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There are things that Morax loves and hates about Barbatos in equal measure: his impulsiveness, his persistence bordering on stubbornness, his dedication to righteousness over duty, even when the entire world stands in the way. He has watched time and time again as Barbatos flung himself into the midst of a fight that never concerned him to begin with, because he is not the kind of man who could stand at the sidelines when he knows which side to fight for.
But this time—this time is different, because Celestia is not so much one side in a street fight as an omnipresent and omnipotent superpower, and Morax had never once believed that Barbatos would have the guts to go toe to toe with Celestia’s authority, not when he knows full well what they have given him, and what they are willing to take away.
Morax has always known that he could not save Barbatos from himself; that there is a thin boundary between honor and self-destruction, and Barbatos dances upon it like an expert. But that thought does not console him as he files into the crowd of hooded immortals, milling wordlessly into a chamber designated for one thing and one thing only: judgment. The occasions upon which Celestia gathers its subjects are few and far between, and often shrouded in secrecy. Yet among the audience at this evening’s ceremony, no doubt lay in any mind the purpose of such a display.
They bring him out in shackles of pure light. Barbatos still looks every bit the carefree soul, twin braids swinging as he strolls nonchalantly towards the raised dais with a light spring to his step, despite the hefty chains weighing him down. He is forced to his knees atop the smooth stone platform, and Morax sees his eyes scan the crowd until they make contact with his own.
The chorus begins.
The god of freedom has crossed a line. Today we punish him for his insolence.
Even in the face of absolute retribution, the Anemo Archon still projects an air of flippance, of a casual and almost careless disobedience. He looks up into the beam glaring down onto him, into what must be light so scorching it could blind, and nods with a dry smirk, as if to say, bring it on. As if to challenge the wrath of the heavens itself to beat back his optimism.
Morax bites back a smile of his own. He has always admired that about him.
Bells ring. A haunting solo rises above the rest of the chorus: The wind god will pay the price of his disobedience with his freedom. Before the eyes of the assembly, we shall remove his wings. Permanently.
Hours, days, even weeks later, Morax will still think that the worst moment of the night, the moment that will continue to taunt him in his nightmares for years to come, is the instant he could see the realization sweep a sudden eclipse across Barbatos’ face, the realization of truly what was about to be done to him. In that instant, his expression contorts from his own brand of cocky confidence to pure shock and then utter, abject horror, within the span of seconds, as if some universal force had reached in between his ribcage and begun wringing the life out of him, and all Morax will remember is the way he stood, rooted to the floor, as panic descends upon his heart.
“Hang on, what?” Barbatos begins to say, voice pitching high and urgent. “Wait a minute, I thought—No, no no no, no, wait,” he protests, blinking rapidly, as if it’s a trick, as if someone might pop out before him and announce that it was all part of some sick and twisted joke. But all he is met with is another toll of the holy bells, and above him, flame-like radiance coalesces into what might be called a blade, sharp and roiling with light.
“No!” The hall erupts with the echoing clatter of chains as the Anemo god strains against them. Even at this distance, the fear in his eyes is unmistakable, as is the undercurrent of terror in his voice. “No, please, anything but that, anything but that—Please—you can beat me, god, kill me, I don’t care—You can take anything else—I’ll do anything else—anything else! Please!”
Morax has never in his entire life seen Barbatos beg. Barbatos had a certain pride about him, always, even in situations so dire that Morax always said that pride would kill him someday. But he is begging, now, choked sobs cracking through his voice like magma bubbling up through the earth. Morax watches, petrified in shock, as a pair of winged soldiers, eyes shrouded in radiant light and movements as mechanized as clockwork, grip the god’s shoulders to hold him in place as the flaming blade descends, slowly and tauntingly, as if it too had the desire to prolong this torture as long as physically possible, to taste every second of his agony.
There is whispering among the crowd. Most would have certainly assumed that the ceremony would involve some form of corporal punishment, but this is new and unexpected. Injury is one thing, but this is a permanent alteration of the self, and it is far more than an insult.
