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Keqing knew she was “Passing.” Its why the Althing sent her to Liyue. There had never been any question that the most Liyuen looking girl would take the most feared of assignments. “It won’t be so dangerous for you,” the Alberich on the counsel had said, “They’ll take one look at you and assume you’re one of them.”
There, even in the dim light of the glowing mushrooms, Keqing could see all the differences between her face and the Alberich. She knew she looked different, just like how his son Kaeya looked like he came from Sumeru. And so, she had believed him.
But now she was actually sitting on the rock in the middle of Liyue, home of the most dangerous of the gods, with her soon-to-be-foster-parents scrutinized every inch of her, it was suddenly much harder to believe. Had it been too many generations? Could they tell what the diamonds in her eyes meant?
She fought the urge to fidget on the glowing golden rock. The sun was to her back, keeping her warm in the late autumn chill and scattering flickering lights about as it caught the top of her hairpin. Her new foster parents stood in the shadow, making it harder to see their expressions.
Finally, one of them spoke, the man, “Are you….”
She kept very still.
“…An adeptus?”
“No!” she said standing up on her rock, “I’m a girl.”
They exchanged a glance. The kind adults use when they think you are being stupid.
“A real little girl who can grow up?” the woman added.
“Yes,” said Keqing. Because the adults had told her so. They’d told her she would be able to grow up out here and wouldn’t be stuck like the Boughkeeper. And they’d tested it too. Peruere had already gone to her assignment - and she’d grown a whole two inches! - the adults in Khaenriah had said so.
Here in Liyue, these adults did not seem to believe her words and she bit back the sudden worry. She was Passing. They thought her an adeptus. They were not on to her. They didn’t know she was Khaenriahn.
They moved on to asking nonsense questions about where her parents are (dead, the last sickness took them), who was looking after her (no one anymore), what she was doing out here (“looking for an adeptus to give her parents” was the rehearsed line), until finally, they asked her to come with them.
Score. Now all she had to do was get them to like her.
She started by showing off. She pointed out all the places the road was out and where it should be improved. Including the importance of handrails. She had a great fondness for handrails, she’d read every book they had on them. And she needed to establish she was an intelligent young girl who should be fostered, or at least sponsored, by this wealthy noble family who had so much influence over Liyue Harbor that it had attracted the eye of the Last Hope Program.
She had been expecting to win them over with her vast knowledge. She had not expected them to start trying to win her over too.
First, they gave her a fish dish grilled with real vegetables, like the nobles they were. And when she asked for the one with the most greens on it, they gave her more!
But that could mean anything. So could them giving her the the only purple pillow they had when they took to camping. They also started telling her things, about how they would spend tomorrow in Wangshu inn and she’d have a real bed.
And when they made it to the inn, while the mother had been showing her all the handrails on its massive outdoor staircase, the father had run up, absolutely delighted, to show her a stuffed toy he got for her.
A stuffed toy that vaguely resembled a brown noddle, save for the golden claws and horns which told her instantly what it was. A stuffed Rex Lapis. They got her a stuffed Rex Lapis.
Plush like this was rare in Khaenri’ah, she only had one or two before and she’d had to leave them all behind, since she was to be a grown-up spy now. And she would be the greatest, because she was the Star Pupil of the Last Hope Program.
Grown-up spies don’t make a face when they get a doll of the god who destroyed their homeland. They smile and tell the new parents how much they love it.
And then when said new parents are asleep, they take it out onto the balcony and put it on trial with only the stars, the moon, and one very grumpy bird to witness.
“Rex Lapis,” she said to her toy gravely, “You stand her accused of…” destroying people and killing people and all sorts of other words the adults used. But she couldn’t say that. Even here, she didn’t know if her soon to be foster parents were sleeping or not. If they heard, even if she was Passing, surely, they would know she was Khaenriahn. But she couldn’t not punish Rex Lapis. “…of being mean.” The bird squawked as if offended. She hummed at it and continued anyway, “And having no handrails. Anywhere. That’s very dangerous. You are endangering the people. You are fined with…” she hummed again. “All the glowing amber rocks are mine now.”
She looked at the toy, laying there accepting her judgement. It needed something more. “And I’ll be better than you,” she said. “I’ll be better than you at everything.”
So, when the two parents asked her if they could adopt her that morning, all nervous as if they were asking for something hard, she said yes as if it was the easiest thing in the world. Because she would be the perfect Liyuen noble as she had been the Star Pupil of the Last Hope Program who had beat out every other student (even the geniuses) through hard work. She’d become the perfect daughter, the perfect Liyuen who no one would suspect was only Passing, and a more perfect leader of Liyue then Rex Lapis had ever been.
