prompt 29; zhongli
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https://fires-at-the-yawning-grave.tumblr.com/post/636682734532706304/300-followers-event
prompt 29: “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”- Maya Angelou
“and what happens next?”
it is a simple question, one he knows the answer too, but zhongli finds that the words are dry upon his tongue, and that your eyes are brighter than any star.
‘and what happens next?’ you ask, and zhongli cannot remember the last time someone has ever asked.
because to the people of liyue, he is no longer rex lapis. they do not gather to hear his words or share in his thoughts. scholars will argue with his truth, the truth, while the masses listen with polite vexation, but you? you stare at him with an insatiable hunger for knowledge. for truths and tales of times long past.
‘and what happens next?’
it is selfish, but he wishes to carve his stories into your heart. to scar you with his memories so that when his world returns to dust, you will take the remains and blow them into glass.
he is rex lapis, and he is zhongli. one cannot exist without the other, yet…
he will never be zhongli to the adepti, and he cannot be rex lapis to his people.
a tightrope he never wished to balance upon, but one he cannot afford to fall.
but there is no need to balance with you, his wayward traveler. you, who can look at him and see the god he was, and the man he is. you, who steals his osmanthus wine as he soliloquys of a past near forgotten. you, who remembers the names of friends long dead. you, who plucks glaze lilies to tuck behind his ears.
you, his brightest star.