Day 7: Urban Legend

"Say, Zhongli, when I was at the port the other day I heard the local kids talking."

It has been little more than two weeks since Childe has come back to him. They are sitting in his den, sharing tea, enjoying the comfortable quiet after what Childe labeled a 'Very Bad Work Day'.

Zhongli looks up from the book settled in his lap. "Oh?"

Childe lays out on the other end of the couch, head resting on the arm. "They were yapping on about The Legend of Wuwang Hill. Monsters, ghosts, and the whole—" He pauses, waving his hand about. "The point is that it was typical kid shit."

"Typical… kid shit." Zhongli raises a brow.

Childe finally looks at him. "Yeah, you know—urban legends."

"Ajax, what on earth are you talking about?"

Childe blinks back, brow furrowed. Then he makes an amused face. "Do you not know what an—"

"Urban legend?" cuts in Zhongli. He closes his book and leans against his end of the couch. "I'll admit… this is a new term to me."

"Oh, this is hilarious."

"Will you explain, or—"

"Stories." Childe sits up, leaning an elbow against the armrest. "Silly, made-up stories about ghouls, axe-murderers, things that go bump in the night."

What an absurd idea. Zhongli cannot fathom why children would spin nonsensical tales about such things.

"Oh, that's a funny look on your face."

Zhongli huffs. "One wonders why."

"Are you Cloud Retainer now?" He does not appreciate such a terrible comparison. Zhongli sighs, rolling his eyes. "Okay, joking aside," continues Childe, "they're just harmless tales. You know, there are even some about me."

That perks Zhongli's interest and Childe must notice because his mouth twitches into a smirk.

"That interests you, huh?"

"I'll admit there is an appeal to such… stories."

Childe looks proud of it, chest puffed out slightly as he perks up from his exhaustion. "They say that Tartaglia, the Eleventh Harbinger, is a monster of the night. Reeking of death and darkness, he cuts open his prey with claw-like talons. Then, he bathes in their blood, renewing his powers, basking in the horror of it."

"So, the truth," surmises Zhongli.

Childe laughs, but it's bitter-tinged and lacks depth. Zhongli only meant to tease him, not—

"Don't give me that look."

Zhongli freezes. "What look?"

"Pity. You're right, Zhongli. I'm not a good person and while the stories are embellished, there is truth to them." Childe falls quiet, his body limper. He thumbs his mouth and looks away, eyes lost on the far wall of the room.

"How do you deal with it? It's not as though your hands are clean and yet your people revere you as their god." He pauses, letting out a terse chuckle. "Sorry; their former god."

The words sting because even if Zhongli has retired, he will always be a god to Liyue.

Zhongli does not answer immediately. He sits there, at the edge of the couch, thinking of his next words. There are a thousand things that he can say about this and none of them will be enough. He wonders what Childe wants to hear.

He is honest, instead, because that is what he promised. "I do not." Childe doesn't look at him, but he does look confused.

"I cannot overlook those things, Ajax, nor should I. I might be 'Zhongli', but I will always be 'Morax'. Who I was then is a fundamental part of who I am now."

Childe chuckles again, that soft, angry sound that's steeped in self-loathing. He pulls at an errant thread in the couch cushion. "Yeah, but you won a war. I guess that counts for something. All I've done is chase down ghosts hoping that I'll come out on top. I talk a big game about finding godhood but it's for show. I'm just scared of my mortality."

Zhongli approaches this with delicacy. "Do you think that even gods do not fear?" Childe, wisely, does not answer. Zhongli's voice is quiet when he continues, a harsh whisper in the air of his home that's suddenly turned crisp. "I have always feared my long life because with it comes Erosion. I fear that which is unknown because even as old as I am, there are still things that I do not understand. I fear seafood and it isn't because of some mad, maniacal purpose, it is because I fear those memories. They blister my heart and make it ache.

"I fear for my people even though I know they will thrive. I'm like a father; proud but worried. And I fear that even as I've retired they will never let me go. They will cling to the coattails of the stories and myths spun about me, things that I will never escape."

Zhongli wrings his fingers in his lap, pulling at the soft, worn leather of his gloves. "And mostly, I feared reaching the end alone. Everyone has left me. I will be the last one and I feared that—I still do. But then I met you and I thought for a time that perhaps finally I didn't have to."

Childe's throat bobs as he listens. His nails are dug into the couch pulling indents into the material.

"But, most of all, I fear that I am a fool," says Zhongli, resigned, "because even you left." He means for his words to hurt because he hasn't got them in yet, edgewise. They've danced around each other, pretending that they are okay but they are not.

Even ancient, self-proclaimed former gods can be harshly vindictive.

Zhongli expects Childe to say that it's unfair. That he brought this upon himself, that it all stems from the betrayal of hiding his nature and handing over his gnosis when all was said and done. And Zhongli is not faultless; Childe stood on the dock that day, waiting for Zhongli to ask him to stay, which Zhongli did not.

He just stood there, hesitating because he is a man of action when it comes to everything but himself. Zhongli watched Childe leave that day, regret on his tongue and exhaustion in his bones.

"There's so much that you don't know," says Childe, quietly. The same words he'd uttered that day on Zhongli's porch. The first time they'd spoken in over five years.

If I'm going to share parts of myself, I would like you to do the same. More words from Childe's lips on a later day, fluid and intentional, carefully placed.

"You realize that like most dragons, I am a covetous man. Even now, I find myself wanting." It comes out one part embittered, one part lost in the past.

"We have to work at this," says Childe. Zhongli detects no deceit. When he looks at Childe's face, Childe is watching him back, those ocean-blue eyes far-too seeing. They truly are so similar in very many ways.

Childe moves then, sitting up and crossing the length of the couch. "I want to work at this." His voice is so small, so hesitant. "I don't want to be that monster they think I am. I want more for myself and I'm tired of running away."

Zhongli finds peace in his words. Childe reaches out and takes his hand. He lifts Zhongli's arm and slots against his side, neck pressed against the thick rise of Zhongli's shoulder. "I want to hear some urban legends about Rex Lapis," he says, effectively changing the tone into something more lighthearted.

It isn't to run away, it's to ease into things slowly. There is no need for more heaviness to bleed through the air. Zhongli drops his arm to rest against Childe's shoulder. He sighs, having forgotten how natural it feels, how well Childe fits against him.

"There is an entire book, last that I checked. You've read it."

"Yeah, but I like it better when you read it." A pause, a soft moment that lingers. "I've missed it. Your voice."

Zhongli sets the book he was reading aside and plucks a copy of Rex Incognito from the couchside table.

"How convenient," says Childe with amusement. "Just happened to have a copy right there."

"In addition to being covetous, dragons are also vain."

Childe laughs, this time lighter.

They are monsters, both in their unique ways. Their hands are stained with the blood of their enemies, and they've committed acts that would make children tremble in their beds.

But, if there's one thing that Zhongli has learned in his long life, it is that even monsters can find happiness in the most unlikely of places.