Stricken By A Grief So Profound That He Cannot Fathom Processing It, He Lays At Night With The Exuvia,

stricken by a grief so profound that he cannot fathom processing it, he lays at night with the exuvia, hoping to devour this dream's lie and wake to a better tomorrow

ah just kill me, i love them so much lmao,,, my brain is still there in liyue that day

like you guys understand, right? xiao is the sesame oil, xiao is the kite, zhongli goes around pointing at things and sighing because everything reminds him of his special guy

at the end of the day, no amount of master/servant, father/son interpretation of zhongxiao will ever come close to understand their relationship. lot of people criticize zhongli for "forcing" or even "manipulating" xiao out of his comfort zone¹, and i've always found it so peculiar that with this sentiment comes a certain degree of babying xiao—as if his story isn't about freedom, isn't about change. as if freedom could be attained without radical change.

as if the message isn't that, yes, change is disorienting and often feels like you're losing something (control, people, yourself) but you won't have to face it alone. even if the whole order of the world crumbles. even if those who you once knew change with the world, you can adjust, you can start anew. you will change, too.

in the age of gods and monsters, morax couldn't truly free xiao. as long as there were wars raging across the land, as long as xiao knew that he was needed, he was important, useful, he would never part, never rest.

maybe zhongli understood at some point that as long as morax exists, xiao will feel bounden, even if no debt can be so great that it cannot be paid off in a thousand years.²

and maybe that's why, in the age of humanity, zhongli's so persistent. he wants nothing more than to have xiao as his friend, his equal, but for that to happen without making the same mistakes from the past, xiao needs to come around on his own accord.³

i've seen people mention venti's line to dvalin about what does freedom mean when it is granted to you by a god, and i genuinely think that zhongxiao are the perfect example of this. and that they both suffer because of it.

¹ it's only comforting because it's what he knows. just because something is familiar, doesn't mean that it's good

² pulling this from xiao's 4th character story

³ so far, zhongli has proven to be too impatient. and to truly put my zhongxiao conspiracy hat on, he might be just a little nervous that xiao won't want the same things, won't see things the same way...

these two laufey songs remind me of zhongxiao so much!!!!

Abandoned Chinese Fishing Village Being Swallowed By Nature

Castles - art by Alan Lee (1984)