Among Three Travelers 2

Chapter 2

“Lovely.” I picked up the small bouquet. “Freshly cut?”

“O-oh!” The stall keeper jolted. “Lady Bonanus! A-and Lord Alatus! It’s an honor.”

I smiled. “Please, do not trouble yourself on our account.” As much as I grumbled about not being a people person, I’d been in this world for thousands of years now. If I didn’t know how to calm the mortals of Liyue Harbor, I’d never get anything done. “The flowers?”

“Yes! My son goes out and collects them every day.” She bowed, smiling. I lowered my horned head just enough to convey my respect, anymore and she might prostrate herself. Even still, she blushed before continuing. “These were gathered from the hills to the north. A thousand blessings, for keeping them safe for my boy.”

“It is naught but our duty.” The area around Liyue Harbor, I mostly left to Xiao. There are less demons, and even though Xiao is more skilled than I, Zhongli had long impressed upon me that Xiao would never shirk a duty, even if it killed him. As someone who died twice because of my duty, once in body and once in spirit, I tried to keep his workload manageable.

I elbowed Xiao, too fast for mortal eyes to follow.

Xiaoi bowed “It is good your son returns safe.”

“O-oh!” The woman placed a hand on her cheek. Her skin had just started  to wrinkle. It made her smile stretch wide across her face. “No it is my honor, please! The flowers are yours, Lady Bonanus.”

I held back a sigh. “I could never.” Reaching into my money pouch, I placed a small stack of Mora on the smooth wood of the stall, gold coins glimmering in the evening light. I made sure to overpay slightly as well.

“Lady Yashka, that is too much.” The woman shook her head. “For the service you do for Liyue, I could never…”

“Do not look so lightly upon your own service,” I said. “I or any may pick up a blade in times of need. But it is your son, who gathers beautiful flowers, it is you who arranges them so pleasingly, and it your neighbors who sweep the streets and hang the lanterns, that create a city worth defending.”

“That…”

“If you would honor what I do for Liyue Harbor,” I pushed the money forward. “Please, honor this as well. For all the gold in the world is worth less than the happiness of our people.”

She swallowed, bowing again. “Please, then, Lady Bonanus, take these as well.” She pressed another bouquet into my arms. What could I do but accept.

As we started back down the street, Xiao whispered, “Perhaps Lord Morax is correct…”

“He prefers Zhongli.”

“Ah.” Xiao shifted. “I’m…working on it.”

I sucked in a deep breath, before blowing it out. “Me too.” Then. “Do you think he’ll fake his own death again, and pick a new name? Can you imagine having to call him something different every hundred years? Less, even.”

Xiao said nothing.

I stopped, turning towards him. “You cannot agree with this plan.”

“E-eh!” Xiao jolted, amber eyes blinking rapidly. “That’s—”

 I waited for a moment, but Xiao didn’t even meet my gaze. “Are you alright?”

“Of course I am.”

I frowned, before sighing. “Come, let’s keep walking. It wouldn’t due to make a scene.”

“Like ordering me a coffin…” Xiao muttered.

I look over my shoulder. “Hmmm?”

“Nothing!”

Still, I felt a bit bad. I just wanted to punish Xiao for showing up late, but that Hu Tao seemed quite difficult to handle. I let the silence linger for a bit. We passed more stalls, and I paused at the sight of a familiar title, The Legend of Sword, done in an elegant filigree hand. “This novel,” I asked the shopkeep. “Has the next one been released?”

“Ah, a discerning eye, my lady!” The bookkeeper bowed twice. “Alas, Mr. Zhenyu hasn’t finished the next manuscript, but this collectors’ edition contains a new forward by the author.”

“Hmm. Have it sent to Wangshen inn.” I paid before returning to Xiao. A young man, from one of the trade houses by the look of his clothes, looked at the two of us in shock. I smiled at him. “Even Yaksha read books.”

“Come, we can discuss it over some food.” I told Xiao. “I know you haven’t eaten today.”

Xiao said nothing most conspicuously.

