Chapter Text
Case File: The Alpha
prologue
"Big Brother is Watching You."
- George Orwell, "1984"
The awakening begins - like most awakenings do - with the opening of listless amber eyes, the hot brilliance of the summer sun flashing at his gaze like the star's taking a vengeful lunge at him, being an angry and spiteful lover in the AM.
He raises a hand to try and block the gleam of the sunlight. A groan grouses from his lips, duly half from the blinding daylight and the other half from the soreness encompassing his lower back. The stiffness in his pelvic muscles is becoming more of a gripling ache, as if the tendons there were wringed dry from the blood haling from a fight. It becomes like a cricket he can’t silence, a sore hangover that pounds at his lower muscles instead of the sides of his head. It’s…
What…time…is it?
Zhongli frowns, turning his bare back from the piercing window, shifting on his other side from where he’s lazily sprawled on the king sized mattress.
Does it even matter what time it is? All Zhongli knows is that he's still drowsy, unwilling to get up. An ease drifting through the marrow of his bones, almost subduing him.
He's a man of war, a military raised officer. There's always responsibilities to look after on most days - so for now, he just wants to…keep holding it off a little longer. A few minutes before the martial routine for today officially begins.
Today…what day is it again-
“Hello, handsome.” A young spritely man grins toothily at Zhongli as he finishes turning on his side, sighing.
Zhongli immediately coughs - some spit flying from his mouth and landing on the man’s intricate features. Zhongli’s lungs start to cave in, faltering itself from working through common breathfuls of air. It doesn’t help that his heart spasms sporadically inside him. Not at all.
This delicate-featured boy is laying next to him, side by side - wispily beautiful and shamelessly naked like a charming siren found within the quarters of a Pirate King. His emerald eyes were twinkling with youthful delight.
“Who…who are you? If a god may ask?” Zhongli sputters, sharp and thin eyebrows dipping into pure unadulterated confusion. The smaller man beside him smirks to find the taller of them is a bit flushed, blood rushing progressively to his pale, well-defined cheeks.
“After the riveting passion you drilled into me last night, you brutish blundering buffoon - is that all you can say to me?” He makes a show of dramatic exasperated flair, placing the back of his hand at his forehead as if a damsel close to fainting. Shitty ass quality acting but a high class tease.
“Oh the ripples of passion and moonlight fervour come crashing lost on the rocks of ocean views!”
Zhongli curls his nose, mildly disgusted. “I’m no bed warmer for a catamite.”
“Eh? What in Barbatos’ name is a catamite?”
“You are familiar with the Anemo Archon, Barbatos?” Zhongli huffs.
“You know what’s a catamite?” The man rings back.
“It’s a young boy exploited and used for homosexual practices, it’s a common cultural practice within the confines of the City of Freedom’s inclusive history. A male monarch challenges the matriarchy by consummating with allies and enemies of the same sex. If the bed warmer pleases the royalty, he will become a concubine. A catamite is too young to become a proper wife so their only job is to-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah I get it.” The pretty man waves his hand dismissively, scowling with utter boredom found within the dormant colour of his expressive eyes. “Shush. I know my own city’s embarrassing history. I was just joking.”
“Your city? What’s...your name? Should I dare ask once more.” Zhongli rubs his face and starts to rise up from the bed. He realises with a lack of common sense that he, himself, too is entirely disrobed and naked. His muscles tighten in his stomach and in the virile line of his back as he sits up. He's still lean and sinewy even if it feels like it's been six thousand years since he's had a proper workout session.
He massages the back of his neck, mouth curving into another scowl. What the hell is going on? How come all he can remember is hardly….anything. What has transpired recently, what happened halfway this week. Even some of the vital details in this month at all.
Nothing comes up to resurface.
It appears to be he'll never run out of scowls in the constraints of this morning, unfortunately.
“It's a bad joke, Morax.” The man tuts, crossing his bare arms on his lanky chest and glaring his emerald gaze at the ceiling. He seems to have caught on to Zhongli's "pretend tom-ass-foolery", as he deems to judge the man's morning attitude for himself.
“Honestly work on your humour if you ever want to rescue Guizhong from Mountain Shaper's Chambers for the Criminally Insane. Stop acting like you just woke up and barely remember anything but your military tactics and position in the royal family.”
