ruin his name for him too. He'd name him himself if he had to. He‘d already started looking up old runes of draconic, quilin and even, by the few texts and anecdotes he could get his paws on with Oboron's help, celestial culture. His current favorite was „Mor'e“, an draconic rune meaning flexible, adaptable, capable of overcoming all struggles and growing at them. He’ll combine that with a rune of elemental implication when he knows what elemental nature his brother will have. Like „Vel“, morning dew, „Rax“, cherished jewel, or „Rev“, fresh growth.

That would be only if his parents would prove to be stubborn about showing him to Nibelung, otherwise they would name him themselves.

******

His parents ask him to watch his brother more, to take him outside on small trips, when he is about ten. Of course, for a dragon that meant that he was only just starting to speak.

It also gets clearer the older his brother gets, that he‘d won the genetic lottery in a way that Jack very cleary hadn't. He has their mother's beautiful gold-brown-black coloring, and their father’s mane. Tiny nubs on his head indicate incoming horns.

He would look glorious one day, no doubt, but at the moment he just looks scruffy. His mane is coming in unevenly in a way that makes him look ridiculous and ridiculously cute in equal meassure. It had made Oboron snicker the last time they had seen them, for which Jack had of course threatened to bite them. A much more dire business, now that Jack's fangs were about as long as one of Oboron's fingers.

Currently Jack is trying to get his brother to say his name. (He had already called his parents adda and amma, Jack isn't that much of an asshole.)

„Jack“

„Keh“

That sounds more like a cough than a word.

„Jack“

His brother's eyes narrow adorably.

„Sac“

Wait, no.

„Ok, what about a nickname? Say Jay. Jay.“

„Sai“

Jack spends a moment contemplating that.

„You know what? Absolutely good enough. Sai it is.“

His brother squeaks in delight. „Sai! Buh Sai!“

‚Buh' means ‚brother‘ in tiny-sibling-language, but his adorable little monster better not start calling him ‚bonsai'.

Above them Oboron is trying very hard to not fall out of the tree with laughter.

******

When they return to the cave, his parents lie curled up together in their nest. His father stands up to carefully take his sleeping baby brother on his horns. He hesistiates a moment, then turns to Jack. 

„You should speak to your mother.“, he tells him quietly, then all but flees the cave.

A pit opens in his stomach. His mother had barely moved in her nest when they had entered. She looks exhausted from up close. He lies down in the nest, curling around her. She's shivering faintly. They are both silent for a long while.

His mother sighs deeply and finally meets his eyes. „I'm dying.“

He closes his eyes and curles around her tighter. „How long do you have?“

„No more than a few months. I'm sorry.“

„You can't apologise for dying!“

„I'm not.“ He hestiates as she swallows. „Your father won't survive my death.“

Yes, that is as clear as day. It also means that he will have to raise his little brother or risk him being raised by the dragons. And that's just not happening.

She starts again, and this is the first time in his life he heard her speaking hesistiantly. „I know that that is much to ask, but your brother- “

„Of course I'll take care of him“, he interrupts her „He's just a little kid, he doesn't deserve this.“

„You're a child too!“, she snaps at him, and wow, there is her spine of steel. „You're barely three hundred! You shouldn't have to pick up after us.“

„Three hundred? Is your memory going? I'm two hundred and fifty.“

She looks at him for a moment with piercing eyes. „In this body.“

And- she knows. She'd know for- for how long? Had she known when she first looked at him, had she known when he'd started speaking, started exploring? When he started spending time with the humans? 

When she had been ready to shield him with her body in Nibelung's throne room?

He burrows his head against her neck as she murmurs gentle reassurances. 

„You are our son. We love you. Even if you doubt everything in this world, know this. You are loved.“

******

His parents die four and a half months later. He makes sure that his bother doesn't see their bodies as he buries them at the base of their mountain. He doesn't have the geo element so he has to dig their grave by hand. On top of the grave he plants his mother's favourite flowers, the ones his father had created for her. Bright yellow dragonsnaps and white-golden heart bells. Only then does he take his brother there to say goodbye.

His brother seems to understand perfectly well that their parents are gone and won't come back. He is inconsolable. It takes him weeks to bounce back even a bit, and he is far more somber now than he used to be. 

They stay in their cave – a different one than the one they lived in with their parents. Jack stops going into domains and ley line disorders to take care of his little brother. They haven't yet met up with Oboron, they probably doesn't even know that their parents have died.

******

Three months after their parent's death an approaching elemental signature startles him awake. He quickly puts down his brother, who had been napping on him, makes sure he knows to stay put, and goes to the mouth of the cave.

It doesn't take long for the dragon to come into sight. He activates God's Eye just in case. The dragon is at level 457 and cryo natured. Damn it. Jack himself is at level 176, just four levels away from the next breakthrough. 

He takes a look at his own stats.

PLAYER: JACK

HP: 24.024 (13.592+10.432)

ATK: 5.555 (620+608+4327)

EE: 120

EM: 365

AGILITY:1.467 (80+331+1056)

WEAPON:

ECLIPSE ****** (Level 90) CATALYST (REFINEMENT GRADE 1)

ATK + 608; AGILITY + 331

INCREASES ALL ELEMENTAL DAMAGE BY PRODUCT OF EM AND 25% ATK FOR 20 SEK AFTER USE OF AN ELEMENTAL SKILL

ARTIFACTS:

4 PIECE WANDERER'S TROUPE:

INCREASES EM BY 80; INCREASES CHARGED ATTACK DMG BY 35% IF THE WEARER USES A CATALYST OR BOW

SKILLS:

Basic Attack (Level 10)

Battle Ground (Level 10)

Afterimage (Level 10)

Falling Blade (Level 10): Creates 4 blades of randomly choosen elemental nature, which fall at the same time a basic attack hits an enemy

Healing Fire (Level 10): Heals injuries based on max Atk

God's Eye (Passive)

Appraisal (Passive)

Shape shift (Passive)

He curses. Miles better than he used to be, but nowhere near enough to deal with this, potentially hostile, dragon. His only chance is to avoid a confrontation.

But he can't get away from the mountain, especially not with his baby brother. They would be far to visible on the outer walls while they climb down. Their only chance is to hope that the dragon isn't hostile. Just to be save, he makes sure that his brother isn't visible and stays where he is, while he waits for the stranger to touch down.

The hope of a peaceful resolvation flies out the proverbial window, at the first words out the dragon's mouth.

„There you are, abomination“, they sneer down at him. „A pretty piece of territory you have here. Shame dead things can't stake a claim.“ Their sneer turns into a leer.

ALERT! KILLING INTENT DETECTED!

The system screen pops up, in red this time.

EMERGENCY MISSON!

KILL THE ENEMY!

PUNISHMENT FOR FAILURE: USER DIES

What the hell, what sort of useless punishment is that!? He dies if he can't beat the enemy that wants to kill him? No shit!

The dragon lunges forward, just a hair slower than Jack is, and he manages to dodge. He grits his teeth and snarles up at his attacker.

NEW SKILL GAINED:

DOMINATION: Suppresses any attribute of an enemy that is weaker than your own

/that's useful. Level it up./

He dodges another attack. If he can slow down his enemy even more it won't matter how much stronger than him they are. They can't kill him if they can't hit him.

DOMINATION REACHED LEVEL 8

/Activate Battle Ground, Falling Blades, Afterimage and Dominition, in that order!/

The dragon slows down, confused, and Jack uses that moment of disorientation to start his attack sequence. First electro, since it gets mirrored in Afterimage, then pyro. It's… terrifyingly effective. The dragon has lost a little more than a fourth of their HP, by the time the sequence is though.

Jack continues dodging until the cooldown for his skills is over, then runs it again. And again. By then the dragon looks terrified. They had gotten a few hits in, of course, but nothing that Healing Flames couldn't take care of. 

They don't seem to have any healing skills, their attacks have proven useless, but their pride doesn't allow them to run.

When he strikes the killing blow, the bastard has the audacity to look indignant of all things. They came here to murder a child just because of it's parentage and are surprised when the situation turns around and they die instead. Typical racist shit.

He ignores the system‘s pop-ups and goes to collect his brother from where he'd hidden him. If one dragon came to claim this territory, there will be more. He defeated this one, but there is no guaranty he will be able to do the next one, or the one after that. The only choice is to leave now and take it back when he's stronger.

******

„Hey, Oboron.“

He takes childish delight in their startled cursing. He has no idea what he looks like, but he doubts it's good.

„Do your people by any chance have a place for two dragonlings?“

Chapter Text

The Seelies had been very willing to take them in, between Oboron vouching for him, and his own continued effort in keeping the ley lines clean. They are a generally reclusive people, but happy enough to interact with all beings they come into contact with, regardless of descent or allegiances. They do their hardest to signal neutrality, which is far from a bad idea, considering the importance and delicacy of their duties.

Much like Oboron had already told him, the Seelies are tasked with the upkeep of the ley lines, maintaining a steady flow and cleaning out any anormalities. These anormalities, he's taught, occur when too much, or too little, elemental energy flows through the ley lines. It’s a delicate balance that needs to be kept. However, the ley lines are more hardy than one would think. They are fully able to return to an equilibrium on their own, by attracting nearby elemental creatures – slimes, cicins, vaniloquar – and either passing the overflowing power to them, or using them to absorb more elemental from the surrounding area.

An ingenious system. There are however, problems with that method: the monsters in question are strenghned by the the addidional absorbed power and turn violent, and are additionally capeable of keeping the ley lines from returning to normal for some time, thereby keeping their power source. 

It’s possible to break that stalemate by killing the monsters: Upon their destruction they release the built up energy either back into the ley lines, or to their surroundings. That method has two distinct advantages: There are no aggressive monsters threatening the mortals nearby, and it's much faster than waiting for the natural resulution.

Because of that, the Seelies seperate into two distinct groups: one that guides ambivalent elemental power into the ley lines to prevent the creation of elemental monsters and monitors the ley lines to find annormalities, and one that goes out and deafeats the monsters once an anormality is found. 

Oboron, to no one's surprise, belongs to the second group, and Jack joins them in short order. He doesn't have the patience to meditate for hours while guiding his consciousness through the maze of ley lines. 

His little brother apparently does. He'd been incredibly clingy for nearly a whole year following the attack of the other dragon and their subsequent flight from their home, but the meditiation group had made him open up a bit. Jack suspects that it had in no little part to do with the way the meditiating Seelies would sing softly while they worked. But far be it from him to discourage his little brother from something that gives him a feeling of familiarity after the giant upheavel in their lifes.

He of course first makes sure that he's safe with the Seelies before he actually leaves him alone with them. He even employes Oboron's help to get a feeling for how they are acting around his brother when he's not close. He has a feeling they know perfectly well what he's doing, but don't blame him for his paranoia.

During all of that he is trying very hard not to stare at Oboron too obviously. So, he has a crush. Sue him, Oboron is a gorgeous bastard, and Jack is a teenager. He's perfectly aware that this is not going anywhere and that he will most likely grow out of it in a few years. Oboron is his closest friend. Like hell will he do anything to jeopardise that.

******

His little brother awakens his elemental nature roughly a decade after they have settled with the Seelies. By then they are a fixed part of their host's society, so the Seelies insist on celebrating.

His brother awakes as an earth nature, and is, with bittersweet feelings on Jack’s part, named „Morax“ – ever growing, beloved jewel.

The celebration is, in keeping with the Seelies' nature, exuberant, full of wild dances, music, and laughter. Little Morax is, to his unending delight, being passed around between the dancers and musicians. His scales catch the light of the lanterns as he swings around in twirls and jumps.

He tires quickly, as children do, but his enthusiasm keeps him going well past midnight.

Oboron comes with them, as they leave the celebration. They're a bit past tipsy on the fermented berry juice that was handed out and keep stumbling and nearly tripping into tents while laughing wildly. Jack takes pity on them about halfway back to his tent and lets them lean on him. They are unfairly heavy and far too close. Everywhere they are touching his skin feels like it's on fire.

By the time they reach his tent, Jack is completely fed up with the bastard who had continued to sing, badly, the whole way back and even tried to demonstrate a few steps of the dances – without letting go of him first, of course, which forced him to catch the idiot, while trying not to jostle Morax, sleeping soundly on his shoulder.

Jack leaves the idiot sitting in a chair by the entrance, while he carefully puts Morax to bed. He's sleeping soundly already, completely wiped. His tongue hangs out of his open mouth as he mumbles into his pillow.

When he turns around-

Oboron is right behind him, nowhere near as drunk as they appeared to be only a few moments ago. They lean closer and smirk as him.

„Tell me, Jack, did you really think i wouldn't notice you looking at me like that?“

Jack takes a surprised step back and chokes out „That- that's not- “

Oboron laughes mockingly at him. „Of course it is.“ They lean closer and tilt their head. „And I know exactly what you want, little one.“ 

And then their hand is on his face, and their lips and his, and he- 

Punches Oboron in the fucking face. 

„Get out“, he snarles, several times more animalistic than he usually is in human form, but he's hurt, and confused, and anger is the safest reaction right now.

Oboron snorts, and turns to leave. „Goodnight, Jack. Sweet dreams!“, they throw back over their shoulder, and it's all Jack can do to not run afer them and maul them.

Instead he curles himself around Morax and tries not to cry.

******

After that night things are tense between him and Oboron. He refuses to be alone with them and tenses every time they come to close. It doesn't help that they are not the slightest bit apologetic. A joke, they claim. They were tipsy, they say. He really shouldn't take it too hard, they tell him. It makes him want to claw their face off.

The others clearly notice that something happened, but they don't know what. They start walking on eggshells around them. He doesn't know what Oboron tells them, but a few people start glaring at him. He refuses to speak about what happened.

The worst is Morax. He'd figured out that something had happened the very next morning, and had started to cling to him again, snarling at everyone who came too close. On one memorable occasion he'd even bit someone who had apparently badmouthed Jack behind his back. Bit them! Gentle little Morax!

Matters calm down slightly with time, but the relationship between him and Oboron never recovers. The atmosphere with the Seelies is just the slightest bit tenser than before.

And then the Moon Sisters arrive.

******

The Moon Sisters are apparently close friends of the Seelies. Their names are Aria, Sonnet and Canon, and they drive the Solar Chariot, which pulls the moon across the sky. They visit the Seelies every other decade and exchange music and stories.

They also take one look at Morax and Jack and all but adopt them. They drag them with them everywhere, grill them about their lives and teach them music. The last one endears them to Morax pretty much instantly. His brother doesn't really speak yet, but he can hold a melody perfectly well. And, Jack reflects, Morax absolutely inherited their father's singing voice. Morax then drags him into practise as well and he discovers that his own voice isn't too shabby either.

He digs up half-forgotten songs from his past life and tries to recreate them, to his brother's adoration and the Sisters' fawning.

The Sisters' approval puts the last of the Seelies‘ uncertainty to rest and he and Morax are fully welcomed back into the fold.

Chapter Text

It had been nearly two centuries later that he arrives.

******

By then Jack had reached level 643 – he had unlocked the last element, dendro, just half a decade before. He had gotten a plentitoria of various elemental skills, buffs and attacks by now, though Domination is still one of his favorites. The system had let him know that from now on he'd get to increase the damage of any choosen element by 100% every ninety levels instead of choosing a new one, which is apparently what happens to normal dragons from the get go, as he learned from his brother.

Little Morax is nowhere near as little anymore, he's growing into his limbs quite fearsomely. At level 140 he’s a bit ahead of where Jack had been at his age. His main skill had already manifested: Jade Shield. Closely followed by Meteor. (Which, as of now, is more akin to throwing pebbles, but still. Atta boy.) Jack personally thinks his skills reflect his personality quite well: Primarily protective and defensive, but very willing to cave in the skulls of anyone who would threaten his loved ones.

He takes a lot after their mother both in character and in built, which is far more heavy set than Jack's slighter form. Together with his golden-brown scales, glowing golden horns and deep brown mane he cuts an intimidating figure. Of course, he's still very much a child even if he's horse-sized now. It's more than apparent in his human form – a tiny boy of about 6 or 7 with brown hair and giant amber eyes – and of course the trappings that Jack's human form had had at first, the tail and scales, and his horns. He doesn't look much like a human child, all in all, but he's undeniably cute.

Morax also finally found friends his own age among the Seelie, now that he looks more like them. His best friend is a young girl with dendro nature called Mauve. She has wings and the first beginning of horns. Which is what Jack believes they had bonded over in the first place. 

Mauve had tried to show Morax how to create an aura – a physical manifestation of an individual's magic power and an important part of Seelie's culture. Jack himself had never managed to manifest one, despite his best attempts. His first instinct always demands that he keep his power close in case of an emergency, but even during the few times he had managed to go against his instincts and manifested one, it almost immediately collapsed and returned to his body, or began casting, which was a hazard for everyone around him.

Morax however had taken to the task with quiet determination. What he had created in the end had been not quite an aura, but also not so far off. He had faced a similar problem as Jack had: his magic had started casting when extended for any amount of time, but instead of letting his aura collapse with that, he directed the casting deliberately: to create tiny floating gemstones around him. These thousands of shards in multiple colors break the light in a truly magnificent way. The resulting effect had made him the envy and delight of the other children and even some of the adults. 

Jack himself is not particulary social, but his singing, coming along to a, well, divine degree under the Sisters' teaching, make him popular at the frequent parties. He had, at some point, started to experiment with shapeshifting in combination with music. Particulary with voice boxes, vocal cords and sinuses. It had been disconcerning the first few times he had done so, but only maginally more so than getting used to the difference between his human and dragon body. And it gave him a startling vocal range – and multiple voices at once if he wanted. They couldn't be doing too different things at once, since they still had to be vocalised through his mouth at the same time. Technically he could shapeshift to a form with multiple mouths, but he isn't quite ready for that level of body-horror.

Oboron had tried to reconcile with him over the years, but Jack couldn't bring himself to trust them again; especially since they still hadn't so much as apologized.

******

It had been a rare sunny day in late fall when Oboron had brought him back.

******

The camp is akin to a kicked anthill when Jack returns from a hunt. The other Seelies with him, a group of young hunters that had asked to shadow him in order to learn from him, look surprised as well, so this is not some planned event he hadn't known about. But the atmosphere is also not tense enough for an emergency.

He makes his way to the biggest crowd of people, who seem centered about something in their midst.

When he finally makes his way through the throng of excitingly wispering people he finds a stranger speaking to Ferion, the village chief, flanked by a beaming Oboron.

The stranger is not human – no human has golden hair quite so bright, nor golden eyes quite so clear; nor this particular subtle aura of power – but he is also not a Seelie, not dragon or any other sort of higher being Jack has ever seen. He doesn't seem to have any connection to the elemental power around him at all, when all things in this world, living or dead, he has seen to date had had.

Ferion turns when she feels his approach. „Sai, welcome back!“

The nickname Morax had given him as a child had stuck. It is only Oboron who even knows the name Jack.

„I hope all is taken care off?“, Ferion asks rhetorically, continuing before he has time to answer. „This here is Ashan, he is a traveller from a far away land.“ She gives him a side eye, like she expects him to share an inside joke. And he does. There is no land far-flung enough to escape the Seelies‘ eyes, to cause this strange separation between this man and their world. The only explanation for this phenomenom is this traveller's origin being far further away than merely a land – he is from another world entirely.

„He will stay here, as our guest, for the time being“, she continues.

Ashan steps forward and into a slight bow. „Master Sai, I have heard much about you.“ Even his voice is ephemeral. „I hope we can speak at lengh another time.“

Oboron steps forward and knocks their shoulder against Ashan's „Come on.“ They shoot Jack a look „You can sleep with me until you get your own tent.“ 

Ashan laughs as he follows Oboron „I thank you for your… hospitality.“

Jack does not like Ashan much.

******

Infuratingly, Jack does not get to avoid Ashan. Oh, he'd tried, but Ashan is apparently determined to get close to him anyway, for whatever reason. He'd managed to identify the only factor that could make Jack willingly spent any amount of time around him: Morax.

When Ashan's attempts at conversations, and later faux-casually cornering him, had failed, he'd turned to the children instead. He had seemingly effortlessly charmed them with beautiful illusions and fantastical plant life, mainly flowers. There is a specific one he preffers, a pearly white bloom with thick, wide petals, that apparently used to be quite common in his homeland.

The illusions take most of the other children, but Morax prefers the flowers he creates. They likely remind him, like Jack, of their father and his declarations of love for their mother.

Morax had almost immediately attached himself to Ashan like a particulary cute barnacle in order to grill him about magic, fighting technique, and his mysterious homeland. Which, in turn, had led to begrudging bi-weekly meetings where Ashan would answer all of Morax and Mauve's enthusiastic questions while Jack would glare at him from a few metres away.

These meetings then evolve to discussions about magical and martial fighting techniques while the children are distracted; first hesistiantly on Jack's part, but progressively more invested. Ashan is a treasure trove of knowledge about seemingly everything.

It is in these sessions that Jack relearns armed battle.

Ashan brings up other weapon types during a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of catalysts, and Jack hadn't had an answer about why he'd limited himself to learning a single weapon type.

The Seelies use various weapons, though mostly spears and short swords. Jack had never really thought to learn, or re-learn as it is, other types of weapons than the catalysts the system had ascribed to him. Ashan himself prefers the sword, but can use just about anything he can get his hands on. Jack choose to learn the sword. Ashan is a living encyclopedia on hundreds of thousands different sword styles. He gets a few extraordinarily powerful skills – basic attacks, one for each element – out of it.

******

Ashan never moves out of Oboron's tent.

******

Ashan disappears frequently, on more or less secret missions. Or, as Jack finds out nearly two decades into Ashan's stay, not at all secret, just not discussed within his hearing.

Since Ashan is, for whatever reason, building connections among the dragons.

Jack only finds out because Ashan invites him and Morax along to a meeting with some dragons. It's so brazen, so thoughtless, that Jack doesn't know how to react, before choking out a no, and possibly an insult – but his memory isn't entirely clear on that.

******

Ashan tries again, a few weeks later, and this time Jack blows up, telling him precisely what the dragons have done to him, how they think of him, what he fears they would do to him, or his brother, if they got the chance.

He listens attentively the entire time and, when Jack is done, promises to find a solution. 

„There is no solution to bigotry“, Jack tries to sneer, but he knows that he's too emotionally exhausted to manage.

Ashan smiles that unknowable smile of his, the one that makes him look more inhuman than ever. „There is a solution to everything, if you know where to look.“

And, well, if Ashan is determined to bribe or blackmail or whatever the dragons into pretending to be less of the raging assholes that they are, then Jack is not about to stop him.

******

It takes Ashan less than three decades to establish a more or less steady communication between Jack and a sort-of-kind-of penpal among the dragons. A young fire dragon a few centuries his senior . He's – not too bad. That really is the best that can be said about him.

But it does reassure Jack that Ashan has at least some sway over the dragons.

He agrees to a meeting. Without Morax, though. He'll be damned if he puts his brother into that kind of danger.

******

The meeting goes better than expected. They make no secret of their opinion that Jack is very much beneath them, but they also don't outright attack him. They don't even really insult him.

It's surprising, just like the way they treat Ashan. The almost-deference in their interaction with him. He is not a dragon, is not even from this world. He has no lineage, no allies among them. The only reason they would treat him like they do would be an overabundance of the only other thing they value, enough of it to overcome his absolute lack of the other two: overwhelming power.

Jack had known that Ashan was powerful, of course; he's old as dirt and has enough power and inteligence to have survived as long as he did. But seeing it like this is another thing entirely. It reassures and disquiets him at the same time.

Something about Ashan just puts him on edge, despite his apparent good intentions.

If Jack had learned anything, back when he had still been Jack, it's that things that look too good to be true usually are.

******

Over seventy years into Ashan's stay Jack starts to hear the whispers of disquiet among the Seelie. Whispers about humans polluting the land, showing no respect for their work, for them.

Whispers about Celestia.

And by the heavens, does Jack hope his gut feeling is wrong. 

Baby. Must protect at all costs.

Chapter Text

In the following few decades Jack has no more than half a mind for Ashan and his possible intent on sowing discord among the Seelies, because the ley line anormalities multiply, seemingly over night. He cannot keep up with them alone, and the Seelie pull back more and more of their warriors in order to try and beat this new threat at the source: finding and eleminating the origin of this phenomenom. 

Morax beginns following him on his hunts, only in part to help with this problem. Mostly he does because he is tired of Jack coming home only a handful of times a month, and, when he does, returning wounded. It turns out that the cooldown of skills is partly based on his general physical condition.

After about a year of non-stop hunts all over the land surrounding the Seelie camp even the Seelies try to make him take a break. He doesn't, not for nearly two years more. By then he is exhausted enough that he occasionally falls asleep standing and Morax drags him back by force.

When he returns to the hunt, a few months later the anormalities have – spread. He’d never seen anything alike before so he doesn't understands what he is looking at at first. Ley lines are self healing, cleaning them out should only expedite the process. But the ley lines around the festering anormalities are dying.

He doesn't have a better way to describe it. They just disappear slowly. Exterminating the anormality doesn't return the ley lines to normal, he can only hope that time will heal them.

He sends Morax back with a report on the situation, even though he can't fathom how the Seelies wouldn't have noticed what is happening. The situation is far more dire than they had thought and he has no idea why the Seelie had allowed him to rest as long as they did. Exhaustion or not, this is an incoming catastrophe.

The ley lines carry elemental power – life force to the entire ecosystem, flora and fauna alike. When they die, so does the surrounding nature. 

He cannot be everywhere at once. He tries, but it's not possible. He has stopped using skills at this point to preserve energy, is only using his basic attacks. It slows him down further, but allows him to last longer.

In the wake of the speading anormalities follow large swathes of dead land – infertile, dry ground on which nothing will grow, for centuries. And that's if they get rid of the cause.

******

It's nearly a decade into this new normal that he finally gains an insight. He witnesses the forming of a new anormality.

And he quite clearly feels the spiritual presence of a Seelie. At first he thinks them to be doing what he has always felt them doing: ease the flow in the ley lines, help them return to equilibrium.

They are not. They block the flow. Like binding an artery, the following ley lines are cut from the circulation and beginn to decay. The anormality forms at the point of the blockade.

The Seelie notices him. And they know that he noticed them, by the way they flee.

He exterminates the anormality and turns back towards the settlement for the first time in years. He has a rat to catch.

******

„There is a traitor“, he tells Ferion as soon as he finds her. He has no patience for pleasantries right now.

„There is no traitor“, snorts Oboron at her side.

Jack shoots them an annoyed look and reports what he's witnessed.

Ferion remains impassive the entire time; Jack cannot see any of the signs of anger he’d expected. She makes to speak when he's finished, but Oboron cuts her off. And she lets them.

„Are you stupid?“ Oboron sneers at him. „Of course a Seelie did this. What did you think we were doing?“

It takes a moment for their words to register. „You did this? All of this?“ His voice is deadly calm. „You are destroying the ley lines.“

Oboron has the gall to laugh at him. „Of course! That's the idea! Not all of them, though, we need at least a few for our own power.“

And, Jack is exhausted. He's tired, wounded, and hasn't slept in nearly a week. But he'd outstripped Oboron in power more than a century ago. It's a matter of a moment to overpower them and force them to the ground, one of his swords at their throat. That still doesn't wipe the smug look off their face.

„Hurt me, and He will kill you. You're not that important to his plans."

„Ashan, you mean. He ordered this. He is starting a revolution against Celestia.“ His voice breaks a bit at the end, but Jack barely notices with the way his thoughts are spinning.

Celestia draws on the ley lines to bolster their power, that is well known. Destroying your enemies‘ recources before starting a war is tactically sound; if you yourself weren't relying on the same recources. If the lack of those recources wouldn’t tip your enemy off that something is happening. If you weren't deliberately bringing the battle to your own land.

If, in other terms, you weren't the bait.

Oboron is still laughing, the stupid bastard.

Jack pulls back his sword. And stabs them through the shoulder. The Seelies around them call out in alarm.

„Celestia won't let this go. I suggest you run. They will make an example of you.“, he says to the crowd they have gathered.

„Ashan will protect us!“, someone calls out, to loud agreement of those around them. Not everyone though, not by far. A good few will run. Or at least try to.

„I don't trust Ashan as far as i can throw him. I'm leaving.“ Shocked gasps all around. Jack ignores them and goes to find Morax and Mauve. Mauve is an orphan, and to hell if he leaves her in this death-trap.

******

It is a mere few months before the catastrophe hits.

By then Jack has left the Seelie’s lands behind, with the children in tow. They have just reached the eastern shore, when the powers of light beginn moving in a clear sign of a powerful force leaving the palace in the sky. They watch as blinding spots of light descend towards the Seelie's land.

