The crowds have long since dispersed, bringing with them their worries, their doubts, their unease. A palpable hush seems to have fallen over the entire harbor, which is quiet for the first time in years, a tangible gloom gathering atop your shoulders and weighing you down. Still, you linger, as though roots have tangled with your feet, anchoring you to the spot, staring at the broken, desecrated body of the once magnificent Rex Lapis. You stand there, ignoring how the wind picks up, chasing a chill down your spine, ignoring the discomfort.
His scales are a rich, dark brown, and his eyes, though sightless, still seem to glow like liquid amber. You reach out a tentative hand, running your fingers lightly over the edges and plains of his face. His scales are still hot to the touch, like armor left too long in the sun.
The touch brings with it a spark of recognition, and with it, a surge of fresh agony, hot and raw, searing through your body and robbing you of your breath. Try as you might, you can't fathom the source of your sadness, how you're desperately fighting back the urge to weep.
Rex Lapis should be a complete stranger to you, a god worshipped from afar, and yet –
From a place deeper than memory, you think that his still-warm scales are familiar against your hand. A nest of scales, coiled protectively around your body, right before that elegant, serpentine body melts away into the flesh of a man, the fog slowly clearing from his eyes as he stares at you, at the tendrils of hair plastered to your face, your arms the only thing keeping him anchored to this world.
"Are you alright?"
The words are said cautiously and sound distant, yet when you look up, the man is standing just a few feet away, concern lighting his eyes. You recognize him. Zhongli. The consultant at the Funeral Parlor. You've met him a few times before, always in the cool interior of your flower shop, amidst the perfume of a thousand blooms, brought to life and lovingly cared for with your hands and your Dendro vision.
Now, all he sees in your eyes is hurt. Deep and horrific hurt. Just distress so keen that it feels like a knife plunged deep into your ribs.
"He's gone." Your chest is tightening. Your vision blurs around the edges. "He – He just – I couldn't –" Your voice breaks.
You recognise what is happening to you. Your body is doing the one thing it's been desperate to do since the moment you witnessed Rex Lapis fall from the heavens; only you were much too stunned then.
Zhongli can sense it too. Because he reaches into his breast pocket and hands you a handkerchief just as the first sob comes up.
"He promised to stay with me." You say, the words unfamiliar, summoned up from somewhere deep inside of you. An even older memory, a ghost or an echo, the feel of your pinky linked together with his, a most unconventional contract sealed with a connecting of fingers and accompanied with your smile. Distantly, your mind registers the memory of that long-gone security. Then, the picture and the accompanying sensations slip away as fast as they slip in, leaving you shaking, pressing sharp pains from your temples with your palms. "He – He promised."
And as your face breaks on the start of a cry, you can see your pain mirrored on Zhongli's face, and just as his face swims in your vision, you think you see his lips form the beginning of an apology.