“How…specific.”
“And uncharacteristically pathetic! Yes, yes, you're the Duke of Liyue and King Osial’s trusted member of his cabinet, yada, yada. Politics is boring. Point is, you're still Guizhong’s only chance - and my worst headache, whichever comes first to you."
"What are you talking about?" Zhongli grunts. "I keep hearing this Guizhong, of all else you keep on yapping on but nothing of an ounce of who you are and what you're doing laying in my bed, naked."
"I'm Venti. I'm Barbatos! You eccentric birdbrained blockhead." Venti whines, throwing his hands up in the air in dramatic exasperation. He rises up and throws the drapes off of him.
Zhongli turns his amber eyes away, a gentleman despite Venti's frustrations.
"You can look, Prime of the Adepti. I have my trousers on." Venti rolls his eyes. "For a man who's had years of experience with people of all walks of life - you seem to be too much of a prudish virgin."
Zhongli tsks. "I'm not one to sleep with many people all at once in this lifetime."
Venti gave him a deadpanned look. "You have reminded me once again, my good friend, that you are a dense, brick-shit alpha that fate has led me to meet in this war-centric, violent era."
"Unfortunately?" Zhongli tries to finish for him blankly.
"Fortunately." Venti rolls his emerald eyes once more, shaking his head.
Zhongli feels the corners of his mouth dip upwards, trying to be quiet about the traces of a lingering smile.
He watches Venti amble his way towards his maison-centric wardrobe across halfway from the bedstead. After slamming the doors to the dresser open, he starts throwing tunics after undershirts after underwears off of his narrow shoulders, no doubt trying to steal one of Zhongli's tops for today.
"The Lady of Dust is waiting for you right now." Venti murmurs more sombrely this time. His demeanor growing sober, a bit more wary even and like an animal having snared into a small bird trap. "You know what to do, Morax."
Zhongli remains quiet.
"Don't let the King take her away from us too." Venti's voice sounds unhappy, almost suddenly a bit despondent. His whisper faded with the gales of the wind.
"...not her." Venti murmurs. "He can have anyone else - just not her."
ꕥ
Zhongli's not sure what's happening at all, if he were to be frank. At the end, he never asked Venti for any seamless input, any form of information he might carry in his sleeves. Not with what he just muttered in his bedroom.
There's no point in even asking an unfamiliar, mourning pretty boy who seems to be attached to a woman Zhongli doesn't even find the least bit familiar. He doesn't trust him enough, barely enough. Not yet.
All Zhongli's aware of right now is the blades that hung on the scabbard on his back, the armour hanging on his shoulders like a dead weight, and the duties he has to attend to as the Duke of the Harbor.
His name. His military rank. His intel on the different villages and states of King Osial's kingdom. His combat skills and the tricks he's manifested to sharpen them like stones dragging against the ends of a two-edged sword.
He remembers everything about them.
But his family, his favorite color, what day it is, if he's had sex with someone last night and if they simply slid away from the warmth of his sheets after servicing him…
Nothing close to grasping a memory of it.
The Chambers for the Criminally Insane - a mental ward for the neurotic criminals of the kingdom - is located on Mt. Hulao, just around the territory of Minlin.
It was previously monickered as the Amber Prison Mountain, a sealed cave that used to be surrounded by Amber Rock - which were traps produced by karst crawlers, ensnaring anyone who so much as plant a foot on its surface.
But its original visage and name are only remembered by the books of history now. The moment Osial came into power, Mountain Shaper carved the prison into a mental facility for Liyue's deranged criminals. Under the order of their King, the Sea God, criminals diagnosed with a neurotic disorder will be subjected to intervention by their physicians and the adepti.
Zhongli's pretty sure Mountain Shaper is pissed off beyond his comfort on a daily basis by shouldering more than half of the weight of that command. He's territorial of Mt. Hulao, doesn't allow access to just anybody and is painfully a perfectionist in his work ethic.
Zhongli bemuses the thought of that crane's emotional baggage when their walks intertwined just a moment ago. As the Duke makes his visit in the Chambers known, as part of the task he's had to cross off his list for today - Zhongli nods his head at his colleague.