A shudder goes through the ley lines as the celestial gods land. And then the slaughter starts. They can all feel the attacks of elemental energy and pure light, even at this distance. They can hear the sound of earth splitting. It does nothing to drown out Mauve's wails and Morax' quiet cries.

And then, at the horizon, a black mass rises into the sky, the beat of thousands of wings reaches them. The dragons are moving, like the Seelies were so certain they would. They do not turn towards the massacre happening, though, they take course straight for the sky-palace.

Jack hates to have been right.

The celestial gods down on the land notice what is happening, of course, but they are too slow to reach the palace before the dragons do. Large chunks fall, where the dragons tear into it. 

And then, just before the gods reach the battle –

An aurora of blinding light fills the sky, the earth, everything in it's way. He cannot say if he hears, sees, smells, tastes, or feels the scream that makes out his whole world for the moment that feels like an eternity. 

When it ends, the world doesn't quite return to normal. It is just a step to the side, but nothing feels right anymore, anything and everything is different than he had known before.

YOU HAVE WITNESSED THE DEATH OF A GOD

Jack belately realises that Morax and Mauve are choking, even though there is nothing physically wrong with them. He can do nothing but tuck them close and whisper reassurances.

When he looks up again, he sees many of the dragons, those that were too close to the dying god, fall. Most of the other dragons are disorientated and the celestial gods take full advantage. Many, many more fighters would fall, if not for a blur of alternating light and shadows, seemingly fighting more than one of the gods at once. Ashan.

Jack doesn't know how strong he usually is, but he doesn't seem impared, even though he is most likely the one who’d killed the god.

The fight lasts for more than two days, but in the end no more of the celestial gods die, and the dragons retreat with heavy losses.

******

Jack doesn't dare to return to the Seelie's lands, and it turns out to be for the best. A few days after the battle a giant pillar falls from the sky and lands in the middle of the contaminated land. They can feel the shock wave, even though they had gone further north, hugging the coast.

„The ley lines are alive again“, Mauve whispers hoarsly. It's the first thing she's said in a few days.

„Don't try to feel through them, loves. You don't want to know.“

They both bury themselves in the coils of his body and he pulls them as close as he possibly can. 

Chapter Text

They cross the fertile hills in the north to reach the mildly uncomfortable tundras beyond. They are still rich enough in both material ressources and, more importantly, elemental power, to feed two young dragons and one Seelie. It is also well away from the battlefields in the south and southwest, giving them at least a little hope to not be caught up in them. 

Even if that is possibly a moot point, since the celestial gods could very well decide that they had enough of both, the dragons and the Seelies, and that it would be more cost efficient to exterminate them.

Jack believes the safest place right now to be far away from everyone and anything that could draw Celestia's attention – Morax however had decided that right now would be the best time to find his childish side. He'd insisted from sun-up to sun-down that they go to find the Moon Sisters. 

And yes, Jack could understand the line of thought: They are powerful, friends to the Seelies in general and them in particular, and, most importantly, had never so much as met Ashan. They'd been wary of the outsider their friends had decided to host, and, moreover, had thought the limited time they had in the mortal realm too precious to spend on him.

They, by all likelyhood, don't even know about what the Seelies had planned.

But that is also what makes them one of the worst choices for shelter, because they don't know about the plans. From their perspective Celestia had just massacred one of their own vassal tribes for no discernable reason. If they don't decide to take up weapons on their own for that, Ashan will certainly not be far away to whisper into their ears.

Even if they went to the Sisters to warn them, it is unlikely that they would believe them over Ashan. They are, after all, just children, while Ashan is a powerful, charming, otherworldly being that would promise them revenge for their friends and freedom from their oppressors at once.

Jack had tried to explain that to the children, of course, but it hadn't helped much. Morax had found his stubborness at the worst possible time, and Mauve's sullen silence didn't inspire much confidence either. He’d not been particulary surprised when he found them trying to sneak out of the camp, one night. That hadn't stopped him from tying them up with a skill untill they had crossed the mountains.

It's not that he doesn't get where they're coming from; they had both lost their home and pretty much everyone they cared about at once. Paired with Morax' fear of abandonment caused by their parents' early death and they have a recepy for disaster and a lot of mental trauma.

They are at war, however, and he knows what happens to civilans in war zones. Case in point, they are attacked by a mortal god, a sort of ascended humans, the personal choosen of Celestia, less than a month into travel.

He defeats them, but it's a hard battle. He has to rely on his superior agility once more. Damn, he feels like a dragonet again. Well, only lucky he'd collected the ascension materials for himself, Morax and even Mauve, in advance, or he'd be in deep trouble with how fast he's leveling up. By now, he's over 1000 and going strong – even if the mad scramble after the ley line anormalies had been an unmigitiated clusterfuck, he'd gotten one good thing out of it: nearly 200 levels within a decade and a half.

He prefers slow and steady, it's less likely to give him a heart attack from pure stress, but it's good to know his limits./ He's likely about to hit them again, what with the frequency of the attacks.

******

The war is, terribly, more bearable than the endless druge of the previous decade. Short, vicious fights suit him far better than long, drawn out but comparably easy battles. Over the first few attackers he'd perfected his skill-rotations to cause the highest possible damage in the shortest possible time. His enemies expect a helpless child; they don't get time to correct their assumption. He'd learned his lesson after the first time he’d tried to take it slow, and the attacker had gone after Morax and Mauve instead.

After that he'd given them artifacts and weapons. Just in case. They would absolutely not get to fight anything as long as he still breathes – but he's not immortal. If he dies they need the best possible chance he can give them.

******

The next attack on Celestia they see is lead by the solar chariot.

Two more celestial gods die, but far more dragons do. If this is a victory, it's a pyrrhic one at best.

******

The more heavenly battles they see the more Jack has to consider if Ashan even intends to win at all. His tactics are – sloppy. He always attacks first, at day mostly. The celestial gods see them coming.

Nearly all celestial gods that die are killed by Ashan, as far as he can see. He could have fought them by himself, he doesn't need the dragons, or the Sisters. He hadn't needed the Seelies. 

The only reason he can see why Ashan would have gone to such great lenghs to recrute them, is that they are a proud people. They would not have bowed to him, even if he'd won against Celestia alone. 

They will still not bow to him when this war is won. The dragons might think him naive or even stupid, but Jack knows this – and so does Ashan.

And so, in every battle, the dragons die in droves. Their strongest fighters, those who would lead a rebellion against God-King Ashan after this war, fall, leaving the moderately strong and even tempered civilians.

******

Some dragons know that too, they learn when they stumble over a bundle of refugees in a makeshift bunker. Civilians, mostly elders and children. Next to none of them can fight, and those who could fell to the same attacks Jack, Morax, and Mauve had endured.

The dragons get over their racism quick-like when they see the way he can fight. They practically beg him to stay and protect them too. 

He does. The bunker is the safest place to stow away the children he has found yet. Of course, he doesn't trust the dragons with his two children; one of mixed race and one another race entirely. 

But they are – weirdly caring? Not about Jack, of course. They barely don’t sneer in his face. But Morax and Mauve are welcomed with open arms. They get cooed over and spoiled as much as is possible right now. Morax gets pitied at first; the dragons are under the impression that he wasn't presented at court because he hadn't awaken his elemental affinity yet. They are hilarously offended when Jack tells them that he had named him.

He makes sure the children know how to fend an attacker off long enough to call him back before he leaves. Morax knows how to hold his Jade Shield up, and Mauve quietly assures him that she'll make flowers bloom in the hearts of anyone who'd try to touch them. She's not speaking metaphorical. Jack approves.

******

The fights don't exactly get easier. His opponents get more numerous and stronger, and he has more to protect. The adult dragons can go die for all he cares but he doesn't hold their parents‘ views against the dragonlings under his care.

But without him having to keep an eye on Morax and Mauve while he fights, he falls into a sort of battle focus. He hadn't experienced anything like this before, or even before. It’s not a berserker fighting style, it doesn't make him stronger; it's not tunnel vision, he's perfectly aware of his surroundings at all times. It makes him calmer, more concentrated. He can, at times, almost see his opponent's attacks before they happen.

It also exponetially boosts his experience gain from the fights.

Within the next two years he reaches level 1560 before he runs out of ascension material, and still the experience points pile on.

He asks the system what is up with that, and it answers somewhat reluctantly that the exp gain is calculated only in part on the gain of classical ‚experience', and much more so on the rate of absorption of power from his fallen opponents. 

And that – is not normal. No other being he has met until now could absorb power from living, or dead, beings. From ley lines, yes. From ambivalent power, sure. But not – theft. It should be impossible: The power of the dead belongs to death.

But then, what about him is normal?

He just… shoves it into a mental drawer and decides to ignore it for the time being.

******

He is on one of his patrol routes when the fight beginns:

Like usual, the dragons reach Celestia, headed by Ashan, the Solar Chariot not far behind. 

Like usual, the dragons die in droves, gods die to Ashan and to the Sisters. And then, suddenly –

He is well used to the feeling of a god's death by now. The moment they die, the power they held rips outward. It stands to reason, then, that the exposion would be stronger, the more powerful the god. 

Nothing could have prepared him for Ashan's death. The wave of power robbs him of all senses. The sheer vastness of it makes him feel as though he is falling into an great abyss in which there is… something… watching.

The world doesn't return to normal. It never will, he knows, forever altered by the violent death of one of it's pillars.

He has not recovered his breath yet, when the second wave follows; dozens of gods, caught up in Ashan's death. He rides it out, there is nothing else he can do.

When his senses return, he can see the full scope of destruction left in the wake of this final hit. A part of the Sky Palace is just – gone. Not broken of blown off, just gone. The same has happened to a good part of the dragon's forces. The rest is falling. None of them have the power to hold themselves in the air.

The Solar Chariot is no longer in the sky. There is smoke rising just east of where the Seelies‘ camp had once been.

******

He returns to the shelter. None of it's inhabitants are conscious. He finds Morax and Mauve curled up together in one corner. 

They are bleeding from their eyes and ears, but - they're alive.

They've survived this war.

Chapter Text

It takes a while, even after the unquestionable deafeat of the rebellion, for the attacks by the mortal gods to stop. They, and the human civilizations they were once part of, have suffered greatly under the dragons, both during and before the war. Now, that the only chance they have to extract even a sliver of their pound of flesh is rapidly coming to a close, they are getting frenzied.

Jack fights harder and more frequently than he had during the war. The experience points are piling on even if he's not leving up.

From questioning some of the gods he learns that Nibelung has disappeared and is presumed dead, that two of the three Moon Sisters are confirmed dead while there is no word on the fourth (as he knew them, she will not survive her Sisters' deaths), and that the celestial gods are tearing down the cities of dragonkind, even though they don't seem to be set on eleminating the dragons themselves.

******

A good few weeks later Jack finally deems it save enough for travel. He gathers his kids and gets on his way. He doesn't even try to say his goodbyes to the dragons. They are all but frothing at the mouth to get rid of him. But he's not heartless enough to forbid Morax and Mauve from saying goodbye to their friends, which is an uncomfortably tearful proceding. 

They end up staying a day longer than he had planned, because he couldn't tell Morax no when he had asked to stay just one more night.

He has real difficulties trying to tell his children no about anything, he finds during the travels. Morax doesn't want to go over the mountains again – Mauve would really like, she stresses, to not go over the north-western island chains. In the end they take an entirely different route than the one he had planned out, but he can’t bring himself to mind that overly much. Not when his children are openly smiling and laughing for the first time in years.

He couldn't do much for them during the war, but he can now. So he takes them on a long circuit through the north-eastern parts of the continent.

They meet humans there, and other higher beings. Some object to them being there, others don't – or at least don't voice it. They are all hit hard by the war. Jack and the children help where they can, be it with moving debris, rebuilding homes or fighting off monsters the human tribes can't.

In return, the humans insist on rewarding them. They don't have enough in material goods that Jack would feel comfortable accepting them when they are offered. After a few villages Jack starts asking about recepies and stories instead.

He's never bothered to learn how to cook anything but the simplest things, before, but he also never had any children to take care of back then.

Neither dragons nor Seelies really need to eat, but it is an easy, comfortable and pleasurable way to regain energy. But only if the food tastes good.

And so began the adventure of cooking. No, really, that overstates it. Simple dishes are a matter of focus and practice. The system, however, had decided that he needs incentive to actually learn – or was trying to reward him, because every meal he manages to cook perfectly has an effect: fairly useless ones that lessen exhaustion, much like energy drinks, over those that strenghen his attack or agility to those that heal. 

One fairly easy chicken dish returns nearly a fourth of his HP.

He is not ashamed to admit that he might have gone a bit crazy with that for a while. Ok, it might have been more than a bit. But it's useful! It could absolutely save his life one day!

So he spends a frankly ridiculous amount of time learning to cook and gathering ingredients. At one point the system seems to take pity on him and offers him a daily free amount of ingredients of his choice.

His children enjoy his experimentation, mostly, but he can see that they are getting restless. So he packs up their stuff and they start moving straight south, towards the two large mountains in the distance.

******

They reach the foot of the first and larger mountain, Pilos Peak, first. He had planned on moving around the mountain, hug the foot of the second one, Kailos Peak, and turn west then, to reach one of the mineral rich areas that he had found in his childhood, in order to restock on ascension material for Morax and himself.

No plan survives first contact with the enemy, or, in this case, the local ley lines. As soon as Mauve gets a feel for them she takes off running.

And that is how they find the first group of Seelie survivors. They have settled in the two mountains. Apparently they had been one of the first groups to leave; they had already been long gone by the time he had confronted Oboron.

Sadly, that also meant that they don't know how many other Seelies had managed to escape. But they are certain, at least, that the celestial gods are not going after them, which gives Jack hope that they would find other groups of survivors.

When they start getting ready to move on again, he tries to give Mauve the option of staying with her people, even if there is little he would like less than leaving her, but she deserves the chance to grow up normal and safe among her kin. 

She hisses at him, remarkably like Morax when he's in a snit, and stomps off.

Well, then.

******

They stay in what he privately calls Crystal Valley for longer than he had anticipated. He knew that he'd need mountains of ascension materials just to catch up with the experience points that were left over, but he still underestimated just how much.

Luckily Morax' connection with the bedrock is deep. He knows exactly where they need to search.

It is funny, how minerals work in this world. Instead of one-of-a-kind objects that more or less just happened to be found underground, as they had been in the before-world, here they seem to be fruit, almost. They are physical manifestations of ambivalent geo power. The point being, they regrow. It doesn't even take that long, just about a week. 

They stay a month and a half. By then, Jack has caught up with his levels and gathered enough materials to get him through another 200 levels – and the Crystal Valley looks like swiss cheese.

******

Jack is at level 2103, at the moment, Morax and Mauve at 254 and 165, respectively.

That meaning, he's goddamn powerful. All his stats had increased more than a third during their stay in Swiss Valley, and, as soon as he gets used to that, his fighting power increases exponentially.

He doesn't kid himself about being invincible; he remembers his mother's deference before Nibelung, and he's still not at her level, not by far.

But, the enemies he faces have nothing on Nibelung either. Nothing in this world has much on Nibelung, there's a reason that asshole had been in charge before the celestial gods showed up.

******

They pay their respects at their parents' grave.

It's undisturbed, even if the caves in the mountain above look like someone had lived there not too long ago, though they are abandoned now. Not surprising, as the mountain is smack dab in the middle of fought over terretority. The one who had lived here had either fled when the battles started, or joined the war effort.

******

There is a giant crater between their childhood mountain and the old Seelies' land.

******

By now, they have found dozens of refugee groups in various sizes. One memorable one, almost completly composed of children, had witnessed the massacre. The celestial gods had apparently killed everyone who had helped corrupt the ley lines or who tried fighting them, but hadn't harmed those who hadn't done either. Which is – kinder than he had expected.

******

The crater is massive, still smoking and full of splintered debis. It's impossible to cross on foot, in other words. Jack doesn't trust the structural integrity of even the boulders large enough to be called mountains.

Morax, however, insists. He can feel tectonic movement and is set on seeing the centre. 

So Jack bundles up his children and carefully crosses the stretch of land that was once a chain of small hills.

The centre is – what Jack had expected. They find parts of the Solar Chariot, blown apart by Ashan's death, the impact, and the Sister's death. They don't find any trace of corpses. That, more than anything, seems to hurt Morax.

Perhaps it becomes real now, that they see inrefutable proof of the death of what, to Morax, had been family. Perhaps he had hoped for corpses they could bury.

They stay the night, right there, in what will have to be their final resting place. They sing, and tell stories, and Jack tells himself that they would have prefered that over a grave in the earth and flowers.

„They are home now“, he tells his children, watching the smoke rise in the starlight. „See, they are returning to their Sister.“

It gives the children comfort, if nothing else.

Before they leave, he puts the shards of the Solar Chariot into his inventory. No need for unknowing humans to stumble over them.

******

The condition of the Seelies' lands is worse than he had expected. There is nothing left of the lush green meadows and forests. It's a desert now. 

The ley lines may be alive again, but the enviroment doesn't seem to be recovering.

It appears dead at first, and Jack spends a good week mourning, before Mauve beginns pointing out the many creatures living in this hostile place: Reptiles, birds, beetles, hardy little plants – they form a delicate ecosystem of their own. Far more fragile than the forests of before, but on the best way to thriving.

It settles something in him, to see recovery in a place so badly damaged.

******

He sees the pillar in the distance, but he doesn't dare to go closer.

******

They find another group of refugees, a mix between dragons, Seelies, and other higher beings. They decide to stay a while.

******

Things seem to settle down. The refugees are moving back across the desert. They want to settle down a bit north of the crater, only a short way from his childhood mountain.

They are… good. Even the dragons don't reject him as much as all others of their kind had.

******

They start building an actual city. Jack is surprised; the Seelies had been normadic, but then the dragons hadn't been. Neither had the higher beings, possibly. He doesn't know, he realises. His father had lived with his mother and never seemed unhappy about it.

He asks the other higher beings, the enlightened beasts, in their group, and gets cultural lessons, for the first time in either life.

******

They get human neighbors. 

The humans apparently found remains of the dragon's cities and promtly pilfered anything and everything they could get their hands on.

Serves the dragons right.

******

It’s more than two decades later that disaster strikes again.

It comes in the form of a messenger. A dragon, wind natured, young. But it's the message he brings that pulls out the rug from under him.

„Lord Nibelung and His Grace, God-King Ashan have returned! You are obligated to send any individuals of fighting age to the war effort!“ 

Chapter Text

The announcement is met with disbelief, mostly – but not completely. Some of the dragons, and even a few higher beings, had secretly held hope that Nibelung would return. They seem all too eager to go back to the war. So eager even that they completly forget the other two parts of the message:

The forceful draft of every dragon of fighting age – which is one thousand years. It's pure luck that Jack is still away from that by a bit less than a century. If he hadn't been, this draft would have left their city completely bereft of not only fighters (bitterly necessary, as they had seen during the last war), but also supervisors for the one hundred odd children. That is most certainly still a problem. He can fight for them, but he can't keep an eye on the children at the same time.

Far more worrisome is the claim that Ashan still lives. They had all felt his death. They all know him to be dead. And yet the messenger seems completely sure of himself when Jack questions him. It would need a lot of proof to create that kind of certainity – proof the person impersonating Ashan would need to have the means to fabricate, or at least to make everyone around them believe they had it. Masterful shapeshifting and impersonating, down to the magical imprint, or mind fuckery. Maybe both.

This is looking worse than bad.

******

The army sweeps though to collect the new recruits that had been more or less willingly volunteered.

Jack gets a good look at the thing claiming to be Ashan, then.

It's wrong. Oh, it has his mannerism down pat, just like his magic, his generall posture, his everything. And yet, it's wrong. A visceral knowledge that that's not right. He'd thought he'd left the uncanny valley effect behind with his human life, what between the Seelies and a little dragon learning to shapeshift. Apparently not.

But whatever this thing is, it's dangerous.

He makes sure not to catch its eye.

******

He takes the opportunity of the silence before the storm to collect more materials. If this is anything like last time, his levels are going to shoot though the roof. And he'll need every bit of power he can get to keep his children safe. They're not in the outback of fuck-off, at the fifth turn left; they are pretty much right beneath the Sky palace. 

And he can't leave. He'd thought about it, but he can't leave the other children in the city. He's their only chance to survive this mess. Their only chance is to hunker down as tightly as they can.

So he grasses the surrounding lands clean of all materials he can find. He even, to his shame and guilt, digs tunnels in the crater. It's rich in minerals, but… yeah.

The survival of the living is more important than the honor of the dead.

******

There are only a handful of adult dragons left in the city, those who are sick or so weak as to be only a liability on the battle field. The higher beings of the surrounding lands flock to them. Apparently, there are rumors about him.

They start building underground bunkers. There is a good chance that the buildings will collapse at some point, hit by debris or falling bodies.

******

The last time the war begann with a direct attack on the Sky Palace. Not so this time. This time Not-Ashan orders attacks on the cities of mortals worshipping the celestial gods. The cities most of the mortal gods come from.

It destroys the recruitment basis of the celestial gods, but it also draws the hatred of every single mortal god. The battles are violent. Personal.

And that extends to the refugees: He fights every day, multiple times. Some mortal gods even attack in groups.

He finds now that he’d be in deep trouble without his makeshift energy drinks and the mild healing and refreshing effect of leveling up.

******

Not-Ashan never attacks the Sky Palace directly.

There are whispers getting loud, according to the messenger, that call Ashan a coward.

******

They get a new messenger.

A young fire natured dragon. He claims that their previous messenger had been found guilty of treason and assures them that he has recieved a 'befitting punishment'.

He, much like Not-Ashan, feels wrong.

******

The battles, between himself and the attackers as well as the ones between the dragons and celestial gods, pick up in frequency and viciousness.

The celestial gods are forced to come down to prevent their entire following from being wiped out. Celestial gods die nearly daily, while the death count among the dragons is much lower than it was the first time around.

The messenger tells them about Ashan's Guard, a group of dragons handpicked and blessed by Ashan himself. They feel neither pain nor fatigue and are far stronger than before.

The messenger seems to be trying to recruite a few of the younger dragons, as well as the sickly adults that had stayed behind.

Strangely enough, he doesn't even seem to be trying the same with Jack – who has throughfully proven his fighting skills by now. For the best really, since he would have had to decline.

******

He must have killed hundreds of mortal gods by now, and yet the celestial gods dont seem to be paying any attention to him.

******

It is after one of the more decicive battles between the dragons and the celestial gods, that one of the adult dragons in their shelter takes him aside. She is an old shrew, nagging about everything and blunt as all hells, but usually well meaning.

„What will happen to you if Ashan wins?“, she asks him.

„Happen? Much the same as before, i imagine. I'll stay out of their way and they'll ignore me as hard as they can.“

She barks a laugh. „You can't honestly think that they'll let you?“

He's confused. „Why not? That's how it's always been.“

„Yes, when the celestial gods were alive! Once they're dead, you will be dead too!“

She huffs and puffs, calls him stupid a few times and refuses to talk about it anymore.

******

He approaches her again a few days later.

„What did you mean?“

She sneers at him. „Don't play stupid, child, it doesn't suit you.“

„I really don't know what you're talking about.“

She looks at him with a puzzled look. „How can you not know?“ She turns and settles down a bit. „Very well, child. You're dead.“

He freezes. He'd known that his mother had known, but – had it been obvious for every single dragon he'd ever met? Was that why they hated him?

But – „Why did Nibelung call me a 'halfbreed' then? If all of your disgust wasn't because of my father?“

She tilts her head. „It is because of your father. A dead soul cannot live in a living body – only in a dead one. Two negatives make a positive and all that. And a quilin cannot sire a dead body, only one that can die. 

The only beings in this plane of existence with power over death are the celestial gods.“

******

He looks almost nothing like his father he thinks, as he considers his body. Wrong coloring, no mane, no horns. He looks little enough like his mother too, too thin and slender. But then, what does he know about supernatural genetics?

He should have known, it’s so obvious.

His little brother takes much more after their parents. Gorgeous golden-brown scales, a mane, even though it's scruffy yet, tiny nubs where horns will grow one day. He's glad. Obviously his little brother had hit the genetic jackpot.

How stupid can you be? Look at your presumed sibling and think „Yeah, we look nothing alike, how funny, Ah ha ha.“

But –

He watches his little brother curl up in their father's horns, to listen to him sing, exactly as Jack had done at his age.

Jack listens in fascination, as his father explains the different plants around the cave, all of them dragonet-save.

He remembers - His father is frowning. „We can't present him yet. It's too early. They have reason to dislike him already-“

He had known too, and he hadn't given a shit. Jack had been his. He's not going to insult his memory by looking for his biological father who never gave a shit about him.

******

The war finishes rather unexpectedly. It is a normal day, there is nothing indicating what is about to happen.

Then, suddenly, the mortal gods who had been about to attack turn away and leave simultaneously. He looks around, and it's all the mortal gods – and they are going in the same direction.

Damn him, and his curiosity. He goes after them. There are no more potential attackers in the area anyway.

He hadn't left his city since this war had begun, and it shows. There are entire streches of land just – gone. 

Not collapsed, or destroyed; it's as though they were never there to beginn with.

There had been a city there, a mountain here, a lake over there, that now just aren't. The land around the… gaps is destroyed, from heavy battle he'd guess.

The mortal gods are headed to the once-seelie lands. To the spot right beneath the Sky Palace.

Even at the distance he can see the giant shadowy figures, seemingly trapped in circles of light.

When he comes closer, he recognizes the massive form of Nibelung, and those of other dragons around him. They, like Not-Ashan, are wrong.

The mortal gods take position around the circles, powering them.

He has nearly reached the larger circle the Not-dragons are trapped in, when he spots the smaller circle beyond. In its center kneels Not-Ashan. And, around it, stand the celestial gods. There are only two celestial gods around the larger circle, but dozens around the smaller one.

Among the celestial gods are seven that are – wrong, or perhaps right, in an entirely different way the Not-beings are.

A human form, but wrong

The impression of too many eyes, and mouths, and hands

He shakes off the memory of a phantom laughter in his ears and steps closer.

The seven gods turn to him as one.

Well met, young one

He has to breathe deeply, just trying to deal with ever having heard that sound.

„What are you doing?“, he asks. It feels like a sacrilege to speak to these gods with a mere human voice. He unconsciously changes his throat to mimic at least a fragment of their otherworldly sound.

Do not interfere. You are not ready yet. Observe and learn.

He can do nothing but obey.

The circles light up, and the things within scream, first as they are, then they beginn changing. Or, not changing. 

They are unable to hold their disguise any longer.

He turns to Not-Ashan and has to hold back the bile crawling up his throat. The thing is grotesque. He can't even really comprehend what it is, beyond that. There are eyes, feathers, probably, claws, possibly, and… slime he thinks. Or maybe that is blood.

The circles are burning it. The dragons in the larger circle are transforming too, but different from the thing. There are still parts of them that are as they once had been, as they should be. The other parts look like the thing. They have grown into, have fed on their hosts like parasites.

They are burning faster and faster until there is only ash left. The ash keeps burning until nothing remains. Only then do the gods drop the circles.

Some of the mortal gods collapse and fade, dead from the effort of powering the circles.

„It's dead now, right? It's gone?“ His voice is high and breaking slightly, but he can't bring himself to care.

No. The Abyss cannot die. It will live on though its hosts. It has dug its roots deep into this land. Even we cannot dig it out again completely.

The seven gods step forward, one after the other, and touch his head. 

The Abyss is an old enemy. Ashan has warred against it before – he has managed what will be impossible now. He had sealed it. His death woke it, and Nibelung, in his foolish quest for rulership, freed it.

„So it will come back?“

Yes. We will fight it whenever and wherever it does. And so will you, perhaps, one day.

He nods. „Yes, I will. Whatever is in my power.“

He has the impression that they are laughing at him, much the same way he would have laughed, before, at a toddler declaring that they would save the world.

Very good, young one. It is time now.

„Time? For what?“

For you to return home.

Chapter Text

The first few years after the war are filled with uncertainy from all sides. After all, Nibelung and Ashan have seemingly returned from the dead once before. It does not help that no one who‘d witnessed the final battle is allowed to speak about it. Mortal gods, higher beings and the remaining Seelies, whe had stood witness through the ley lines, alike are sworn to secrecy by the celestial gods. They are not permitted to speak about it on pain of death.

All beings but him. He is permitted to tell whoever he likes about the Abyss, about Nibelung and about what had happened to them. He doesn't. Knowledge about its existence invites it, and he won't risk some idiot down the line trying to call on it to fight against the celestial gods as Nibelung had done.

