Chapter Text
It all happened so fast. Granted, everything had a degree of urgency to it in Liyue, but this was pushing it to the extreme, even for the ever changing harbor.
One moment, the sky was clear, the streets were steadily bustling, and the ocean was calm. The next, the sky was dark enough it looked like it could swallow the Abyss, the streets drew empty, and the sea thrashed against her banks. In all honesty, it looked like the day was going to turn into a payday, as far as Hu Tao was concerned.
Not everyone thought as highly of natural disasters as she did, though. For starters, her consultant.
They had been wandering the harbor, something about him needing a new tea set and her not wanting him to send yet another tab back to the parlor - seriously, where does he keep finding such expensive things? - when the change swept through the main street of the city. Hu Tao thought nothing of it. In fact, it almost made her morbidly happy. All those people, silly enough to try and travel in this weather? The coffins would be filling soon enough.
Zhongli, on the other hand, froze so violently next to her that she thought he’d need a coffin first.
Hu Tao wanted to ask him something - “what, are your bones so old they ache at the mere thought of a storm, Li?” - but no sooner did he freeze, a force so strong it nearly knocked Hu Tao off her feet rocked into the harbor. Zhongli’s brows creased with a frustrated confusion before they pinched with a kind of raw horror that left Hu Tao breathless.
“No,” his voice was weak, a far contrast to his normal calm but commanding tone, and Hu Tao just barely caught his soft musings over the crashing of the waves in the wharf. She shot him a look when he all but sped off towards the main gates of Liyue, her mind split on the situation at hand and his odd behavior.
“Ah- hey, old man! Where are you going? You’re still on the clock!”
He spared her no glance, and Hu Tao huffed in annoyance. Looks like she’s going to have to play another set of twenty questions with herself to figure out this new mystery presented to her. Hu Tao spun on her heel and chased after him. She had her suspicions about him, nearly everyone whom he spent longer periods of time with did, and this encounter alone had her ‘something’s-not-quite-right’ radar going haywire.
As she ran, she took note that he wasn’t the only one making a break for the main gates. Nearly all of Liyue was - it was like someone gave an evacuation order.
… Had someone…?
Hu Tao ended up following everyone to the beach just outside of city limits. One glance at the sea told her why everyone was gathering: it thrashed lividly here, and the seafoam kicked up by the angry waves glowed as it beat against the beach. Hu Tao’s mind reeled back nearly a year ago, when that beast from the ocean tried to drown all of Liyue and she had to suppress a shudder. It wasn’t coming back, was it? Hu Tao was starting to see less of a paycheck in her future.
Hu Tao pushed herself through the crowd, looking for a familiar face, and while she found many - Xiangling and her father, Chongyun and Xingqiu, Xingyan and even the Tianquan Ningguang and the Yuheng Keqing - she couldn’t find Zhongli.
Until, of course, she did.
Zhongli was up front and center, the crowd bowing around him like they were about to start chanting “fight” at him and the sea. The water lapped around his shiny shoes, but not once did it touch him. He looked furious.
Slowly, the water broke, and a figure emerged from the torrential waves. It was covered in seaweed and barnacles, and it swayed dangerously as the waves battered its body.
No, the waves weren’t beating the being side to side. Upon closer inspection, Hu Tao noticed the water was moving around the creature, like it was bowing to its master. Its creator.
The being was waist deep in the sea now. Hu Tao could see its gangly limbs twitch and pull as it swayed. Its black hair fell in twisted mats around its face. It clicked when Zhongli shifted.
Softly, it spoke.
“Enjoying life, O Great One?”
No one moved. It - she - continued.
“Happy you could fool everyone into thinking you’re some sort of Greater Good?”
Her voice was so soft it barely carried across the waves, but it did, and it made Hu Tao squirm. It was low, gurgly, like she was speaking through water. It scratched at her throat, and it was everything in Hu Tao to not turn and heave into the sand next to her when the voice clawed down her skin.
The creature tipped her head up with a sickening crunch.
“Having fun playing Mortal? Having fun playing dead?”
A hush fell over the crowded Liyuean people at her words. Upon no response, she clicked again.
“So quiet. You know, I’ve only ever seen you so speechless once before. But, no one’s died here.” It was now that her soulless eyes turned to the crowd. “Not yet.”
“Pāng Tuó Shì,” Zhongli’s voice was quiet but strong, “whatever has happened to you? Legends speak of a great sea warrior, one who could be brought down by nothing but her brother’s words. You seem… ill.” It was an obvious front. A lie. Hu Tao had never heard of these so-called ‘legends’.
Shì’s mouth twitched, but otherwise she did not show her displeasure physically.
“Do not speak as if you do not know me. Do not speak as if reciting from a book. A book we both know you wouldn’t have allowed to exist.” Her head tipped, and a thatch of swamped hair slapped against her neck with a damp ‘shlorp’.
Zhongli shifted his feet. Still, the water refused to touch him. He cleared his throat.
“What has brought you here?”
Shì didn’t move.
“You know why I’m here, whelp. You know what I demand.” Her voice dropped. “I want you dead for your crimes.”
Hu Tao heard the murmurs light like a fire through the crowd, most confused. Hu Tao was teetering on the line of confusion and clarity as well, but she felt she knew far more about what was happening than most of anyone else present.
Zhongli sighed.
“You’re ill, as I've said. Shì, what has affected you so? Karma? Erosion? A curse?”