"One assumes you're here once more to flirt with the Lady of Dust, to convince her to sneak into your bed?" The crane chirps sourly. "Please be mindful, Duke of Liyue. One does not want an important political figure to succumb to that woman's constricted desire to bed a royalty."
Zhongli curves his mouth into a polite, mysterious smile - his only response to Mountain Shaper's uncouth and brash opinion of Guizhong. He's not sure if the crane finds it too eccentric for Rex Lapis' demeanor - but he lets him off.
Zhongli doesn't shed too much thought of his urge on defending a woman he doesn't know a single piece of.
As the doors to the ward finally drag its hinges open, the Duke treads with a casual gait towards the room of his first responsibility for today.
To be quite frank…
Flirting with a criminal, sleeping with a criminal? What in Gods' name is going on with Zhongli's head in this goddamn life? And why in some Archon's name can't he remember most of it?
Waking up naked next to some androgynous boy. Risking breaking the nation's law by gambling sexually with a kingdom outlaw. Ahh…
Zhongli sighs. Perhaps it's a thought he'll overthink for another time.
"Cell 317, The Dead Goddess" is carved into a steel placard within the surface of the door Zhongli lingered on inside the hallway.
This…is Guizhong's prison room, perhaps? It oozes a scent of bitter salt, the perfume of a homecoming essence that seems to hail from the culture of Guyun Stone Forest-
Zhongli hears the entrance of the room behind him creak as it slides open.
"You got lost again." Comes a feminine, reticent grace of a woman's voice. "The woman you're looking for is standing merely behind you."
Zhongli blinks. Before turning around to face a platinum blonde with the human features of a young, beautiful, fearless dragon.
The flames in her green eyes were dull like dying embers, the color of her lips low in opacity as if her wings had been torn off and led her to lose a lot of blood, evident in her mouth.
Zhongli clears his throat, swallowing the dryness pressing on his esophagus.
"You're…"
"Two heads shorter than you, yes." The woman grins. "Are you looking for the Goddess catalysing black dust? Guizhong the Traitor?"
"I'm assuming you aren't her?" Zhongli raised an eyebrow, friendly with the gorgeous woman.
"I can be if you offer a thousand Mora for one night." The blonde beauty laughs, crossing her slender arms under her large, plump breasts. "You seem to search for her all…the…time, not even sparing another feral beauty like the others here a passing glance. Not even just one chance."
She uncrosses her arms and starts bouncing cutely in exasperation from where she stood. Pouting as her large breasts bounces with her - the female dragon tuts, "I'm good at playing games too, you know…"
Zhongli doesn't sputter and grow a bit red in the face this time. Merely chuckling with genuine humor at the woman's…blunt offer, respectfully speaking.
"And where could I find this Traitor, if I may ask?" Zhongli asks elegantly. "If you help me, I'll offer you a barter as a contract. You help me with my agenda, I'll steal you away for one night. If that interests you, of course."
Her green eyes lit up, definitely, completely interested. The stunning beast in human form stops bouncing and quietly points one finger towards the prison room at the end of the hallway.
Zhongli follows this line of sight and realises the cell at the end of the ward's corridor has no threshold, no door but instead has its room barricaded with bronze bars. Showcasing glimpses of the inside of the poor prisoner's room - organized with the owner's attention and care, however grotty and dirty in its state. From the unwashed sheets and grimy floor, to its grubby walls and soiled sofa cushions.
But that's not what made the hairs on Zhongli's flesh stand on end. The pitiful sight of what is a horrible bastille was the least thing that caught the stammer of his heart, the interest litting up in his amber eyes.
It was the intense, icy gaze of a young female phoenix. The Warrior God can see through her human flesh and spot the monster that she is - just as he did with the green-eyed dragon before him.
A stunning fiery promise in the walls of her blue eyes, the milky skin clothing the bloodred colors of her feathers, the broken resentment swerving in her posture ending all the compliance and conformity anyone would try to coerce her with.
A phoenix caged like a canary.
Zhongli can feel desire pooling inside his gut. Even as the phoenix at the end of the hall gazes at him with a miserable animosity, hostile - the dragon underneath his human flesh growls with satisfaction.