Instead he tells the young of the higher beings living in his city about monsters in the dark that flee before the light. He tells them to hold to their convictions and morals, and to resist anything that would try to corrupt them with all their power. It's… easy. They are children, even if they are centuries old, and they idolise him.

The older ones are sceptic, but they understand well enough that he is trying to talk around the restrictions placed by the celestial gods. They don't try to pry more out of him, instead they take over his warnings and spread them wherever they go – which is far.

They had their homes all across the continent, before the war forced them to find shelter. They return now that the danger is over. Slowly at first, but faster the longer the peace lasts.

The dragons, too, leave. They resettle among the westernmost mountains of the continent under the command of Xiuhcoatl, the fire dragon sovereign – not that he can be called that anymore, considering that the Celestia had put their foot down and had confiscated the elemental authorities that had given the Sovereigns their power.

They name those mountains ‚Natlan‘, after their lost capital.

******

Out of the beings that stay with him, a good half are children. They are from all kinds of species; Elemental spirits, a handful of quilin, enlightened beasts from the hills and plains to the east, and even a few fox spirits that had come down all the way from the far north.

They all look to him to lead them, even the adults. Nevermind that he's younger than more than half of them; he's the one they all owe their lives to. They won't hear of following anyone but him.

The city they had built before the second uprising is little more than rubble. He plans on moving to a more secure location soon and the adults agree. Most of the children don't have an opinion on that one way or another, but some do. He spends a good while reassuring them and collecting things they refuse to leave behind, from paintings and furniture, over windows and doors, to entire pillars. 

It's exhausting and occasionally infurating in the way small children are, but these objects carry valuable memories, sometimes of those that have died. Carrying them along is a small enough price for settling the hearts of some little children who have already lost way too much.

They are all packed and ready to go, but he still hesitates. Mauve had all but begged him to wait until the Seelie clans reach them, so he does.

They wait three whole years, before even Mauve has to agree that they aren't coming. He promises her that they will go and look for them once they are settled in their new home.

******

They move to the east, away from the desert, until they reach his and Morax' childhood mountain. Or at least what is left of it. The mountain had survived the last uprising with a lot of luck – that hadn't held a second time.

The rubble of the collapsed mountain covers his parents' grave, so at least that had been left undisturbed. The dragonsnaps and heart bells he had planted had all but disappeared, while another flower, a beautiful gleaming blue lily, had taken over most of the ground. 

Which he's not bitter about at all – the dragon snaps and hearts bells had been his father's favorite flowers, because he thought they reflected his mother the best out of all his creations. This blue lily, meanwhile, had been his mother's favorite; his father had created it one day, almost absent-mindedly. It had been comparatively plain and not at all performative, solely there to accompany his singing. His mother had loved them instantly, because she thought they resembled his father perfectly in their honesty; elegant without frilliness, simultaneously filigran and robust, and revealing their true beauty in their music.

He, of course, makes sure to tell Morax about them, as he's to young to remember their parents well.

They decide to built their new home right there.

******

With Morax' help he raises mountains around the valley filled with what his people have decided to call glaze lilies. It's hard work and slow going, because he tries to keep at least enough energy to fight off an attack should it come. (It's not paranoia if they're really after you)

But by the time it's done, half a dozen steep mountains reach high enough to touch the clouds. His people proof humor by calling their new home Jueyun Karst – place where clouds are destroyed.

Then, his people in the most defensive position he can make them, he goes looking for the Seelies.

******

Morax turns one thousand shortly before they leave. He insists on throwing his bestest itty bitty brother a grand celebration for what amounts to his sweet 16th.

(His own 1000th birthday had fallen just after the second uprising; nobody had been in the mood to celebrate then. He himself had only remembered a few years after the fact.)

******

On their travels they see more of the places where pieces of land had just disappeared. The system tells him that those places had been extremly contaminated, and that the celestial gods had banished them to a place called Dark Sea. It doesn't elaborate, even on prompting.

******

They find the Seelies, though they don't reconize them at first. They see the tiny blue spirits just about everywhere, even before they reach the two Peaks. It is only there that they find out what had happened, from a warning carving in the stone walls above the main camp.

The Seelies had been hit hard by the monstrosity they had unknowingly helped poison their world, as well as their dereliction of duty; of using the ley lines as a weapon instead of guarding them with their lives. But that had not been all: They found themselves poisoned by the Abyss as well, though a rift in reality close to to their camp. The contamination had spread among all the tribes before they had even known that it existed. In the end, the only way out they could see had been a ritual that would destroy the bodies of all Seelies that had been tainted. 

Which had been every single one of them.

******

The initial contamination of the Seelies‘ camp turns out to be a full-on portal on the summit of Pilos Peak. The system calls it the Spiral Abyss. It advises him to clear it every month, lest the monsters of the Abyss manage to leave it.

******

They return to Jueyun Karst only a month after they had left, to the great surprise of his people. They had expected him to take far longer.

They hadn't known the Seelies, and yet they grieve with them, once they learn what had happened to them.

******

Higher beings flock to Jueyun Karst as time passes. Some had stayed in the city with him during the war, some hadn't. Some bring their family and friends.

The quilin move to the mountains just north. Morax is mildly curious about them, but not more. He doesn't really know what to do about an entirely peaceful people. Morax is a war child, and his morals are, despite his best attempts, limited. They pretty much boil down to 'If someone attacks you, they are coming to kill everone you love. Retaliate with maximum savagery possible‘.

Which he could do more about if he didn't live by the same rule. Do as I say, not as I do, indeed.

The number of people under his command grows steadily. He starts laying down ground rules; stuff like 'don't steal', 'don't attack each other or the humans in the surrounding lands', 'respect each other's territory‘. The last one is very much necessary, because he lives with various species who have different degrees of territoriality. Elemental spirits, for example, don't even really claim a territory, while fox spirits can and will try to kill anyone who enters theirs.

It's a learning experience and very much feels like herding cats, most of the time. It's luck he already has experience with making assholes work together, even though his team, before, hadn't had the raw power to, quite literally, put each other head first through a mountain.

In the end, he sets up a designated duelling arena.

******

About four centuries after the war, rumors spread, about Xiuhcoatl and his half-human son. They say Xiuhcoatl treasures him, despite his ancestry, and guards him jealously inside his palace.

******

In time, they find peace in their little corner of the world. His people, who call themselves Adepti, flourish. They beginn guarding the humans around them in return for offerings and worship – prayers increase the power of a higher being, apparently. It doesn't do anything for him, so he redirects everyone to Morax, who becomes quickly known as Deus Auri, god of gold.

It's not that the humans could have prayed to him anyway, since they would need his true name for that. And – he doesn't know what his name is, himself. He'd thought of himself as Jack for centuries, but there is no one alive who knows that name. Oboron had been the last. Morax doesn't remember it. He calls him Brother, Sai, or, as his Adepti had taken to calling him: Sairou.

And that's a beautiful name: Rou for clear headed hunter, a sort of title after the war, and Sai, the nickname for Jack, his memories of before, shortened by his infant brother of this life.

It's a name he wouldn't mind carrying.  

A portrait of Sairou in his half human, half dragon form.

Chapter Text

Peace is not absolute, even in absence of an all-out war. There are hundreds, if not thousands of gods and other powerful higher beings that claim the land around Jueyun Karst. Sairou hadn't tried even once to expand their territory, but between the refugees, their children and grandchildren, and various wandering beings that are allied with Jueyun Karst, they have the largest fighting force between the desert and the two Peaks. And that is without counting Sairou, Morax, and Mauve. 

His children had grown up strong. At one and a half millenia, they are coming along so well. Morax had taken a page out of Sairou's own strategy 'they can't kill you if they can't touch you', and run with it. His jade shield is nearly unbrekable. And while his enemies are busy trying to get through it, he flattens them with meteors or giant stone spears. He's occasionally a bit rigid in his fighting style, but that's alright for someone who seems the personification of an immovable object.

Mauve, occasionally also called Nabu Malikata by the humans, has set on versatility and on Sairou's propensity of finishing fights quickly. She didn't go back on her word of making flowers bloom in the hearts of her enemies. Which is absolutely terrifying, but also very cool. Sairou's not so deeply buried nerd is all over the idea.

Needless to say, between the three of them they sort out anyone who tries to cause trouble quickly. Embarassingly that also leads to him gaining a moinker. Deus Vesperae – God of Dusk. Still better than the whispers of God-Slayer he'd heard, but, surprisingly, his people take offence. They start a campaign of naming him Deus Aurorae, God of Dawn. Morax and Mauve are completely on bord.

******

Mauve leaves for the desert when she's a thousand and seven hundred. It's been in the making since they first left it, of course, but that doesn't make parting any easier. She laughs at his clinginess, but he can see the tension in her. She, too, grew up in a war, and lost everything she loved twice over. Losing her home again and trying to built a new one in the ruins of the one she lost can't be an easy task. He has no idea how much sheer willpower that must take, but he knows that he could never clear that bar. He admires her deeply for that.

Morax, luckily, doesn't show any signs of wanting to go anywhere – despite him being old enough to start his own family if he so wanted – and soaks up Sairou's probably overbearing attention like a sponge.

******

Mauve sends back word regularily, of course, at least once per week, by way of condensed elemental power taking the form of a mix between butterflies and dragonflies. She, creatively, named them crystalflies. They are capable of temporarily storing small memories and transport them over large distances.

Mauve tells them about the small plant spirits she found, the Aranara, and about other beings in the desert that suffer because they had been made for the forest. She speaks about the many, many beings that have evolved in the desert and couldn't survive without it.

With faux casualness she speaks about the god in the desert who is called Amun. He, apparently, has an interest in everything - technology, magic theory, history, language, art. The things Mauve knows about him are many and varied and most certainly not the product of a handful short conversations as she claims.

Looks like Mauve has her first crush. They'll see how it works out.

******

Mauve doesn't need to tell them about her newest - vaguely insane, possibly genius, probably both - idea. They can see the giant raiforest that now covers a third of the previous desert just fine.

******

The goddess arrives in Jueyun Karst about a century after Mauve creates the rainforest. She's a traveller, a young goddess of wisdom, he vaguely remembers, with her own human following.

He's sunning on a rock outcrop, half asleep, as he watches her take a stroll through the fields of glaze lilies below.

She's so busy admiring the flowers that she nearly walks right into Morax. She bows deeply, clearly embarrassed and apologetic. Sairou expect Morax to brush her off, as he usually does, but – he doesn't. Instead he starts a conversation with her. 

Sairou is very promptly wide awake. A shame he's too far away to play fly on the wall.

******

The goddess' name is Guizhong, and she's the goddess of dust and memory, he learns two days later when Morax introduces them. He’s so obviously smitten he can't so much as take his eyes off her, and she's not much better.

A portrait of Guizhong

He gives them his blessing.

******

Gods don't really marry. Who would they swear their oaths to, except each other? They make their promises to themselves and to their partner. It's a private affair, but the celebration that follows is very much not.

All gods and higher beings of Jueyun Karst attend, and so do Mauve and Amun, together with a young nature goddess called Rukkhadevata. Both of them dote upon her – very much not like he had doted on his kids. He tries hard not to think along the lines of 'sugar baby‘, and fails miserably.

Morax, bless his soul, doesn't notice. He has only eyes for his new wife.

******

With the marriage of their guardian gods, the handful of humans under the protection of Jueyun Karst are absorbed into the following of Guizhong. Her people are quite different from the humans he is used to. 

The humans who have prayed to the Adepti, to Deus Auri, and rarely to Deus Vesperae, had been in need of physical protection. They had prayed to them specifically because they were so much weaker than them; they had always been painfully aware of that. In effect, he is used to humans more or less obviously avoiding him. On the rare occasion that he'd unexpectingly come face to face with one of them they had nearly jumped out of his way. 

(Sometimes he remembers his friends - Mai, Sayu, Tia, Mika and Roku – and the easy comradery he'd shared with them. For all the pain their deaths had brought him, he wouldn't trade his memories of them for anything.)

So, when, on his first stroll through the newly established Guili Assembly, he nearly stumbles over the man that throws himself in his path on his knees, he's rightfully surprised.

"Great Deus Aurorae, please grant this lowly one your wisdom!“, the man squeaks out.

Really, did Morax have to tell them his title? At least he didn't tell them his name.

"First of all, sit up. I want to look you in the face when I talk to you.“

The man does, shakingly. He's middle aged and broad, with strong arms and shoulders. He doesn't quite manage to look him in the eye, but it‘s good enough.

"Then tell me what you need help with – and why you didn't ask Guizhong. She's a goddess of wisdom, I’m just a god of war.“

Now the human looks almost offended. "I’m a blacksmith, my lord. And – all the Adepti, and the great Deus Auri, all said the same, that you made their weapons! Please grant us your wisdom of creating such masterpieces!“

That takes a moment to settle in. Yes, he'd made Morax' and Mauve's signature weapons for them, and for quite a few of the Adepti as well, because he'd been bored. He'd made ten pieces of his own signature weapon by then, for the refinement, and five for Morax and Mauve each, so he'd started experimenting. Different materials and their assembly lead to different effects. It's a science and art all in one. In other words, fascinating.

He considers the human in front of him, who'd pressed his face into the ground again and is sweating like a pig.

"Very well, I'll teach you.“

******

Turns out, the man, who's named Taiko, hadn’t expected to get a teacher. He had expected a tip or two at best, but he's jumping at the chance to get classes out of it. Sairou had offered, since he has to go through everything anyways, it doesn’t really matter how many people listen.

He sets the first lesson for two days later. 

When he arrives at the smithy, a row of young and middle aged men and a single young woman greet him. The woman, who bears a strong resemblance to Taiko, stands a bit away from the rest. The tilt of her chin says she has something to prove. He likes her instantly.

When he leads the way inside, one of the young men speaks up. 

"Won't you tell her to leave?“, he nods at the woman.

Sairou considers him. Incredibly brave or foolish. Foolish, probably. "No, I won't.“

The young man puffs up, to the clear despair of the other men. "She's a woman.“

"Gee, thanks, I almost missed that.“, he drawls. The men all but quake in their boots, but none of them try to interfere. The woman looks like she’s contemplating pinching herself.

The foolish one is getting insecure, but his pride doesn't allow him to back down. "I'm not sharing a smithy with a woman.“

"Then don't. Go home.“

His jaw drops and his face turns pale and then beet red. Fortunately for his own health, he slinks off without protest.

Sairou looks at his remaining students. "I don't give a shit about your personal views. You will be civil to each other, or you can leave. Understood?“ They nod meekly. Damnit, he’s trying to make them less afraid of him, not more.

He finally pushes inside.

The smithy is large, with enough working space for all of his students, and a large slate plate and desk at the front. He lays out the different minerals and ores they have to work with on the desk, while his students claim their places.

When they are settled, he beginns the lesson. Basics at first, properties of different materials and how they interact with each other, then different methods to work them. The first lesson goes off without a hitch.

******

Three lessons later, when he's covered the basics of theoretical knowledge – and possible dangers – he goes over to practical application. One idiot's piece breaks immedially because he mixed star silver and cor lapis.

Sairou holds it up, and asks the others what they think went wrong with it.

"Crystalise reaction, my lord. Star silver is cryo natured, while cor lapis is geo natured. We're not supposed to mix materials with different elemental natures, because it destabilises the finished piece.“, the young woman answers promtly.

"Correct. As have told you, there are ways to make it work, but we will cover them when you have the basics down. For now, use a neutral base and one elemental natured material at most.“

******

The next lesson the same idiot tries to combinine amethyst and cor lapis, and Sairou kicks him out of the smithy.

******

The young woman, Mikasa, Taiko's eldest daughter, proves to be his best student. She’s attentive, irreverent, once she gets over her fear of him, and creative. Careful, sometimes excessively, but that is hardly a fault when working with stuff that can blow up in your face if handled incorrectly.

******

It is Guizhong who comments on his changed mood first.

"I'm glad you're finding joy in something! You're seeming so much more alive now!“

The surrounding Adepti murmur agreement, while Sairou blinks at her. He hadn't noticed much difference, except that he's not so bored anymore. The days pass slower, not flowing into one another anymore. He actually remembers details now.

******

Mikasa and he occasionally spend time together after the lessons. She shows him her favorite spots around the assembly: The bridge where the stray dogs gather – they're always happy to be pet and fed (he beginns carrying around intesties in his inventory instead of just meat) – the small store that sells various spices from the rainforest and the north-eastern hills, and the small teahouse where her sweetheart works.

******

Morax starts tacking along after a while. He is bewildered by most of the day to day live of the humans under his protection, but he's curious about it too. He asks Mikasa hundreds of questions about nearly everything he sees. The architecture gets as much attention as manners and clothes. 

The question of why his chestless robe might be scandalous had been met with laughter – and he didn't stop wearing it. In fact, he played dumb whenever someone brought it up. "What? Inappropiate? Who, me?“ 

Looks like his little brother is, in fact, a troll.

******

Mikasa marries her sweetheart, a young man named Kaido, when they're thirty. It's late, for this time-period, but neither one of them had wanted to rush things. Their wedding is attended by every Adeptus and quite a few gods. They all give their blessings to the young pair.

When they’ve said their vows, Mikasa, half a head taller and twice his weight, looks down at her husband, grins, and picks him up in a bridal carry, to the delight of their guests.

******

Mikasa gives birth to her first and only child barely a year later. A son, vibrant and alive like his parents. The Adepti, again, almost make it a contest on who can give the newborn the best blessing. When they are finished, the baby feels like a higher being with the amount of power that clings to him.

Sairou is allowed to hold him for most of it, to give Mikasa some rest. He's still in shock over the name they gave him.

Saika.

******

His brother finds him that evening on the top of the highest mountain in Jueyun Karst. He settles in close to him, but just out of reach.

"I'm sorry.“, he breaks the silence.

Sairou startles "Wait, what? What for?“

Morax shudders next to him. He's looking away, towards the assembly. "For not realizing how miserable you were for most of your life. You - “ He's visibly looking for words. "You had this habit, of looking through people, instead of at them. You noticed – everything about them, probably, but you didn't care, and we all thought, I thought, that that's how you wanted it to be, so we left you to it, but - “

Morax whines, low in his thoat, like he hadn't since he’d been a hatchling, and Sairou reaches out and wraps himself around him.

"But you didn't“, he continues in a thin voice "You were hurting, and none of us noticed. We should've – done something, anything. We should've helped you.“

Sairou wraps around him tighter and lets him cry.

"It's better, now“, he whispers to his brother "You'll see, it'll be better now.“

Chapter Text

They lie cuddled together, as they often do. Sairou is in the half-human, half-draconic form, with his tail, scales, and slightly inhuman features, that Saika seems to prefer. At three years old he's far from mobile, at least in comparison to Morax or Sairou himself, and cute enough that they all just carry him around anyway.

Mikasa is leaning into Sairou's right side, while Kaido is asleep wrapped in the coils of his tail on his left, a napping Saika on his chest. Morax, in a halfway form as well, is wrapped around them all, while Guizhong sprawls across Sairou's lap and Morax' tail. Morax, Guizhong and he hardly need any sleep, but the lazy atmosphere of afternoon puppy piles soothes him more than anything else. All his precious people in one place, safe and happy.

Today, however, the relaxing effect won't set in. Mikasa had been slightly tense all day, like she wanted to say something but couldn't bring herself to. It's nothing dangerous or truly bad, she would have come to them with it earlier, but it's something she thinks he won't like hearing.

"Out with it, Mika“, Morax breaks the silence. Guizhong snorts. He's both less patient and more assertive than Sairou, so no surprise there.

Mikasa sighs. "Can't hide anything from you, eh?“ She leans closer to Sairou. "When I die- “ Sairou hisses reflexively. "It's coming, and we all know that. It was my choice. You offered to make me immortal, but I refused. So, when I die, I'll have a funeral.“

She turns to them, three pairs of godly eyes on her. "And I promise that I will haunt you from beyond, If you make it a sob fest.“ She laughs, a mix between happyness and sadness on her face that doesn't suit her in the least. "I want music, dancing, good food and laughter. I want people to tell funny and embarrassing stories about me.“ Sairou gathers her closer, careful not to wake Kaido or Saika. 

Mikasa continues with a bitter-sweet smile on her face. "I want you to celebrate that I have lived, instead of mourn that I'm gone.“

Sairou has no idea what to say, and is pretty sure that he'll burst into tears if he tries, but luckily Guizhong is there. She lays a careful hand on Mikasa's face and kisses her forehead. "We'll do that, sweet thing, we’ll do that.

******

Saika grows like a weed. At five, they have a hard time keeping track of him, even together. How a small child can evade three battle hardened gods is a mystery for the ages. He's never in any real danger though. Sairou does as his mother had done for him when he'd proved a habit for biting off more that he could chew, and places a shield on him. Morax does as well, and with that Saika is better protected than any Adeptus.

It helps, too, that eight out of ten times, he's running off to the same place. To the stray dogs of the assembly – or, well, not so stray anymore. Sairou built them a shelter, and brings them food every day. That has led to the dogs following him around the streets whenever he goes out, but there are much worse fates. Saika loves them. 

Today is one of the days the little menace has managed to slip his minders again, and Sairou has to go looking for him. He can feel the his presence in the small shelter when he passes it, and prepares to pull Saika out of a pile of dogs by the ankle, as he usually does.

Instead, Saika comes running for him, as soon as he sees him. "Uncle! Uncle Sai! Look! Puppies!“ He grabs Sairou's hand and bodily drags him to the shelter. There are indeed new puppies. One of the dogs just gave birth to a new litter. They are still tiny and hairless, and objectively far from cute, but one of them is- is-

One of them is his. He feels the magical connection. It shouldn't be possible – he has seen bonds like this before, between adepti and their familiars, but those were done with full awareness of the adepti in question, and are difficult to achive even then.

The puppy in question is crawling around aimlessly, seeming to search for him, instead of nursing. He picks it up carefully and cradles it in his hands. 

CONGRATULATION!

YOU HAVE OBTAINED SPIRIT-FAMILIAR 'MAX'. A SOUL SO LOYAL IT FOLLOWED YOU ACROSS WORLDS.

Max? Max is – here? His Max, his best girl who died by his side in that godforsaken dessert. Who he raised and trained and trusted with his life. She's here.

He gathers up a confused Saika, carefully cradling Max to his chest. She seems to reconize him too, certainly she presses against him as hard as she can manage.

He can't quite remember how he got from Mikasa's house back to Jueyun Karst, but he finds himself on the highest mountain, Max still in his hands. The bond between them is weak, but there. He can feel her, hear her through it. He knows, now, that she loves him every bit as much as he loves her.

******

He hides on that mountain for a few weeks. Taking a bit of time for himself is not that unusual, but that is the longest by far he has done so. He returns just before his brother comes up himself in worry.

Max can still only stumble around, but her eyes and ears are open. The bond between them is strong, they can communicate in simple feelings and thoughts now. He's careful not to overwhelm her, since her brain is still developing. 

The first thing he does is ask around among the adepti with familiars about the bond and how he can expect Max to develop. She's immortal as long as he is alive and continues feeding her on his energy, that he already knew. He didn't know that, depending on how much power he gives her, she could develop into a higher being herself. None of the adepti's familiars have done so, since the adepti don't have the power to spare. He, however, has both the power and the motivation. He'll make Max into a higher being, come what may.

He introduces her to Morax, Mikasa and Saika, who she loves instantly, probably at least in part due to his own feelings that influence her. Guizhong's smell makes her sneeze, and Kaido becomes prime real estate for naps.

It's good. His family is together and happy.

******

It's an evening in summer four years later when the celestial envoy arrives.

******

They announce the opening of seven celestial seats, the chance for one god of each element to rule over all others. He reconizes the authority of the dragons in each of these 'gnosis' – the price to be won, symbol and weapon in one – as well as the power of the seven Celestials that had defeated Ashan.

He wastes no time. This will be a slaughter.

******

He's right. The first gods attack the Assembly that very evening. They aren't well prepared or particulary powerful, and rely on the element of surprise to win this battle. They die in front of the unbreakable shield that surrounds the Assembly and Jueyun Karst.

******

They are not the last. More gods attack, and die to him or his brother when he takes a place on the battlefield. It's not often he does, he is worth more as a protector and figurehead than a front line fighter. It is Sairou who leads the adepti into battle. 

The gods beginn banding together to kill them. He loses more of his men, until he orders them to retreat and continues fighting alone. 

He fights better when he doesn't have to watch out for allies he could accidentially hit.

******

Max follows him into battle, about a decade into the war. He'd tried to keep her away from it. He didn't want her to grow up here. 

They work well together, as they always have.

******

Another decade later, Mikasa dies. He returns to the Assembly for her funeral. Saika is – a man grown. He must be thirty now. The last time Sairou had seen him had been twenty years ago.

They fulfill her wish. They laugh, they sing, they dance. They tell stories about her. Saika in particular has many. Sairou doesn't know a third of them. He'd been away for twenty years.

******

There is no chance to relax, or even to talk to Saika. Another group of gods attack, this one smarter than the ones before. They nearly manage to break through the jade shield and reach the Assembly. 

He hunts them down and makes an example of them. He‘s far more brutal than he'd ever allowed himself to be. He wonders at himself.

******

Another battle, and Max dies.

He tries to hold on to the fading bond between them, pushes through more power than is wise, more power than he can spare in his weakened state after a row of brutal battles. It doesn't help, she slips through his fingers like sand.

And then – 

Don't cry, child.

- his bond with Max apruptly snaps back into place.

She's alive, gloriously alive, as she buries herself into his arms. He's sobbing, he realizes.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you.“

The – god? Huffs a laugh. The sound seems to split his bones.

"Who are you?“, he dares to ask.

My name is Ronova as yours is Sairou, but you know me as Death.

"Thank you, Ronova.“ It's undignified, to speak to a being so great so informally, but he can't bring himself to care right now.

Ronova laughs again, and the sound is not quite right, there is something missing,

many Mouths laugh as one 

but he can't quite put his finger on it.

Instead he cradles Max close and turns back to the Assembly.

******

Saika is collecting stories, he learns. He's a historian. He also takes care of some funerals, when the family of the deceased asks.

He has adopted three children, teens by now. He named the historian house 'Wangsheng', life after death.

******

Morax practically forces him to rest. 

„The battles have all but stopped, brother“, he tells him. „We've won.“

Sairou only nods. It doesn't feel like victory. War rarely does, but he's – exhausted. Physically and mentally.

„How about you visit Mauve, Amun and Rukkhadevata? I'm sure they would be delighted to see you.“  

Chapter Text

Sairou, to his own surprise, manages to cross the rainforest without either Mauve or Rukkhadevata intercepting him. He doesn't know if that is because is stealthy enough that they hadn't noticed him, or because they are avoiding him. He suspects the latter, and doesn't blame them in the least.

He'd wanted to cross the rainforest quickly, to reach Amun's palace without meeting Mauve, but Max isn't having any of that. She's curious about the new enviroment and all but drags him around to observe the rich flora and fauna. Her carelessness is likely helped by his own relaxation. It is strange, but he feels at ease here. There is no evidence of godly battles ravaging the landscape, no destruction that would set his mind on edge. Additionally, he is surrounded by Mauve's calm power of creation. The feeling of family, of his family being save enough to frolic, takes the rest of the fight out of him.

There is much to see in this place: from the exotic and colorful flowers, to the exotic and colorful animals: the birds could manage to impersonate a flower without much trouble.

He spots evidence of Mauve being a little shit too: There are boars with mushrooms growing on it's back. It's ridiculous and hilarious, and he loves them on sight.

It is nearly a week into his trip when he realises where the nagging feeling in the back of his head comes from. It's the palm trees, and he nearly falls over laughing. Because palm trees are very much not native to Teyvat; until now they had only existed in the stories he'd told his children. But here they are, in all their glory. All on Mauve's whim.

They are magnificent.

******

Amun is expecting him by the time he reaches Ay-Khanoum. Sairou had felt his power surrounding him since he'd first stepped a foot into the desert. Well, good news: the ley lines here are as fine as could be – and well taken care of too. And Mauve had taught her beloved how to sense through them. Together with Amun's innate control over sand, there is nothing in the desert that could hide from him.

And Amun had used all that power to throw him a parade.

No, really, there is music and everthing. Sairou contemplates the merit of sinking into the ground. It's something that he could absolutely do these days. Amun may have nearly absolute control over the sand, but Sairou could overwhelm it temporarily on short distance. He decides against it in the end but takes back everything positive he'd ever thought about Amun's inteligence.