There is genius to this cruelty, Morax realizes. It is senseless but it is calculated, just as every part and pawn of Celestia’s divine plan is, because there is nothing in the realm of possibility that they could do to the god of wind and freedom that is worse than this: violently ripping from him what makes him who he is, the symbol of everything he has fought for, struggled for, shed his blood for—everything he loves. It is corporal punishment, but Morax is smart enough to know that the wounds they intend to impart are far from skin-deep, and he knows Barbatos is smart enough to realize it too: that this is a show of force more than anything else, a warning that even the things they may believe they are intrinsically made of can be snatched away by the will of the heavens.
That they are not owners of their own fate.
He doesn’t notice when his feet start moving, almost without his control. His mind and heart are full with the sound of Barbatos’ strained pleas, like if he stays in place he’s going to shatter in the vibrations of desperate cries fallen on deaf ears.
As he starts pushing through the row of people in front of him, someone grabs his wrist harshly. “What are you doing?” He looks up to meet the eyes of the Pyro Archon, blazing with something yet unfamiliar to him. “Morax, stop,” he demands. “You’re not going to be able to prevent this.”
Morax glares at him, gritting his teeth because he thinks his heart might leap out of his throat if he doesn’t. “Let go of me,” he says, low and bordering on threatening.
The other man is shorter than him, but stockier. He moves to stand in front of him, silhouetted in the cold light radiating above the hall, illuminating the bronze insignia glinting on his armor. “I know it’s hard, I know, but you have to listen to reason.”
Morax lunges, attempting to shove past him, but the other man bodily blocks him and catches his upper arm in a vice-like grip. “What are you going to do if you get up there?” he yells. “What do you think you can do to stop them? You’re just going to get on their bad side. And when you do, don’t you think it’s going to be you next? You up on that stage, in those chains?”
The worst part is, Morax knows he’s right. He knows the most he can do is little more than a dent in Celestia’s holy armor, that even if he shakes the entire earth it still won’t reach the heavens. But he can’t just stand here and watch, stand here and do nothing. Even if he makes it up there only to be struck down like a bothersome fly at the hands of an exterminator, he needs to at least try, he needs to at least fight for this, because the thought of Barbatos up on that platform, facing the worst possible fate alone, with the eyes of a thousand uncaring souls staring up at him—the thought twists in his gut like the serrated edges of a dagger. If he’s going to be next, then at least he might go down struggling, next to the one person he knows would have been willing to do the same for him.
“Do I look like I care? Let go of me.”
“No! We’re not letting you do this to yourself.”
“Do you fucking hear them?” Morax snaps back, nearly bellowing at this point, but it feels like he has to shout to overpower the buzzing noise rising in his ears, threatening to overtake him. “They’re going to cut off his wings, and you want me to just fucking sit here and watch—”
“It’s not going to make a difference!” Morax wonders if it’s tears he sees glistening in the other Archon’s eyes, but that can’t be right. “I know you know that. Please. This is hard enough. I can’t let another one of my friends get hurt.”
“He’s right,” comes another, gentler voice from his left, but it does nothing to settle the pyre now crackling in his chest. “We know you care about him; we care about him too! But just be rational for a second—”
“Fuck that,” Morax yells abruptly, fists clenched, and his friends look back at him with faces full of what might be pity. “Hold him down,” someone else says, and there’s a flurry of movement behind him as shadows enter his peripheral vision. Someone grabs his other arm, and he is pulled back as another hand grips his shoulders.
“No!” Morax roars, thrashing. “Get off me! I need to stop them! I have to—”
There is light, and the entire platform roils up in a white and blinding flame.
A scream rips through the sky, piercing the hollow stillness of the crowd, slicing through the thin veil of silence as easily as if it were skin, flesh, bone, taut with an agony so harsh there is almost no sound. Morax watches, and he doesn’t hear the sob that tears from his own chest so much as he feels it, as though his entire body fights to stay together, stay coherent as wildfire erupts in his veins.
All at once, there is sound. Bells signal the end of the assembly, and the crowd dissipates, murmuring thoughtlessly; he pushes through them, fighting as though swimming upstream. The rest of the Seven follow him, though cautiously and at a distance.
Barbatos is on the platform, now freed from his shackles, slumped over the marble dais, tremors rocking his body like the quakes that once rippled through the earth, shaking it to its core. The stone is stained with blood, sticky under his feet as Morax steps up towards the limp body, like if he can reach for him now, cradle him in his arms, wipe away the tears already staining glistening lines on his cheeks, then maybe he can change something, anything.