His inner beast urges him to come close to the stunning bird with its primal, wild instinct - his dragon pertinacious and drawn by the godly, divine vitality.
"Your beast is aroused." The blonde grumbles, addressing Zhongli's true dragon form. "I can feel my own whimpering at me with its claws because of it."
"..."
The woman was talking to a distrait man. Zhongli silently watches the phoenix with a meticulous, male interest - unmoved.
The Lady of Dust has long ash blonde hair that seems to be dyed from the pulverized stigma of a glaze lily. He spots roots of dark, auburn hair from her scalp, the auburn color of her thin, delicate eyebrows. The hue of her lips were a healthy rose pink but such a dainty mouth is similarly curved into a small sneer at him.
Zhongli can feel his dragon form howling, shaking from its constraints and kingpins inside this donned fleshy prison.
It wants out. It wants to shift and crowd the woman to hoard her along with its treasures.
Zhongli clenches his fist on the side, quietly frowning to the dragon inside him, "Behave."
He can't act like a bitch in heat in front of some god. Not while he still isn't familiar with her personality towards him. Not while he wants to keep himself on guard for what he's about to ask of her.
"You offered me a night." The lesser woman snarls. "Don't forget that, Rex Lapis."
"I never forget a contract." Zhongli finally shifts his head towards the female dragon. His mouth curving into another one of his infamous, respectful and gentle smiles. "I'll take you away tonight. As promised."
Guizhong's blue eyes were growing colder, icier as her shackles rose when Zhongli made his casual walk towards her prison cell. Zhongli wasn't familiar with his own human eyes all that well, himself.
But with the way Guizhong grows restless as his stare resolutely grows stagnant on her every feature, every taste of her visual - he caught the message of how intense he can be at the best and worst of times.
"To whom do I owe the honor, Rex Lapis?" The elegance of her sound, the grace in how she handles her tone - Zhongli finds he likes her maturity very much.
The Prime of the Adepti tilts his head down into a polite nod, addressing her presence and words as her royalty. "God of Dust, I came to see how you're doing."
"I'm thrilled with the efforts of the Duke of the Harbor to see a lowly minor god. Truly flattered, My Beloved." Guizhong almost derides through her aloof words, and leans her slender back against the head of her cobalt blue sofa. Her hands are chained together - with two cor lapis cuffs imprisoning her wrists whilst a silver chain dangles in between each. Zhongli had easily picked out the careful reverence underneath her spiteful demeanor.
He smirks.
"I'm delighted that you found me so, little dove." Zhongli flicks his wrist and a small geo block arises from dust. Guizhong's blue eyes were perceptive, clear - watching the member of the royal family agiley sat on the makeshift earthy stool, legs long and relaxed with his back straight and distingué. "But as much as I revel in your divine elegance, I'm here for an interrogation, as per routine."
Guizhong's face bears no emotive reaction. "I bear no intel of the serial defiler of the royal daughters of the monarchy nor of the captured woman you're about to wed for typical family Mora conservation."
Zhongli laughs, his laughter deep and altruistic. "I'm not here to ask trivial matters, My Goddess."
Guizhong furrows her eyebrows. Zhongli can tell this is already breaking their daily rounds of reliable routine. From what he can pull out from his blurry memories, their daily interrogations pertained to a serial rapist of Osial's two young daughters. But the details of those rendezvous, of her answers, of what she looked like while he manipulated her, of any word uttered in between those meetings at all.
Nothing. Not even a speck of it.
"Then what did you come here to pull out of my throat for?"
The Duke's smirk becomes a royal mask of nonchalance. "Who is my mother? Do I have any siblings? What's my affiliation with you? Are you my concubine, my head wife, or my personal prisoner detained by the Mountain Crane from remnants of political corruption?"
"...um." Guizhong blinks, facial features softening in confusion. "...what?"
"Are you my wife?" Zhongli asks again, no traces of humor or taking a piss at her evident in his demeanor, in his countenance. His amber eyes were fiery, intense with their nature.
"...no." Guizhong raises an eyebrow. "I'm not."
Everyone in the room feels the small quivering of the ground, of the earth below them. The God of Dust tries to find balance by pressing a fist against the sofa cushion, a confused expression lingering in the delicate features of her face.