„Was that really necessary?“, he grumbles at Amun when he finally reaches the top of the stairs.

Amun's answering grin shows enough teeth that it would have been scary if Sairou hadn't been there for Morax' first attempts at shapeshifting. Only – he takes a closer look – those aren't teeth. It looks nearly right, probably for the comfort of his humans, but it's one piece. A bone plate for chewing, like some reptiles have. Makes sense – Amun isn't a dragon after all, but an animal spirit who'd gained sentience and wisdom.

He's so busy contemplating the relation between natural bodies of shapeshifters and shifting preferences, that he nearly misses Amun's answer.

„Only the best for the god-king of Liyue! It's not every day that we get such exceptional company, after all.“ Ah, another little shit. He and Mauve really deserve each other.

Sairou sputters. „God-king?! I'm not even a god! What are you on about?“

Amun doesn't do anything as undignified as cackle, but his aura implies that he would if the humans weren't watching. „Oh yes! We have heard everything of your exploits in Liyue. How you won the war for Deus Auri single handedly, the battles against gods several times your age, the valiant defense of your human following. Truly inspirational.“

They have reached the inner palace by now and Sairou drops down on a sinfully soft seaty and lets out a bone deep sigh. Max flops down at his feet dramatically. Amun sits down as well and loses his amused expression. Neither of them breaks the quiet for a moment.

„It wasn't – inspirational. I did what I had to do. To protect mine. But I didn't enjoy it. I would much rather take up a craft again – I was working on smithing before- well. Or an art. It's been a while since I had someone to sing with.“

„Music, hm?“ Amun hums but doesn't elaborate. „We were lucky, here. We barely had any battles. Most gods fled from us.“

Sairou barks a laugh. „They fled from you? To Liyue?“

Amun grins again. „The irony isn't lost on me, I assure you. They would have had a better chance taking on the three of us than you. But then, most gods are fools.“

„Hear, hear!“ Sairou pulls an empty goblet from his inventory to toast Amun. He huffs an amused laugh. „Ah, I'm tired. Any chance you have and empty guest room in this palace of yours?“

„No.“ Being a little shit again, is he? „Follow me.“

Amun leads him through the maze that is the inner palace, until they reach the highest floor. Amun stops in front of an elaborate door locked with aura based wards.

„This is your room. Our - Ru's, Mauve's, and my - room ist just over there.“ Amun nods to the door on the other side of the hallway.

„And the other rooms?“, Sairou asks. There are another half dozen rooms on this floor, but he hadn't felt any lingering presence in or near them.

„They're empty, at the moment.“ Amun smiles, and his Aura goes… gooey. „They are meant for our children, should we be blessed with any. This is the family wing. Only you and Morax – and Guizhong – have rooms here.“ With that, Amun turns around and leaves with a quick farewell.

Sairou - isn't sure what to feel about this. It's just a room, it shouldn't mean much, but it feels like so much more. Morax would most likely never come here, he dislikes traveling deeply, and yet there is a room reserved for him too. It doesn't feel like convenience, it feels like a claim. How casually Amun had named him family. 

It makes his insides melt with soft pleasure.

******

The next morning comes with a breath taking multitude of colors over the dunes. The sunrise is magnificent out here. He watches it from the rooftop, Max curled up in his lap, still half asleep.

„Up so early?“, comes the voice of Amun from above him. He's in a half human, half bird form with great wings instead of arms when he touches down, and doesn't bother changing when he sits down next to him. „Then again, I guess I should have expected that from the great Deus Aurorae.“

Sairou tries to keep a straight face. „Very funny.“

„It must have been, considering that you smiled.“

„I did not.“

„Did too.“

„How old are you again? 50?“

Amun laughs. 

„Did you have any plans for today?“, he asks when he calms down.

„Not really. Do you have something in mind?“

Amun hums „I unfortunately have some state matters to attend to in the morning, but I should be free around midday, I could show you around my kingdom then. In the meantime – you mentioned yesterday that you enjoy smithing. My people are trying to create automatons, but have trouble with the material. You could join them if you want.“

Well, that does sound interesting.

******

Amun's people aren't trying to built automatons. They – wonderful madmen that they are – are trying to built weaponised robots.

Interestingly enough, Amun was right about the problem. They have the software, runic magic drawing power from the ley lines, down perfectly. There's no flaw he can find, neither in application nor in the programming itself. The robots are programmed to guard palaces and temples, and have very specific commands to activate any violent actions.

The problem, as far as he can see, is the creation of an alloy able to withstand the amount of magic needed to power these machines.

That is something he can help with - he's never tried to use runes on the weapons he’s been making, but properties and combinatory effects of materials apply. At the same time, it's new and unfamiliar since he has to learn the runic magic used before he can start on the alloys. 

It's – fun. The, occasionally maniac, energy of the developers sweeps him along.

When Amun comes to collect him that afternoon he finds him ellbows deep in scrap metal while heatingly discussing the merits of trishiraite in comparison to condessence crystal.

Amun, because he too is a massive nerd, butts right in.

******

Sairou continues spending most of his time in the workshop. Amun joins him often enough that Sairou gets the feeling he's blowing off important work.

******

„Where are you going?“, Amun asks him a week into his stay, having caught him packing weapons, food, and other necessities.

Sairou hestiates a moment before he answers. Amun is too curious for his own good. He's already started asking about stuff the celestial gods had forbidden as soon as he'd realized that Sairou isn't bound like the other truly old gods. There is a lot that could go wrong with telling him about the Abyss. But – this surely isn't such a big thing? No one but him could even enter the Spiral Abyss.

„A training ground“, he settles on. „Don’t worry, I'll technically not even leave the palace.“ A gift from the system, that. He can teleport right into the Spiral Abyss and back out again from wherever he is. The system had given him that during the war, probably because he wouldn't have gone to clean it if that meant leaving Liyue open to any attack. As it stands, he is gone betwehowfour to six hours, depending on how many injuries he risks, because of the time difference. One hour here is one day there.

„A subspace? How interesting! How –“

„I have to go now“, Sairou interrupts him before he can start asking questions. Amun pouts at him. 

/Enter Spiral Abyss/, he tells the system and tenses slightly at the now familiar feeling of teleportation.

The Spiral Abyss isn't hard to clear if he does it every month. The creatures there are mimics, the spawn of the Abyss. They grow stronger the older they get. 

The one time he hadn't cleared the Spiral Abyss on time, there had been three more floors that usual and the monsters had been far stronger. Since then he'd thought of the Spiral Abyss as a nursery, kinda like a beehive. His job is to kill the larvae before they grow stingers.

Even the truly strong ones give him little trouble, now. At level 9854, and given his skills, nothing truly does. It's been a while since he feared for his life while fighting. He takes care not to get arogant, though. There'll always be someone stronger than him, and the only thing he can do is train and hope that they'll be arogant enough that he can surprise them.

******

„You said you're not a god, when you arrived. What did you mean by that?“, Amun asks him one evening, a few months into his stay.

„Well, that I'm not a god, of course. I'm a dragon.“

„What's the difference?“

„Amun, dear, the only thing they have in common is that they're powerful.“

He doesn't really seem to understand.

„Look, they use different power sources. Dragons have one element and feed on that element's ambivalent nature. Gods, or, in other words, ascended mortals, draw on neutral power from the ley lines – a mix of all elemental natures. Additionally, they have something they are a god of. Dragons and other higher beings are usually called god of whatever fits best at the moment – like gold, flowers, sunset, you see? But that doesn't define us. It's different for gods. They are defined by their domain, and their domain by them. They could no more change their domain than they could change their true name. Moreover, they are bound to Celestia by their ascension – when they die, most of their remaining power belongs to Celestia.“ 

And hadn't it been a slap in the face when he figured that out? He hadn't noticed during the War for the Second Throne, but during the recent battles it had gotten obvious. Gods explode when they die – less severely when he kills them, because he absorbs part of their power – and the energy travels back to Celestia.

„Gods are able to create their own energy – if you leave a dragon and a god in a place without ambivalent power, the god will grow stronger while the dragon starves to death. But that is also why gods explode upon death and dragons don't. A dragon's power is just absorbed into the ley lines, while a god's power is foreign to the ley lines and can't be absorbed.“/ Amun shudders. „What about other beings then? Beings like me?“

„I would categorize higher beings into two groups: physical beings who are born with a body and grow stronger by absorbing energy, and elemental beings who are born when ambivalent power gains sentience. Their biggest difference lies in their death, I think: physical beings die when their body dies, while elemental beings die when their energy in exhausted. Both has up- and downsides: elemental beings can quite literally die of exhaustion, which physical beings can recover from very well, but physical bodies are a huge weakness – they make easy targets.

„You are a physical being, right? An animal spirit?“ He waits for Amun's nod „Mauve is a physical being as well. A Seelie. Rukkhadevata is an elemental being, a forest spirit. It makes her less vulnerable to attacks – destroying her body won't bother her much at all. Overusing her powers however can severely weaken or even kill her.“

„What is the difference between dragons and physical beings, then?“ Amun looks very ready to stop contemplating his lovers' possible death.

„Dragons are physical beings, but a subspecies. They are extraordinarily well in tune with the ley lines, which means they grow stronger faster than other beings.“

Amun contemplates that for a moment. „What about you, then? You use all elements, and rarely draw on the ley lines – at least not often enough for your growth rate. Are you a dragon or a god?“

He's a mix between dragon and celestial. And yes, he'd noticed that he seems to be able to grow on his own, instead of through the ley lines, but that is hardly something he wants to tell Amun, as much as he likes him.

„I can absorb the power of the dead.“ Predictably, Amun's jaw drops. 

„But – the dead and their power belong to Ronova!“

And Ronova seems to like him, for whatever reason.

„I guess I kill enough that the deal is favorable, then.“

******

He stays with Amun for decades. Mauve comes by often, after the first year, and so does Rukkhadevata. She's nice – and clearly the one with common sense in this trio.

It's three and a half decades after he first arrived that Amun sits him down and tells him about Remus, the new Archon of Hydro, after Egaria was banished – and the god of music. He's not actually a god, but an elemental being.

He built his entire kingdom on musical magic, apparently. Interesting.

„I remember what you told me when you first arrived“, Amun smirks at him. „Smithing and music. I'm a great host, am I not?“

Sairou laughs. „The best! Thank you, Amun.“

Ah, he's preening, the peacock. Sairou pulls him into a hug and ruffles his hair, careful not to catch any pin feathers.

So he packs his metaphorical bags, loops through the forest to say goodbye to Mauve and Rukkhadevata, and makes his way to Fontaine.

Chapter Text

Sairou can feel the god's presence long before he enters Fontaine proper. On the soft, sanded down cliffs of the northernmost sumerian coast it‘s a soft whisper in his ears, present but far too faint to make out any details. Halfway across the sea to the southernmost fontainian island the weak suggestion of present power becomes clearer, takes a vague shape. By the time he reaches the beach, the presence has solidified – unsurprisingly, it takes the shape of music. So far out from the source he can only make out a handful of notes, the deepest and the highest.

As he travels further inland the melody grows clearer and stronger, but he still has to strain to hear it in full. Only by the third island it becomes strong enough to understand – and to understand what it does. The notes of the symphony, the high series reminiscent of bells, the deep drops of drumms, the flowing voices of violins, are not just the presence of the god, Remus, they any and all beings touched by the melody as well. The tree letting go of an apple wishes it a short farewell, the dying scream of the rabbit melds with the soft contentment of the fox over a good meal, every blade of grass protest being stepped on. All of that, every emotion and action of every living being in any given moment is represented in Remus' grand symphony.

It’s exhilarating and horrifying in equal meassure. To be known so thoroughfully, no change to conceal, to hide, to lie, and yet being known, in all your facets, behind all masks, for who you truly are.

He sits down where he’d been standing and sinks into the melody. It is deep, and high and low, and he could spent a lifetime listening and yet not understanding. He tries anyway. He starts with the beings immediately around him. Max, curious, ever curious, loyal, loving and beloved, right beside him. The plantlife beneath him, and lower still the critters in the soil. High above, the birds, and insects, all around him life.

What he can see, no, experience, through the symphony is so unendingly vast, in just the little corner of the world, that he has to feed his experience back into it, a second layer, deeper, half a beat after the first. An echo, slightly distorted by his own interpretation.

He can pinpoint the exact moment Remus notices him. The symphony pauses, like the world holds it's breath, and resumes muted, a second voice instead of the first. The new strand of melody is curious, nervous if not fearful. It knows who he is. Why are you here?, it seems to ask, Have you come to destroy me?

He sends back an impression of denial, of curiosity and admiration. No, I heard of you and wanted to meet you. What you have built is beyond my wildest dreams.

The nervousness falls away and is replaced by giddy pride. Like a child showing off it's art, Remus pushes more of his symphonie towards him, nearly drowning him with the vast impressions.

Wait, he laughs. He feels exhilarated, like he has an adrenaline crash, but without the mortal fear that follows after battle. Let me get used to this, then I will come and meet you.

Remus agrees, and retreats, but not particulary far. He wait patiently for Sairou to settle into the melody again and then guides him further than the little meadow he had been exporing. Through the deepest seas, the highest mountains, steep cliffs and soft beaches, over warm grass and through cool forests. Human settlements, groups of higher beings one by one, until he knows them all by heart. Then, finally, what must be the capital, and in the heart of it Remus, the first voice of this miracle.

When he surfaces again it is winter where it had been spring when he'd sat down – and not the first either. He is vaguely aware that nearly three years have passed as he explored the great symphony under Remus‘ guidance. He feels wrung dry, but so very awake at the same time.

He feels truly alive.

******

The capital of Remuria is as grandiose as he'd expected. Between the white stone and the gold elements it is quite luxurious. The architecture is completely different from that of Sumeru, Liyue and even the bits of draconic buildings he remembers from the one visit to the capital.

Liyue favors simple lines with crafty geometrical shapes, made luxurious through their craftmanship. Sumeru is split between the simple straight lines in the desert made soft by the weather and the plant inspired buildings in the forest. The dragons had large, brutal designs that hid intricate details.

Remuria has elements from all these and is yet completely different. It doesn't surprise him that the residential areas have a simple and funktional design similar to that found in the sumerian desert, only made more jarring because there are no sand storms to whittle down the hard edges. Perhaps to compensate for that, the ornamental elements are all the more delicate. They are made mostly of thin wire that had been woven in intricate shapes. 

Sairou first assumes that the movement is an illusion created by the combination between the constant melody and the flowing artwork they are part of before he realizes that they are indeed moving, and creating music too. They are resonating with the all-present Symphony and replicating parts of it, for the less sensitive citizens most likely.

Even if many cannot hear it consciously, they are certainly still influenced by it. The city moves in the rhythm of the Symphony. When moves faster, so do the humans, when it slows they follow. They even speak in the rhythm. It is deeply fascinating, and slightly unsettling.

Remus does not come out to greet him when he gets close to the palace, but his melody picks up in speed, until even the humans notice. None try to stop him, not the human servants and certainly not the guards who seem particulary sensitive.

Remus is waiting for him in a grand hall devoid of the musical wires – he certainly doesn't need them, but apparently no one who would comes here regulary. Private rooms, then, or at least restricted to the god's priests and close confidants. A show of familiarity. But then, Remus did just spent three years personally showing him around his kingdom.

Amun had told him that Remus is an elemental spirit, and it shows. Remus hadn’t taken any serious amount of care in crafting his mortal body. It looks like a statue in vaguely humanoid shape, it's joints unfinished with no face to speak of. Not made to move around in, but then Remus is more sound than physical being. Powerful, certainly, but not a combatant. No wonder he fled from Sumeru when the archon war began. (What joints he does have look recently created. They are less than three years old.)

Hello!, Remus greets him enthusiastically. I was waiting for you, I knew you would come here. You like my music. Right? You are here because you want to sing.

Yes, Sairou laughes. 

I knew it! I knew you were different! The others just like my power, they don't understand my art. The melody speeds up, goes higher in pitch. Well, let's get to it!

Impatient, enthusiastic. Insecure. There have been others who approached Remus, most likely in an effort to weaponize his power. It would be easy too, for Remus to do so, to enslave whoever he touches with his song, but he does not want that. He is far, far happier to observe his people and the world around him than to influence it, much less destroy it.

Remus invites him into his Symphony again, and Sairou follows only too happily.

******

Remus has an deep, wise sort of understanding for the world as a whole and a magnificent nose for petty drama. After he leads Sairou through the fourth messy affair and the third small embezzler he insists on going to observe an anthill for a while. Anthills are wonderful. Hundreds of thousands of individuals working together in perfect harmony like a well-oiled machine. Observing them is calming on a soul-deep level. Remus is laughing at him all the while.

It's funny! Humans and higher beings are the only animals who create problems if they can't find any.

It's stupid is what it is! I'm trying to maintain my sanity, hopefully with my common sense intact!

Remus laughs some more and drags him away again. Sairou really doesn't mind too much. It's like hate-watching shitty rom-coms. (He hasn't thought about his previous life in a while, but the memory of Biscuit sitting on him to force him to binge netflix isn't so bad.)

******

The first time they accidentially watch in on two people fucking, Sairou books it right back out, Remus following much more slowly.

He seems curious about his reaction more than anything. Sex is what physical beings do to procreate, as well as show affection, right? Why are you embarrassed? 

It's private. Physical beings don't like being watched being intimate. It makes them vulnerable.

Remus' notes swirl in understanding and Sairou hopes that that‘s it, but Remus asks You are a physical being too, do you want to have sex as well?

The memory of – them is enough to jarr him out of the symphony entirely. The backlash of returning to his body so hastily gives him a headache as he pushes away from Remus' stony body.

Remus, to his credit, can feel his dissonance and doesn't push, just hovers close, projecting gentle concern.

I - Sairou forces himself to speak. He can't really project anything through the melody right now, so he tries again out loud. „I don't, not really. Not like the humans anyway. For them sex is a physical need like food and water. I don't feel the need to, but it is – the highest form of intimacy, to me. I want that.“

Why are you scared, then? What happened?

„There was somebody I would have wanted that with, once, maybe. But, I was still to young for anything like that. It was just – puppy love. Nothing serious, I would have probably grown out of it.“

Did they hurt you? He can feel Remus' rage at the thought, the unusual willingness to commit violence.

„No, it wasn't even that bad, I don't know why I'm so… They only made suggestive remarks and kissed me.“

You were afraid. You still are. You were betrayed by someone very dear to you. You didn't feel you could fight back. There is no ‚only‘ about that. A creature like that would not be welcome among my people.

Remus is kind enough to hold him through his tears without complaint.

******

He spends the next couple decades exploring the Symphony with Remus. His power grows by the day, there is always an inch more land to see than there’d been the day before. Slowly Remuria expands, more humans worship him. He does not care any significant amount, he prefers spending his time with Sairou.

They learn each other's signature melody by heart, until they weave together like two saplings grown into one.

Remus had asked Sairou to help him refine his body so that they could move around together. He does, of course, and they explore Remuria yet again. Remus pays strangely close attention to the young couples, even going so far as to interrogate them on common romantic gestures.

It makes little sense to Sairou, until Remus surprises him with a bouquet of roses, some sweets, and the formal request for permission to court him. The humans said to ask the parents, Remus explains, but as Sairou's are dead and he is of age anyways, he just skipped that step.

Sairou accepts.

Chapter Text

Over the years they spend with each other, spend loving each other, he and Remus only grow closer. So close, in fact, that sometimes he doesn't know where he ends and Remus beginns. There is little reason to hold back any feeling or thought, so they share everything. What is one of theirs is both of theirs, no holds barred.

It is terrifying, painful sometimes, so deeply intimate it hurts. It's the best thing he has ever known. There will never be a misunderstanding between them, never doubt about their feelings. It binds them closer than even shared thoughts could, that certainity.

Remus forces him to confront his feelings, his past, to stop repressing them. Together they go through his memories, untangle what he has experienced. He learns that he has resented a lot – his parents for loving him, for distancing themselves from him when things had gotten difficult, his brother for being born, for replacing and overshadowing him, Oboron for betraying his trust for one of their stupid pranks, for being unable to set aside their pride and admitting they had been wrong, for dying before they could reconcile. The dragons for blaming him for his very birth, the heavenly gods for their part in the war, no matter how reactive, the seelie for being so shortsighted, the adepti for depending on him when he'd been just a child. (His biological father for abandoning him.)

He also learns that he'd loved deeply. He'd given his heart to just about anyone who'd ever shown him kindness. He'd been desperate for an emotional connection, anything to make up for the hole in his chest, still there from his previous life and only reinforced by the losses in this one.

He also realises that he'd not made it easy to be loved. He'd pushed away everone in a preemptive attempt to keep them from leaving. His parents, his brother, little Mauve, Oboron, before they‘d taken drastic meassures to get a rise out of him, even the adepti.

He can finally see how much he's hurt others, those he cares for most of all, with his behaviour. How difficult Morax' childhood had been, with his only caretaker after his parent's death being a bundle of anxieties only willing to provide the most basic emotional connection. Sairou had done his best with the cards he'd been handed, and he can only thank the heavens and Morax' own nature that he loves him more than he resents him.

Remus works him through his insecurities over the span of decades. It is cleansing and painful, and at the end of it Sairou feels wrung out, empty, and finally like a living being.

It is Remus' cold and calculating state of mind that forces Sairou to look at his past objectively; at the same time, Remus learns empathy from him. It would have been a horrendous disservice to Remus, to call him emotionless: Even before they'd met for the first time Remus had felt happiness and sadness, curiosity and grief and desire. In addition he could feel the feelings of all beings through the symphony, their jealously, greed and pride, their protectiveness, shyness and selflessness, their shame, regret and guilt. He had known that those existed, had observed them, but he hadn't truly understood them.

Only Sairou, who understands those feelings, has felt them before, and can see into Remus' head, is able to point out where and when Remus himself feels them.

They grow together, and into each other. Inseperable. It is all Sairou has ever wanted.

******

The first time he and Remus have sex is frankly mind-blowing. Remus is not a physical being, he cannot experience sensual pleasure, any kind of it, from the sun's warmth, over tasty food, to the sexual kind, the same way Sairou does. However, Remus had taken his words on intimacy to heart. He wants that as well.

So Sairou offers to share his experience through the symphony. It's certainly been the best and worst idea he's ever had. They start out simple enough with heavy petting and he beginns projecting. Remus projects right back with his own pleasure at Sairou's pleasure, which throws right over the edge. First of many more to come.

They fire each other up into a mealstrom of desire. It's a good thing that his body has actual physical limits, Sairou thinks at the end of their marathon of debauchery, even through he'd been crying in frustration about that not an hour before.

Remus, the darling, brings him food and water, even though he's just as wiped as Sairou is, just in a different way. He seems pensive and Sairou is just about to ask him what's wrong, when he projects Next time we have to try your idea with the water. And the one with the clothes.

Sairou groans and hits him with a pillow. It doesn't do anything, of course, but he hopes it makes his experation clear.

******

They should have been more careful about projecting sexual pleassure, he learns. Not only have they basically dosed all their humans with an powerful aphrodisiac, but the beings specifically bound to either of them got the full force of their escapades. 

By which he means Max.

Puppies, she tells him lazily, as if he can't feel her baby bumb himself. Strong puppies from a strong sire.

That is not what he's worried about!

Though I was stronger.

What are the chances she didn't go and mate with an actual wolf? Damn.

Well, nothing for it. It was bound to happen eventually. Max had been very, very clear that she wouldn't stand for being sterilized again.

******

Max had, in fact, gone and mated with a wolf, he learns when Max presents him with the puppies. The three of them are already a couple weeks old and the most adorable little fluff balls. They wriggle in his arms as Max had when he'd first gotten her, that entire lifetime ago. They are brownish grey, quite a bit darker than Max' own sand brown. 

Max grooms them, as he closely inspects every one of them. They are healthy and lively, two girls and a boy. One of the girls continuously tries to escape him and eyes the world around her curiously, while the other girl and the boy are busy play fighting with each other.

Do you want me to name them?, he asks Max.

Yes. The names you give are good things.

He doesn't have to think about it long. Sayu and Mika, he gestures to the girl and boy. And Tia. He only just manages to keep her from tumbling out of his arms.

After your humans, Remus states more than he asks. There is something so very gentle in that projection, like it often is when Sairou references something dear to him that is gone now.

Yes. The little ones remind me of them.

******

The puppies grow rapidly, but – they are mortal. They'll have one and a half decades, two decades at most. He'd offered Max to feed the little ones with his power as he does her, but she snaps at him.

I'll have many puppies, and my puppies will have many themselves. You cannot feed them all.

So you want me to let them die?!

She growls at him. Death is not bad. They'll live full and exciting lives and then they'll find peace in the beyond. Max' concept of 'beyond' is layered with the impressions of ‚dark‘ and ‚safe‘ and ‚cradled‘. She doesn't fear death. She doesn't even think that it is a negative thing.

You're only here for me.

Obviously. He said you needed someone.

And now he's tearing up. Great. At least Remus is there to hold him.

******

He and Remus are very, very careful to avoid a repetition of the debacle last time, but it is the humans who come to them with a petition.

„The fertility blessing, my lords“, the woman says „It has brought us much… uh… joy.“ She's blushing fiercly. So is Sairou. Remus, the annoying ass, is deeply amused.

„It can be arranged to be a regular thing.“

The woman's face lights up and she bows as she retreats from the petition room.

Like hell it can, he hisses at Remus.

Why not? If they don't dislike it there's no reason to hold back.

Think of Max at least!

I like it too, Max throws in.

Traitors all around. Stabbed in the back by his most trusted.

And so, every couple years, Remuria experiences a week of much… joy.

******

The tribes around Remuria see them as a threat. They rarely have guardian gods, but a good part of them is made up of higher beings and their descendants. They are proud and free, which would be completly fine if Remuria wasn't rapidly expanding as Remus grows more powerful.

They are wary and sometimes openly fearful of the expanding borders as they watch the people who'd lived in areas that Remuria now covers learning the symphony. As they learn to love Remuria and Remus in turn.

Sairou keeps a close eye on the discontent beyond their borders. Remus is not a warrior, he doesn't know how to deal with rebels and terrorists. He leaves them to Sairou.

When one of the eastern tribes attacks their borders, Sairou is ready. He takes Max, who insists on bringing her elder puppies along, and takes out the tribe. He executes everyone who'd taken part in the attack as well as the clan leaders who had ordered it. He sends messengers to the neighboring tribes with a list of their crimes, the citizens of Remuria they had harmed or killed. He makes the message as clear as he possibly can.

Attack the largely peaceful Remuria and the resident monster comes down on your head.

It is not enough to completely quiet everyone speaking against Remuria, but it makes them think twice, thrice and yet again before turning their words into action.

That is quite enough. As long as he doesn't have to feel the dying screams of the victims through the symphony again.

******

The puppies grow old. Sayu, Mika and Tia live long lives. They have puppies of their own, like Max predicted. They die within a year of each other. Sayu first, then Mika, and a couple months after that, Tia.

Only, Tia comes back. She hardly looks like herself, made of brightly glowing shadows as she is, but he can spot the familiar contours of her face even through the hazy edges of her new form.

She wants to stay with you, like I did, Max comments. Lord Ronova is gratious in allowing her to do so.

Thank you, he sends in Ronova's direction, not expecting to be heard.

You're welcome

Remus‘ entire being recoils and Sairou jolts. He hadn't felt the god's presence. He still doesn't. That opens the question just how often Ronova is listening without anyone the wiser.

You're still here?

War comes first, followed by Famine, and Pollution arrives last. But Death never left.

Right, he's speaking in riddles, only… that sentence feels oddly familiar. The four horsemen of the apocalypse? Not quite. The fourth is called Pestilence, not Pollution. Where has he heard that before? He'll probably remember at the most inopportune time ever.

******

More and more of the puppies live and die. These days he cannot go anywhere without dozens of dogs underfoot. Well, he says dogs. Most of them have only an eighth, or even just a sixteenth, dog among their wolf.

They are cute as hell anyway, and vicious fighters under Max‘ and Tia's tutelage. Some of them choose to stay even after their deaths.

Soon enough he has dozens of unkillable, war hounds. If anyone thinks that that would stop him from cuddling them to death or spoiling them with treats, they would have to think again.

Some humans start calling him Deus Canum, God of dogs. A far better title than Deus Vesperae or Deus Aurorae in his humble opinion.

******

He and Remus get married, mostly at the nagging insistence of Morax and Amun. They don't need a ceremony or celebration to be certain of their feelings for each other. But if they make a party of it, they are damn well going to do it properly.