And she was good at it. She was so good at being Liyuen. She watched everything her parents did and mimicked it: the way her father held his chopsticks (so different from the way her birth moðir had), the graceful way her mother ate (with manners so different from the Halls of Khaenriah), and the way they spoke (her Liyuen was “too formal” the children playing in the streets told her.) She found the library and read all the books she could find on customs she would be expected to know, subjects she was learning in her schooling, and stories of Rex Lapis and his adepti every little Liyuen girl had already read. Her new grandfather had found her reading up on adepti (she must know what she was up against if she was to be better than Rex Lapis) and he’d regaled her with a tale of a cat adeptus who supposedly was the ancestor of their clan.
When the adoption was announced to the public, she kept her head high as she gazed out into the crowd of colorful silks. Upon her head the buns she’d twisted into sharp triangular ears (with her mother’s help but it was Keqing’s idea). And it worked. The only rumors spread were of her possible adepti heritage, a real cat adeptus come to grace the clan once again, with nothing said of the adoption of a foreign peasant child. Because who could look at the new princess of her clan and not see a highborn Liyuen girl?
The sea breeze carried the smell of salt and fish from the docs all the way up to Yujing Terrace and cut through the new silk dress Keqing was in and chilled her to the core. She fought the urge to shiver, like she was still a little girl. Instead, she kept her self completely still and stately. She was already risking critique by wearing a dress of a newer fashion, not a qipao or even an old traditional hanfu and she would invite no other comments upon her choice in clothing. Especially not when her mother was in the crowd, and had just told her to wear a longer dress for “the cold.”
She had protested that she would not do her Yuheng duties in anything thing else. This dress with its cut, colors, and silks completed the impression she wanted to give: a noble Liyuen girl who was embracing the modern fashion of humans and not the old fashion of adepti. A statement piece made all the more prominent by its contrast with her physical appearance. The adeptus that most of the citizens of Liyue Harbor would know was Qiqi, and it was no secret those features matched Keqing’s; and with her own hair still styled to give the illusion of cat’s ears, she looked every part the noble descended from an adeptal line, if a rebellious one who valued human ingenuity over tradition.
Few who saw her diamond eyes now would realize they meant her birth faðer’s eyes had stars in them. She had passed as Liyuen by everyone who saw her for so long, she didn’t feel any risk wearing the national color of Khaenri’ah. Most would just think the purple was to match her eyes.
But the one who would descend today, at the Rite of Descension that she was leading as the newly elected Yuheng, was one of those few who would know. One of the few in Liyue who she knew without a shadow of a doubt could look at her features and notice the diamonds of her eyes and what they meant. One who had lived in the archon war and likely knew where her Liyuen features really came from.
Moðir’s ancestors had fled Liyue in the Archon war. Angelicadottirs they were called, after an old song, those who had come to Kheanriah when their god had died, rather than bow their head to another. Fleeing Morax’s unending appetite for land and conquest.
Morax who had joined the seven’s destruction of her homeland so long ago.
Morax who would be here in minutes darkening the blue of sky with his form and see before him the Yuheng of the Qixing, daughter of those who’d fled from him and those who he’d destroyed, Passing as one of his own.
A word from him and everything she’d built would come crashing down: her carefully cultivated image of a hardworking (possible adeptus) member of a noble line, the diligent daughter, and the Yuheng…all would not matter if her being a Khaenriahn spy came out to the open.
Uncle Tian had offered to do it this year, seeing how nervous she was, but Keqing couldn’t back out of it. Not when this was her first Rite of Descension as Yuheng. Not when she’d been working her whole life to be better than Rex Lapis, and had just become the Yuheng and responsible for the management of land and ores in all Liyue, one of the very things Morax was a god of.
She was so close. She already knew more about the ins and outs of her profession than anyone else. Every single level of the chain of command below her. She’d gone and learned them herself. She doubted Rex Lapis could boast that level of dedication.
Her noble Liyuen parents had been …. concerned about her choice to work at the Chasm. Especially when they found out she’d been bullied by a man who thought himself her superior. Mother was horrified anyone had said anything like that to her only daughter, wanted to bring the full might of their noble house upon him. Father was quick to agree, quick to recommend Keqing take a long break to recover. It was why Keqing didn’t tell them until after she’d taken care of perpetrator herself. She needed to prove to them she didn’t need to worry about her so much.
They were here today. Uncle Tian had gotten them premium seating, even though they had more than enough prestige to get it themselves.