The earth was quivering from the disappointment of an earthshaker. Zhongli's dragon grunts like an unhinged animal exhaling fire through its nostrils, heart cawing in sadness.
"You really need to rein in on your divine powers, Morax." Guizhong comments.
"Why have they imprisoned you here? Who is the adeptus in charge of your treatment?" Zhongli makes no remark towards her indifferent tone. His heart is molten with a liquid fervor - wrathful or achingly haughty, he still have yet to find the care left inside of him.
"I was diagnosed with a disorder that could hinder the Duke of Liyue Harbor's regime." Guizhong answers with a small downward quirk of her lips. "And so His Sovereign, Osial, imprisoned me here. Cloud Retainer is the adeptus in charge of my intervention."
"Do you know my mother?" Zhongli's words were unmoving.
"No."
"Do I have siblings within the royal family? Outside of it?"
"Not that I know of."
"What's my favorite food? My favorite wine to drink?"
"....you can ask the God of Freedom, Barbatos. He's an ally to the Lord of Rock." Guizhong's breaths were long and sensitive. As if she's exhausted from this conversation already.
"Why were you considered a threat to my regime? Have you tried to start an uprising against me?"
Guizhong scoffs, laughing a short breath in ludicrousness. "How fucking rich" were the message that seem to dance in her ocean blue eyes.
"You? You think you are worth a state uprising? A defiance from the mortals of our Liyue?"
"Then why is a stunning and intelligent God like you forced to succumb to a grimey prison cell from an adeptus' mental facility? You have insurmountable grit but you don't have insurmountable psychosis."
Guizhong allows a disdainful smile to flit through her lips. "Because I have left a bad taste in the Duke of the Harbor's mouth."
"You pissed off the highest chief in command of Liyue's army?" Zhongli smiles, amused. "My Lady, you truly are a force to be reckoned with."
"...why are you asking me this?" Guizhong starts crossing one leg over the other, her hands intertwining on her uplifted knee. It almost appears as if this goddess isn't facing one of the most powerful Gods to ever exist in the eras of Teyvat but instead is having a business proposal with him. "Don't tell me the Duke I pissed off three years ago has selective amnesia?"
Zhongli's smile goes sour, almost unhinged in the expression of his handsome face. "I believe nobody will believe a mental patient if she does utter so."
"My God, Rex Lapis," Guizhong mocks with a dangerously treacherous smirk, pompous with her "worship". The dark circles underneath her doe eyes, the slight listlessness squirming in her irises - she fights her exhaustion very well. "Until you overpower Osial - you will never be taken religiously by our city. You may have built this civilization from scratch but you remain to be merely nothing but as you are; not a King."
"And I suppose you plan to be Queen?" Zhongli raises an eyebrow.
"I plan to live." In her gracile, coy look - the Lady of Dust still remains so goddamn alluring. Even in the midst of a bitter, derisive casualty. In Zhongli's narrative, a Goddess like this - despite her stubborn moods, will always come out pretty and treacherously magnetic. "Long enough to watch the kingdom flourish and survive, long enough for Liyue to rise back from the watery grave of your King's dictatorship. You are a God of your people? You can't even come out on top from a tussle with Osial."
Zhongli lets out a sinister chuckle, nerves tingling with excitement from what this woman has just challenged him. "You challenge the strongest Warrior God in the chronicles of Liyue to fight the current Lord?"
Guizhong remained cold, reserved.
"I can have you strung up for blasphemy and treason against the royal family for daring to open your mouth at me like that." Zhongli says, letting the inklings of humour and stubborn sarcasm drift from his expression. Instead comes replacing the typical stubbornness from a stone-hearted god.
"Know your place, lowly god."
"Will the Duke punish me?" Guizhong lilts, almost crooning in a melodious, unhinged contempt and ridicule. "You have me excited as much as your drooling beast."
Zhongli blinks, before frowning. "Behave."
Both Guizhong and Zhongli's dragon rears back - the goddess put to place with constrained dissatisfaction and clamour whilst the beast is growling through the direct imposition from its human alter ego. The dragon sighs inside of Zhongli, resisting its wagging tail this time.
"This interrogation has been adjourned." Zhongli makes a stand, dusting the specks of her divine forte off of him. "I'll see you tomorrow, my lady."