They invite all beings in the lands they can reach – beside the trinity of Sumeru and Morax and Guizhong, quite a few other beings take them up on it. Decarabian, the Archon of Anemo, and Baal, the Archon of Electro, among others.

Baal is young and tiny with a spitfire of a personality, while Decarabian, even younger than her, seems to have a personality like his domain. Calm until he isn't. They are both pleasant, but he prefers Decarabian with his stern attitude and caustic humor.

One of the puppies, Andrius, a rather notably powerful mixed breed between mostly-wolf and who-knows-what, seems to think so as well. By the end of the first day they have a familiar bond.

The second and third day Sairou spends making up a new dance with the help of Mauve, Rukkhadevada and Morax. The latter joins them after fleeing from the discussion of technological advancement and it's integration into existing social structures between Remus, Amun and Guizhong.

It's good. All his favorite people in one place, safe and happy.

******

The border skirmishes over the next centuries are minor things in the great scheme of things, especially compared to the massacres he saw during the war for the second throne of heaven, or even, more recently, the battles in Liyue. They weight heavily on Remus, though.

Remus is a gentle being at heart, he would never wish to harm anyone. Now that the choice is between letting outsiders harm his people or killing them first, he is torn up. Sairou tries to shield him as much as possible, but Remus is essential in spotting and preventing attacks. That means that sometimes he experiences the full force of the dying mortals through the symphony.

It's making him sick. Slower, sadder. His notes don't flow as easily as they once did. Sairou knows how to reconize clinical depression. Like hell is he going to allow his beloved to suffer like that.

He suggests a stand-in. A mechanism that would do automatically what Remus has to do manually. An artificial inteligence, like Sairou had seen among the dragons. He has no idea how to go about building such a thing, but Remus jumps at the idea. He starts brainstorming ideas immedially and Sairou has to reign him in. Too many movies about the dangers of AI and robot take-overs. They would have to take this slow and careful. The AI would need access to the symphony with which not only all humans under their command, but also Remus himself could be manipulated.

They need to make sure that it's safe first before giving it any real power.

It is then that the sky tears apart. 

Chapter Text

Semerai is roughly two millenia old when his little brother is born – an adorable little worm that takes quite a bit after him in looks. They have the same golden scales and similar amber eyes, even though the dragonets promise to be several shades lighter than his own. The dragonet likes to curl up in Semerai's antlers even though he prefers his father's, for his calm aura most likely.

Even for his young age Semerai is considered energetic, a consequence of spending so much time among the seelies, the elder dragon chide him. But then, they are all fussy fosiles so they can shut right up. The seelies, dutiful and hardworking as they are, at least know how to live it up then and again (pretty often, actually, but life is hard enough without a stick up one's ass).

His little brother is to be named by Nibelung, as soon as he awakens his elemental nature, like Semerai had been. They enjoy calling him ‚Sai‘, though, and he has no doubt that they will find an equally stupid nickname for his brother. His parents allow them to hold his brother without hesistiation, which of course leads to trying to untangle a sleepy dragonet from fine purple strands of hair as they laugh and wince in pain –

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

The seal is well made – it would have to be, to hold him for any amount of time – but not strong enough to withstand his corrosive power over centuries. He watches the process. There is little else to do, in his cell (once a glorious ballroom in the palace of the Eclipse Dynasty, a jewel among their riches, with mosaics inlaid in the floors and walls, several chandeliers with tainted glass. Most of those have been destroyed during the battle.).

He watches the seal as the last sounds of battle fade. He watches as the tortured screams of his people fall silent. As the stench of rotting corpses cloys the air. As silence reigns and as the sounds of wild animals return. As the sun rises and falls, time, and time, and time again.

He watches as time passes and passes him by. 

He doesn't move, cannot, not only because of the seal but also because the heavy chains of divine metal, hotter than fire and colder than ice, that restrain him. They went to great lenghs to keep him from making trouble. And yet they didn't kill him. His brother must have begged them to let him live (treacherous little rat that he is).

He watches, so he sees the exact moment one of the lines breaks. He directs all of his power into that one spot and, within moments, he is free. (If there had been a mistake in the initial lay of it, only one crooked line, he would have been free before the battle had even ended. He could have saved- ) 

He runs. He's not strong enough to deal with the united Archons (filthy traitors) at the moment, nevermind the Heavenly Principles.

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

Mauve marries her beloved on midsommer. She, king Deshret, and greater lord Rukkhadevada look radiant, both in regalia and in happiness. The perfect trinity of power.

Mauve and Morax are roughly of an age, but they hardly know each other, as Morax didn't spend much time among the seelie, before –

Either way, it is a grand celebration, with alcohol, the fermented berry juice the seelies made themselves, wild dance and laughter. Sai spends most of it in a dark corner. He came out of politeness, mostly, and to see how the last living seelie has been doing. (To show Morax what a celebration of the seelie looks like.)

It is as beautiful as he remembers.

(The old wound in his chest aches.)

They would have loved it –

(purple hair flying like a banner as they turn, their skirts swirling around their feet, pearly laughter in his ears - )

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

He goes to Inazuma first. It's the furthest from his prison, he'll have time to react should Celestia start to move. Also, as soon as Belzebul hears that he's free she will hunt him down herself. He did kill her sister, after all.

He doesn't find what he expected. The humans Baal treasured so much are afraid, are angry at their own archon. He hears about the vison hunt degree, about the duels before the throne – he hears the whispers of discontent. Of revolution. 

Never let it be said that he doesn't know how to take advantage of a situation.

He approaches the rebel leader, the lady of Watatsumi, and offers his help. Powerful fighters, he promises her. A way to turn her men into battle machines even a god would fear. He doesn't tell her that they would draw on his own power. That it would dissolve their bodies inside out until only his power is keeping them alive.

It is an opportunity for both of them. The lady knows her men don't stand a chance, but cannot back down without losing their trust and probably her life, and Sai needs to stay under Celestia's radar.

It works. They fight their way past the royal guard, past the few kitsune that try to get in their way. The losses are neglible in the greater picture but they weight on the lady. The puppet Belzebul left behind proves a harder opponent. Nearly half their fighting force dies and the lady seems broken. It was for naught anyway. The puppet doesn't have the gnosis and Belzebul doesn't show up when it is destroyed.

So he turns his attention to the Narukami shrine. If the gnosis is anywhere on this plane of existence, it's there. It's harder to incite the men to a revolt against a shrine than a palace. The lady in particular protests and protests and protests, until the lord of Narukami intervenes. He is good at hiding his emotions, but Sai can taste his fear. Looks like he, at least, is aware that they exchanged one monster for another. 

They attack the Narukami shrine. The kitsune has the gnosis. Her death brings Belzebul back to the mortal plane. Their fight destroys their oh so valuable holy sakura and topples the mountain to boot. In the end, she loses. He taunts her in her last moments to make her as resentful as possible. More power for him to absorb that way.

When he returns to the pitiful remains of the army, the lord looks at him with pure horror. The lady doesn't look at him at all.

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

Semerai – though he doesn't have that name yet – awakens his element when he is only a decade old. Dendro, like his father. His mother presents him to the court, and Nibelung sees great talent in him. He bestows him with a three rune name. Se for root, mer for growing strong, and ai for great height. Semerai, growing to great height through the strengh of his roots. A credit not only to him, but also to his parents. The king has greatly honored them with that name.

Apep is not quite happy, of course. A mere dragonet of his own element with the potential to replace him. Instead of trying to harm him, he takes him on as a student. A student's skill reflects their teacher, especially with a name like Semerai. Even if he ends up becoming the Dendro Sovereign Apep will always take part of the credit of making him so.

Semerai alternates between shadowing Apep and staying with his parents until he reaches his majority. He leaves on the Journey, a time of travel upon whose end the young dragons are expected to present their findings, their new understanding of the world, to their teacher.

A couple years into his Journey he meets them

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

Sai travels to Natlan next. Celestia hasn't stirred through the war in Inazuma at all, and if they are distracted for whatever reason he has to use that to his advantage. Natlan, as the last stronghold of the dragons, is watched closely. If he doesn't take his chance now he may not get another.

Taking the Pyro gnosis is almost to easy. The last Pyro Archon has just died and he arrives just in time to take part in the tournament for his successor. All he has to do is masquerade as a natlain, win the tournament, and take the gnosis when they give it to him. At least he thinks so, until he reconizes Mauvika among the contestants. How is she still alive? She is, and always has been, a human. She shouldn't be here, now.

(Did she travel in time? Why would Istaroth - )

It doesn't matter in the end. He defeats her. Her expression of indignant despair is hilarious. He takes the gnosis and disappears. Without the eternal flame Natlan's losses in their battle against the abyss will criple the country. They might even fall completely. (They would deserve it. So greedy for land that they would take the last of the dragons')

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

Semerai – Sai – loses his element at two and a half millenia, as he lays dying in the middle of a sunny meadow. It is unnaturally quiet around them. The sudden appearance of an apex predator had starled all wildlife around them into silence. Their voice is in his ear, murmuring sweetly, and their hands are on his face, tracing his features. 

He cannot move. The spear in his chest pins him to the ground. He's not bleeding, the heavenly metal cauterises his wound, but that is not a mercy. It only slows down his death. They are… gone, and the world is still so painfully silent around him.

He can feel the resentment seeping in, and he holds onto it with all his strengh. He doesn't know how much time passes, but the resentment is all he knows, for a while there. It consumes him, eats at all he has been, all that he would have been. It keeps him alive, but takes his future from him as surely as death would have.

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

When he goes to Sumeru he expects to find greater lord Rukkhadevada fiercly guarding her land and gnosis. He prepares himself for battle. Instead he finds a child in a glass cage. Lesser lord Kusanali, they call her. How deeply the followers of the proud trinity insult their descendant. 

He offers the child freedom. He offers her revenge. (He pities her. The whole of Sumeru is her birthright, and yet here she is. Imprisoned, used, and forgotten.)

She declines. There is fear in her eyes too. She knows that he will get her gnosis no matter what she does. All that is left is getting as much out of the trade as she can. Not too much, or he might decide to take it by force anyway. He admires her cold calculation.

She asks him to fix her government. (Politics. Subtility. Ugh.) She offers him information on Celestia's current situation in addition to the gnosis, though, and as much as he resents the long and slow game, that is something he needs.

She gives him her gnosis, eventually. She tells him that the Heavenly Principles sleep. That, if he wants to do something, now would be the best time for it. He would have done what he's doing even if Celestia had had a thousand eyes on him alone.

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

Semerai marries his beloved in spring. He's one and a half millenia old, scandalously young by dragon standarts, but quite late by the seelies‘. The celebration is grand. An odd mix of different traditions and all the more beautiful for it. His parents are there, of course, and so are nearly all seelie in existence. They wouldn't miss any excuse for a party they explain, laughing. Surprisingly, even some of the Sovereigns are in attendance. Apep, he had half expected, but the Hydro and Pyro Sovereigns come as a surprise. With them come a host of nearly a hundred dragons of various elements.

The celebration is grander than he'd ever imagined. Before he knew them he’d always imagined he'd marry another dragon, once he was older and had made a name for himself. After, though, he'd known that they were the one he wanted to spend his life with, the one he wanted to grow beside and grow old with.

And they feel the same for him. He can see it in the light in their eyes, the tilt of their lips, even if they have never said so.

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

Egaria has been replaced by Folcalors. Folcalors has taken a page out of Belzebul's book and installed a puppet ruler, a human girl named Furina. Unusually cruel for the god of justice, but who is he to talk.

That is not the important part. By the puppet's side stands a Sovereign. Neuvillette, he calls himself. Even weakened, bound to a human form and without his authority, he is magnificent. A remnant of a time long gone, or perhaps the herald of a new age. Anyhow, he has no need for the gnosis, only the authority within, while Sai doesn't need the authority, only the celestial power within the gnosis.

They make a deal. Sai helps advert the prophesy and returns the authority to it's rightful owner and he will get the gnosis and an ally in his war against Celestia, as Neuvillette put it. While Neuvillette seems mistaken about the reason he's collecting the gnosis, Sai has a soft spot for those who hate the Heavenly Principles as much as he does, so he agrees.

Killing the out of control whale is not difficult, and neither is calming the primordial sea. They have an understanding, one ancient monster to another. It won't hold forever, of course, but by then it will be too late for Neuvillette to retract the deal.

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

Semerai hears about the strange traveller, of course. Mostly from them.

They complain at lengh about the outworldler one seelie has brought back, about this Ashan's lack of respect for their culture, their traditions, their duties. It is worrying that this stranger tries to convince them to stand against their sworn lords, to not only shirk their duty but go against it entirely. 

But, to tell the truth, Semerai is not worried at all. It is clear to him that the outworldler will be expelled soon enough, and any seelie that is stupid enough to listen to him, with him.

He doesn't think Celestia would care at all, even if a handful of seelies would really try to take action.

That was his mistake.

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

He goes to Snezhnaya. The Tsaritsa, a foolish young godess, is collecting the gnosis in hopes that their power alone, united in a single god, would make them powerful enough to stand against Celestia. Unfeasable, of course, but cute. Like a small animal running against a wall again and again, hoping to bring the house down.

The good news is that she has the remaining three gnosis. He really does not want to see his brother, and he does need to enter Mondstadt to complete the ritual. Pissing off Barbatos would have thrown a wrench in his plans, and killing him would have ruined them entirely.

The Tsaritsa refuses to hand over the gnosis. He does not take no for an answer. The Harbringers, three of them khaenri’an, his people, protest when he kills her. It is a shame to destroy what little legacy is left of the once great kingdom, but everything falls one day.

He beginns making his way to Mondstadt.

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

He is seven thousand years old and dead inside. The only reason he still lives is the resentment that keeps his body alive, even when his mind is long gone. He had sworn revenge on the Heavenly Principles for what they did to him, to them, but it is impossible. Not even with all the resentment in the world could he hope to so much as scratch the shiny marble of the sky palace. Perhaps if he'd had the strengh he has now back when they were weaker, before they built their anchors in the ley lines and spent millenia siphoning power off of them, he would have, maybe, stood a chance. Now any action against them would be suicide.

He wanders without destination, barely even paying attention to his surroundings. Until he all but walks into a pillar at the entrance of a temple. It is old, older than it appears, because it is kept intact with divine power. It's not the domain of an celestial god or even an Archon, though, but for something else entirely.

He enters. There is no reason not to. Istaroth greets him.

***

„The godess of time? You could send me back?“

„It is not so easy, I'm afraid. I lack the power to reach that far – and you lack the power to change anything.“

„So I need to collect more power and so do you.“

„The longer we wait to grow, the further you need to travel. It's not possible.“

„It is if we siphon power off another being.“

„Two other beings at least. One divine, for me, and one resentful, for you.“

„… The Abyss for me – don't protest, it's neccessary. It's the only sufficient resentful being without the inteligence to scheme. And, for you, there is only one being that has enough divine power to make a difference.“

„No“

„Yes“

„No! Celestia would smite us down if I tried to get access to their power! How would I even establish a connection without them noticing?!“

„Ah, but you don't need to. They already did so themselves.“

„… The gnosis. You insane bastard, that might even work.“

***

He builds a kingdom on the connection to the Abyss. It reaches out hungrily, trying to devour all the humans living in reach. Sai devours it right back.

Revenge was a good goal, one he was willing to cross all his lines for. Now that there is the chance to go back, there is nothing he wouldn't do.

Then the Archons come. Celestia must have caught wind of the happenings in Khanri'ah, of his sudden rise in power. They send the Archons to subdue him. The human, Mauvika, Egaria who held a contract with the Hydro Sovereign, Rukkhadevata whose marriage he'd witnessed. The twin godesses of lightning. Barbatos, Istaroth's own son. Morax. His little brother.

They seal him and the Abyss takes its chance. It's a bitter comfort to know that they and their countries suffer as well. (It's no comfort at all when he hears his humans' dying screams.)

But he gains the power he needed. Anything and everything for - 

Blood seeping through his clothes, cold and burning steel in his chest, Oberon's crooning voice in his ear –

Semerai is two and a half millenia old, and he is happy. The happiest being on this plane of existence, he's pretty sure.

Oberon is leading him across a meadow, towards an orchard. They are playing, Oberon is trying to evade him, as he mimes grabbing him. Their deep purple hair whips in the wind as their skirts billow. Their wild laugher is accompanied by the birds‘ songs.

At a particulary wild reach Oberon trips him and he falls into the grass. They drop down on top of him and press a kiss to his lips.

Suddenly, the birds are quiet, then there is a searing pain in his chest. Oberon lets out a choked off scream.

Past their shoulder, standing above them, is a heavenly god. It lets go of the spear it had just rammed through both their chests, and disappears into a shower of lights.

He tries to pull out the spear. He's not the best at healing, but if he just gets it out, he can help Oberon –

It is barbed and buried deep in the ground. No elemental magic can touch a weapon with so concentrated divine power. The heavenly metal burns in his chest, cauterising the wound, but Oberon is choking on their blood. He reaches up to feel. It's three pronged, only one is divine metal, the other two are iron. They are shorter, not even touching him. It's a weapon made specifically to kill seelie.

He tries to pull at it again, but Oberon screams in pain. „Stop“, they choke out. „Stop. It's useless.“ They are crying.

„Sai – Sai, I love you. So much. I'm sorry.“

He holds Oberon, careful not to jostle the spear. He's dying, they both are, but there is only one prong in his chest, that missed all vital organs. Oberon will die first. They will die in his arms. He will see his beloved die.

Even though the blood filling their lungs they repeat the same words over and over. „I love you, Sai. Don't forget, I love you. So, so much. I love you. I'm sorry.“

Sai cannot speak as Oberon's blood seeps through his clothes, as the heavenly metal burns cold in his chest, with his beloved's last words in his ears.

Oberon's words grow weaker, wetter, as they drown in their own blood, until they fall quiet, then still. Then they grow cold. 

Sai is still alive. He holds his beloved's corpse to his chest. He waits for death.

It doesn't come. He waits until night falls, and until the next dawn rises. Another day, and another, and another. He's still alive. He doesn't know why. If the spear didn't do the job, shouldn't his own heart? He cannot live without Oberon, that he knows. So why does he?

Another two days. Oberon's body starts to decompose.

One week, two, three. He's still alive. But he knows that he won't be for much longer. The heavenly metal is repelling all elemental energy from the ley lines. He will starve to death. Good enough.

He holds onto Oberon's body even as the feeling and the stench get unbearable.

Five weeks, and the resentment is sinking into him. This attack was about the outlander, Sai knows. He must have incited a small group of seelie to a revolt. And in return Celestia wiped out their entire people.

The hatred consumes him and he lets it. Better than lying here and thinking. 

Three months after Oberon dies he's found by one of Apep's assistants. Apep had been worrying about him when he hadn't shown up.

He needn't have. Semerai died with Oberon. He himself doesn't know what's left.

Good luck. Give them hell.

Thank you, Istaroth.

At a particulary wild reach Oberon trips him and he falls into the grass. They drop down on top of him and press a kiss to his lips.

Suddenly, the birds are quiet – and Sai rolls them to the side. The spear harmlessly buries into the ground behind him. The next moment he is standing and ripping the heavenly god apart.

Golden ichor sprays over the grass, that, in another time, another world, would be covered in Oberon's red instead.

Chapter Text

The sky breaks like shattering glass and three shards fall to the earth. They look a bit like shooting stars, if shooting stars could reflect their own light. From what he can see from the windows of his room in the capital of Remuria, they land far southeast, in Inazuma if he's lucky, the ocean if he's not.

The next second everything is back to normal. The sky looks as it always has, no indication that it's a glorified painted dome over Teyvat. But he knows what he saw. He knows what he feels.

Sairou could always feel his little brother, his every breath, his heartbeat next to his own, since Morax had been born. He'd taken comfort in it, in the knowledge that Morax was safe, that he'd know if he wasn't.

Now, he can feel three more heartbeats, three more little lives. Three more siblings.

They must be his halfsiblings from his biological father, half-celestial children with the potential to become gods. Right now, though, they are weak and vulnerable newborns. One of the heartbeats is errantic, while the other two are slow and steady, like Morax' had been before he'd hatched.

Are they yet to be born? Do celestials hatch? Or do they get that from their other parent?

No matter. 

He has to get them. Their celestial sire evidently doesn't give a flying (ha!) fuck about them, so by right they are his to take care of.

He cannot leave yet, the border disputes are too active right now, he needs at least another month before the automaton soldiers he and Remus had been working on are complete.

The automatons are a stopgap meassure as well, meant to hold the borders long enough for Sairou to go to Natlan and get his hands on building plans for the AI they need. They have a few ideas, but Sairou refuses to go ahead with it without the certainity that it won't blow up in their faces.

In short, they had been preparing for him to leave anyway, they just need to hurry up their timeline.

In the meantime he needs somebody to take care of his new baby siblings. Lucky enough that he had kept up correspondence with Baal. He sends her a crystalfly with what little information on the children he has and the request to take care of them as a personal favor to him. She likely would have cared for them either way but there's nothing wrong with sweetening the deal.

He gets an answer within less than a day.

His siblings had landed practically on top of her and she had taken them under her wing immedially. Three girls, all humanoid looking, with only one being awake while the other two sleep. She agrees to look after them to the best of her abilities until he arrives.

With that taken care of he turns completly to the production of the war machines. He doesn't dare to rush the mechanics, since an explosion would be the best possible outcome, but he takes over a good part of the work himself instead of delegating it as he had been doing.

Remus is miffed, because their already hard to come by private time disappears comletely, but Sairou sooths him with the idea of children, theirs to raise, to take care of. A family of their own. Remus is quickly won over.

With the line of defense complete, they turn to the practicalities. Sairou will leave the shadow hounds with Remus, but Max will come with him as guard for the children. He will go to Inazuma first, make sure the girls are fine, leave Max with them, and go on to Natlan to find the blueprints for the AI, or better yet an experienced mechanic, but he tries to not get his hopes up. It will be hard enough to get the blueprints from his one measly connection into the court from the young drake he had corresponded with before the war.

He doesn't dare to bring the girls back to Fontain until the AI is up and running and he and Remus have the necessary attention to take care of three young children.

******

The silence is painful. 

As soon as he leaves Fontaine Remus' symphony grows quiet and fades out completely by the time he’s crossed the ocean.

It's setting off all instincts he has, the sudden removal of not only the security of the melody, but also the only line of communication to his beloved puts him on edge. He’s sure that without Max and her soulbond he'd have gone mad. It doesn't help that the only time he'd been away from the symphony had been on his monthly visits to the spiral abyss, which means that he assotiates the absence of the music with battle.

The silence sounds like nails dragging over chalkboard in his ears. He already misses the symphony, he wants nothing more than to turn around and flee back into his husband's arms, letting his presence sooth this awful loneliness in his very bones. But he cannot. This is for Remus, for his safety, for their future together. He can not, will not falter.

But hell, the silence is painful.

******

He stops by Jueyun Karst and the Guili Assembly for a few hours. Hardly any time at all, but he sees Morax, Guizhong, and a couple of the other adepti. He sees the easy flow among their humans, even if it seems choppy and chaotic after the rhythmic movements of the Remurians. He sees how happy they are.

Guizhong announces, out of the blue, a child on the way. Morax clearly hadn't known, because he all but keels over before he calls for a grand celebration. While his adorable little brother runs around like a headless chicken at the thought of becoming a father, Guizhong takes Sairou aside and makes him promise to come visit once the child is born, preferably with his husband. It will be about a century before the child is due, by her best estimate, and hopefully the situation will be resolved by then.

He promises and swears to himself that if there isn't time he'll make time. Like hell will he miss the birth of his nibling.

******

Baal greets him with a young girl by her side. His sister, he instinctivly knows. She hides shyly behind Baal's legs, but her eyes are sharp and trained on him. A little hunter.

A little survivor.

As she has to be. He reconizes her looks. White hair streaked with black, and, most incriminating, red eyes with a four pointed star. The same eyes that he'd looked into those days the Moon Sisters came to visit. Those same eyes he associates with music and happiness and accomplishment. With loss, when he saw the solar chariot falling from the sky. Each of the Sisters had had different eyes – blue with a six pointed star, yellow with a five pointed star, and the youngest, the one that had survived, had had eyes just like the one he sees on this child now.

The celestial gods, his sire, had killed her sisters. Why would she ever want his attentions? Except if – she didn't. If his sire had forced himself on her.

Sairou had never gotten to ask his mother about his sire, but if she hadn't been willing either it would make so much more sense that she never told him.

Curse him, then. Sairou most certainly doesn't need him, and he'll make sure his sisters don't, either.

******

Baal doesn't mind taking care of the children, she assures him. She already considers them her sisters as well, and with the additional help and protection of Max they are as safe as he can make them.

He stays barely a couple days before he sets off to Natlan. During gets to know his sisters; mostly the one that is awake, granted, but also the two sleeping ones. They look younger than their sister but are otherwise identical. They move in their sleep. If left alone they will always cuddle up to one another, and him if he's there. They feel his presence as he feels theirs.

His sister doesn't ask him to stay when it's time to leave, but she clings to him tightly.

„One century, little spark. Then I'll be back, and I'll introduce you to our nibling.“ He looks her in the eyes, trying to make her feel the weight of his words, the promise.

Belzebul hugs his neck like she's trying to strangle him but nods.

„A century. Promise me.“

„I promise.“

******

Ashan hadn't put him in contact with any random young fire drake in order to get him to accept his heritage, Sairou learns a couple weeks later. No, he'd made him the pen-pal of the Pyro Sovereign’s younger brother. As much of a scheming snake Ashan had been, this is to his advantage. As a member of the Central Court he can get his paws on anything he wants. Take that, bitch.

There seems to be not only a inheritance battle but also a revolution brewing. Kukulkan is trying to get rid of his older brother, the Pyro Sovereign Xiuhcoatl, while the humans are fighting against the dragons for land and ressources.

He finds Kukulan on a floating palace – a clear imitation of the Sky Palace. More arrogant even than most dragons. He'd retreated there after the failure of his experiment with leading humans. He's not interested in returning to the humans, or the dragons, anytime soon, but is willing to hand Sairou the blueprints to an advanced AI – in return for a favor.

Helping Och-Kan kill Xiuhcoatl.

That is something he can do.

The way Kukulan talks about his son – not nephew, that was a deception to guard Och-Kan, he explains – is unsettling. Sairou can't put his finger on it; Kukulan is clearly proud of his son, invested in his success, but Sairou can't help but think that Kukulan considers Och-Kan not as a person at all.

******

Xbalanque is an impressive man. Charismatic, strong-willed and powerful. All qualities that helped him become the representative of the clans in Natlan. They also explain the way Och-Kan is looking at him with stars in his eyes.

Och-Kan has no interest at all in becoming the Pyro Sovereign, but Xbalanque’s quest to kill Xiuhcoatl gives him a reason to fight against him anyway. Good thing, considering that Sairou needs him to kill Xiuhcoatl to fulfill his deal with Kukulan.

******

A honorable though longwinded adventure later, Xbalanque kills Xiuhcoatl. Not quite what the deal with Kukulan had demanded, but surely he won’t make a problem of it.

Xbalanque is celebrated as a hero among the Natlains – the humans at least – even though without Sairou the fight against Xiuhcoatl would have been suicide. Sairou had kept him at half strengh and away from any of his fail-safes. Not honorable, but Xiuhcoatl hadn't been either. Good riddance to the last Sovereign.

******

Kukulan makes a problem of it. He refused to hand over the blueprints, telling him to go ask another dragon – very funny – or Och-Kan.

Moreover, he tells his son who Sairou is and about the deal they made.

Until then, Och-Kan, Xbalanque, and the others had believed him a simple Adeptus moved by the humans' plight. Kukulan had made sure to frame him in the worst possible light: A dishonorable thief whose only interest lies in the secret technologies of the dragons. 

He explains himself, but he can see that they doubt him. Surprisingly, only Och-Kan takes his side. But he, jaded and cynical, doesn't want to hand over the blueprints either. At least not for free. So, they make a new deal.

Sairou will help Och-Kan build a land for the humans for eighty years, then Och-Kan will get him the very best AI in his possession, as well as all the blueprints he could want.

Sairou takes the deal. An asshole move by Och-Kan, but a crafty one. And he'll be back in time for the birth of his nibling.

But damn, the silence grates in his ears.

Chapter Text

Och-kan founds Ochkanatlan. An incredibly arrogant choice that would have been right up Kukulan's alley. Och-Kan clearly gets his humility from his father.

He doesn't need Sairou much, pretty much only for construction. He also doesn't listen to him. Sairou, for better or worse, has a lot of experience with nation-building in general and humans in particular. Och-kan has neither but still insists on knowing better. Which would be annoying but ultimately unimportant if Och-Kan didn't idealise humans quite as much as he does. 

