I'll Be Here

Cold Dark, Warm Light

The Tianquan had lit up the Geo shrine as usual. The shrine had shot up a beam of light as usual. The clouds had gathered in a swirl as usual. Then the usual cheers of the usual crowds turned into screams as Rex Lapis's body, unnaturally devoid of any Geo energy, cracked the stone square of the city with an indescribable crash.

Screaming prayers immediately flooded Xiao's mind, mass panic from the gathered people and requests to the adepti for help and all kinds of overwhelming fear and denial and mourning and anger and chaos, searing human thoughts into his mind: "I didn't do it, the smoke, it's insane, I can't believe this, I don't know anything, please have mercy! Arrest them! Who would harm Rex Lapis? I can't believe it, what exactly happened, in broad daylight, what kind of dark magic is this, Rex Lapis how how how how HOW HOW HOW"

Every nerve in his body was alive and tingling and burning with cold and he could feel every dust particle against his skin and hear every blade of grass on the mountain and see every pore on every face all the way down in the city, all of it in a crushingly hyperaware sensory overload that tugged on the edges of his sanity. His unblinking eyes started to dry.

All at once he turned sharply and started running, sprinting and stumbling until he hit a wall, climbing until there was nowhere else to go, swimming until he hit the land and running again. At every part of the land that he recognized, he turned and ran faster away from the familiarity, racing to wherever he did not have to be reminded of anything. As long as he was moving he didn't have to think. So he didn't stop.

At some point he lost feeling in his legs.

He wanted to lose feeling entirely.

Time passed. He didn't stop.

He fell off the side of a cliff and allowed himself to tumble down the rock, rising to keep running despite the shooting pain in his bones.

He ran into a cluster of Pyro slimes that he ordinarily would have avoided out of fear of getting burned and cut them down in two dash attacks, ignoring the sparks that alighted on his skin as the slimes exploded.

He swam through Mist-flower chilled water, relishing in the numbing freeze that constricted his flesh against his skeleton and took away all other sensations.

He had just enough sense left to stop before he threw himself into the Chasm.

There was a tiny crevice in the mountain range that bordered Liyue, connected to the land by water. He swam into it and shoved himself as far back into the corner against the rock as he could, his clothes dripping and freezing, teeth chattering as he shivered more from dread than from cold.

He'd hated the dark since he'd been freed from the blackstone domain that still haunted him, but now he closed his eyes, blocking out everything, trembling as the fright he'd been running from this whole time crashed into him in wave after wave after wave after wave after wave after wave after wave after wave.

Rex Lapis.

"Please don't actually be gone," he prayed urgently through frozen lips in a whisper that was barely coherent to his own ears. "Don't be gone, Rex Lapis, please, I'll do anything. I'll sign a million contracts, I'll fight every battle, I'll exorcize every demon there is, I'll tear down the mountains and rebuild Liyue myself, just please don't be gone, please, don't leave me, Rex Lapis, you promised..."

He hugged his knees to his chest, water running in icy rivulets down his legs and his neck and pooling around him; for the first time since he started running he became distinctly aware of the deep pressure in his chest of his heart forcefully trying to break out of his rib cage. His breath came in short pants that fogged in the cold air, grating his throat and drying out the passages of his face.