If she backed down now, they’d think the pressures of her job was getting to her, or worse, that her stint in the chasm had affected her more then she’d claimed.
She could do this.
A Khaenriahn girl does not flee in the face of danger. She stands her ground. Passing has worked so far, lets see if the gods old eyes can truly see through her disguise or if he too will see another Qiqi.
A shadow appeared in the sky. At this distance it could be mistaken for a bird or a cloud, but neither wiggled so as they flew. Like an eel in the water. As it got closer, she could make out more of its silhouette as it blocked out the sun.
He looked nothing like her old plush. It had been noodle-like, but not nearly so long. This was closer to the twisting iconography about her parent’s home.
She couldn’t exactly put him on trial now like he was that plush. She could hardly tell him all the wrongs he’d committed against her people in the Archon war or the Cataclysm without all the civilians who stood in the crowd knowing who she truly was.
But she would stand here, tall and proud, and show her that the shining star of the Last Hope Project from a nation he’d destroyed, was a more capable leader of Liyue then he’d ever be.
She didn’t blink even when it landed, tossing up the dust (that lingered despite all the cleaning) the winds caught and scattered all over her new silk dress. She didn’t shiver at the cold it brough in its wake, nor as her eyes focused on the great beast before her. Great did not do it justice, this living wall before her, thicker than every tree but the one that held the Wangshu inn. Dark brown scales, hard, not the soft fur of her plush. The hair of its whiskers looked coarse too, like a goat. But she could not fight the urge to stare at those great teeth and claws. The sudden shock of something before her that was so much larger than her, something that had her instincts yelling at her to run for this great hunter would not be careful where it stepped.
She forced herself to look up to meet the liquid gold eyes, so large she could only see one at a time. They swam with knowledge that took in the dress covered with the symbol of one of his own noble lineages, the badge of the Yuheng, up to the purple and pink of the clan that had once fled his rule, and lingered upon the hairpin in her hair.
Faðir had made that hairpin for Moðir, and gifted it to her for an engagement following the tradition of the Angelicadottirs clan Moðir descended from but carved with the Kheanriahn national flower, inteyvats. It was the only thing she had left of either of them, something she’d smuggled to the surface with her to remember them both after their deaths, despite the protests of the Alberich running the program.
She lets him look at it as she does a proper bow, one worthy of the noble line that had taken her in. The perfect picture of the Yuheng. And when she rose, she met him dead in the eyes. Liquid gold meeting Khearniahn diamond.
“I, the Yuheng of the Qixing welcome Rex Lapis on behalf of Liyue. We are honored by your presence and await this year’s calculations.” Poised, polished, completely professional, she had only let out the barest hint of contempt at the word “honored.”
She looked him straight in the eyes, daring her to make the next move.
Go ahead and out me, she silently dared him, admit that your people choose a Kheariahn spy to rule them.
He did not rise to the challenge, only calmly beginning the calculations for the year. Most of his focus was on Inazuma’s recent shut down. Crop prices with the recent bad weather blowing from that eastern storm, a fishing market that was yet untapped to its fullest potential now a major competitor was no longer doing business abroad, warnings about digging to deep in the chasm despite the sudden abundance of foreign ports seeking out ores and smiths trying to meet rising demand for weapons.
But she knew that. She felt herself straightening. All that about the Chasm she knew well, she’d been there a few weeks ago and witnessed the declining ore veins with her own eyes. She’d felt the cold dark call of the abyss from below where the eternal guardians of her people still roamed. She’d gone down there herself and she knew they’d let her by, but no one else.
She’d been telling everyone for weeks they had to stop expanding so fast into the Chasm, been opening up other options for mining, and everyone who had laughed politely behind her back was now hanging on to every word this god spoke as if he was introducing a new idea.
Even Uncle Tian was nodding along, even going so forth as to praise him, “We thank you, Rex Lapis, who has guarded our lands for millennium.”
She snorted.
Every eye turned to her, including the great golden one. She met them all with the perfect posture and grace of a Liyuen noble and the cold steal of a Khearnirahn.
"Rex Lapis has watched over Liyue for a millennium. But what about the next millennium? What about the next ten, or the next hundred millennia? How long are we expecting this status quo to last?"
A dare, a taunt, a reminder of that gods could die and the one before her knew all too well that glorious civilizations could fall in a week leaving nothing but ashes, monsters, and her people.
If she had any chance of passing before it was gone now. No Liyuen would critique their god so openly. But for her ancestors, and for the country she now served, she would not stay silent. Let the god remember he can die, he has done little to prepare for that eventuality in the last 500 years.