He flat out refuses to believe that humans would want to harm one another.

As such, there is not only no police force, but not even a legal code. Ochkanatlan is functionally lawless. 

Still, Och-Kan refuses to see sense until an angry mob, a gang really, storms the palace to kill and loot as much as they can. Finally, Och-kan condescends to create basic laws at least which he has enforced by a small soldier force. Framing the whole thing as his idea from the start. Useless bastard.

Och-kan still doesn't allow him to help with state craft but allows him, under heavy supervision, to help establish an education and healthcare system.

In the decade that it takes to get those running smothly it becomes Sairou's job to mediate between the humans and their ruler. Since Och-kan likes his humans better from a distance.

That also means that Sairou is removed completely from the construction projects. Maybe if he'd been there when they had found it, he could have done something. As it is he doesn't know what happened until it is far too late.

******

He wakes one morning with his little twin sisters beside him. They are curled against his side as they always had been in the brief time he'd spent in Inazuma. He smiles gently at them and cards a hand through their hair.

Baal must have brought them here to keep him company.

He rises much later than he normally would, just basking in their presence. He needs to get Baal a gift for this.

He extracts himself from them carefully, he really doesn't want to wake them up, they always get cranky when he does. It doesn't work and he is assaulted by two dastartly little gremlins the moment he steps out of his room. They cling tightly to his front as he makes a show of trying to shake them off before theatrically surrendering to his fate.

They screech with laughter.

„We're hungry, big brother, feed us! Feed us!“ They sound exactly like their sister.

Where is Belzebul?

„Yes, brother, we're hungry,“ Belzebul says from behind him. She's standing in the bedroom he'd just stepped out of. How had he missed her?

They're hungry!

Now that he's looking at them, they are horribly thin. Their cheeks are sunken and their arms are as thin as twigs. How did this happen? Surely Baal would have fed them, and if not her, then –

He can count their ribs and their stomachs are bloated. They look like the war orphans he saw during deployment.

He has to go and hunt them something right now.

Nonsense. Why would he hunt? He has enough food in his inventory to feed an entire army for months.

He sits them down and gives them two portions each. Too much food at once after severe starvation does more harm than good. He tries to take back one portion, but they cling to them too tightly.

What sort of monster would take food from a starving child?

He relents and lets them eat. They eat up and then demand seconds, then thirds. At thirds he refuses to give them more.

Their stomaches are growling, they look even thinner than before. They are starving, how can he refuse to give them food when he has more than enough of it?

Two more portions before they seem satisfied.

He really has to go and work now. There are things to organize, people to speak to.

Good. Speak to people.

His sisters follow him. They are shy and hide behind him or around corners. They hide so well that none of the people he speaks to seem to be able to see them. How strange – that shouldn't be possible –

They are just being polite. They see that his sisters are shy and decide not to draw attention to them. 

How very kind. He makes sure to show his appreciation by hugging the people he speaks to goodbye. They seem slightly uncomfortable with it, but are going along with it with good humor. Sairou is not normally so touchy, but who can blame him for being a bit more needy when his sister are in such an awful state?

A few people seem a bit strange to him. They appear to talk to themselves.

No matter, he doesn’t particulary want to talk to them.

******

His sisters stay with him, how could he send them back considering the state Baal left them in? That means that feeding them in the morning becomes a sort of ritual. Not a happy one – he can never feed them enough.

It’s not good enough. They are hungry. He needs to hunt them something.

Why would he hunt? What would he hunt? He's in the middle of a giant city, there is no big livestock around, nevermind wild animals. He tries out more recepies, different dishes, trying to find something that is good enough. No luck. His sisters are getting thinner, seemingly by the hour.

He gets clingier on his rounds. He tries to get all the comfort he can get from the humans, following them and hugging them whenever he can. He can tell that it makes them uncomfortable, but they will have to deal. It's not like he's harming them.

He's so exhausted. He doesn't sleep well anymore, awful nightmares that he can't remember plague him, and his worry for his sisters drains the rest of his energy.

He avoids most off the humans he was once close with. They appear strange. He hasn't heard of Och-Kan in a while.

******

His sisters are only getting worse. He can't feed them enough even when he empties out his whole inventory. He's running out of food to give them. His rooms stink of rotten –

Hungry

He carefully balances another dish on top of all the others. Belzebul reaches for it and tries to feed if to one of her sisters. Their movements have grown sluggish. The twins barely move at all. He can tell that Belzebul resents him.

You know how to help them, but you refuse to do it. Selfish. You want them dead, admit it.

He doesn't. He really doesn't. He loves them.

You claim to have loved your parents too but you were happy when they died.

He wasn't!

You were.

Was he? He can't remember. He loved them. How could he have been happy when they died?

You are a monster, that's how.

No, he isn't.

Then prove it. Save your sisters. You know how.

He knows. But – how could he do that? They are –

Are you a monster then? Do you want your sisters to die? Will you laugh at their funeral too?

He didn't laugh at his parents' funeral.

He laughed at Mikasa's funeral, almost as much as he cried.

Saika stands closest to his mother's coffin when it bursts open. He dies first. 

The thing that crawled out of the coffin doesn't look like Mikasa much, but he knows it's her. She died unhappy, disappointed with them all, and so, so hurt. She will make sure that they all suffer as much as she did.

She's rotting as he watches, her eyes burst, her hair falls out in clumps and her skin turns grey, then a sickly purple. It sags as the flesh beneath decays.

She doesn't have fingernails, but her finger bones are deadly sharp. She uses them to rip into her son's guts. 

He cannot move, cannot stop her, he can't even run. He's rooted to the spot.

Kaido dies next. She tears out his throat with one hand as she cradles his face with the other.

„You laughed at my death. You laughed. Did you even care?“, she groans.

She kills Saika's children. „You laughed.“

She kills her best friend. „You laughed.“

She kills everyone she can reach. „You all laughed!“

„Did you even care for me at all?“ she asks as she stops in front of Sairou. Her empty eye sockets burn into him. He cannot answer her. She digs her fingers into his chest until he drowns in his own blood.

At least no one will care for him when he dies. A weak comfort, but, for some reason, at least a comfort./ You would leave your sisters alone? They will die without you./ No. He will live and keep them alive too. Whatever it takes./ You know what to do./ He does.

******

His prey struggles between his teeth. He didn't kill it immedially. Leave it alive to feed to his sisters.

„Please! Please, my lord, mercy!“, it squeals. Its screams grate in his ears. „Why, please, why?!“ He hestiates. That is – a human. One he knows.

Your sisters. Them or it. Choose.

Them, obviously. 

They eat. They look healthier immedially. The twins move more fluently, there is color in their cheeks. Belzebul doesn't look at him like she hates him anymore.

He eats what is left. Waste not and all that.

******

One was not enough. Far from it. A few days later his sisters get hungry again. He hunts again. It's easier this time. The herds of prey are disorganized. Infighting. It's easy to catch one alone.

It tastes better too. There is something dark and savory about it.

She remembers the high rooks of her clan, the freedom of weightless flight and wind in her hair.

She moved to Ochkanatlan with her father and sister, leaving her mother and brother behind. Her father assured her that they would find a better life here in the new land governed personally by a great hero. 

They didn't, at least not in the beginning. Only when the foreign young man… god? started personally paying attention to them did it get better. They didn't have to hide in their house anymore and father started looking less stressed. Father talked to their guardian often.

Then mother suddenly moved back and father began acting weird. They both wanted her to eat and she got so hungry. 

She can’t remember when her sister went away. Her mouth tastes like blood.

Her name was Mura.

He – she – eats. It's not enough. She is hungry. His sisters are hungry. He needs to hunt more.

******

He is not the only predator anymore, and there is fewer and fewer prey around. Certainly not enough that they can stay out of each other's way.

Mura wants to shy away, hide, but he is stronger and he knows better. He’s – they're – the strongest predator around. She doesn't need to be scared anymore. She is hungry and so is he.

They kill an weak but cunning creature that tries to hunt in their territory.

He was old, far past his prime. He'd followed Och-Kan to his new land in support to him and Xbalanque, may Ronova cradle his soul.

He'd wondered at the enigmatic young being that had called himself Rou. He'd joined Xbalanque’s team late but helped greatly with their noble quest. Jealous tounges even claimed that he'd been the only reason Xbalanque had succeded at all. Not that he'd ever listen to such.

Only, once they had felled the evil dragon king there had been a falling out between Rou and the rest of Xbalanque’s team with only Och-Kan left willing to so much as talk to him and even that had been strained. He had – privatly!- theorized that Rou might be a dragon himself, one that had seen the evil his kin committed and had thus turned on them. As such, keeping him away from the means to follow in his ancestor's footsteps was a understandable if slightly misguided precaution on their ruler's part.

Whatever Och-Kan had or hadn't intended, assigning him to the human population had been a great boon to them. With his careful management and protection they had flourished.

He doesn't know what happened, why the people had suddenly turned against one another, but he had survived being hunted by dragons, he isn't going to die in a civil revolt of all things.

He still wants to live.

His name was Taiken.

Taiken makes them more cautious, which plays right into Mura's fear. Prey instincts, he sneers at them. They are the strongest thing here, they don't need to fear anything at all. 

He is strong, he needs to be to protect… his sisters? His sisters, right. He needs to protect them, he needs to feed them. Why did he eat the prey himself? He's supposed to give it to his sisters!

He needs to hunt more. They need to hunt more. Mura is hungry. Taiken needs to kill all other predators around so he's safe. They need to kill.

Arrika joins them, then Savku. Queben, Neba, Kulan, Dekra.

He doesn't want to know their names, he doesn't want to know their story. He learns anyway. They are everyone and all of them are one. Some of them are louder than others. Some want the same thing: Mura and Queben want to be safe, Taiken, Dekra and Kulan want to survive. Arrika is cruel, she wants to be strong so she can hurt others. So does Neba, but she is afraid more than she is greedy. She wants to be strong so that no one can hurt her anymore. Savku simply hates – the world, the beings living in it and himself most of all. He can relate.

He is still the strongest among them. And in the mirror of their desire his own becomes clearer – he wants to protect. That's the reason he hasn't left this wing of the palace yet as the others urge him to. He needs to stay close to his sisters.

******

His sisters are… gone. He killed them, he ate them. Did he? He can't hear them. They aren't part of him.

You did. Monster.

He did. Their blood is still dripping from his fangs and claws.

I killed my sister too, Mura pipes up.

They died so prettily! Arrika laughs loudly, madly.

We can move now, Taiken concludes, to the murmurred agreement of Dekra and Kulan. Queben hisses in fear.

Yes, they can move now. There is nothing here for him anymore. It's making him – sad. Maybe. He can't really tell.

They move deeper into the palace. There's more prey there.

******

The creatures deeper in the palace are stronger. They look… strange. Not like they looked before, far from it, but they are familiar. He's seen mutations and sick growth like this before –

That doesn't matter. You must kill them. You are hungry, remember?

Yes, they are. So very hungry.

New voices join them, they become more and grow stronger with each meal. They go deeper into the palace.

In the deepest, darkest part of it they find it. The strongest creature in this place. It puts up a fight, but they are much stronger. They kill it and eat it. 

Glaring lights that he cannot escape. He is surrounded by creatures bigger and stronger than him, hungry from starvation just as he is. They would kill him for food, he knows, but he still fears them less than the beings watching from above. They have such cold eyes. They don't think he's a person at all, nevermind deserving of sympathy. 

One of the beings above is his father, he knows. There are young ones in the back down here too. Their parents fight him for food to give to them. His father put him down here. Who is the animal here, he wonders.

They lower down the food. He defeats the ones down here. He could eat it all, be full for the first time in weeks. Instead he gives part of it to them. They carry it to their children. 

The creatures above oh and ah at him and he thinks he hates them.

***

His father leaves him with the humans. He distrusts them, snarls and bites as he'd learned in the pits. The humans leave him alone after a while.

All but one. A boy with hair and eyes as red as fire. His name is Xbalanque, he later learns.

Xbalanque refuses to leave him alone, patiently coaching him closer until they can hug without him getting scratched or bitten.

Xbalanque teaches him to speak the human's tongue, their clothes and manners. 

Xbalanque teaches him love. 

Within a few months Xbalanque becomes the center of his entire world. He'd follow him into death if he asked it.

He asks something worse instead.

He asks him to face the dragons again.

***

The others of Xbalanque’s troupe worship him just as he deserves, much like Och-Kan does. They don't know what to do with Och-Kan and avoid him as much as they can. He doesn't blame them. He is strange and other at the best of times.

All of them except one: Rou, a liyuan adeptus who had joined them late. He's not a frontline fighter, but his healing and supporting abilities are far more valuable than anything half the troupe's damage dealers could bring to the table.

Most of the time it seems like Rou has little use for any of them. He gives monosyllabic answers to most of the members and even disregards Xbalanque on occasion. 

But he watches Och-Kan with unsettling intensity. Rou is unsettling in generall, twichy nervous mess that he is, always startling at seemingly nothing, staring into empty air before suddenly jumping up and rushing to the next task like his life depends on it, but his focus on Och-Kan is especially unnerving.

It goes so far that Xbalanque asks him if he'd be more comfortable if they kicked Rou out. Och-Kan declines. A little discomfort is an absolutely acceptable price for keeping Rou's abilities for themselves. He's sure Rou has his reasons.

***

Well, fuck, he sure had his reasons. Och-Kan isn't sure if he wants to laugh or cry. Another half-dragon, one that was willing to go to these lengths to gain a fraction of the dragons' power, not even trying to create it for himself, jumping straight to stealing it instead. He must take after his dragon parent. How shameful.

No matter. If he wants it that badly he better work for it.

They make a deal. Eighty years of servitude for the technologies Rou sought. Rou agrees to his very first offer - Och-Kan had been ready to negotiate down, but Rou seems desperate. That's the first moment Och-Kan thinks he might have misjudged him.

***

Och-Kan made a terrible mistake. Well, he's made many mistakes of varying severity, but this one might be unforgivable.

He's not quite sure where exactly this particular mistake began. Was it when he decided to excavate that particular mineshaft despite all the inscribed warnings against it? Was it going deeper in spite of the clear feeling of wrongness? Was it ignoring the reports from the miners about an indescribable monster sighted at the bottom of the flooded mines?

Was it removing Rou from the construction teams in the first place? But that had been a logical and necessary decision. Apart from Rou never being more than an unkind word away from vibrating out of his skin with nerves, which is an unfortunate state of mind when working in unstable mines, the riots proved certainly that Och-Kan knows little to nothing about leading humans. Rou is so much better at it than he'll ever be.

Add to that the copious amounts of guilt Och-Kan feels toward him and he'd do almost anything if it made Rou's stay here easier. He doesn't know why he had thought that Kukulan would be honest about anything at all, nevermind why he had trusted his judgement on another's character. He'd found out the truth from a mix of personal accounts of the humans Rou speaks to and historical records.

Rou – Sairou – is indeed liyuan by birth and technically an adeptus. He hadn't lied to them. He'd been an outcast among the dragons since before the great war. He had raised his younger brother, Morax, the Archon of Geo, alone after the death of their parents. He had created a safe space for refuges during the war, never caring about their race. As Deus Aurorae he had brought knowledge and artistry to the human, as Deus Vesperae he had guarded them against any threat.

He had married in Fontaine – the god of music and art, Remus. A peaceful god wholey unsuited for battle or conquest. A god who is dying under the weight of war. That was why Rou had come to Natlan; to save his husband's life.

In the light of this knowledge Och-Kan couldn't lie to himself. Rou had come here with purely good motives, Och-Kan had been in the wrong. Och-Kan had used him. And Och-Kan couldn't stop using him. Right now, without Rou Ochkanatlan would fall apart. And so, despite the heavy guilt Och-Kan carries in his heart, he doesn't release Rou from their deal.

He does, however, avoid him whenever possible. They rarely talk. Perhaps that had been the mistake. If he had spoken to him about the creature in the mine, about the inscriptions warning against a terrible old enemy sealed inside, perhaps things would have changed. Perhaps Rou would have known the nature of the enemy, a way to guard against them. Perhaps not. He will never know now.

He had concluded that it was some sort of parasite. One with mind-manipulating abilities. (He does his best to ignore Xbalanque screaming at him in hatred) Limited inteligence, based on the lack of planning in this attack. Cunning and skilled in manipulation. It likely bases its tactics on the mind of its host. Evidence suggests the existence of a hive mind.

He does his best to write his observations down. With paper and ink at first, then he carves them into the walls. When he runs out of space he writes over his carvings with blood. He doesn't dare leave his chambers. The hunger eats him alive and he doesn't think he could resist the enemy if faced with potential food. People. His people.

So he hides and listens to their dying screams. They are replaced by different screams over the span of months. Battle cries. Howls of victory. They have nothing in common with the sounds that come out of human throats. 

More than a year after the onset it finds it's way into his chambers. He's not quite sure how or when. It is incredibly stealthy. Rou, silent hunter. What cruel irony. Och-Kan had hoped beyond reason that Rou at least had escaped.

The thing looks nothing like Rou. It doesn't look like anything that should exist on this world or any other. He sees the dark shimmer of Rou's onyx scales beneath the shaggy fur and melted flesh, but the creature's form is mishappen like wet clay. There is more than one face, more than one body in that nightmarish fever dream of a creature. Their mouths are fused shut, possibly to keep them from crying out. He would certainly scream if he was part of that.

He will be part of that. His mouth will be sealed shut as well. He won't be able to scream.

He tries to fight. Useless, he knows, but he cannot help it. He cannot help but hope against all reason.

He hopes right until those horrifying jaws crush his torso.

That – what – 

Was that – him?

He knows that. He knows that. The Abyss. The Imposter –

What do you know, monster? You know nothing. You killed your sisters. You were happy when your parents died, remember?

But his sisters were never here. They were in Inazuma.

You killed them!

No, he didn't. He is hallucinating.

Oh, you might not have killed your sisters but you killed all the others. You are a monster.

He is not the monster here. The Abyss is. He needs to get rid of it. Destroy it. Will he survive that? Is he too far gone? No matter. It cannot be allowed to spread further. He needs –

Father‘s horns pin him to the ground. They pierce right through his chest. He is drowning in his own blood. Father's eyes are so full of hate.

More tricks? Useless. He knows it is there. The only beings with the power to erase it –

He is crushed by the boulders mother calls down. His bones splinter. They pierce his lungs. He can’t move. The stones are so heavy.

He moves anyway. The stones are only in his head. If the Abyss could actually control his body it would have done so. He needs the powers of the celest-

Oboron laughs softly into his ear. „I know what you want,“ they whisper as they press him down on the bed. Morax is right there, his eyes are so, so wide and horrified. He can't move, he can't move, he can't move -

He moves. If they hadn't come down already he has no hope of contacting them. The next best thing, then. The Sky Nail in Sumeru. He takes off in flight. 

He is dying in the desert. The sun burns on his skin, the sand tears at it. Ma- 

He is flying over the desert.

He is dying.

East, only a little further. He goes lower.

He is dying.

There it is. He touches it –

He is burning

Sleep

Chapter Text

Sairou wakes up alone.

He is himself again, no more voices in his head, no more muddled thought process, no more compulsions. The silence hurts as much as their screams did.

He doesn't know how long he's lying there, how long he'd slept before that. It must have been a long while, he's covered in dust.

The light around him changes. From twilight to dark, to twilight to dark again. It doesn't get light in here. In? Ah, he's inside a cave – Why? The – the – the Sky Pillar. A source of Celestia's power. Shouldn't it give off light?

He turns, tries to open his eyes. His bones creak warningly, the meager light almost blinds him. His body is shot to hell and back. He feels like he's waking up in the hospital again after getting on the bad side of a grenade. Has happened before. Though – not in this life. There are none of his team mates here.

He's alone.

He grits his teeth. No time for self-pity. Move. Assessment, soldier. What's the situation? He's wrapped around the Sky Pillar. It is strangely dim. He tries to feel it. The power is still there, but focused inward instead of outward. Like it’s – sealed off? Ah, the pillar must have extracted the Abyss from him and sealed it. Why hadn't the celestial gods destroyed it completely like they had Nibelung and the Imposter?

The only explanation he can see is that they didn't want to destroy the host – him. They considered his life more important than the annihilation of the plague. Why? Just because his biological father is a Celestial? They were nice enough the first time he met them. But surely that wouldn't be enough? He never so much as spoke to his bio dad, he wouldn’t have put in a word for him.

Ah, Ronova must have spoken up for him. The four shades – life, death, space and time – as he'd heard them refered to in some old texts must have at least some sort of sway over the Celestials. Through not much. Celestia is not exactly known for its tolerance in the face of possible rivals. If Ronova spoke for him he must have cashed in quite a few favors and used up a lot of negotiation power.

The question stands: Why?

He knows that Ronova likes him, it's more than obvious in the face of the undead hounds – of Max – of the continued conversation, of the power from his victims that Ronova allows him to keep. He doesn't know why Ronova favors him so much, when it started.

What he will ask for in return.

Instead of pondering in circles he tries to move again. His body is numb but not unresponsive. He's in a strange in-between form that he'd never used before. A tail, four limbs, slightly rough but scaleless skin. A spine made for walking on four limbs instead of two. A jaw that unhinges and opens three ways. A good form for running and hunting. (More akin to a dog than a human, but that gives him a strange sort of comfort.) Most likely why his body took the form it took in the first place. His internal energy is nearly depleted. Most skills, including flight or shapeshifting would be too much for him right now. He takes a look at his status page, and yes, he did lose about a hundred levels. Well, no use crying over spilled milk. He'll make do.

He has no clue how much time has passed, but he'd guess about ten years of healing sleep to the one year of the fever dream that was the Abyss. If he hurries he'll be back just in time.

And, well. He doesn't have the voices in his head anymore, but their memories are as clear as his own. And while he never got his hands on the blueprints, Och-Kan sure did.

He has what he needs to build an AI. Everything is going to be allright.

******

He gradually shakes off the dull ache in his bones as he runs. This body is agile and quick even though it's not pretty. Pragmatic. Remus will probably appreciate it. He'll get to play with fleshy design again - they've done that before. Sairou would take a weird shape and then they'd try to make it both functional and aesthetic. The results were mixed at best but they'd had a lot of fun.

He can't stop to absorb elemental energie and his inner power is low enough that he is reduced to hunting animals and eating them quickly. His body is functional even in this. His senses are sharp, he has long reach and quick movement. And his jaw and throat are flexible enough that he can swallow deer, goats, sheep and the like whole.

He's feeling vaguely sorry for the poor bastards whose livestock he’s killing, but he'll come back and repay them.

He’s making good time but he's still slower than he would be if he could fly.

The silence is so, so, loud, but it won't be long now.

******

He finds a ruin.

That's not so strange. There are many ruins hidden among the sand. The desert is a harsh master and many mortals found that it'd give unexpected bounty and unforseen danger in equal meassure. 

The problem with this ruin is it's placement. He remembers it from the last time he'd been to Sumeru, when he had flown with Amun. Back then – barely a hundred and fifty years ago by his best estimate – this place had been clear of any kind of settlement, nevermind the large city he finds the remains of. A city doesn't just pop up and disappear in less than two centuries – less, if he considers the apparent age of the ruins. It's colors are faded, the edges smooth.

Something is very wrong. A heavy weight settles in his chest.

******

The further north he goes, the more hints he finds. Oasis missing where they should be, thriving cities where they shouldn't be. With every find that weight grows heavier. 

He's late. He slept longer than he thought. Much longer. A century? More? He doesn't dare think about it.

The silence in his ears screams.

******

When he reaches the ocean he realizes what had caused the persistent feeling of wrongness that had been there since he woke up. 

Back when he had left Fontaine at the beginning of this mission he had clung to his beloved's melody until he had nearly crossed the desert. Now he cannot hear anything despite nearly being in Fontaine proper.

The silence -

******

The islands that made up main-Remuria are… gone. Not resettled, not even removed by terraforming. The jagged edges of the sea bed look uncoordinated, violent. Like the traces of an attack.

He forces his body into a shape fit for breathing underwater despite the pain. 

He dives to the ground of the sea. Then deeper.

He still cannot hear anything.

******

The city of Remuria – all the glorious shapes, the art, the instruments – are there, deep beneath the sea. He finds guards, the ones who had heard the melody clearest, in the form of golems. They are confused, nearly incoherent. Aimless. 

He finds a dragon, sealed among the ruins. He debates killing it, but decides against it. He needs to know what happened. If his beloved left, was sealed, or…

******

The dragon's name is Scylla.

It is more than willing to help. In return for a favor. Help for help, it claims and refuses to elaborate. Sairou nearly kills it then and there despite the excruciating pain he will suffer for it. It seems to notice his mood and starts talking.

******

It's been four hundred years since he was meant to return. 

They had gotten word from Natlan about the destruction of Ochkanatlan. About his presumed death. Which was by then considered all but confirmed since the shadow hounds he had left had dissolved into shadows. (A consequence of their severed bond. They are still there, but have no power to cross over into the world of the living without Sairou granting it to them.)

Remus had, against all reason, insisted he was still alive, that he would return as promised. When Sairou did not, even decades later, Remus had entered the Primordial Sea to find an oracle, named Sybilla. Sybilla confirmed Sairou's death but also claimed that he would return to Fontaine, should the ancient prophesy of the fall of Fontaine be averted. 

He'd then gone deeper into the Primordial Sea to meet with Egaria who had recieved the prophesy in the first place. There he'd met Scylla. They had decided to work together to defy fate.

Together they had built Phobos – an AI.

It had turned out exactly like Sairou had feared. Phobos adopted the worst parts of everything he touched, waging progressively brutal war against everyone not part of the Symphony, using golems filled with human souls. It got so bad that Remus saw no choice but to turn Phobos off again. 

However, by then Phobos had gained sentience and power over the Symphony. He used it against Remus, trying to usurp him as the god of the Symphony.

In the end Remus tried to use his own life force to bring the Symphony as a whole to an end, and Phobos with it. Remus had only succeded in ending the Symphony, and his – his life with it. The backlash had sunk Remuria. Phobos had survived.

Scylla asks his help in completing the Requiem.

******

Phobos killed his beloved. Phobos is the last part of his beloved that still exists. The Requiem was his beloved's last work. His last notes. 

Sairou is not sure what that means.

******

As long as the Requiem is not complete a part of Remus still lives.

******

As long as the Requiem is not complete his killer will not die.

******

In the end the decision is easy. It is what Remus wanted.

******

The music swells around him and the world comes alive with it. It is the last time he will hear it. It is the last time he will feel alive. As soon as the last note fades the silence will tear his soul apart.

He greedly devours every note, brands it into his mind and burrows it under his skin. He will remember this for the rest eternity. He –

– remembers that scale. He wrote it with inspiration of the ant hives. Remus had teased him about it to no end. And that one was a playful one they'd written about Max' first puppies. And there was the endless dance of the humans.

And there – right at the end – was the one Remus had written for him. The one he had explained meant love.

This was what Remus had wanted to remember in his last moments. This was what Remus had wanted to carry into the beyond.

******

The last note ends and Sairou collapses. He curls into himself and weeps.

Remus had loved him with his whole being, just as much as Sairou had loved him.

He'd been loved.

Chapter Text

He doesn't know how long he lies there. Time matters not when the pain threatens to tear apart his very being.

He considers just waiting for death, but he knows that he won't find it like this. He grows, even separated from the ley lines. (He is a god. His cursed father's legacy -) He won't starve to death or die of weakness. Even if he stays just like this for eternity, he will be alive to suffer.

And – he can't do that. He has – he has – family? People who depend on him. Who want him. Who need him. He has to get up. If not for himself, then for them. His sisters – his heart burns – his brother – the guilt eats him alive – Mauve and Amun – how could he look them in the eyes? 

His little nibling must have already been born. He missed it, he broke his promise – he broke all his promises –

A perfect little baby. Would it take after it's father? Would it have a long, noodly dragon body? Would it have a body at all? It was too early to tell when he last spoke to Guizhong. They could be a elemental spirit like her. He doesn't know and he can't – 

What if he poisons the baby with his very presence? Surely such a pure and good thing couldn't exist around him? He cannot risk it. He will have to keep breaking his promise.

But there is someone else he broke a promise to. Belzebul. His dear little sister who he'd sworn to that he would return. Does she think him dead too? She shouldn't, they have their soulbond. He can feel her heartbeat against his. She must feel the same.

To her, then.

******

He cannot bear to meet Mauve or Amun. They are so full of life and goodness that his wretched self feels like poison. 

