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Khaenri'ah is falling.
The sky is dyed red, stark orange hues splashed across the horizon, and the air hangs thick and hot in the air. Perhaps it is because he is air incarnate that the humidity weighs down so heavily on him - Barbatos doesn't need to breathe, but, as with many things, he enjoys the freedom to choose to. Being human is not always a pleasant endeavour, but he has always liked the ability to pretend, and the steady rise and fall of a false chest is a welcome comfort. He's robbed of that now - he can't breathe, and he's undeniably Barbatos.
He can't imagine how much worse it is down there. How much worse it is - for them.
From his position in the air, the people appear no larger than his pinky finger. They scramble about, to and fro, helpless. Barbatos knows all too well that there is nowhere for them to run, and it seems they have begun to understand this, too. A child begins to cry, a mother lets rip a shaky, hoarse scream, and the air captures it in its thick sludge. The sound echoes. Barbatos stands above it all.
A rumbling shakes the earth, enough to throw even him off balance, and he turns his head to catch the last moments of a massive meteor colliding with the ground, debris exploding at the impact like glass shattering. He can't see where Morax is - where any of the others are - but they're here all the same. The air hangs thick, and heat rises.
If he really wanted to, he could feel out their gnoses, dive into the fray armed with Holy Lyre and raucous song, pluck a tune as others shed blood and sweat, as he always has, but he finds his senses are too muted to sense his fellow archons. His mind is occupied with something else. The shining white and gold that clad his form are even more strikingly so against the red skies. They can see him, he knows. He wonders if they know he can hear them.
No matter where, no matter if the sun shines or clouds shroud its view, the wind has never failed him, and it has never failed his devotees. It carries every child's wish, every fervent prayer to his eager ears. Barbatos would rather avoid his more godly duties (and not just out of laziness, although that may play its part), but who is he to refuse a traveller requesting safe passage, or a cool breeze on a sweltering day? A little girl wishing for a dandelion to blow her way? A soul lost in a windless land, heavy with the want for home?
The wind has never failed him, and it doesn't now.
A hundred thousand sinners who have time and time cursed his name, now staring up at him, begging Teyvat's most lenient of gods for mercy. Voices raspy with ash, hands trembling as they clasp. He has never liked worship, and the feeling churns in his stomach now. A hundred thousand sinners, praying for the first time, praying for the last. A desperate final stab at repentance. O Lord Barbatos, please, freedom, as you have so granted your own people, time and time again - mercy, please, most benevolent of gods, freedom, not from you, not from Celestia, but from this, from this-
(A god sits desolate in his tower.)
Barbatos tears his eyes away from the destruction below. Looking up to the sky, he wonders, where is Celestia now? A pit forms in his stomach at the image of its shadow cast over Mondstadt. He knows what will happen if he challenges the others - their nations come first. They'll turn him to pulp, and his pathetic revolt will only result in more rubble to clean up. Morax has not hesitated to toss mountains at him at the slightest of transgressions, and while it was all in good faith, he has no doubt he'd do it with malice if given the spur.
Barbatos has lived long enough. He has no qualms about his own death, and he is filled head to toe with trust for the people of Mond, but he knows they stand no chance against Celestia. As much as he does not like to take ownership, they are, at the end of the day, his people, and he can't bring himself to spend even a single drop of their blood to fuel the freedom of another. God knows he's spent enough.
He can't see where the others are, but he can see where they've been. Such ruinous elements they possess. Fire spreads and scorches, licking up the sides of buildings and razing them to the ground. If ash does not fill your lungs then water will, bubbling with heat as it rushes over the feverous and quaking earth, swallowing all in its path. As is the natural order of things. Vines climb and flower, bursting with odorous gas, and lightning strikes, vicious and ceaseless. Electro crackles in the air, and fuses with everything else to fry you from the inside out.
He stands alone above it all. What a way to go! A slow death gives more time to cry out, to plead for help, and it makes it all the more gut-wrenching when help does not come.
Barbatos has always been a kind god. Irresponsible, depending on who you ask, but kind. He has tamed the harsh winds of a blizzard to a cool breeze, smoothed cragged peaks to rolling hills for the sake of people. He remembers when Decarabian fell - the simmering confusion in his eyes, bubbling to rage, and that bitter last gust that toppled the heads of the revolution. His eyes were ice, and their bodies were cold, and Barbatos took what beauty was left. Calmed the remnants of a storm, and ironed out the wounds of that brave and breathless boy until his body was no longer his own.
He remembers what came after. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say; after escaping Decarabian's oppressive storms, they were met with a cold twice as cruel. Barbatos struggled through the blizzards, and found peace in the eye of it all, Andrius alone at its centre.
("You are not like him," Andrius said, slow and cautious.
Barbatos smiled sheepishly, hands held up in surrender. He wasn't sure he'd find human emotion in a wolf, especially not one like Andrius, but there was exhaustion in his eyes - only masked by a sheer mist of pride. "Neither are you.")
Barbatos has dug elbow-deep in times of misery to find that gold nugget of serenity, of freedom, and bring it to his people.
The others bring salvation in destruction. They are violent and ruthless. It's evident in every spear of stone that shatters the earth, the ground rumbling for miles around, uprooting houses, sending people stumbling, only to be crushed under rubble. Water surges, tearing down all in its path - it crackles with electricity. Spasms rip through anyone who touches it, and hot water burns their lungs. Where water fails to reach, fire roars, and those who don't fall to smoke find themselves choking on poison gas, bursting from vividly coloured flowers. The Tsaritsa has yet to join them, but Barbatos already is intimate with the horrors of winter.
Those who die to the other archons will die painfully, and die screaming - screaming his name, calling for his domain. Begging for freedom.
His own people have invoked his name before, and he has failed time and time again, come too late and found Mondstadt in ruin. In the end, freedom is restored, but not before his people have become familiar with chains.
I will not fail here, he thinks, something stirring in his chest. Freedom, mercy, peace, dear Khaenri'ah, have it all now - I will bring it to you in the only way I know how.
Barbatos draws his bow.
Anemo has brought many a soul to peaceful rest in the past, even if they may not deserve it. Decarabian, that bard (oh, what was his name?), Andrius, Durin, and, now, the list has grown endless.
How fascinating, how awful, what a mere arrow can do. It can rip through as many lives as it pleases, if the wind permits it to.
"You..." The Tsaritsa's eyes are blown wide open, overflowing with an amalgamation of grief, horror, (and is that fear?) as she stares, fixated on Barbatos' wings, white as the snow on the newly-named Dragonspine. "The rest of them, I know - but I thought that, at least, you would..."
"I had to," Barbatos says, shaky. His mouth hangs open uselessly, searching for a justification that will satisfy the god before him (and, he quietly hopes, himself, too). He doesn't find it. "I had to."
(Many years later, that nameless expression of hers will flash clearly in his mind again, as a gloved hand pierces his chest.
Ah, he thinks, making a belated realisation. It was betrayal.)