Even Gods Have Hearts

~02~

   The next morning I woke up late. Morax wasn't home, and I sighed. That man needs to take a day off every once in a while.
   I took my time getting dressed. I should go visit Imelda and Dainsleif, I thought.
   I drop a Lunar Qingxin in my pocket and put a note on the counter, telling Morax I had gone out in case he was home early. I stepped out the door and was immediately unsettled.
   Celestia was... quiet. It was too quiet. The usually bustling city of gods seemed empty, none but a few younger gods out. I tried to shake off the feeling and descended upon Teyvat, only a mile from Khaenri'ah.
   My unsettled feeling only became worse when I saw a dust cloud covering the land. I took a few steps, then began sprinting.
   My mind raced even faster than my legs, becoming more and more panicked the closer I got to my beloved Khaenri'ah.
   I reached the entrance to the city... or where the entrance should have been.
No, no, no...
   I raced farther into the city. This beautiful show of humanity's genius was on the brink of total destruction.
   Tears pricked my eyes as I looked around. Smoke streamed steadily out of the once beautiful buildings. Homes lay crumbled not too far from the town center. A fountain I had once sat at to enjoy my first mortal-made food with Imelda and Dainsleif had been crushed to bits, pieces of strange rock scattered around the base of it. The chunks of odd stone seemed so familiar to me, but at the time my mind was too scattered to realize where it came from.
   Tears now flowed freely down my dust stained face. The most terrifying part of this experience was the silence... No one screamed, no one sobbed at the loss of their livelihood, no one yelled for justice, and no one... well, no one was to be seen anywhere. I rushed around the ruins of the nation I had so loved, looking for any sign of life. Imelda was nowhere to be found.
   I heard coughing under rubble somewhere.
   "Hello? Is- is someone there?" I yelled.
   "Help," came a weak voice. A choked sob escaped me as I realized who the voice belonged to.
   "Dainsleif!"
   "Please, help me..."
   "Dainsleif, please- you have to stay with me for a few minutes," I call, near hysterics. I claw furiously at the rubble to free my friend as fast as I can. He emerges, coughing and clutching an arm that is very clearly broken.
   "Dainsleif, what-" I pause to touch his face. "What happened here? Where is Imelda? Why is everything-"
   He takes a shaky breath in. "The gods."
Fury, pain and loss swirl around in his soul. I feel it as if it were my own as he lifts his gaze to meet mine; blazing blue eyes, full of emotion and yet devoid of feeling.

   I recoil as if he slapped me.
   "What?"
   "The gods. They did this to my home- to OUR home, Y/N. They came and massacred-" he is forced to pause as a violent fit of coughing racks through his body. I guide him to a sitting position, cradling his head and arms with my own trembling body.
   "They destroyed... everything." His voice is raw from the pain he's in, and my mind reels with emotions.
"Where were you?" He asks.
I blink. Once, twice, tears still gleaming in my eyes. "Where- I-"
"Y/n, where were you?" He demands again. His jaw sets after a moment and his face becomes stony and cold. "You never lived here. You never- where do you live? Where did you come from? Who are you?" He shouts, his voice growing louder and more gravelly with every word.
I flinch.
Like a coward.
"Dainsleif, I..."
"You're one of them." He says. His voice is so calm that it terrifies me. He states it as if it were the simplest thing in the world, as if he were telling me the sky was blue.
My heart drops even lower than I thought possible. No, no, no.. he can't know. He can't.
He can't know, and yet... I can't lie to him. Tears threaten to spill out of his endless blue eyes that bore furiously into my own. I take a deep breath and step back.
White hot emotion thrums through my body and washes over every single one of my nerves, making me tremble. There are so many feelings I never thought I'd have to face.
Pain? Regret? Anger, even fear? Gods don't feel scared. They don't need to. And yet here I am, terrified and trembling like some child.
The gods... my friends? No, it can't be. Teyvat's gods weren't wrathful. I have heard stories of gods that preside over other worlds committing acts of wrath on whims or to keep their mortal subjects under control, but my friends? No... no, it can't be. There's no way...

But if not them, then who?
Who could lay waste to this beautiful and powerful nation? Who could possibly cause destruction so devastating and so final? Hysteria begins to claw at my consciousness. How could they? Why would they?
I look back down at Dainsleif with wide eyes. His face remains stony and cold.
   I refused to allow him to suffer.
   I pulled the Lunar Qingxin from my pocket and pulled a petal off of it with trembling hands.
   Silently, I crouch next to him again and hold it in the palm of my outstretched hand.
   The young man in front of me doesn't react.
"Please..." I whisper.
He looks up at me again and the corners of his mouth tremble. He lifts the petal hesitantly to his lips and I nod, urging him to swallow it.
   He grunts and clutches at his arm, then gasps and sits up straight. My heart races; I've never given any of my experiments to a mortal, and have no idea what to expect.
   It doesn't matter. Whatever happens, he'll hate me either way.
   Dainsleif groans once again and stares at me with wide eyes. His arm no longer sticks put at an awkward angle, and I offer a wet smile.