He crosses the continent right at the border between Sumeru and Natlan. It would have been safer to avoid Sumeru entirely, but his entire being shrieks when he so much as thinks about entering Natlan.

Then, past the landmass, he crosses the ocean separating Inazuma from the rest of Teyvat. That brings it's own danger. The oceans are not empty of life or divinity much like the desert is not. It is not like Fontaine, it feels wilder, less controlled. 

The higher beings that thrive here are either aggressive and powerful or sneaky and cunning. Survival of the fittest. He could have thrived here too, especially after Ochkanatlan. It would be so easy to lose himself here, to become one with the wild and simple circle of life down here (It is so quiet. He cannot hear his own mind screaming. When he listens carefully he thinks he can hear the echos of the symphony.), but – 

His family. His sister. He is on his way to meet her. To keep his promise. Late, but maybe she can forgive him? Maybe she can love him anyway? Even though he failed. Maybe she can love a failure.

He changes his body. His hard and spiked chest plating is useful for battle, but he isn't going to battle. He needs to be softer, for her. He retracts the plating all over his body until only soft, vulnerable skin is left. 

He doesn't like being vulnerable, but he can be for her. He needs to show trust, so she can trust him too. And maybe, just maybe he will get to hug her again. Maybe, if he proves his worth. If he atones for his failure. 

If he is allowed to touch her he needs to be sure that he won't hurt her, not even accidentially. He gets rid of most of the spikes on his body, keeping only one on each joint and a few on his tail. He dulls the sharp protusions of his spine. He makes his body bigger to compensate for his new weakness.

The attacks of the higher beings multiply. They think him weak now. They learn better when he tears them apart and eats them. He doesn't need to eat, most of his powers are unsealed again, but it feels good anyway. And it helps replenish the power he’d lost.

He is nearly in Inazuma. His sister's light guides him like a beacon. Soon, he will see her.

Soon, he will find peace again.

******

He finds her close to the shore. 

Did she feel him coming? Has she come to greet him?

She looks different now, not like the little girl with white hair and red eyes. She looks – almost exactly like Baal. She must have changed her shape to fit better with her caretaker. Family? They must love each other. They are not related by blood, but neither are he and Mauve, and he loves her almost as much as he loves Morax.

He is glad she found love when he wasn't there for her.

There are humans around her. She is talking to them.

He is much bigger than her. Big enough to hold her in one hand. Good. He can give her better hugs this way.

He's getting impatient. She isn't greeting him, isn't even acknowledging him, even though she already came out here to greet him. 

Is this a test? Does she want him to come to her? He can do that.

He rises from the water and climbes on shore. 

His sister has her back turned to him, so the humans see him first.

They pale.

They scream.

They run.

Why are they running? Is there a threat?

His sister whirls around.

Her power spikes.

Lightning strikes him.

It hurts.

Why? Why is she hurting him? Is he not trusting enough? He makes his skin thinner, dulls his remaining spikes.

Lighning strikes again. 

It hurts worse.

His sister draws a weapon.

Ah. She didn't forgive him. She's angry at him. She wants to punish him. He should let her. It's her right. 

He doesn't want to hurt. He's such a coward. How could he atone if he's not ready to take his just punishment?

He doesn't want to hurt.

He turns around and dives back into the sea.

A sketch made by a terrified inazuman fisher

******

Lightning keeps striking the surface, so he dives deeper. Deeper than he ever dared to go. His body protests. He changes it. He grows bigger, sturdier. Thicker skin. Thicker, thicker, until he doesn't feel pain anymore.

The light dims. The water is heavy. It wants to crush him, but he doesn't let it.

He meets fewer creatures the farther down the goes. The few he meets try to flee from him. He doesn't let them. He tears them apart. Do they hurt? He still hurts even though he can't feel pain anymore.

It is dark in the depth, dark and cold and heavy. That feels right. That feels like it fits him.

He finds something down there.

A being as dark and cold and heavy as it's domain.

It tries to eat him, he evades it. 

It is slow, not used to hunting a creature that can control water just as well as it can.

It tries to eat him again and he rips off one of it's heads. 

After that, it starts watching him. He watches it right back.

He thinks that if it wasn't there he would go to sleep and never wake up. He doesn't know if it's good that it's there.

The creature is curious. It is used to a slow, steady life. He is faster than it had ever experienced. Had ever imagined. It wants that for itself, he thinks. It wants to live that fast too.

It moves higher, slowly. He follows it. He has nothing better to do. 

The deep is dark and cold and heavy, but without the creature it would be lonely too. And lonely is worse than light and heat. (It's worse than pain.)

Osial, the waters whisper. The creature's name is Osial.

He doesn't answer. His name is bad because it hurts. He doesn't want to remember it.

They go higher, slowly. Osial's body is not made for the high waters, but that is easy to change. Osial is an elemental spirit, his body is fluid – quite literally.

They meet other creatures. Osial is more powerful than all of them. Some avoid him, some follow him in hope of scavenging his scraps. 

There are tribes of higher beings close to the surface. Some declare war on Osial, some swear loyality.

Slowly Osial builds a following. It is nothing like the kingdoms on the surface. Osial doesn't consider them his to protect. He barely remembers not to eat them. And yet, they are a force that organizes and fights together instead of against each other. 

Osial won't ever be an Archon, and it is probably better that that way. He won't rule over humans or accept them in his terretority. He lives and breathes the waters bloodstained from fights for dominance. 

It is not peaceful, not at all, but by Osial's side S- he finds contentment. The simplicity of life beneath the waves is soothing. Even if he sometimes hurts without knowing why, even if winding sea snakes remind him of something he cannot name. Even if silence is too loud and noise too quiet.

The light changes and so do the temperatures of the water. He is vaguely aware that time passes.

One day, his life changes. There is a higher being above the surface.

Sairou, it calls, and he – Sairou, that's his name – remembers. 

Max?, he calls back, even though he already knows the answer.

Yes. Sairou. Sairou, come home. You are missed.

And – yes, he would be. His brother, Mauve, Amun; they would miss him, even if his sister doesn't. He should come back to them.

******

He expects – screams, fear, pain, when he's on land again, cowering before his brother. 

His brother wraps his long body around him and squeezes him tight.

And he – Sairou is finally home.

Chapter Text

Morax bundles him off to Jueyun Karst immedially. He brings him to the cave he'd made his home before he'd moved to Fontaine with – 

He bundles him in the softest blankets, gives him delicious food, sings to him. It only serves to make Sairou feel like a pet instead of a person. But then, a tame beast is loved more than a wild one, so maybe he should be happy.

The adepti swarm around his cave, there are never less than ten at a time, but they keep their distance. He never sees them (as if that would stop him from noticing them. Do they think so little of him?) and they don't try to talk to him. They just watch him. It makes his skin beneath the hard scales itch. He doesn't like the feeling. It makes him want to tear the enemy apart. It makes him want to flee.

******

Change comes one day out of the blue when Morax drops a child on him. No, no, drops is not the right word. Far from it. Morax handles the child carefully, like it's made of spun glass, like it is the most precious thing in the whole wide world. It undoubtly is.

The child is a dragonet with dark scales and greyish mane. No horns, not even the nubs Morax had had at it's age. It's eyes are blue-gray, he sees when the child looks up at him and chirps.

And his brother, his madlad of a brother, hands the child – his nibling – to him without hesitation. Sairou – flails. Yes, that's probably the best way to describe the mad dash and contortions he goes through to make his body baby-proof within a couple seconds.

The baby is so small in his hands, so delicate and so utterly trusting. Morax – Morax at that age wouldn't have been so fearless in the arms of a clearly dangerous stranger, even if Sairou had been right there. He hadn't had that kind of inherent trust. (Had that been Sairou's fault?)

The child wiggles around, clearly trying to get comfortable. (How could his body be any good? Why would a child want to cuddle with it?) He already dropped his plate armour, but now the dragonet's juvenile scales pinch him everywhere.

So he shifts again. He has many good memories of his dragon body. He hadn't dared take this form again after he left Fontaine for Natlan in fear of sullying those memories. But this, here – this is the first time he meets his nibling. How could he sully anything with this memory?

The dragonet chirps excitedly and gets busy coiling into a tiny ball of goodness and immedially falling asleep. Children.

(Guizhong is slowly relaxing. She had looked on in trepidation. She had not trusted him as much as his brother had. They must have fought about this.)

His brother joins him in the nest in his dragon form, shortly followed by Guizhong, who settles in his mane. 

It feels good to lie here together. Safe. It feels like home again.

******

The dragonet’s name is Menogias, he's geo-natured and sharp as a whip. He'd really played up the innocent-child act. Not that he isn't an innocent child, but he's definitly more grown than he'd presented himself. 

Smart, calculating, and kind, if still a bit naive.

Good qualities to have in life, they will serve him well.

Sairou approves completly.

******

He still doesn't think of himself as a person, really, but lazing around in his cave isn't going to help anybody. (The dulled sounds and lack of distractions leaves him too much time to think. To remember.) So he decides to look over the land. 

Max is still in Inazuma, watching over his sisters. (He understands now why Belzebul had attacked him – she had thought him a threat to herself and her humans. She hadn't reconized him. Why would she? She isn't a shapeshifter, has no experience with any; she wouldn't have thought to check his aura. He doesn't blame her. Still, the thought of meeting her again fills him with irrational fear.) Morax is busy organising and ruling the adepti and the humans, so he travels alone.

He follows the adepti that have set out for battle. There he can help best right now. 

They don’t notice him. He's gotten good at concealing his presence.

He expects to find skirmishes with other gods or their minions. He can feel the presence of dozens in Liyue, still. The Archon War is far from over.

What he finds is something else entirely. It looks like ley line disruptions, a bit. There are creatures that need to be killed so that the natural flow can be restored. But it is – not the ley lines. The corrupted power tastes like the Abyss. Not much, and they don't seem like parasites. There is no imminent danger.

But still, those corrupted wells of power are more common than ley lines disruptions and for the life of him he can't figure out where they came from. He can only see that they seem to be marginally more common in eastern Liyue. Which is unfortunately close to the Assembly. 

But there is something more pressing than the threat of monsters attacking the Assembly. They are well-defended by his brother. No, the bigger problem is that the corrupted power doesn't dispell completely. Some of it clings to those who dispel the disruption. It is not conscious like true Abyssal corruption, but in large enough quantities it has similar effects: physical weakness, emotional disregulation, hallucinations.

He grabs one of the Adepti who is worst off and interrogates them.

„It is karma, my lord Vesperae. Punishment for our sins. The more beings we kill the more karma we accumulate. It is our duty as Yaksha to take this burden so the rest of Liyue may be safe.“

„Bullshit,“ Sairou interrupts. „This is the power of an enemy trying to weaken our forces.“

And while the Adeptus stares at him open-mouthed, Sairou grabs at the power, tears it out and eats it. It screeches when it comes into contact with his own internal power and dissolves. 

Looks like his educated guess was right. Celestial power negates abyssal power, and he's the son of a celestial. Go figure his power was celestial instead of elemental all along. That was likely the only reason he recovered from the abyssal corruption in the first place.

The adepus is bent over, panting and crying. Sairou might have been a bit too rough with the removal, but he didn't want to risk the corrupted power putting up a fight and possibly harming the adeptus in the process. But if he inserts his power into the adepti’s body first, herding the corruption away from vital organs, and then pulls it out…

Well, he will have to experiment.

He sends two crystalflies that evening. One to his brother with the request to send him every adeptus who had ever been present at the clearing of a miasma, as it is apparently called, to him. Meanwhile he continues cleaning them out himself.

The second crystalfly goes to Decarabian. He asks if they are suffering from a similar phenomenon in Mondstadt.

Both answers come promptly. Close to a hundred Adepti flock to him overnight, though his brother also sends a crystalfly tiredly suggesting he return to Jueyun Karst and treat the adepti from there. He doesn't seem to expect Sairou to listen which is good, because Sairou has no intention to. They still don't know what causes the miasma, and they can't keep treating only the symptoms instead of the cause.

Andrius comes personally from Monstadt to explain the situation. They have even more miasma than Liyue, despite their smaller size, mostly in the southern regions. 

Which makes Sairou want to bash his own head into a wall at his sheer stupidity. How had he not thought of that earlier? East of Liyue, south of Mondstadt. Pilos and Kailos Peak.

The Spiral Abyss. That nobody had cleared out for more that four hundred fucking years. Fucking hell. No wonder they have abyssal energy popping up everywhere.

He sees a lot of work in the imminent future.

(But right now he's busy giving Andrius belly scratches. His short ass dragon arms make it difficult but he's not going to let that stop him. It's been far too long since he last saw him.)

******

Morax puts up a token protest but agrees to let him go fairly quickly. They both know that this is dangerous and time-sensitive.

So Sairou stands at the portal the the Spiral Abyss three days later, plied with food courtesy of his brother.

******

He would have thought that the constant and brutal battle in the Spiral Abyss would undo the progress of his mental health. That the bloodshed and the silence would make him more animalistic.

The opposite is happening. Maybe on the first couple dozent floors, yes, where the fight was more of a one-sided massacre, he could fight on instinct alone. The farther down he goes the less that's possible.

The enemies he faces are getting stronger and he has to start using strategies to beat them. He can't just run in and hope for the best. 

He recovers more of the rotations he'd once used, the skills he had forgotten he had.

He finds a half-finished handcarved flute on the stairway between the eleventh and twelfth floor. He remembers making it as a gift for one of Remuria's palace guards. He'd carved it down here and lost it somewhere on the way back. He hadn't known where and kicked himself in the ass for losing it. He pockets it carefully. The person he'd wanted to give it to is long dead, but it carries a precious memory.

The Spiral Abyss has 78 floors, with the last few rather horribly strong. He’d fought gods weaker than this. If they had gotten out of here it would have been a disaster.

******

He returns home to find his brother with double the number of children he'd expected. Which is two, but still.

„Who is that?“ He bends down to the kid. It's small and heavy set. Humanoid with purple hair and an extra set of arms.

„His name is Bosacius. He came all the way from Snezhnaya and doesn't have any guardians.“

„From Snezhnaya? By himself?“

„Yes, by myself. What about it?“, little Bosacius interrupts.

Well, Sairou has to admit, four arms allow for rather expressive pouting.

He kneels down to the child – he had taken a human form again when he'd returned to the Assembly. Dragon bodies were a hazard around human buldings. 

„That was very brave of you. You must have been scared. But you're safe now, I promise.“

Chapter Text

He's getting better, slowly but surely. It helps that he has the support of all the higher beings in Liyue as well as Sumeru, who keep him busy and happy. Anytime he gets maudlin they corral him into various activities. From watching and training the young adepti over construction, terraforming and bureaucracy to learning new crafts. The last one he finds especially rewarding. Weaving is mediative, good when his mind just won't be quiet, carpentry and stone work take concentration and attention to detail, for when he has trouble getting himself to move at all. (He can't sing. He tried, but everytime he opens his mouth, the memories crush him until he wants to die. He just stopped trying.)

His brother keeps him away from battle, worrying, probably rightfully so, that violence would send him down another depressive spiral. He does, however, allow him to buff the adepti before battle and heal them afterwards. They hadn't been hostile to him before, but now there is an ease in their interactions with him that soothes his soul.

He stays in Jueyun Karst, mostly, so he won't get disturbed by the humans, as his adepti put it. He doesn't think they would disturb him, but he is still far from stable and the pure aura he emits during one of his breakdowns could very well be enough to seriously harm if not kill them. He won't risk spending too much time around humans until he's sure he won't harm them accidentially.

He notices the strange dichromity of the use of his title after a couple decades – the adepti and humans alike call him Deus Aurorae when he is at peace, and Deus Vesperae when he's sparring or going to the occasional battle. They split his name until they very nearly consider him two different gods entirely: Deus Vesperae, the god of dusk and battle, and Deus Aurorae, the god of dawn and craftmanship. It doesn't really bother him, he isn't influenced by the mortals' faith as the mortal gods are, but it irks him slightly. He is both, he came by his violence and peace honestly, reducing him to only one feels… cheap, but he doesn't have the energy to correct them more than a couple times. 

He doesn't want to bother his brother with this, nor Guizhong. They have their hands full with their humans and their two young children. 

So he bitches to Osial instead.

******

Sairou started visiting the shore about a decade after his return to Liyue, as soon as he felt that it wouldn't fuck up his mind. The sea is as strangely peaceful as he remembers, but he is careful not to go too deep and he doesn't dive in too deep. He barely goes far enough that his whole body is covered. It would be far too easy to lose himself again here, and he doesn't want that. He has people to go back to, now. 

Osial hat set up the center of his court – which was himself – very close to the landmass. Much closer to the surface than Sairou would have thought he would be comfortable. Osial had also promtly gotten into a fight with the god who'd claimed the southern liyuan shoreline. Unsurprisingly, he had won.

The positive side of that was that Sairou could now visit him without dealing with some indignant godling who thought they were much more important than they actually were. He makes good use of this opportunity. They talk every other week, at least.

Osial has no interest in the humans, but is intrigued by the landdweller's culture. Not because he cares about them one way or another, but because it helps him understand Sairou better. He's refreshingly blunt about that; he doesn't bother lying or even concealing his intentions. He does occasionally redirect if he doesn't want to talk about something, but mostly doesn't bother with Sairou. 

So, Sairou speaks to him about anything and everything. Which he doesn't realise is a problem until one day in the summer, about a century after he returned.

He is floating on the surface, Osial's many heads winding around him. Osial had been unusually quiet but in a good mood, so Sairou had decided to wait him out instead of pressing him.

He is relaxing, just about to fall asleep to the gentle swaying and humming of Osial's power, when Osial says, out of the blue, „We should get married.“

Sairou is promtly wide awake while also feeling like someone had dropped a boulder on his head. But, well, this isn't the first time that Osial had said something inappropiate because of a misunderstanding of the landdweller culture. He'd spoken about the marriage between Morax and Guizhong and the one between Mauve, Amun and Rukkhadevada. He doesn't see how there could have been a misunderstanding.

„Please explain your thought process.“

Osial stills a bit at his tone, but answers anyway. „Landdwellers get married before they have children, right? So if we want to have children, we should get married first.“

That does not make it better. Patience.

„And what makes you think we'd have a child?“ His tone is sharper than intended and Osial puffs up in response.

„We are both strong – you are the most powerful being I have ever met. Why would I not want the best possible parent of my child? They will have my power over the sea and your shifting body and strengh. They will rule the sea when they are grown.“

Ah, it's the mercenary attitude to procreation in the ocean. That's a relief. He'll just have to explain again that landdweller children have different needs than oceanborn ones.

And then Osial continues, „And the landdweller's instincts say to keep close watch on their child, for a long time. Especially yours, you even care for children that aren't yours. When we have a child together then you will be around more and you won't leave even if you get annoyed with me. And when the first child gets to independent we can just have another one.“

He – he sounds proud of himself. Like that is a good, clever idea. Like he isn't talking about baby-trapping him.

Sairou summons a hovering rock over the sea and climbs on it. He doesn't want to spend another second in the ocean. (He feels unsafe there for the first time – „I know what you want-“)

Osial watches in surprise. Sairou snarls down at him. „I can't even explain how horrible what you just said is. It's worse that you don't even think there's anything wrong with it.“ Then he turns around and flies back to shore.

******

Osial sends him a crystalfly a couple days later, asking him to meet.

He's shamefaced when Sairou arrives – or at least makes a good production of it. Sairou had long suspected that Osial is a psychopath, incapable of shame and empathy. He does, however, care that Sairou is happy, because him being happy means him doing things that make Osial happy. It's not the worst thing.

„I'm sorry.“ Osial starts „What I said was inconsiderate. My mistakes were as following: First, I tried to restrict your freedom, which you value highly, and second, I would have used a youngling for it, which triggered your protective parental instinct. I will not repeat these mistakes.“

He's not wrong, if clinical about it. 

„So you've given up on the idea?“, he asks to be sure.

Osial hesitates. „No. I still want to have a child with you. Apart from the objective consideration of your suitability, I like you. Being around you makes me happy. It stands to reason that your child could make me happy as well.“

Well, then, honesty for honesty. „I don't want to have a child with you. I don't want children of my own at all, but especially not with you. I like you well enough as a friend, but I don't think I could raise a child with you.“

Osial nods. „I understand. I will not stop trying to convince you, but I won't try to force your hand about it.“

Osial being mildly creepy and wildly obsessive

******

Their relationship strangely goes back to normal. Osial will throw in comments about his strengh and character here and there, but that is all. It's good.

Then, one day, he shows up with a child. A newborn that feels like him. He presses her into Sairou's arms and explains that she is one of his children with a higher being called Beisht. That he wants him to have her, to „serve as an example for the potential of his children“.

Osial had named her Bonanus, trying to get to the word Bona or Bonus, meaning good, but botching it. 

Sairou very much doesn't feel ready to raise a child yet, so he asks his brother to care for her until they can find her a permanent family.

Morax isn't happy with Osial, but takes to the girl immedially. Within a week he treats her as he does Bosacius and Menogenias. There is no talk about finding her another family.

******

Unfortunately, the other gods see Osial gifting his child to Jueyun Karst and decide it was tribute that Morax had demanded. The relations with them suffer, some express hostility. It's only an excuse, of course, they were waiting for a reason to start shit. Crushing the ones who use the opportunity to stage an attack is an all-hands-on-deck sort of job, so Sairou is there as well.

War is one thing, he is used to it. What he is not used to is Alvaer, the leader of one of the weaker fractions, sending an envoy with tribute to Jueyun Karst.

Tribute being a little Fenghuang girl named Indarias. 

Morax tries to send her back, telling Alvaer that that really isn't neccessary. Alvaer insists. They go back and forth a bit. 

In the end Morax decides to keep her. Four is a perfectly good number, he claims. Two girls, two boys, wonderfully symmetrical. 

Sairou beginns to suspect that it's genetic.

******

Two hundred years after he returned he is finally feeling well enough to face Belzebul. It's hard, but he can't put it off forever. If not for her, then at the very least for Max. He misses her. It's easier than the complicated knot of emotions he has for his sister. He knows, objectively, that she wasn't at fault. That doesn't make it any easier. 

Baal and Belzebul come together, carrying his sleeping baby sisters.

Baal greets him, but Belzebul hangs back, hesistant, guilty. He doesn't have it in him to go to her, to say anything. He doesn't know how to.

Max, the best girl ever, gives him a push. Literally. He stumbles into her. He closes his arms around her. She hugs him back. 

It feels like an echo. It hurts like finally opening an old infection and draining it. It feels like healing.

******

They leave his baby sisters with him when they leave.

He spots his brother eyeing them.

„These ones are mine!“ he snaps playfully. „You have enough of your own.“

******

Chenyu is one of their most fierce opponents. She refuses to give up even when she must know that she will not, cannot, win against them.

He respects her determination, even if he doesn't think much of her otherwise. What worries him are her soldiers. They are young, fairly weak, and fight with an empty light in their eyes that he knows well. They have given up already. All of them except for one. A young boy – if he his over two centuries old Sairou will eat his own boots – who clings desperately to life. The abyssal corruption alone should have killed him.

It is that boy that pushes him into speeding up the plans. His brother is not happy, of course. He doesn't want him on the battlefield at all. (Morax would rather see his own adepti die by the dozens than risk Sairou. It makes something dark in his chest purr.)

The goddess Chenyu doesn't pose a true threat to him. He had faced more dangerous enemies when he was still much weaker.

He has help from inside her forces: two higher beings, Changsheng and Fujin, the animal spirits of a snake and a carp respectively. They are tired of the constant battle and ready to swear to Morax if it means that their people will be safe.

So he arranges the final battle for Chenyu. The ground drenched in geo power ready for his brother to use, a barrier to seperate Chenyu from her forces, Changsheng and Fujin ready to command surrender as soon as their goddess is dead.

Morax kills Chenyu without much trouble. She is nowhere near strong enough to break his shield.

Sairou looks away for only a moment to organize the clean up. When he turns back his brother had already adopted a new child.

******

Max moves to the newly named Chenyu Vale – named such because Changsheng and Fujin had spitefully declared that the goddess would have hated for one of Morax lands to be named after her. She enjoys the company of the two higher beings.

The humans name her Lingyuan.

******

He sings for the children. He didn't think it was possible. He thought he'd lost that part of himself. And yet, in the dark of night, with their soft weight among his coils, he finds peace.

******

When Amun invites him to Sumeru a few centuries later, he doesn't expect anything serious.

Chapter Text

His flight to Ay-Khanoum goes uninterrupted. He enjoys the scenery – nothing like not being neck deep in a mental breakdown to appreciate the little things in life. Not that the city Mauve had built around and into that giant tree counted as little, but whatever. It’s certainly an architectual masterpiece, though he can't imagine how they got around the tree growing and thus destabilising the foundations. He'll have to ask Mauve about it. She cares more about the humans than Rukkhadevada does, so it's most likely her work.

Amun’s humans seem to be thriving. They look happy, well fed, if a bit startled by the giant dragon dropping out of the sky. It is only when he nears the palace that he starts to worry. Amun isn't there to greet him, and the guards who lead him inside instead seem relieved to see him. 

„What is wrong?,“ he asks the one who looks like he's in charge. An middle aged man, skin rough from the sun, straight spine. He has the posture of someone who is used to leading. Yet, he hesistates. Sairou’s heart drops. „Is he sick? Has something happened to him?“

„Ah, no, your holy Grace.“ Again with that nickname. Amun has taken the whole God King thing a bit to far in his opinion, but that's really not important right now. „He has just been – well – we would certainly not judge our King – “

„You have thoughts, and I want you to speak them instead of beating around the bush,“ he snaps. Undeserved, probably, but he is losing patience.

„He's been acting strange,“ a younger man in the back says, immedially earning himself a glare from the other guards.

„Strange? How so?“ These guards spent a lot of time around Amun, they would know his habits better than Sairou.

They share an awkard look, before the commander speaks again. „He has been erratic. He hasn't left his rooms and when he speaks he speaks it's mostly incomprehensible. He's also been having mood-swings.“

Sairou tilts his head. „Sounds like one of his creative benders. What exactly is worring about this one in particular?“

The guard shrugs helplessly. „I cannot define it, but something's not right. You will see.“

They've arrived at Amun's rooms and the guards push open the doors before bowing an backing away.

And, yes. They were absolutely right. There's something very wrong. On first glance, nothing is out of the ordinary – there are papers strewn on the table, books scattered across the room. Amun is flittering about, between the table and various book, or just aimlessly around the room to gather his thoughts. That's all normal, until Sairou comes closer and realizes that Amun isn't reading any of the books he picks up and discharges again, and the things written on the papers on his desk aren't plans for anything. They're just word fragments, occassional phrases that don't make sense. He sees ‚golden twins‘, ‚one hand of ice, twelve of flesh‘ and ‚loom of fate‘ on first glance.

He steps into Amun's way. Usually that's enough to snap him out of the hyperfocus he gets on a bender, but today Amun just walks around him like he's a piece of furniture that had inexplicably moved. He's muttering the same word fragments that he'd written down. Now Sairou is properly worried. 

He steps to the window to send some crystal flies to Rukkhadevada and Mauve. They need to be informed, then Guizhong. She is undoubtly the expert when it comes to minds. 

When he turns around, he comes face to face with Amun. He's looking at him and through him at the same time like he sees something no one else can. „You need to leave,“ he says with complete certainity. „You need to follow the snake!“ His voice rises, shrill.

„Right. I will, Amun. Just after I've made sure that you're alright. Now, how about you sit down and I get you something to eat, hm?“ Amun thankfully doesn't resist as Sairou leads him to the small table in a corner of the room. 

„You don't understand,“ he tells Sairou. „You need to leave now or you're too late. The snake rose from the sea. You have to find it, it has answers. You need to go where it came from, to find, to find…“

Amun is speaking nonsense, but he sounds so desperate. „Don't worry, everything will be fine. I'll go find the snake when you're in your right mind again. We have time.“

„No. No no no no, we don't have time. You need to go now, you need to find the King of Night, or we all die, everybody dies, but we will die earlier. We will die too early. Oh heavens I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, it's all my fault.“ Amun curls up, whimpering, and Sairou gathers him close. 

The King of Night, he'd heard that before, but he can't remember where – wait. Isn't that what the people from Natlan call Ronova? That makes Amun's words scarier, but it could still be that Amun just mixes random words without rhyme or reason. 

„We will all die and we won't come back, not like you, not like you. You come back from the Night, you always come back.“ Amun sits up and grabs his face, forcing Sairou to look him in the eyes. „You always come back. Listen to me, you will always come back. Jack. You will always come back.“

What. What the fuck? He couldn't know that name. The last person who had known it died before Amun was even born. That's not possible – unless… If this is some weird awakening of prophetic powers – it would explain the random scribbles, the seemingly nonsensical insistence for Sairou to find some snake. The way he is so certain that they will die if he does not.