I sighed again. “You really need to take better care of yourself, Xiao.”

“You as well,” he replied. I placed a hand against my brow.

It took another drawn out conversation, complete with many bows, before Xiao and I were seated at a small noodle house overlooking the harbor. It was a hole in the wall place, but both of us preferred simpler things. They even had a small private room with a window overlooking the harbor.

The sun sent dancing arcs of gold across ever more distant waves. Here, above the harbor, I could see the last rays of evening paint the stone forest islands, even as night stole across the mouth of the bay. In the streets, shopkeeps began lighting paper lanterns, enticing late night walkers to step into warm and inviting interiors.

Oh, but it looked nothing like the city where I’d been born.

“Do you really think we should go through with this plan?” I asked Xiao.

He looked down, eyes tracing the unvarnished grain of the table in meditative arcs. “If it is what he wishes, I will obey.”

I fell forward. My horns hit the table with an audible thunk.

“Bo—!”

I raised my head, half glaring at Xiao. He pulled back his hand. With a sigh, I leaned over the veranda, tracing my eyes over the lights and shadows. “Maybe he had a point; he talked a lot about duty.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Xiao replied.

“Hmmm.” I tilted my eyes towards him. “Perhaps if you’d spent less time polishing your prayer beads, you would have been on time.”

Xiao stiffened slightly. “At least I’m not going against our lord.”

I laughed lightly. “He asked for a favor. There’s little I wouldn’t do for him.” Zhongli, the first authority figure who managed to earn and keep my respect. “But taking his job?”

Xiao turned his gaze back to the table. We said nothing as a young man came out with our food: a simple bowl of noodles for me, and a rich almost broth with tofu for Xiao.

“Most uh…esteemed guests,” the server said, “Just shout if if you need anything, yeah? Ah, uh, I mean, please just call for, uh–.”

“Many thanks.” Xiao nodded his head.

The server placed our food on the table and bowed out with unseemly haste. Once the door closed I heard him mutter. “Aahh, why did they show up when I’m on shift? They’re gonna kill me…”

I covered a giggle with one hand. “We should try not to burden them too much,” I said. Xiao nodded again, before turning to his meal.

I leaned over my bowl as well, taking in a deep breath of the rich scent. Normally, I made my own food. While I’d grown rather good at it, hunting demons on the frontier didn’t allow for such lovely flavors. Xiao took his chopsticks, blowing gently on a small square of tofu before eating it almost daintily. He hummed happily, and went back for another bite. That was the highest praise I’d managed to get from him in regards to food.

I let my attention wander my food and the city beyond the window. A passenger vessel came into the harbor, a wrought iron lantern on its prow. I watched fishing vessels skip nimbly away, allowing the larger ship to dock and its passengers to disembark. Surprisingly pale skin, bright hair colors, including vibrant oranges you would never see in Liyue.

“Mondstat?” I wondered aloud. “Or perhaps distant Fontaine? I’ve heard that more vessels from the west are braving the straits.” Xiao looked up. I watched him watch me from the corner of my eye.

“Why are you averse to…taking over the administration of Liyue?” His voice came soft under the eaves.

I drummed my fingers against the window frame. “I’m not a person who should be put in charge.”

“I…don’t agree with that,” Xiao replied.

“You’re too nice, Xiao.” I shrugged. “I’m controlling, demanding, I care little for the opinions of my allies, and less for the opinions of those I disagree with.” Some of these things changed, some grew more solid with the turning of years. Mostly, what changed was my understanding of my deepest self. “Without our lord, I imagine I would become a heavenly tyrant, and then you’d have to kill me.”

“You—You would never go that far, Bo.” Xiao shook his head. “I wouldn’t let you, nor would the others.”

“Maybe so.” I sighed. “But I’m happier like this. I’m not terrible at administration, but I’m a poor replacement for the god of contracts. Let me kill demons, let the mortals see to their own affairs, and if he thinks they would be so much better off less his guiding hand, he has many ways to test that without our involvement.”

Xiao shook his head. “If he simply vanished, we would be asked.”