   "Y/n." His voice is cold. "What was that? What did you do to me?"
   "It's-" I hesitate, trying to think of an acceptable answer. "It's a special herb," I claim weakly. He looks at his arm and back at me.
"You just wanted to play hero, didn't you?"
   "Dain... I- I didn't know, the other gods-"
   "I don't care. You took my home away from me. You took everything."
   "Dainsleif, no. It wasn't me, I'm not involved in this, I pr-"
   "It seems we missed a couple," comes a youthful voice from behind us. Dainsleif glares past me. I freeze.
   "Yes, so it does," growls a more mature voice. A very familiar voice.
   I recognize those voices.
   I slowly turn around, praying to the stars it isn't who I think it is.
   Barbatos and Morax stand two yards away from me and the boy I had seen as my little brother for a short, precious time.
   "You..." My voice quivers, but not of fear. Fury flows through my veins like lava, ready to erupt at any moment, but my mortal disguise still prevents them from recognizing me.
   "Oh? This one wants to fight back?" Taunts Barbatos, his eyes glimmering with malice. Morax does nothing but cross his draconian arms and stare threateningly.
   "So this is what you call 'early business' Morax?" I growl. Never had I felt such fury before. I had laid with this man, I had comforted him, made him tea. He had kissed my lips, shared my home.
   And now he was destroying the place most beloved to me. He was killing the mortals I had loved so much, laying waste to all their hard work.
   "Early business? What are you g-" he stops, the color draining from his face.
"Y/n..."
   This only feeds my fire. I allow my mortal disguise to fall away, revealing my divine form.
   "How dare you?" I begin, shooting my gaze like daggers into the eyes of the geo archon. I draw myself up to my full height and grab him by the collar.
   "Who are you to destroy this? The mortals worked tirelessly here! They lived and died here, they worked hard and took care of one another, and you storm in and destroy their country?" I shout. My voice grows in a booming crescendo, seeming to multiply itself the angrier I get.
   "Y/n, please, allow me to expl-"
   "NO!" I shout. Tears are once again flowing down my face.
   "You murdered Imelda, didn't you?" I ask, my voice breaking.
   Barbatos, now floating awkwardly to the right. tries to make an escape to avoid my wrath. I drop Morax for a moment to grab the anemo archon and slap him hard across his face. "Get out of my sight," I hiss at him. He's looks ashamed of himself and lifts a hand to his surely stinging cheek before turning himself into a breeze and escaping me.
   Morax reaches a hand out to touch my arm, and I yank it from his grasp.
"There was no reason for this," I choke. "There was nothing..."
"There were orders, y/n."
"Orders from WHO?" Exasperation bleeds into the knot of emotion in my chest.
"Celestia."
I scoff and shake my head. Celestia is a place, not a being. The most prominent Celestial figures are the archons.
"You're a coward," I spit. "For an archon to feel so threatened by mortals who fear no god..."
"A coward? Please, just... let me explain!"
I ignore his plea. "You were never anything but the dirt you borrowed from this planet."
I stared at him for a moment; the beautiful man I had loved so dearly, standing in the ruins of the place I had loved so dearly, with the blood of my beloved mortals on his hands.
"Do not seek me out." I said it wearily, turning around to face Dainsleif.
Or... where Dainsleif had been. He was gone.
My shoulders fell and a sense of numbness washed over me as I took two, four, eight steps away before relocating myself to my true home: The Moon.

   I left Morax standing, dumbfounded and stung by my words, in the ruins of my beloved Khaenri'ah.

This all happened 500 years ago, and I haven't been back to Celestia (or Teyvat) since.
The end of my relations with Morax hurt very terribly for a very long time. I really had loved him, but I had also loved Khaenri'ah and the family I had built for myself there with the same ferocity.
I worried about having made the wrong choice for a long time. What if there was a good reason? What if I had destroyed his heart the way he destroyed mine? What if I overreacted?
Thinking back on it, there never should have been a doubt in my mind. If someone who loves you destroys that which you hold dear, could they ever truly have loved you? No, no.
   After all this time, I have decided that it's finally time.
     
     I am going to visit Teyvat once again.