„Amun. You and your wifes will die if I don't find that snake?“ 

Amun nods. „Yes, yes, but more will die, many more. Many many many.“ Right, their humans, probably. 

„There is some sort of disaster coming, then? And I can't avert it if I stay here, only if I find the snake?“

„You need to find the King, the snake only shows you the way. You need to hurry, you are nearly too late.“

„Where do I find the snake?“

„The westernmost island of Inazuma. Hurry, you are soon too late.“

******

He doesn't dare swim through the ocean, even if it would probably be faster. The danger of losing himself is too great. When he nears the westernmost island – or what was the westernmost island not to long ago (There is an entire new island. Which one should he take? He's in a hurry and he has no idea how long it will take to search two entire islands for one little snake. He chooses the new one.) – he sees lightning in the sky. Not the normal, ambivalent lightning that always flashes above Inazuma, but the pointed one of battle. Is that why Amun was certain he was on a timelimit? Will his little snake be crushed underfoot? He changes course.

The battle finishes with the soft feeling of a dying god a mere minute before he reaches the island. Only when he finally catches sight of the corpse, does he realize his mistake. It's a snake. A really, really, big snake. Fuck.

Belzebul greets him while he stands still in shock.

„Brother? What brings you here?“

Amun said the snake would show him the way, right? Meaning the snake had been before where he needs to go. Trace it's steps.

„Where did the snake come from?,“ he asks his sister.

„Orobashi? He's the god of Watatsumi, the new island. Did you – need him for anything? He attacked, I had to kill him or he would have killed the humans on this island.“

„What's done is done. Where was he before he built that island?“

Belzebul tilts her head. She doesn't look like she belives him, but he doesn't have the time to reassure her. „They say he came from a place he called the Dark Sea. The portal is in the middle of Watatsumi.“

He thanks her and takes flight again. He reaches and crosses Watatsumi in a couple minutes. There really is a portal in the middle of it. It's colorful and swirly. Hypnotic. Probably dangerous. He has no idea what lays on the other side. Well, whatever. He dives in.

******

It feels like being squeezed through a thin tube while being pulled apart at the seams. It doesn't hurt, but it is one of the most disconcerning experiences he’d ever had. 

The portal spits him out on a floating island. It seems to be suspended in a void. There, in the distance is a magnificent palace. It's towers glow brightly, illuminating the land, but not able to pierce through the fog. Well, if there is a King here, he's probably over there. 

He sees humans. They run away from him screaming. Well, whatever. 

He doesn't find a Ronova in the palace, just a young child on a throne.

(The architecture, the language – they are old. Nearly as old as he is. He remembers the missing stretches of land after the War and wonders. Have they been here this whole time?)

Ronova is not here. Was he wrong? Was Orobashi meant to lead him somewhere else? 

Then, in the darkness beyond the small illuminated islands, he sees them. Eyes and Hands and Mouths There they are. He jumps into the darkness.

******

He falls – for a long time? Or just a moment. He's not sure.

The shadows cradle him, like they'd done once before. Then, around him, his hounds materialize his shadow hounds. They are – a part of him in a way they aren't in the world of the living. Or he is a part of them. He's dead, after all. And – Ronova had brought him to Teyvat.

Ronova? Are you here?

Of course.

The shadows take form like he had once seen before. Vaguely human, melding together with the surrounding figures. It's clearer now than it was back then. Ronova is not just one, he ist part of the shadows – ghosts? – like Sairou is. They are part of him and he is part of them. (Does that mean Ronova has died too? Could the god of death be dead?)

I did. Well, somewhat. You will find that dead things are hard to kill.

He can read his mind?

You are a shadow and all shadows are part of me.

So he is just, what? A set of senses for Ronova to experience the world with?

No. You are not a branch of me, more like an offshoot. I am feeding you still, but you will be able to grow strong in your own right soon.

Why? I am the child of a celestial and you are a shade. Shouldn't you hate me?

…You should know that the human’s knowledge is severely limited. Why are you listening to their wild theories? The celestials are not my enemies. In fact, I see them as my siblings.

Are the other shades allies to celestia as well?

The other shades consider the celestials their siblings as well.

You what? But weren't you beings from Teyvat?

No. We came with the celestials. What would I have been doing in Teyvat when I have only power over the humans?

You…

The beings of Teyvat are outside of my control. They belong to Irminsul, the original ruler of this land.

Irminsul is…

The power behind the ley lines. The ley lines are its roots, the beings of this world its fruit.

The tree. I saw it before, right? When you brought me here?

Yes. You came through it. I bound my power to it when we first arrived here. I help it spread it’s roots into other world and in return it grants me and mine power.

So it was the Irminsul that decided to bring me here, not you?

No, that was my decision. Irminsul simple retrieved your soul.

I see. But still, why me? Why reincarnate a soul at all?

… The child whose body you live in now would not have survived. Their powers were equally strong and hostile. So, with a human soul carrying the power of celestia I tipped the scales. It made you a divine being, a shade if you will, instead of a being of this world.

So I'm not a celestial?

Celestial or Shade are just allegiance. We are the same people.

To what do the Celestials and Shades hold allegiance respectively?

That is not something you need to know yet. Do you have other questions for me?

Why me? I get that you needed a human soul, but why me specifically?

… You reminded me of someone.

Huh?

There once lived a human, long ago, who was… dear. To me. You reminded me of him. I wanted to see where you would go if you had all the options, all the chances I could give you. That's why I helped you. Gave you the training tool, the souls of those you held dear.

Wait. Training tool? What training tool?

The system?

…You gave me the system.

Yes.

…The system never actually changed anything about me. It just put my abilities in simple terms.

That is so.

Fuck me.

No, thank you.

Very funny.

I thought so too.

I have more questions.

Ask away. I can't promise to answer everything, but I will try.

Why did you come here, what happened to the world you originally lived in?

Natural death. Everything comes to an end someday. We searched for a world the few survivors could settle in. We never meant to start a war with the original beings of this world.

I see. Did… What kind of person is my father? You know him, right?

… He is dutiful. Kind when he can afford to be, nuklear when not. He cares for you. For your sisters, too.

He has an interesting way of showing it.

Does he? Leaving you was the kind thing to do. Overloading a young child with divine power, even just through presence, can lead to eternal sleep – like your sisters have. He tried to keep them by his side longer, and look where it led him. He made sure that you were cared for.

Oh. Did he, I mean. My sisters are the daughters of one of the moon sisters. She – did she want his attention?

… Your father is no rapist. He and your mother were genuinly interested in each other, and there was no sexual contact of any kind between the Sister and him, they just mixed a part of their power by accident.

… Thank you.

You are welcome, that must have weighted heavily on you.

…

Sairou shifts – somewhere. There are no directions here.

You should go now, your mind is not quite strong enough to resist.

Thank you, Ronova.

And Sairou is moving – upwards, probably.

He is getting pressed through the tube again, and the next moment he is on Watatsumi. The sun hasn't moved, it feels like no time has passed at all.

And, well. He met the King of Night, got answers, so the disaster Amun saw has been averted.

Chapter Text

He returns to Sumeru. He doesn't know what is going on with Amun, if his prophetic powers are harming him or if it will get better, now that the disaster is averted. He feels the presence of his sister and Rukkhadevada in the city as he enters it. He walks, this time, instead of flying, and takes his time to observe the humans. They are partly bound to their god, as their god is to them. Their behaviour could give him more information about Amun than talking to him would.

They seem fine, at first glance. As he saw earlier, they are lively, happy. At second glance – there is something wrong. All his hairs stand on end, even as he cannot put a finger on what set him off. It's just little things. The way they move around each other, like they know where the others will move before they do, the way their eyes catch on things he cannot see, the way the buzz of the city is far too rhythmic to be natural. 

And then he sees the man. He seems to be going to the market with his child, looking down, talking, carefully guiding it through the crowd. Sairou nearly dismisses him, but then he steps out of the crowd that had blocked Sairou’s view, and he is alone. There is no child with him, but he is still talking, moving like he is patting a child's head.

Oh no. Oh sweet Celestia.

He knows what the city reminds him of, now. Ochkanatlan, in the early days of the infection. But – how. They hadn't dug up any old mines or gravesites, nowhere the Abyss could have hidden. Moreover, Sumeru should be the safest of all nations, they have their own – Sky Pillar.

Wait. Did the infection spread from the Sky Pillar that had sealed the Abyss from him all the way to Ay-Khanoum? It shouldn't be possible, the Abyssal as well as the Celestial power had been secured inside when he had left it, the Celestial power more than strong enough to keep it that way.

Unless somebody had tinkered with it. As Amun likes to tinker with random things he finds. 

Fuck.

******

Amun, Rukkhadevada and Mauve are in their rooms. Amun looks shamefaced – guilty. Does he know what he did? Did he know what he was playing with when he first found the Sky Pillar? It doesn't matter.

„We need to quarantine your entire country,“ he announces.

„Excuse me?“ Rukkhadevada looks pissed. Too bad for her.

„Abyssal infection is deadly and spreads quickly. The only cure is to burn it out with divine power. Humans cannot survive that. Amun might. But we need to create a barrier to keep the infected humans inside and the healthy ones out.“

„And how do you differentiate between the sick humans and the healthy ones?“ Mauve at least looks ready to cooperate. She had lost her remaining kin to Abyssal infection after the war. It's clear that she wants to spare her humans the same fate. However –

„We can't. Infected humans are contagious long before they start showing symptoms. If we let even a single infected human leave Sumeru we could have a pandemic on our hands. We need to treat every human in Sumeru as though they are infected.“ It's cruel. It's abhorrend. He is talking about killing an entire country's worth of people. But far, far more will die if they don't act. Mauve and Rukkhadevada look horrified. Amun is curled up on the ground.

„That's monstrous. How could we do this to our humans? There must be another way,“ Mauve says. She looks at him like she is seeing him for the first time. Like she doesn't like what she sees. Rukkhadevada seems mute with rage.

„There isn't - “ Sairou beginns, but Amun interrupts him. 

„There is.“

Amun is slowly unfurling from the tight ball he had curled himself into.

„We could burn out the infection.“

„Are you deaf? Humans cannot survive the amount of divine power neccessary.“

„They can't, but we can. We are bound to our humans. If we give them our power in tandem with the divine power, we can balance it out. They will be changed, but they will live.“

Sairou can't help but laugh. „You don't have enough power to balance the divine power for every single human sworn to you. Not even all four of us together do! Nevermind that you are infected as well.“ 

„I'm not. When I opened up the Nail I was connected to the celestial gods, not the Abyss. I saw how to balance it. I saw – I saw so much. I had never thought it possible to reach an understanding so deep…“

„Get to the point. You know you can do it? It works?“

„I saw it work. I saw it work. As long as you are here, as long as you help in the ritual, all our humans will be fine. Mauve and I will be fine. I'm sorry.“

„See?“ Rukkhadevada turns to Sairou. „No need for genocide.“ She all but spits in his face. 

Amun takes the lead to the ritual chamber. He can't look Sairou in the eyes. He has a horrible feeling about this.

******

They set up the ritual by noon. It falls to Sairou to pray for Celestia's attention and control the divine power, while Mauve and Rukkhadevada lend their power to Amun, who directs it together with the divine power. 

It's precision work, the amount of divine and elemental power needs to be exactly equal, or they start expending too much of their own inner power, which will kill them on the scale they're working.

They beginn by mapping out all their humans and the grade of their infection. It is highly abstract, esotheric almost, and incredibly fascinating. Sairou had never had a human following, but he can understand why others do.

There are only a couple truly bad cases, the rest are still in the beginning stages. They will start with the easier cases, to get a feel for the process.

Celestia answers his prayer easily, eagerly, and the celestial power fills him to the brim. Directing it comes to him naturally. It is his birthright, after all. 

Amun works fast, hurried, pushing them into a pace that almost forces them to sacrifice precision for speed. It makes no sense. Holding the ritual takes almost no power, expending too much of their inner energy by being careless is far more dangerous for them. Are they on a time limit? Will something else happen? He has a horrible feeling about this.

They are almost done, when –

Sairou’s

Heart 

Stops.

What?

Is he dead?

No.

He's alive.

But his heart is not beating?

It is.

That wasn't his heart.

No. No no no nonono

Morax

He drops the working. Amun catches it. He doesn't seem surprised. Did he know? Yes. He must have. He didn't tell him –

The divine power backlashes, burning through his body. It hurts, but not as much as the silence where Morax' heartbeat should be.

He races back to Liyue.

******

He sees the traces of battle long before he reaches Liyue proper. The only reason he hadn't felt the slaughter through the ley lines was the overwhelming divine power he had held during the ritual. Smoke is rising high over the mountains. The earth is split and charred. There is a path of destruction leading away from the Assembly.

He follows it.

There are dozens of bodies strewn along it, of adepti and enemies alike. This was a large scale of attack. Multiple gods must have allied themselves for this. To kill his brother.

The further he goes, the richer the ley lines are in geo energy. His brother died there. 

And there –

His brother's body –

They are tearing at it, ripping into it –

Eating – 

He kills them, tears them apart.

It was a trap. There are many more waiting for him.

They did not expect him to return so soon.

It doesn’t matter at all. Nothing does.

He kills all he can reach. The divine power burns through him.

Not all their forces are here, with him.

The adepti are still fighting, even after his brother's death. He can feel them dying.

Guizhong's death is a soft sigh. She'd held the shields over the Assembly as long as she could.

The Assembly is overrun in seconds. The humans die. 

His heart stops again. His sisters.

He slows and a weapon pierces through him. Then another and another and another.

He falls.

There is blood in his lungs. No sand, just gore and mud. The evening sun is just as blinding as the last time.

What a joke.

It is dark and cold. He is choking on his own blood.

Osial will not accept this. Belzebul won't either. They'll tear those gods apart even if it takes them millenia. A shallow comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

He dies like that, dozens of weapons piercing him, still reaching out for his brother's corpse.

Chapter Text

He dies like that, dozens of weapons piercing him, still reaching out for his brother's corpse.

He's slipping from his body, downward. He is flowing through a stream, joining others and being joined – he feels like water, but at the same time very much not. Water is too solid still for what he is now. A soul, a ghost, pure energy. Lost among all the others dying. Many of whom he'd killed himself. They don't fight him when they are forced together in the stream. They are not aware enough for that. They are dissipating already, their mind first to go as they turn into energy. He doesn't know why he is different. Perhaps it is because he died before.

This must be the ley lines, carrying the dead to Irminsul to return to the circle of life.

He feels traces of his brother, fragments of memories and emotions. He holds onto them tightly as he flows deeper into the earth.

He doesn't know when the stone around him turns into shadows. It becomes harder and harder to stay awake when all he wants to do is disappear into oblivion. Not remembering anything sounds goddamn good right now. 

It won't be much longer. He can feel other streams close by, converging to a center that feels like a sun, burning and cold and hungry. Irminsul, the true ruler of this world, long before the dragons were more than common lizards. It upholds the circle of life, his father had said. It doesn't feel like that. It feels hungry. Predatory. It is feeding on this world. On the dead. It feels like a parasite. 

He doesn't want to go there. He doesn't. It will eat him, he will disappear forever, he still wants to live –

He's falling. That wasn't his power. Did Irminsul let him go? Why?

Did it reconize him from the last time he was down here, barely a day ago? 

It must have. His father and the rulers had made a deal with Irminsul when they’d arrived in Teyvat. They could have destroyed it, it had never had any reason to fight anything so it never learned how, but they choose not to. It is useful and it must keep being useful. It can't upset them.

What? That wasn't him. No, it was, that was his own thought, but the knowledge was Irminsul's. He had absorbed part of Irminsul's records. Irminsul had the accumulated memory of every being that had passed through it. It had given a part of that to Sairou as a favor, so he would put in a good word with his father. His – father. Ronova. Sung-

That made a lot of sense. But why hadn't he just told him? Why the pretense?

Ronova clearly didn't want him to know, so Sairou wouldn't bring it up either. He can sort through the new memories later.

One moment he is falling, the next his fa- Ronova cradles him.

Oh, child, I am so sorry.

He is too. His brother, his sisters –

He wonders if he can rest down here, in the shadows, if he can join his fa- Ronova's army in time. He wants to forget.

You can, if you wish. I can also just send you back up. It would take a while to repair your body, of course, but it is possible. I don't think you want that.

He doesn't. How could he live with that silence in his chest? Wait, his sisters. They are Ronova's children too must be down here as well. Couldn't Ronova return them as well?

I am afraid I cannot. Their souls were too weak. They already dissipated long before they reached Irminsul.

Oh. He thinks he can hear the grief in Ronova's voice. He cares.

There is another way. One where your sisters and your brother have a chance to live.

There is? He can bring them back to life? Sairou would do anything, anything at all to make that possible.

It is no guaranty. They could still die, even if we do this. It will be hard on you either way.

They would have a chance. That is more than they have now.

Very well. There is an old artifact, made by my sister a long time ago. It has lost nearly all of it's power by now. It is called the Cup of Reincarnation. Despite it's name it has nothing to do with reincarnation, instead it allows time travel. I can send you back less than a day, however. It's power is all but spent.

Yes. Do it. The longer we wait the later I arrive, right? So do it.

He and his father are so much alike. Yes, thank you Irminsul, now please be quiet again.

Ronova hands (?) him a goblet. There are only a few drops left in it.

He drinks.

******

He wakes up.

At first it doesn't seem like it worked. He is among the shadows, across from Ronova.

Then Ronova moves, his shadows with him.

Child. Welcome back.

The relief hits him like a truck. It had sounded too good to be true.

Down here, time passes slower than up on the surface, he can use that to make a plan of action.

There are two catastrophes that he needs to deal with. The abyssal infection in Sumeru and the attack in Liyue. He can't be at both places at the same time. The ritual needs him present and fully concentrated, the aggressors in Liyue are too powerful to just send his shadow hounds after them. The situation in Liyue has priority. It is fatal in less that a day. The has marginally more wiggle room with the abyssal infection. The stakes are higher, but less immediate than the slaughter in Liyue. 

So, kill the gods in Liyue, as many as he can in as short amount of time as possible, then circle back to Sumeru.

He remembers the gods he had fought, the ones that had killed his brother. He remembers their territory. He will hit them hard and fast, then retrace their steps to find their weaker allies. He is assuming that the strongest of the aggressors were sent to kill his brother, while the weaker ones harassed the Assembly, and that they left their territory at the last possible moment to keep the element of surprise. 

How many can he kill before they raise an alarm. Four, five, maybe. More if he's lucky. That's not enough. There had been more than two dozen gods even after their battle with Morax. He's not tired from the ritual, but he also doesn't have the celestial power he gained – wait. He does have it? How? 

Celestial power is unaffected by time travel. That is also why all the celestial gods remember the time that wasn't.

Right. So he has the celestial power, he's not tired from the ritual, but that's still not enough.

You can travel through the shadows.

Excuse him, please what?

For now I would suggest sending one of your hounds through the shadows to your destination, then pulling yourself to them. Eventually you will be able to traverse the shadows by yourself, but that takes practise you don't have time for right now.

So he can basically step through the shadows right into the living room of whatever god he wants to kill. That boosts his chances to a ridiculous degree. Let's try that. He sends one of his hounds to his brother. It takes only a couple moments before he gets a confirmation. He firms the connection, then pulls on it. His hound returns. He tries again, this time he uses the connection more like a guideline. He tries to step through, hits a resistance, but fights through.

The next moment he nearly stumbles into his brother.

His brother is – alive and well. Startled. He'd just been in the middle of one of Menogenias‘ fashion planning sessions from the way he is being used as a mannequin while Bosacius is laughing at him with Indarias and Bonanus. Alatus is sneaking sweets, Guizhong pretends not to notice with a genial smile. She is holding his sleeping sisters. It's so painfully domestic, so beautiful that he nearly breaks down then and there.

Pull yourself together, soldier, there's work to be done.

„An attack is coming. Prepare the wards, but don't activate them yet. Inform the adepti. Evacuate the humans. Don't let on the enemies that we know.“ 

Morax' face hardens, the kids get serious.

Sairou turns and sends a quick crystalfly to Mauve, Amun and Rukkhadevada, telling them to enforce a temporary quarantine on their humans, to wait for him with any further actions, that it won't be more than a couple days.

He sends it and turns back to his family.

„Plan of action,“ his brother demands.

„Stay here, power the wards. Don't leave or send anyone else out. I will deal with their main force, but they still outnumber us. We will press the remaining small fry in front of the wards when I return after dealing with the real danger.“

His brother nods, unhappy. He hates it when Sairou takes risks like these, but right now anyone else would just slow him down.

******

He gets the confirmation of the hounds he'd sent ahead and steps through the shadows.

He doesn't stumble this time, but it takes him a moment to find his balance. Luckily, the god is too surprised to yell or defend himself before Sairou takes off his head. Only the power of divine and mortal gods explodes outward after death, so Sairou can make sure that he won't alert this god's allies by just helping the dead god through the ley lines. Only physical beings leave a body when they die. He'll deal with them last, so he doesn't leave corpses.

He spends no more time than necessary before stepping through to the next one. They aren't alone, but he manages to kill their attendants before they raise an alarm. The next time he tries to look through his hound's eyes before he steps out of the shadows. He can, strangely enough. He's rather sure he couldn't do that before. The picture is grainy at first but gets clearer every time. Looking through the eyes of multiple hounds at once is possible, but gives him a headache.

He also learns that he can wait in the shadows before stepping out. None of the gods or higher beings seem to notice him there. 

They finally notice him just after he'd finished killing the tenth god on his list. He gets another five before they figure out that he teleports. The remaining ones either call all their forces to them and hunker down, or they start out in the direction of the Assembly. 

He's taken out a significant portion of their fire power, but they are still too dangerous to take all at once. The ones that have hunkered down are sitting ducks, he'll deal with them when the main battle is over. He leaves a few hounds with them to alert him if they start to move.

He sends multiple hounds after each group, teleporting between them and killing whatever comes into reach, never staying in place long enough for them to organize an effective defense. It slows their progress and whittles down their forces. By the time they join, their number will hopefully be more managable.

War of attrition is not his favorite tactic, but needs must.

Eventually the first two groups join and he takes the opportunity to employ his second favorite strategy after assassination: nuke. Killing all his opponents in a single overwhelming strike. Nukes take a lot of energy though, and he needs some time to cast the skills, so they aren't really feasable for drawn-out battles. 

When he's done with this group he takes a look at the rest. They've used the window of time to close ranks. There are four groups with four gods and around a hundred higher beings each, and six more with roughly half that. Two of the smaller groups are changing directions south, towards the southern coast. 

He takes a moment to send a crystalfly to Osial, asking him to drown the intruders if he gets the chance.

Three of the four big groups and the rest of the smaller ones keep heading for the Assembly. The fourth big group stopped. They are closing ranks in a defensive formation, waiting for him. They can wait until they get blue. He goes after the big groups.

He learns that he can prepare skills while he's still in the shadows, even though he cannot cast them. If he does cast them, they get backed up and unleashed the moment he steps out. He combinines assassination and nukes. 

He kills five more gods, three of them in one of the bigger groups that was particulary unprepared, before they reach the Assembly. 

The wards are raised and the adepti are battle-ready. They start raining attacks as soon as the troups come within reach. Sairou retreats to his brother behind the wards to take a breather.

„There are around fifteen gods and three hundred higher beings attacking,“ he reports. „Four gods with a hundred higher beings have stopped a couple miles from here, they haven't advanced in a while. Another similary big group has gone south, Osial has probably already dealt with them.“

Morax looks unusually pale. „Fifteen gods and three hundred higher beings. And how many have you already killed?“

Sairou does the math. „Around twenty-eight gods and seven hundred higher beings.“

Mutters spread through the ranks of the adepti. Morax has currently around a hundred and fifty adepti – including those unfit for battle – and three gods, meaning Sairou, Guizhong, who cannot fight, and himself. They had been severely, hilariously, outnumbered by the attacking army. Morax had won unlikely battles on the strengh of his shields alone before, but what Sairou had done today was objectively ridiculous. He hadn't had to fight with his full strengh since the War for the Second Throne. None of them had known what he was really capable of. To be fair, he hadn't either, and he couldn't have pulled this off if his father hadn't allowed him to use his shadows.

For the first time since Amun's summons he allows himself to relax a bit. He can do this. His family will be safe. He will deal with this, then return to Sumeru to help with the ritual. It will all work out.

He and Morax take to the battlefield with the host of adepti. Morax casts his shields and takes his customary position high over the battlefield, directing the battle and occasionally throwing meteorites. 

They are winning, despite their lower number, but the hostile higher beings are still not fleeing.

One group around a pair of gods separates from the battle and rushes to the wards. No matter. Guizhong is powering those herself, they won't break. He turns back to the fight in front of him.

The wards fall.

Guizhong's death is like a soft sigh.

Morax screams in agony.

The higher beings howl their victory and press forward into the unprotected Assembly.

The humans run in panic. The adepti are suddenly on the backfoot. They can't attack the higher beings or the gods without risking harm to the humans. 

The gods who broke the ward take the lead. They are moving with purpose, quickly. They are going for the children. Hostages against him and Morax. 

No. No, no, no. Not again. He did all he could. Did he? Why hadn't he killed those two? He should have gone for them first. He couldn't have known. He should have. They had the best guard, they were obviously important. He just hadn't paid enough attention.

He failed. Guizhong is dead. But he can still protect Morax and the children. He has to protect Morax and the children. No time for this. Analyse your mistakes after, soldier. 

He is nearly out of power. The enemy is too widespread. He calls on his hounds. He draws on the shadows for power. His hounds aren't strong enough to kill the higher beings, at least not all of them. If this works, they don't have to be. 

He had noticed, while he was stepping between the shadows, that they were connected to the Dark Sea – Ronova's domain. The land of the dead, the afterlife. No living being could survive there. In other words, he could, in theory, use the shadows as a direct way down there. So could his hounds. So could, possibly, anyone escorted by him or his hounds. Willingly or unwillingly. Simply put, there is a chance that his hounds can drag anyone directly to purgatory. It would take a ridiculous amount of power and concentration and he sure hopes that his father won't mind him using his realm.

Well then, on with it. Here goes nothing.

The shadows warp around him as he calls them, covering the ground and expanding. He feels their depth and reaches through them, to his connection to his father. They drop. His hounds charge. They go after the gods first. They had gotten dangerously close to the children. 

The hounds pull them through a portal, then into the void. It works. Ronova doesn't tell him to stop. He continues. More and more and more higher beings are dragged into his portal. Looks like they will win, after all.

He doesn't really feel the pain, he is so removed from his own body.

He does, however feel his body falter. His mouth fills with blood. His hounds tear apart the higher being who had stabbed him in the back.

He falls to his knees, then to his side. The shadows return to normal. 

Then Morax is there, holding him desperately. He is screaming for Sun Painter, the best healer they have. Sun Painter has more important things to do than take care of him. He's fine, he's not even dying. He knows what that feels like by now.

He wants to scold Morax, but he doesn't have the energy to form words. He feels as weak as a newborn babe. He'll just take a nap for a little while. He'll be fine.

Chapter Text

Divine Gods are those who were born celestial. Mortal Gods are humans who were granted divine power by divine gods and thus reached godhood themselves. The celestial gods and the Shades as well as most of the Heavenly Host (their soldiers) are Divine Gods. They also choose some humans, ascend them and accept them into the Heavenly Host.

Enlightened Beasts, otherwise known as animal spirits, are normal animals who learned to use elemental power. Amun and Cloud Retainer for example.

Higher beings are the descendants of enlightened beasts and are born with elemental power. Most adepti are higher beings, and so are the quilin, dragons, etc. 

Elemental spirits are elemental power that has gained sentience. True elemental Spirits have no body, manifested elemental Spirits made their body out of their element. Remus, for example, was a true elemental spirit, while Guizhong, Barbatos, and Osial are manifested elemental Spirits.

Trancendant Beings have achived a balance between physical and elemental attributes and are a mix between them. They have the weaknesses and strenghs of both. They can also become divine Gods. 

When two different types of Gods have a kid together it's a toss up which species the child is. Usually the child favors the stronger parent. Mortal Gods and Enlightened Beasts are an exception. Mortal Gods can have children of the other parent's species, divine gods (rarely) or humans. Enlightened beasts' children are (most often) higher beings, the other parents' species, or, sometimes, normal animals.

Father

Phanes

The massacre

The Aggravate Incident