I sighed again, deeper. “And if we refused to answer, it would be like we were abandoning them.” 

“So?” He tilted his head. 

I took another slurp of my noodles. “You still haven’t said what you wanted.” I pointed my chopsticks at him, and Xiao pulled a face. “Just that you’d comply, like you always do. You won’t be able to follow orders if you’re in charge, Xiao. You’ll be the one giving everyone else orders.”

“Ah.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I would follow your lead.”

“And you don’t think I’d become a tyrant.” I shook my head. “I don’t want more authority. Neither do you.”

“Someone must lead,” Xiao said. “He believes…that it is time for mortals to begin taking up that mantle. He believes that it is best for us to lead the way.”

I worried my lip. “I thought you’d be on my side, silly of me.”

Xiao shrugged again.

“We fought so hard for peace, Xiao,” I said. “And now we have it. He wants to throw it away. Squander it on me.”

“I will be there as well,” Xiao said. 

“Perhaps this generation is ready, but mortals are fickle. I would know.” I waved a hand. “I remember thousands of years of humans seeing to their own affairs, if you count history lessons. Most of the time we messed it up, and the only people who did worse were the ones who thought there was someone like him overseeing everything.”

“You know,” Xiao continued. “He has also been fighting for longer than either of us. Is it so strange to imagine, that he would also…want to rest?”

I finished my noodles, setting the bowl down on the table. “I hate when you make sense.” 

He ducked his head. “Sorry.”

“In younger days, we used to go around in circles.”

The corner of his cheek twitched. “You always told me to stop apologizing.”

“And you could never see me as Bonanus.” I smiled back. “Thank you for trying, though.”

“You are my sister.” Xiao met my gaze, amber glimmering softly. “Only we remain.”

“All one and a half of us.” I reached out, knocking on the door “Hey!”

I heard the sound of footsteps as our server all but sprinted back to the room.

“This broth is delicious.” I said. “Would it be possible to place another order of your restaurant’s specialty to take with me?”

“Ah…this one will ask, Lady Bonanus.”

“Please do.”

Xiao tilted his head at me as the server hurried away. “Is this that…takeout you mentioned?” 

“It’s rude to buy a present for only one of my students,” I said.

Again, the faintest hint of a smile brushed across Xiao’s face. “You say you’re a bad leader and a worse teacher, but those two turned out just fine.” 

“No thanks to me.” People in this world were just made from sterner stuff than the Chicago Wards team, otherwise I might have killed them by accident. “Those girls are just too hard headed.” 

Xiao looked away to hide his widening smile.

“Spit it out.”

“I…have nothing to add.” Xiao leaned back, hands raised. I sighed. For one of the two people in the nation who could take me in a fight, Xiao was really too timid sometimes.

Soon after, the server came back with another serving of noodles, this time in a simple wooden bowl. Liyue had magic and martial arts, but they hadn’t yet discovered disposable plastic. “My thanks.” Once again, I paid. Xiao usually didn’t bring much money with him. “Shall I return the bowl?”

“Ah, no need, Lady Yaksha.” The server bowed. “Wanmin Restaurant is most pleased to have your here.” I could practically hear the unstated ‘but please don’t come back I’ll have a heart attack’ in the man’s voice. Perhaps it was time to leave.

There was another somewhat long conversation as Xiao and I navigated a few pleasantries to convey that we were pleased with the meal and also please stop bowing neither of us enjoyed it. Soon enough, we were on the street outside, empty except for a few late-night shoppers.

I took the bowl of steaming noodles in both hands. “Wouldn’t do to spill,” I murmured. My hairpiece flashed, and with a flex of my fingers, I pulled the heat out of the contents fast enough to flash freeze it without compromising the taste. 

At my side, Xiao shivered once. “I still don’t understand how you reverse that.”

I smiled. “Elemental Cryo is more than just cold,” I said. “But cold in the material world, is nothing more than the absence of motion. Mastering Cryo is more akin to…mastering thermodynamics.” 

