I don't know who you are, but you're still you [ZhongChi]

Lapis Dei I: Erosion

It shouldn't have ended this way.

They had just made up, cleared up the misunderstandings between them, before he had been called back to Snezhnaya.

The war with the Heavens raged throughout the lands, as each of the seven nations attempted to protect themselves from the carnage as frost swept throughout Teyvat.

The tyranny of Celestia was finally over, and he busied himself with burying bodies and conducting funeral rites alongside Hu Tao for the deceased; poor unfortunate mortals who happened to be caught in the crossfire between the heartless Goddess of Love and the Heavens.

He was expecting company any time now, an annoying ginger who hailed from the faraway land of ice and snow.

His annoying ginger, his best friend, his lover, his stupid, stubborn, headstrong mortal who rushed into danger head first, destroying everything in his wake, and yet had kissed him on the lips ever so lightly, even more gentle than that of the flap of a butterfly's wing, before he departed for his homeland.

He wasn't expecting the Queen of Cryo herself, the victor of the war, so beaten and battered and injured, and yet, she looked like she had rushed down from her palace to Liyue the second she was able to.

He wasn't expecting a small, silver badge to be pressed into his hand, a dull, grey, glassy orb staring lifelessly back at him, even more dead than the cerulean Noctilucous Jade eyes he was so looking forward to seeing.

He wasn't expecting her to gently force his fingers closed around the trinket, his arm falling lifelessly to his side the second she let go of her hand.

It was his Vision. His now dull, faded Vision.

"He... he would want you to have this." She had whispered, but he couldn't hear anything besides ringing in his head.

"He was so young... it shouldn't have happened... he's served me so faithfully, so loyally for so long..." She murmured, "After the war... I was going to give him my blessing... to free him from his services in the Fatui, to let him pursue his own path, his own future... You were his first love... and he was your first too... I'm so sorry... "

Hu Tao had appeared by his side, initially tugging on his sleeve to get him to finish some paperwork, but upon seeing the dull Vision in his hand, she immediately quietened down, before running off to fetch his handkerchief.

"I know you didn't want to spend your retirement like this... I'm sorry... His body is still in Snezhnaya, if you wish to be the one to prepare his funeral..."

He couldn't bring himself to do it.

He couldn't bear to bury the body himself.

He couldn't even bring himself to attend the funeral until Barbatos, who was already running out of time after Celestia's fall, literally asked Dvalin to pick his mortal body up in his claws and physically drag him to his funeral.

He didn't remember crying. He didn't remember much of anything at all.

All he knew was the dead Vision in his hand.

He couldn't work, he couldn't eat, he couldn't sleep. All he saw was him.

His home was filled with so many trinkets, what were supposed to be good memories of their time together, now tormenting him till the end of his days.

And yet, he couldn't leave his house, for he was reminded of how they obtained all those trinkets in the first place.

He used to have a heart. The Gnosis sat next to it in his chest. Now he had no gnosis, and he felt like ripping out his mortal heart instead, to join him, to be with him for eternity.