“Barbatos,” he says. “Venti,” he tries, too, like calling the elemental’s real name will mean anything here, here on the polished stone flooded with cold light, here where the eyes of Celestia still blink at them from high above, a constant reminder that there is no solace, even now.
Venti is barely conscious, but he looks up at him with half-lidded eyes as blood spills over Morax’s hands. “If you’re here to say told you so—”
“No,” Morax says. He kneels beside him, fighting the overwhelming pressure of tears welling up behind his eyes. “No, of course not.” He had never once imagined that this would be Celestia’s punishment, and for as much as he had always warned Barbatos against his acts of rebellion, he had never once believed that these were the stakes.
When the bells clang once again, there is no question the message they impart: Let this be an example and a warning. Those who interfere with the divine plan shall be met with a punishment worse than death.
What happens next is a blur.
They bring Barbatos to Morax’s home. He is feverish, bordering on delirious, eyelids fluttering and murmuring quiet things under his breath to no one. They use the guest room closest to the entrance, where a single small window looks out to the hills in the east.
Morax paces in the hallway until he thinks the floorboards will cave from the weight of his anxiety, watching as a handful of healers and medics pass in and out of the dim room. When he’s too tired to stand, he sits in a folded heap at the end of the hallway, fear and anger keeping the exhaustion at bay.
At night, a figure appears above him, startling him to alertness. “He’s awake,” the Hydro Archon says quietly. She looks as though she’s just barely scraped through a losing battle, dark circles already forming under her eyes.
“How is he doing?”
“…I don’t know. He won’t speak to me.” She crosses her arms solemnly. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”
“I’m not so sure of that. But I’ll try. And,” he adds, moving to his feet with no small amount of effort, “thank you.”
Her smile is a thin, unhappy line. “I did what I could. And for what it’s worth, he’s always listened to you more than anyone else.”
“Well,” Morax sighs, feeling all at once the weight of the past several hours, “I guess in the end that didn’t help.” He steels himself and opens the door.
Morax had always loved Barbatos’ wings. On cold nights, during more peaceful times, when they’d fall in together as the sun settled into the west, he would run a hand slowly through the rows of feathers and dream of a sky blue beyond compare. Without his wings, Barbatos looks much smaller: fragile in a way Morax never imagined he’d see him, every sight of him familiar and yet, from every angle, lacking life.
“How are you doing?” Morax asks. All he gets in response is a limp shrug, and then a harsh wince at what must be a heavy ache in his shoulders.
“I’m so sorry,” he continues. “I… I should have been there, I should have done something, I—”
“Stop,” Venti says suddenly, the syllable a short and sharp staccato. “Don’t tell me what you would’ve done different. What’s done is done. And don’t tell me it’s going to get better, or it’s going to stop hurting, or it’s going to be okay. You know it’s not. So just.” He raises a hand, and the air itself seems to hold taut where he stands, the way a musician’s string might anticipate its own vibrations. “There’s nothing you can say that can change anything. So just stop. Stop.”
Morax stops. He holds his breath, like maybe if he stays still enough they can freeze time right here, paint over the pain that still haunts the room, as though the searing gashes had been torn open across his own skin.
Then the beat passes, and all at once Venti exhales, leaning in towards him, body folding and deflating and collapsing against him, hand reaching out without direction—seeking, desiring, needing. He buries his face in Morax’s neck. “Fuck,” he whispers shakily, breathing shallow and irregular. “It hurts.”
Morax puts one hand over his shoulder, pulls him into an embrace so tight that it feels like he’s going to burst at the seams, that if he lets go for even one second something ugly and broken might spill forth.
“I know,” he says. “I know.”
A month passes. Each day Morax goes and waits outside the room with the eastward window, from dawn until early evening, telling himself that this, like all things, takes time. But the god of freedom does not leave the room. Not once.
On the last day of the month he enters, because waiting has become a type of agony in its own right. Venti is exactly where he left him, staring sullenly at the ceiling above, as though it might open up and engulf him. He is disheveled, face thin and gaunt, and the sight of him as pale and still as a statue almost chokes out an audible noise from Morax’s throat.
He approaches the slouched figure cautiously. “Come take a walk with me,” he says, testing the waters. “Some fresh air will be good for you.”