“Mm.” Xiao nodded. He still didn’t get it.

I wove a simple bag from frozen moisture, setting my second gift within. The flowers I cradled in the crook of my elbow. “I was really counting on you to help convince him,” I told Xiao.

Xiao shifted his weight. “He doesn’t change his mind very easily.”

I grumbled. “I’ve known him almost as long as you have.”

“Good luck,” Xiao said.

“It seems fortune will be my only ally.” I laughed lightly. “Go well…brother.”

With a flex of his legs, Xiao leapt into the evening sky, moving so quick he seemed to vanish between steps.

I took a more sedate route. That’s not to say I stayed on the streets; I’d had more than enough socialization for one night. Instead, I took to the rooftops, flitting slowly across the painted shingles, where Xiao had cleared half the city on his first leap. The lanterns painted the eaves in a golden light, and Liyue Harbor sprawled out beneath me like the imperial city of China once might have, a world and a lifetime away.

Despite the late hour, many scholars of the civil service still remained hard at work within their complex of red painted buildings. Oil lamps kept the space brightly lit, and of course, the office I was looking for was no exception.

 I dropped down to the cobbled walkway silently before slipping past the paper door. At the table, one of my students blazed through forms in a whirlwind of paper, signing and stamping reports quicker than any mortal could manage. I allowed myself a small smile at the sight. More than just speed, Ganyu understood how the harbor worked, what its people required. Even she’d be much better at running things than I would be.

 I blinked at the thought, eyes narrowing.

 After a few minutes, Ganyu paused to stretch, letting her long blue hair slip over the back of her chair. Her deep black horns, a mirror of mine, glinted in the lamplight as she raised her hands over her head, blue and white sleeves shifting to reveal thin arms that belied an archer’s strength. The draw of her bow could snap the bones of an untrained man.

 I stepped forward, my free hand snaking out to brush the base of her horn. “I knew I’d find you here.”

“Ah!” She was controlled enough not to jump, but I knew from the flickering of her eyes that I’d managed to surprise her. It grew harder every year. “Auntie Bo.” Her hands came down to her head. “Please don’t touch my horns…”

 “Sorry, sorry.” I pulled my hand back, sheepish. “I just, still remember how much you used to enjoy it.”

“Hmph.” She looked away, folding her hands in front of her. “Still…”

“Yes, I’ll do better.” I shifted, holding out the two bouquets. “I brought you something, but you can also consider it an apology?”

“Ah…” Her pale blue eyes tracked to the bright yellow bulbs in the center of the arrangement. “Sweet flowers, from the northern hills?”  Her nose twitched. “Freshly picked as well. Ahh…” She pressed a hand to her cheek. “I shouldn’t.”

“You’ve been at your desk all day, haven’t you?” Really, why were all of my friends troublesome people who couldn’t feed themselves?

 “It’s been that long? I thought I just took a break a few–” Ganyu stopped when her stomach growled loudly. She pressed both hands against her abdomen, cheeks flushing the lightest red.

 “It’s important to take care of your condition,” I reminded her. “Or did Lady Cloud Retainer not impress upon you—”

 She reached out for the bouquet. I decided not to chide her anymore. As much as I struggled to remember, Ganyu was a grown woman in her own right. If she needed a little help sometimes, well, didn’t we all?

 She held the flowers close to her face, breathing deeply. “Ah, what a sweet scent. And the bright color, so soothing.” She opened her mouth and bit the heads off of two sweet blossoms, stem and all. “Mmmm.”

 “Say, Ganyu…” I set the other bouquet on her desk, taking care not to mess up her careful stakes of paper. “What would you say about…running Liyue?”

“Mmm?” She tilted her head, still chewing.

The door slid open. “Lady Ganyu, here are the forms you req—”

The young woman took one look at the two of us over her towering stack of papers. Ganyu, with a half-eaten bouquet in her hand, and Lady Bonanus with an ice bag slung over my shoulder like a courier.

Ganyu swallowed audibly.

“I can, uh, come back later?” The clerk tried.