[ Zhongli's fingers card carefully through Ajax's hair until the fox's breathing slows to something much more suitable for sleeping (or at least pretending to be asleep). It is only then that he lets out a soft sigh of his own.
He was not an expert on youkai in Inazuma. Nor was he fully aware of all that happened within this nation after the Cataclysm, so busy he was with the fallout from Liyue and Ei's withdrawal into her own realm. And yet, something still seems quite off about all of this. Why was this lone young fox yokai (not a shrine maiden and not working in any capacity for the electron archon) saddled with such a task? Why did his purification ritual seem so strange? And what was he really in charge of purifying seeing as the land was still rife with dangerous thunderstorms and memories of the past?
Well, there was no way to know until he talked to Yae. And even then Zhongli would have to parse her rather cryptic way of providing information until it was distilled into something useful.
There was nothing to do this night but sleep.
Zhongli's hand slips from Ajax's hair as he curls against the other in response, his own eyes starting to droop. Ah, he was still adjusting to losing the gnosis. For while it did not offer him too much greater power than he originally possessed, it still had been a part of him for millennia. It's absence was like a phantom limb, partially welcome as his tie to Celestia had been severed but also exhausting in a way he had not been prepared for.
So if Ajax were to wake up in the middle of the night (or even Zhongli before he rises for the next day), he'll find a heavy weight draped across his waist. At first, it's easy to mistake it for an arm carelessly tossed over Ajax as part of their close quarters.
But no, that is definitely Zhongli's tail, thick and heavy, curling around his waist with the golden tuft of fluff at the end brushing against the back of Ajax's calves. The golden antlers are back, too, as Zhongli is much too tired to keep up his mortal form in his exhaustion and in the presence of the youkai. ]
no subject
He was not an expert on youkai in Inazuma. Nor was he fully aware of all that happened within this nation after the Cataclysm, so busy he was with the fallout from Liyue and Ei's withdrawal into her own realm. And yet, something still seems quite off about all of this. Why was this lone young fox yokai (not a shrine maiden and not working in any capacity for the electron archon) saddled with such a task? Why did his purification ritual seem so strange? And what was he really in charge of purifying seeing as the land was still rife with dangerous thunderstorms and memories of the past?
Well, there was no way to know until he talked to Yae. And even then Zhongli would have to parse her rather cryptic way of providing information until it was distilled into something useful.
There was nothing to do this night but sleep.
Zhongli's hand slips from Ajax's hair as he curls against the other in response, his own eyes starting to droop. Ah, he was still adjusting to losing the gnosis. For while it did not offer him too much greater power than he originally possessed, it still had been a part of him for millennia. It's absence was like a phantom limb, partially welcome as his tie to Celestia had been severed but also exhausting in a way he had not been prepared for.
So if Ajax were to wake up in the middle of the night (or even Zhongli before he rises for the next day), he'll find a heavy weight draped across his waist. At first, it's easy to mistake it for an arm carelessly tossed over Ajax as part of their close quarters.
But no, that is definitely Zhongli's tail, thick and heavy, curling around his waist with the golden tuft of fluff at the end brushing against the back of Ajax's calves. The golden antlers are back, too, as Zhongli is much too tired to keep up his mortal form in his exhaustion and in the presence of the youkai. ]