starry, starry night | genshin impact

zhongli : your prayers fall on deaf ears

[ nsfw ; demon!zhongli x reader ]

...

Everything started in the heart of the flames.

What once had been the most stylistic manor in Yujing Terrace was now engulfed in a blazing inferno—one that burned hotter than hellfire itself. It was a massacre. The perpetrator had skillfully slain both your family and your servants, strewing their corpses across the room as if they were nothing but a hunter's game. The only reason you'd been spared was because of your absence in the midst of the carnage, but you were just in time to witness the estate being razed to the ground.

Needless to say, you were powerless to save it.

You didn't know how the fire started, or where'd it even come from, but the specifics were the last thing on your mind. All you could do was watch in silence as the flames crackled in your ears, eating away at the walls, the ceiling, and everything its fiery hands could reach. The columns of smoke have gotten thicker now. So much that they've coalesced into each other until all you could see was a hazy fog of gray. Your eyes watered. Your lungs burned for breath. A human being's first instinct will always be to save oneself, but what was left to salvage when everything you've ever known was turning into ash?

Your family was an honest one—so unlike the greedy magnates that blackmailed their way into acquiring the Qixing's favor. Commerce and business were the heart and soul of Liyue, and only a few could remain untainted by their own ambition. But even if you'd been raised by people with nothing but the purest intentions, that alone couldn't save your parents from the envious eyes that lurked in the shadows. Mother laid in a pool of blood to your left. Father had been beaten to death to your right. If you'd arrived even a moment earlier, would you have joined them as a lifeless lump on the floor? Or would you have been able to prevent the tragedy altogether?

Run. Get help. Call the Millelith. Do something. A cacophony of voices—each one, a mangled version of your own—swirled across your mind, but the words sounded distant. Almost as if the smoke from the fire had made its way inside your brain to block everything out. The fact that you were growing light-headed by the second only spoke of how little time you had left, as well. You didn't want to die; this, you were certain. But instead of bolting back to the entrance, you merely stared into the golden orange wisps crawling towards the center of the room like you were waiting for something. Like you hoped Celestia would drop a miracle right into your desperate hands.

The rafters above groaned from the destruction, and you peered at them as the wood slowly cracked and splintered in on itself. If you didn't run now, you would get crushed under the rubble. If you didn't snap out of your haze of apathy, you could never avenge your family's demise.

So, like the pitiful sight you were, you prayed.

.

.

.

But it was not the gods who'd heard your plea.

"How strange. Only the strongest of wills are able to summon me like this."

The moment you so much as blinked, you found yourself with one knee driven to the floor on the other side of the room. Though you had no recollection of consciously kneeling nor moving away from the ceiling that threatened to cave in, you didn't bother with logical explanations. Not when a familiar face made itself known before you.

"...Zhongli?"

At least...you thought it was Zhongli. His face stood out amongst the citizens of Liyue, and had he not been one of your father's closest affiliates, you still could have picked him out from a crowd with ease. Although, while the man right here wore the face of Wangsheng's famed consultant, you felt as if he was someone else entirely. Golden antlers sprouted atop his head like branches dipped in the ichor of angels, but something told you he was someone far from the divine.