Chapter Text
Morax was wandering through Lingju Pass, checking the structures there to make sure nothing needed repairs, when he first heard it. It almost sounded like a plea, crying out to him from somehwere. The sound reverberated through the ground, the young god’s bare feet picking up the vibrations. He whipped his head around, trying to locate the source of the call.
Moon Carver noticed the Prime Adeptus’s distress. “Rex Lapis,” he said, snapping the other’s attention away from the mysterious sound. “Are you well?” Morax gave the stag-like Adeptus a look of confusion as his golden eyes began searching again.
“You didn’t hear that?” asked the god.
Moon Carver tilted his head. “There is nothing to hear but the wind, My Lord.” Morax’s brows furrowed further. Ah, apparently that had been the wrong answer.
“No,” Morax responded. “There was a…” He shook his head as he began to consider Moon Carver’s words. “Perhaps I’m imagining things. Come. Let us move on to Qingxu Pool.”
As Moon Carver led the way out of the pass, Morax couldn’t help but glance back once more at where he approximated the voice came from, waiting to see if it would speak to him again. When he heard nothing, he finally pushed the incident from his mind.
That was, until he heard it again three days later. He sat atop Mt. Tianheng, watching the people of Liyue from above. So entranced in the hustle and bustle of the harbor was he that he failed to notice another presence joining him on the mountaintop.
“I see you’ve taken an interest in them as well, hm~?” The voice was light and teasing, and Morax failed to contain the embarrassment that colored his face as she took a seat beside him.
“Guizhong…” was all he could manage to say.
“Isn’t it just fascinating?” she mused. “How much they can accomplish in the short time they’re given? It’s hard to believe this place was once grass and mud.”
“It is incredible,” Morax answered honestly, “what they manage to create with just wood, stone, and metal.”
“So, do you think them worthy of protection, if only to see what they come up with next?”
Before Morax could even open his mouth to answer her, that sound reverberated through the ground again. It was louder this time. Rather than a lament, it was booming shout that made the God of Contracts rise to his feet in search of the source. It was clearer than last time. Somewhere to the West.
“Where are you…?” he breathed the question out to himself. He received no answer.
“Morax? What is it? Is something wrong?” The worry was evident in Guizhong’s voice as she gingerly placed a hand on an obsidian arm, anchoring Morax back to reality.
After a moment of staring into the distance, as if waiting for the source of the cry to materialize before him, he answered her. “It’s nothing. I thought I heard something is all. I believe it’s simply the wind playing tricks on me.”
But the wind didn’t sing. Which is precisely what the voice did the following night. He did his best to ignore it. After all, he had duties to Liyue. He didn’t have time to go on some grand quest to find a disembodied voice. Over the next several days, the voice continued to torment him, becoming harder and harder to ignore as it practically shook the ground beneath him and left his ears ringing and his body trembling. Why could no one else hear or feel it? Was he losing his mind?
“Where is Rex Lapis?” asked Moon Carver. They were supposed to be making their rounds that day to check the temples around Liyue, but the stag-like Adeptus could find the young god nowhere.
“He muttered something about the Chasm and then left before we could ask him to explain,” replied Mountain Shaper.
“The Chasm?” Moon Carver echoed, incredulous. “What business has he there?”
Cloud Retainer huffed. “If this has to do with that voice he’s been yapping about, One says let him go and see that this is all delusional nonsense!”
Moon Carver shook his head. “One fears he is not well. One will go and find him.” Before his fellow Adepti could protest, he took off for the Chasm at full speed. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find there, but it certainly wasn’t a burst of lightning and a crack of thunder as the ground before Morax split apart and gave way to a dragon. Moon Carver moved to shield himself, but Morax did not so much as flinch as the dragon shook the remaining rocks off of its back.
The creature was the color of the earth. Golden horns sprouted from the sides of its head. Spikes resembling pillars of stone protruded from its back, and at the tip of its tail was a cluster of leaves. The markings on the beast’s front legs pulsed with the colors of nearly every element. As for Morax, his hands and the auburn tips of his hair were also alight with a golden glow, a sign that he had just been channeling his divine power.
Moon Carver took a cautious step toward the god and the beast. “Rex Lapis…?”
Morax turned to face him, a wild excitement in his glittering eyes that was rarely seen in the typically stone-faced God of Contracts. “Moon Carver, I found it!” He turned back halfway to look up at the dragon. “This is the one who was calling to me. This is Azhdaha.”