NOCTURN BRIDE • genshin Impact | ✓

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

revolting. the stench of horrid creatures suffocated the apostle. still, even after years of breathing, alive; have she not opened her eyes for this teyvat. she was loved, she was kind, she was a being that people cared for.

she was the past.

yet, after experiencing intimacies, all ought to end in tragedy. a shame indeed, profanity's profoundest  achievement, perhaps a sort of selective prion that slowly made her forget the non essential memories that once brought joy — into nothingness.

like a sort of disease, a self coping mechanism to live and survive. a battle between her past, her present and her future as a non existent time would leap forward and she. the apostle, she...

she needed to breathe.

there was a point in time where everything was lost — where the apostle was, anguished — she fought, she lived, she cried, she died. where even a part of her begun rioting, demolishing her ethical living side completely as her inner desires of death; some may refer as a trigger, came alive. but this time, she wasn't refuting it. she wasn't fighting back, resisting, crying — as still as she could be — she stood.

she stood in the amidst of death.

she felt lost, but she didn't know why. she couldn't remember, she couldn't think, she couldn't breathe, she couldn't feel. she just couldn't; a fractured mirror that reflected mirages of her insecurities that the apostle so desperately tried to conceal. she wasn't, she isn't, ruptured into fragments of what she could have been, deluding herself over and over. once again, with the same words in mind.

that, was the disparity the apostle went through.

the violent thoughts never seemed to end. and she depended on them.

to survive in a world so cruel, where she became a fool.

"i think our follow up was... rather tedious." the apostle rolled her eyes, clicking her tongue in annoyance. fingers so delicately churned around rex lapis' throat, slowly relaxed. "we should get going. it seems that your acquaintances are here."

"my, aren't you rather calm?" neatening up his tattered collar, rex lapis lifted his head up, before seeing a familiar blonde hair — accompanied by the white floating creature. "shall we get going? before signora and childe causes a ruckus amongst them."

"very well, we shall."

a grand exquisite entrance she made during her and the otherworldly blonde, aether, if she could recall correctly. rather shameful, that they begun on bad terms.

because in her eyes, aether seemed to... long for some sort of painful desire that tore him apart. a horrid feeling, she indeed sympathised with him; though, the aspirations they held were too much of an opposition to be compatible.

"stop wasting time, childe. there'll be plenty of time to chat once i'm through here." as the apostle neared her companions, her eyes darted towards signora, before glancing back at rex lapis — like some sort of signal. "ah morax. you remember the agreement. now, if you would be so kind... the gnosis, please."

"agreement?" aether, the blonde looking male asked. the apostle carefully eyed him, seemingly like a predator watching its prey with ferocious eyes, pupils slanted into thin slits. before her mouth could utter a word, the rude white creature intruded with a high pitched question: "what in the world are you talking about?"

there was a brief pause. a prolonging silence tied between the awkward parties; the traveler alongside its companion, the fatui harbingers, and of course, rex lapis with the apostle, strutting into the tense atmosphere at the oddest time.

"the contract is fulfilled. that which thou seeketh is now bestowed unto thee, for my promise is solid as stone." ignoring the questions directed at him, rex lapis nodded his head, handing over his gnosis; in the shape of a chess piece, similarly to a king. with it's yellow dawn shade luminating, he placed in onto signora's palms.

"hmph, how sanctimonious..." signora replied, judging the value of the heart of god before giving an almost non-visible grin. tsarista would be delighted, ah, well to be fair, the god of contracts kept his word.

"so zhongli is actually rex lapis?"

as more noise polluted the apostle's ears; a detesting vibration that repetitively occurred over and over once more, each decibel and pitch seemed to bring discomfort towards her. naturally, she drifted away into her own realm of fantasies.

"little apostle, we depart now." upon hearing her alias called out by the fair maiden, her eyes glowed, prepared to teleport, perhaps to a faraway land of peace before chaos lands itself before her. however, was disrupted as rex lapis reached his hand out.

"by any chance, are you going to use xiao?" he grabbed onto the apostle's wrist with his callused hand before muttering a brief sentence. a firm, and tight grasp — she respected the hardships he went through in wielding powers and leading his nation — but nonetheless, respect was only a form of acknowledgement, nothing more, nothing less. "and ganyu?"

she's just an apostle — that held secrets of teyvat, the truth, lies and deceitful deceptions within it.

"and what about them?" tilting her head at the side; pure confusion. it was genuine, unlike her usual pseudo-smile and twisted, cruel personality. her lips curled up, into a sort of smile accompanied by an airy laugh. "am i supposed to care about their feelings? i'm not some sort of babysitter."

it simply didn't make sense. it shouldn't make sense.

she's simply an apostle. an apostle that lived the lives she grieved over. simply, an apostle who was once human. why should the apostle help them? why should she care in the first place? — she had no reason to care, and even if she did, why would she? yes, she was spiteful, abominable; she was no charity. why?

well, because it's her — she's an apostle.

"i'm not someone... others should be fond of. i'm not an archon of teyvat like you. i, an apostle must say, only holds messages relayed from gods."  power, influence and cruelty. yes, she held them. in fact, she conquered them. she — a sacred worship of heavenly deities — devoting her life for herself, had no benefit and gains in helping the likes of mere adeptis, let alone helpless archons. "and remember, gods, archons; they are cruel. and you, are no exception."

she was fiendish, merciless, unsympathetic in certain cases, in fact, she is the definition of iniquitous itself made into reality itself.

but why should she help salvation for humanity when she — swore to tear it apart?

she's just an apostle. she's simply an apostle by name.

and the apostle, simply doesn't care.

━━━━━

( CHAPTER XVII )