Warm air rushed over her. The stale smell of a deep cave filled her nostrils. The great beast had opened its mouth.
She did not flinch.
The sound the ricocheted off the cliff behind them, that echoed out across the harbor and into the sea…was laughter.
She fought back a scowl. How dare he find her amusing. She would prove him wrong. “The future belongs to the people of Liyue,” she said.
He did not seem to stop his chuckles. “We will see, my Yuheng, what the future may hold.”
And with that he left.
Word of her outburst spread fast. People whispering in the street or the arrogant Yuheng who dared to question a god. As such whispers did, it turned nasty fast. But Keqing had to listen to them all, she had to know what they were saying, because she had to know if she was still Passing or if she’d shown the world who she truly was.
Most of the rumors were baseless: people who did not know her calling her a spoilt rich noble who knew nothing of the world. But none these thought to question her origins and so she could ignore them with her head held high, she would make no secret of her opinions and they could make baseless rumors as they wanted.
It was those closer her to her who knew her best and had more pieces that she observed more carefully. Uncle Tian had just chuckled and told her to see if she could live up to her words. He seemed to see her as nothing more than an upstart youth. Good.
Ninggaung seemed almost impressed with her sharp calculating smile but more as if she was considering the idea of a world with no god and what that would mean. She was the one most likely to figure out Keqing’s origins, but she lacked the background to know what Khaenri’ah was if it was brought up. Still, she was one who had time and time again proven she was more than capable of finding out information her lack of formal education had deprived her of and Keqing didn’t put it past her not to investigate if she was curious enough. This called for extra caution in case she had sent Yelan to monitor her.
As for Keqing’s parents, they had the most information that could bring this all to light with all the nuances from her childhood. But they were taking it surprisingly well.
“I should have seen this coming,” her mother had said with a sigh, “You always did use to place your Rex Lapis on trial.”
“He didn’t seem offended,” her father had said, “so all is well.”
It made her feel…Well she didn’t know how it made her feel. Shock they hadn’t been more upset about her backtalking an archon as they had when she’d run off to work as a miner. Relieved they didn’t get more upset and that knowing her the best had blinded them to her Khaenriahn defiance, leaving it only a familiar character quirk. Hopeful they would take her being Khaenriahn with as much calm acceptance as they displayed here.
Despite it all it truly seemed as if she’d passed once again. And passed so well that everyone around her thought her defiance nothing more than youthful arrogance. The Alberich had been right all along, it was less dangerous for her if she passed as Liyuen.
The real problem of all this was that her “arrogance” had earned her the enmity of the Secretary of the Qixing. She was professional, of course, Ganyu was nothing if not professional. But to have the ire of the one who kept the Qixing running smooth, that slowed her work significantly.
Ganyu might be above pettiness but she would go out of her way to avoid working with Keqing. And the younger secretaries would follow her lead. Which left things that often got picked up by Ganyu would fall to Keqing alone.
But she had not spent all those months learning every job below her to falter now. She had the skills to be her own secretary. It was inconvenient, yes, but if she needed to carry her message personally to speak to Master Zhang about ore rights then she would do so, even if it meant listening to the whispers that followed her.
There was a line at the blacksmith’s shop as always. She waited patiently to the side, chin high and ignored the glances that came her way. If they wanted to speak with her, they could ask.
And then, to her shock, someone did.
“Pleasure to meet you, Yuheng,” a voice as smooth as liquid gold spoke up. She turned to see a gentleman by his dress, a wealthy one by the state of that earring and the golden ornamentation all over his finely pressed suit. But the style was old by several decades and did not match his face, “I am Zhongli of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlour.” Job first, not family. New money, like Ningguang, someone who took more pride in his work than his name….
Or someone new to Liyue. Someone who appeared Liyuen but did not understand the nuances of the culture. Another man who was Passing, whether he knew it or not.
“Pleasure,” she said with a nod.
“I have heard of you,” he said with a smile and she searched it for any trace of mockery or idle curiosity and found none. He seemed sincere. “I would love to hear more of your ideas for the future of Liyue, one in the hands of the people.” He gave her a bow, the wrong bow her etiquette classes told her. This one said he was above her in rank.
“We should meet for a meal,” she said, “Wanmin is but a few steps from here.” Lunch would be good for her, she would love to talk to a like-minded person, and she could offer tips to another foreigner who was Passing. Because no matter how much she’d compromised herself by speaking back to the Archon, she was still doing better than this poor man at Passing as Liyuen.