Zhongli can feel Guizhong's eyes on his back as the God of Contracts walk away. Her gaze sombre on emotion, perceptive on judgment.
He knows he's finally caught her interest.
ꕥ
This is an age of gods and monsters. Among everybody who has ever lived in this historical era will make out all the deities and immortals that fought by Morax's side of the army - as serial killers in their own gruesome, sinful wake.
Azhdaha commented on Zhongli's persistent grit on their homicidal tasks as generals of the militia today. It's one thing Zhongli hasn't forgotten as with most of his duties and professional agendas, thankfully. "Perhaps an old friend has crossed you this morning. You...seem to be wrathful on such an eclipse, Morax."
Zhongli chuckles, his baritone voice putatively throbbing along the depths of the grass as the blood spilled on his face dries and smells like foul lifelessness, like death tolls. His weapons were his claws, his armour his scales, his shield were his bladeproof flesh. Yet his mouth speaks Liyuean tongue. "I hope I didn't terrify you."
Azhdaha tuts. "When you're out on the battlefield, in the middle of the annihilation of gods and vermin - you always do."
Zhongli grunts out another chuckle. An imperceptible, guiltless expression dances on the traces of his mien.
A Duke of the Harbor is supposed to be violent, bloodthirsty - when push comes to shove. His temperament merciless, ruthless as he's the entity in charge of the wipe out and death count of the highest and lowest of Liyue's traitors, the kingdom’s antagonists. The Duke has likewise been tasked to valiantly spearhead the current Lord King's legionnaire - become the chief general of his military raids and defence. The head alpha ranked under the Alpha King. Accompanying such a high ranking god should come a wolfish pack of the strongest, powerful subordinates of Liyue’s armed forces.
Everybody knows this. Zhongli thinks it's a spike to everyone's ego but his.
"Don't forget you have a banquet to attend to as Osial and Beisht's main contender tonight. You're supposed to be the center of the party." Azhdaha smiles quietly, exhaling in exhaustion.
"I'll go incognito." Was all that Zhongli mutters in reply as they continue their tread home.
He, in fact, did not go into Rex Incognito.
Well, he did. But in his usual bloody, grotty human form that seems to be Guizhong's favorite form to sneer and jeer at.
Human face spattered and reeking of beastly blood and godly ichor. Torso sore and tense with the remnants of the bits of flesh and fluid stains from his enemies. His armour heavy with mortalities and mortal sins.
Overall, Zhongli looks horrifying and stinks.
And so thus when the doors to the banquet hall slid open, with the scent of perfume, cologne, and the rest of the noble bloods’ expensive faux cosmetics swifting through his nostrils - the Millelith Brigade stationed at the threshold gave the Duke a disgusted, terrified look.
And apparently, so did the rest of the aristocracy celebrating Zhongli’s service that night.
One glass of champagne drops to the ground from the hand of a well dressed man, glass pieces scattered along with his spilled wine on the carpet floor.
More than fifteen glossed mouths were gaping, lips forming a small, speechless “o”.
Silence enveloped the room after the violins screeched three wrong notes, the classical music halting from its musical rhythm.
Two children started crying.
Zhongli clears his throat, wiping his grimy face with his hand before taking off the first layer of his blood-ridden armour and giving it to some Millileth guard in charge at the side. He makes his late grand entrance to his own celebratory event.
King Osial hid a pompous, amused grin behind his fist, pretending to cough his throat out whilst the Queen beside him seemed to have a nervous tick in her left eye, all shades of colours oozing from her pale, pulchritudinous face. The monarchy never looked as achingly blown off their feet as they appear to now.
Zhongli ambled his path towards the center room, making sure to regard the two Lords as he eventually went down on one knee and bowed his head. He addresses His Sovereign, Lord Osial and his beautifully decisive wife, Beisht. “Your Majesty, this Duke asks for your esteemed forgiveness for my unpunctual tardiness of this eclipse's celebration. I offer no excuse. You may makedo with my punishment as you deem fit.”
Some sick man chokes three lungful coughs when all that answered Zhongli was - unsurprisingly by now, to be honest - once again, silence.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Osial eventually clears his throat a second time when it seems as if Zhongli won't lift a finger and actually move from his station if none of the sovereignty addresses him.
