If Beidou could be honest, she rather enjoyed Xiangling's more unusual dishes. Maybe that's why she always wandered to the Wanmin restaurant after a long night of drinking, slinking through shadows as so not to dally.
She loved Liyue. She hated the fame: sometimes all Beidou wanted was a drink in silence, instead of being stared as if she was Rex Lapis himself.
The restaurant light gently swayed on the horizon, and Beidou's pace quickened. She could hear Xiangling, humming loudly as she talks to herself in a flurry of words that sound like just one long word, instead of several small sentences. Were the lights all off, she would have been thought of as a ghost.
She was alone, seemingly. Beidou took a seat and waited for the girl to notice her, watching as she all but tortured the wok she was working with.
It took a few minutes, until a flame almost singed Xiangling's eyebrows, which took a chuckle out of Beidou. That made her look away from the cooking, eyes shining.
"Beidou! What brings you here?" She asked, cleaning the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.
"Hunger, of course." Beidou replied. "What does the chef have for me today?"
Her eyes shone even more. It wasn't usual for them to meet - Beidou's voyages and Xiangling's travels rarely synchronized, but whenever it did, she always had something interesting.
"I just came back from Mondstad, and let me tell you, I have a lizard and apple skewer with your name on it!"
Beidou chuckled, leaning into the table.
"Then go for it, madame. I trust you." Xiangling did not need to be told twice: she set to cooking, and Beidou watched. Xiangling had a way with cooking that could not be explained, as if the ingredients were monsters only she could tame.
That was fine. Beidou always found a fight opened her appetite.
The resulting skewer smelled wonderful and looked… Well, like a lizard had swallowed an apple and been skewered. She cocked her head at it and looked at Xiangling.
There was a reason the people who knew her asked who was the chief when they came.
She bit into it, and the taste of thin meat, crunchy bones and soft apple exploded in her mouth, greasy and exactly what she needed to fill her stomach. When Beidou noticed, she had finished it, and the glee in Xiangling's eyes was palpable.
"Well? What do you think?" The girl was almost jumping in place. Beidou dabbed a handkerchief in her mouth, collecting her thoughts.
"I liked it." She said, truthfully, and Xiangling jumped over the counter to hug her. All Beidou could do was smile and hug her back.
Xiangling was one of the few that still treated her as human. She hoped the girl kept treating her like that.