I lend my hand down to Morax. He takes my hand and stands up. Letting go of his hand I cross my arms and ask him. "What kind of effects have you had?"
"I'm not sure how to explain it."
"How-?" I start but get cut off by someone. "How's it going Zhongli? You with a friend?"
I look behind me and see a ginger. He obviously wasn't from here, I could tell by how he talked and how he was dressed.
"Hello Childe. This is Y/n, an old friend of mine." Zhongli introduces me.
Childe looks at me and extends his hand. I take it and shake it. "It's nice to meet you" he then whispers in my ear "I never thought Zhongli would have a beautiful girl like you talking to him."
"Oh thank you, it's nice to meet you too" I tell him and let go of his hand.
He takes a step back and looks at my face. "No reaction. Huh" he thinks out loud.
I roll my eyes. Zhongli then excuses us "If you don't mind us Childe, we have some important business to attend too"
Childe nods. Zhongli grabs my hand and we walk away. After a while he lets go of my hand and grabs my shoulder. He leans in and whispers "Don't trust him. He is nice but he is manipulative."
"I could tell." I say to Morax. "Thanks for the warning though, I appreciate your concern"
I look at the sky. "I should go talk to Xiao" I sigh and ask "Hopefully he is with the traveler"
Looking over at Zhongli he says "I'll walk you to the Inn."
I tilt my head. "Is that where they are?"
"I would assume."
I nod and give him a smile. "You don't have to walk me, I can go alone."
"No it's fine. I want to come." He tells me.
"Oh, ok then. Shall we go then." Zhongli nods and we silently head out of Liyue and make our way north.
We begin to talk about what we have been doing over the past years and after there was a comfortable silence until Zhongli started couching.
"Morax!" I say panicking as he falls to the ground. He shakes his head "effects" is all he says but I know he knows I understand him. This must be the side effects of his gnosis being taken away. Some of his skin starts glowing a yellow color. He gets into this position (picture down below) and I quickly rush over to him. It all happened so fast.
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I pull him up so he is facing me. His teeth are pressed together in pain. I can tell he is suffering a lot. A few tears run down his face. As I hold him by the shoulders I pull him into a hug not knowing what else to do. I whisper a bunch of calming and reassuring words to him. I try my best to distract him from what is happening.
After a few seconds of me hugging him he finally hugs me back. He grabs the back of my shirt and holds onto me tightly, a bit too tightly in my opinion. After a while his hold on me tightens again and he yelps in pain and I'm pretty sure some of the skin on my back is gone but I don't care. If he suffers I will suffer with him.
"You'll be ok Morax, trust me" I whisper to him "I'm right here. I'll stay right here. It's almost over" I say to him. Honestly I had no clue if it was almost over.
Then I make a contract with him with my eyes closed. "I'll stay by your side until all of this stops. I'll stay with you until these effects vanish." I put my arm on the back of his head and held him close.
Opening my eyes as he drops his arms, I watch as his skin goes back to normal.
"E-Ethereal" he says weakly. I pull away from him and hold his face. As I look into his beautiful eyes with sympathy. "Thank you"
I wipe his remaining tears away. I nod and look at him sadly. "How hurt are you? Are you ok? Will you be-" he places a finger on my lips to stop me from talking.
He opens his mouth and looks up at me, his eyes red from crying out of pain. "I'll be fine." His voice is raspy and deeper than usual. He moves his finger away from my lips and puts his hand over his heart. He closes his eyes for a bit and after a while he looks up at me.
"Shall we continue to make our journey to Wanshu Inn?"
I blink a few times then nod at our situation. I can see the Inn from here. I stand up and help Zhongli up by holding his forearms. I put Zhongli's arm over my shoulder and we begin to walk. "Are you sure you don't need a rest?"
He nods. I look at him and notice he is looking at me. Has he been looking at me this whole time?
I spot a bunch of hilichurls making there way towards us. "You gotta be kidding me" I growl.
I stomp my left foot on the ground, the air sends the monsters back. After a while they got up and looked at me. They ran away at the very moment they saw my face.
Whenever I use my vision my eyes turn white and it usually terrifies my enemy away.
"Yeah that's right! Run away you cowards!" I yell at them. Zhongli laughs "Just as protective as ever. Remember years back we were in the same predicament."
I scoff. "Yeah" I then laugh. "You got injured and I was dragging you away"
"Then you scared away the people who were trying to assassinate me."
We both end up laughing. "Yeah, no need to thank me or anything, I know I'm pretty-"
"Not wrong with that" he says. My eyes widen. "I was going to say pretty awesome but thanks for the compliment"
I then tell him "You're not too bad yourself"
Zhongli chuckles at my comment. We walk up the steps of the Wanshu Inn. "There is an elevator over to your left"
We walk to the elevator and go up. "Are you feeling any better? Is walking painful?"
"I'm doing better. Don't worry, I'm going to be fine." He tells me. Getting off the elevator I get a room for us both to stay in since I didn't bring enough mora for the trip. In my defense I didn't know this would happen and I don't want to spend all my mora in one day of being here. These rooms aren't cheap.
We walk into the room and I help him onto the bed. "I'll make you some tea" I go into the kitchen and prepare him some tea.
As I walk out and bring it to him I hand him the cup "I hope you like it, hopefully you like tea just as much as you used to"
Zhongli takes a sip and looks at me "You make truly fantastic tea"
"Oh thanks, I would always make tea in Mondstat for some friends of mine." I laugh and tell him "Before I left to come here Venti said that he wanted to come with"
I watch as Zhongli raises his eyebrow. I laugh "I know, I told him that there had to be someone to watch over Mondstat, other than the knights or anyone of the sort"
Everything goes silent. I stand up and as I exit the room Zhongli asks "Did you mean to make that contract?"