"Morax, you definitely seem to - dress well - for your congratulatory party tonight." Osial can feel his Queen elbow him on the side roughly, to which he ignored like a skillful, incorrigible god of authority. Osial coughs out another pompous laugh at the expense of an unknowing Duke of the Harbor. "However, there's no need for such measly countermeasures. It's your party, try to have fun God of Contracts."
"Lord Osial, show Morax the main event for his own commemorative party!" One minor god calls out from the crowd.
"Yes!"
"Yes, my Lord! Show the Warrior God what you've gifted him for all he has done for our kingdom!"
A small, jackass smirk creeps through the King's mouth from his guests' high-handed, presumptuous toned requests. The handsome, human mien he's clothed himself tonight goes a bit wrinkly from dressing his little rascally look. His expression makes him appear like a Sea Devil taking on the flesh of a weak, land mortal and glorifying the humans' feeble and pathetic, passing festivities.
Zhongli stands up from where he's fastened, stripped of any sort of expression from his bloodstained face. He feels neither excitement nor apprehension from such an offer from the Sea God, their King.
"You have performed well, haven't you, Duke of the Harbor?" Osial twirls a finger on the rim of his goblet, leaning back at the hydro-emblemed spindle of his throne, his mouth curling like a Cheshire Cat's haughty grin. He was always none too virtuous or saintly with his little play of performance in front of the dignified Rex Lapis. The King is a suspicious, skeptical man when it comes to benevolence being ingrained in his decisions, his temperament - Zhongli's already aware of this.
It pisses him off on most occasions, but on happenings like this - there's not much to really raise his shackles for. Not when all this kingly autocrat has done is smirk through his presentation of his grand, quality gift for Zhongli.
"I hold no debts for my service towards Liyue." Zhongli addresses the King formally, tipping his chin down into a small nod.
"Ah and in return, so do our people expect nothing less from you." Osial tips his chin towards the rear direction behind Zhongli, watching with his amused eyes the Warrior God's reaction. Zhongli turns around to finally come into paths with this so-called main event for his celebratory party tonight.
The guests roared into condescending laughter. Men and women of different origins drunk on their arrogance and vanity.
Their laughter seemed to grow blurry immediately, however, fading into the background like shadows under the brilliant sun as intense amber eyes came into happenstance with the woman who had him caged like a beastly canary the moment his heart started beating after her.
She was beautiful, both the first time he's seen her and the second time tonight.
Guizhong's fiery phoenix eyes were now heightened at its maximum, the two cor lapis cuffs chaining her slender wrists jingle from their chain as the God of Dust was shoved on her knees, a fleshy, joint-crack sound floods the banquet hall as she fell to the carpet floor. No doubt her bones were weary, her skin bruised from exhaustion.
Yet her eyes remain fierce and strong.
"I offer you the most intelligent adeptus to ever graze the hallmarks of Liyue, God of Contracts." Osial powers out with a malevolent tone, his fingers gripping the stem of his goblet cup loosely. "Guizhong of Dihua Marsh, ever beautiful and ever slender. A gorgeous wife for your striking achievements."
There was nothing to grapple with or gather from Zhongli's expression. It seems like his amber eyes were stationary, neither angry nor pleased.
His gaze, however, was also resolute. He watches every foot kicking the back of his new "wife", every spit spat at her hair, her clothes. Zhongli watches with a blank heart the way they treat her like rotting meat and broken bones.
"Case File: The Alpha." Zhongli reads her pale mouth, stripped from her elegant voice, however still moving.
Guizhong's gaze was glaring at the floor, yet Zhongli can still read for the second time, without any sense of difficulty, the words she's mouthing to herself.
"The Case File: The Alpha has already commenced."
Case file, some alpha? How…eccentric. An odd, random message to flit through the goddess' mouth all of a sudden. Does…
Does it have any relevance with what had happened to Zhongli? When he woke up without a fucking clue to who in some Archon's name he's supposed to be other than some chief general of a dictator's kingdom?
Zhongli frowns. The people around him chortled and kept their taunting at Guizhong with smug disgust.
"They don't know…" Guizhong mouths with a scowl.
"None of them know..."