Shì tipped her head down, her hair hiding her face.
“You know exactly what ails me. After all, you cursed me to it. You were the one to put him down.” Her voice lowered further, malice unchecked dripping from her words, “you were the one to put me down, Morax.”
Zhongli’s shoulders tensed. His voice, once calm and quiet, now strained with confidence and power, like it was not made for the raw authority he pronounced every word with. He was angered enough to drop his ruse. He was done playing the weak mortal now.
“You know I had no choice. We made the decision together-”
Shì managed to snap at him without changing her tone or volume, still achingly soft and quiet, but full to the brim with rage.
“We agreed we’d talk him down.”
Zhongli - Morax bowed his head.
“Yes, but upon arrival, it was clear he was too far gone to be reasoned with. I did what I had to do. I saved him from torment.”
“You damned him to the bottom of the ocean where he festered until he died and became a Creature of the Deep.” Her breathing was shaky. “You killed him without making sure he was dead.”
Morax clenched his fists at his sides, the leather of his gloves protesting at the strength carried behind the action.
“I imprisoned him because if I truly had slain him, the corruption inside of his body would have seeped out and contaminated all the land and people of Liyue. I saved him from the torture of knowing he killed everyone he fought so hard to protect.”
Shì gave a humorless chuckle.
“That’s what it's always been with you. Liyue. Nothing is more important to you than Liyue. Not Osial. Not me. Not your precious Adepti.” Shì whispered the last line, a thread of sadness weaved into her silent seething. “Not Guizhong.”
Morax growled so low it shook the ground.
“Do Not Speak Her Name.”
Shì did not speak again. She merely hung her head, tipping it to the side, as if she were trying to see for herself the anguished fury upon the God’s face. She was dry enough now that Hu Tao could make out the tears on her cheeks.
Morax took a deep breath to calm himself.
“Shì. I should not have hid you from Liyue. I should have dealt with Osial differently. You are correct.” Morax sighed, a shaking thing, like he knew he was about to make a mistake. “What can I do to heal you?”
“Get in the water.”
Hu Tao’s blood ran cold.
“... What?”
Shì spoke louder now. The waves had stilled to a terrifying degree.
“Get in the water.” Her hand raised. She was still looking at the water below her. “This is my contract to you, Morax: Get in the water, or I’ll make this ocean swallow your people. Everyone you love will die.”
Morax’s voice lost some of its power.
“If this has to do with my oversight involving your legacy, then-”
“It has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with what you did to Osial.” Distantly, thunder began to rumble. “I want you to feel trapped, to feel powerless, I want you to erode into a monster, alone, at the bottom of the ocean, just as he did. I want you to suffer knowing that everything happening now could have been avoided had you just listened to me.”
Morax’s brow pinched. Hu Tao saw him glance out at the sea with a hollow look she had seen him give to any seafood that came near him. She knew of his fear - nay, his near terror - of the sea. Was this why? Was Shì and Osial the reasoning behind her employee - her God, apparently - having such a strong hatred toward the ocean he couldn't stomach the smell of its food?
… Could a God really be brought down by such a human fear?
Shì repeated herself with more force. “Get in the water.”
Morax snapped his gaze back to her. “Wait. I have to agree to this for it to be set in stone. You are asking the God of Contracts to resign his fate to something of his own - oh.” His composure faltered.
Control. His own control. Osial was a creature of the sea, a God almost. He had power and dominion over the waves that had swallowed him whole. Morax held power over contracts. Shì wanted him to cripple under something he had full power over, just as Osial did.
“Rethink this, please Shì. Stop this.”
“Get in the water, Morax.”
“This is madness! These people, you once fought for them! For their safety! You’d endanger them, after all that you have sacrificed for them?”
“I’ll raise the water so high that even the mountains in Jueyun Karst won’t be able to save them. They’ll all drown.”
Lightning flashed.
“No!”
Thunder cracked.
“Then get in the water!”
All at once, the ocean surged. Shì snapped her head up, her lolling eyes pinning Morax in place, her shrill scream tearing through everyone present.
Morax dropped his gaze to his shoes long enough to see the ocean that had been circling him turn into slippery tentacles that lashed his ankles and knees, ripping him forward.
Morax fell back onto the beach and whipped onto his stomach, the waves licking at his legs. He clawed at the soggy sand beneath him, his gloves morphing into taloned hands in an attempt to get a better grip, to no avail. He was dragged back, down into the water, toward Shì.
“Never make the mistake of believing I won’t go through with my actions, with or without your consent! I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them all! You’ve been around long enough, Morax, it’s time to see a world without you in it!”
The ocean rocked and shifted as Morax thrashed, his guttural roar cut short by water wrapping around his throat, his mouth, his nose. Whips of water yanked at his shoulders, stifling his movements.
Shì screamed her damning contract one last time.
“Get in the water!”
With one final tug, Morax freed his mouth long enough to roar a blast of fire into the black sky, one of his hands reaching upwards like he could grab it and pull himself up, before he was jerked under, changing his cries into pitiful gurgles until they too faded into nothing. The last thing Hu Tao saw of him was his face, gaze so terrified she thinks he'd have been petrified if he were human.
The water went eerily still. Shì glanced back at the crowd. Her dead eyes met Hu Tao’s. She smiled a smile with too sharp teeth. The storm stopped. Morax was gone.