Venti shakes his head abruptly. “How am I supposed to be seen like this?” He wrings his hands, sounding like he’d asked himself the same question endlessly over the course of the past month. “I can’t even look out the window at night, because I see my reflection in the dark, and it’s wrong. It’s not me. It’s just someone I don’t recognize. Someone who couldn’t even defend themselves, much less—”
“Stop,” Morax interrupts him, taking his hand. “Don’t say that. You are still who you are; you are still who I love. And what is all the more loveable about you is what you sacrificed.”
“Sacrificed?” It has been a long time since Morax has heard Barbatos laugh, and it is not the light twinkling of chimes that he has missed for so long it aches. It is low and rough and laced not with grief, but with the hollow, exhausted acceptance of someone who is already resigned to losing everything. “Don’t talk to me about sacrifice.” Venti shoves at his chest with surprising strength, and Morax finds himself buffeted back, shocked. “This is not a sacrifice. If I had the choice to give my wings for freedom, for even the chance at change, I might have said yes and been proud of it. But I wasn’t asked. I didn’t give. I’m just someone who had something taken away from me, a piece of me taken away from me. And nothing changes. Nothing ever changes.”
Morax looks at him helplessly. He wants like he has never wanted just to fix this, sweep up the pieces strewn across the floor like they might still be put back together one day. But Venti turns his back and says quietly, “...I think you should just go.”
It’s a last-ditch attempt, but Morax figures it’s something. “Before I do, I have something for you.” He carries in a wooden case from the hallway. Inside is a large device: a complex scaffolding of metal wires under a web of silken feathers, intricate golden accents illuminating the joints.
“It’s called a wind glider,” he tells him. “This is the first of its kind. I gathered the most learned and experienced engineers and metalworkers in all of Liyue. I… thought it was the least I could do.”
Venti is quiet. But he takes the wings in shaky hands, running a finger over the ridge where cloth meets metal.
“See, they attach, like so,” Morax continues, demonstrating. “And they allow you to glide long distances in the sky.” He swallows hard, nervous. “It’s not flight. It’s not even close. I could deceive myself perhaps into believing that it might be similar, but I know I could not deceive you. But I thought, even a facsimile of what was—I swear it, I would gift you the world if I could, but this, this... If I can offer you even a chance—”
He breaks off as Venti wraps his arms tightly around his waist. “Thank you,” he whispers.
Morax takes his face in his hands. He wonders how much longer it will be before he sees the blue of the sky reflected in those eyes again. He thinks that maybe time does stop for a moment, like the whole world waits for them with bated breath. “Anything for you, my love,” he says. “Anything for you.”
There are things that Morax loves and hates about Barbatos in equal measure: his impulsiveness, his persistence bordering on stubbornness, his dedication to righteousness over duty. And the way that he blooms in the absence of light, fighting through the dark the way a seed might fight for the right to be alive. The way that he is ever-changing as the tides, buoyant like the air that bubbles to the surface, no matter how far under.
But he knows that this, like all things, takes time. Sometimes in the dead of night Venti still jolts awake gasping for breath, a phantom pain running down from his shoulders to his hips: the ghost of wind whistling through feathers that don’t exist. Sometimes he lies awake, body sunken into the mattress, gazing at the ceiling and imagining what might be the spiral of stars beyond it, because where the silken sheets press directly into his back is the space where something once was, and with the soft chafing feeling of touch there is the constant reminder of what once held that space, and the lack of matter there burns until it threatens to scald him.
But Morax rises, too, each and every time, drapes a blanket around him and traces patterns tenderly on his back like saplings still pushing up against a storm, refusing to be trodden down, mouthing whispers against the wind of spring. He puts a hand over the lines scarred into Venti’s shoulder blades, resolute but not unyielding, and the weight of it pushes back against the emptiness, even for a moment.
“Sleep,” he murmurs, and Venti obeys, or tries to, to the best of his ability, but sleep is a heavy thing that refuses to settle over him; but Morax has a voice like the low rumble of the ocean, of the earth, of the grinding gears of time itself. “Tomorrow I will build for you the tallest cliffs in all of Teyvat, and we can glide down together. And the day after, another, taller this time. And again, and again, and again. Until you can touch the sky once more.”