[There is something scandalously sweet about the way Ajax swings their joined hands as they move, weaving them deeper into the museum’s quiet heart. Their shoulders brush with every easy step, a casual intimacy that feels more decadent than any banquet, any treasure hoarded under lock and key. Zhongli allows it, to be guided, to be touched. Easily, he lets himself drift after Ajax’s bright wake, a ship surrendering to the pull of the tides.
He keeps his head inclined slightly toward their path, but his eyes, sharp, gilded things, steal sidelong glances at Ajax, drinking him in with a hunger he can no longer mask. The pulse at his wrist throbs where their hands are joined, a steady, fluttering testament to the part of him that still remembers how to long.
The museum grows quieter as they enter an older wing: the air heavier, thicker with the ghosts of centuries, the careful hush of reverence pressed into every carved stone and lacquered scroll. It is a good place to hide things. Feelings. Memories. They pass a collection of strategy relics, simple boards etched into cracked stone, pieces carved of bone and jade, worn smooth by hands long returned to dust. Ancient games. Ancient wars.
Zhongli pauses.]
This game, [he says quietly,] was once played with stones taken from riverbeds. No two pieces identical. A game of conquest, yes, but mostly of patience and inevitability. It was said that the true measure of a player’s strength was not how many pieces they claimed [his thumb brushes absentmindedly across Ajax’s knuckles, a slow, grounding gesture] but how skillfully they allowed losses.
[He shifts slightly, the fabric of his coat brushing Ajax’s side, a whisper-soft contact that feels, somehow, intimate.]
Those who feared loss clutched their stones too tightly. They choked their own strategies. But those who understood let their rivers flow. They carved new paths through the wreckage.
[He does not need to say it aloud: I have lost before. I have let go before. I know the shape of grief and the taste of ashes.
Because there is something reckless and radiant about the boy beside him, something that reminds Zhongli of younger days when he was not only a boss, not only a dragon, but a man who could reach for what he desired without weighing the cost in blood and silence.
The ache in his chest is a sweet, terrible thing.
He glances down at their joined hands, watching the way his fingers fit against Ajax’s, like two stones plucked from the same river, worn smooth where they press together.]
There is a kind of victory, too, in knowing which pieces you are willing to lose.
[He does not clarify whether he means the game or himself.
He suspects, in the end, it will make little difference.]
no subject
He keeps his head inclined slightly toward their path, but his eyes, sharp, gilded things, steal sidelong glances at Ajax, drinking him in with a hunger he can no longer mask. The pulse at his wrist throbs where their hands are joined, a steady, fluttering testament to the part of him that still remembers how to long.
The museum grows quieter as they enter an older wing: the air heavier, thicker with the ghosts of centuries, the careful hush of reverence pressed into every carved stone and lacquered scroll. It is a good place to hide things. Feelings. Memories. They pass a collection of strategy relics, simple boards etched into cracked stone, pieces carved of bone and jade, worn smooth by hands long returned to dust. Ancient games. Ancient wars.
Zhongli pauses.]
This game, [he says quietly,] was once played with stones taken from riverbeds. No two pieces identical. A game of conquest, yes, but mostly of patience and inevitability. It was said that the true measure of a player’s strength was not how many pieces they claimed [his thumb brushes absentmindedly across Ajax’s knuckles, a slow, grounding gesture] but how skillfully they allowed losses.
[He shifts slightly, the fabric of his coat brushing Ajax’s side, a whisper-soft contact that feels, somehow, intimate.]
Those who feared loss clutched their stones too tightly. They choked their own strategies. But those who understood let their rivers flow. They carved new paths through the wreckage.
[He does not need to say it aloud: I have lost before. I have let go before. I know the shape of grief and the taste of ashes.
Because there is something reckless and radiant about the boy beside him, something that reminds Zhongli of younger days when he was not only a boss, not only a dragon, but a man who could reach for what he desired without weighing the cost in blood and silence.
The ache in his chest is a sweet, terrible thing.
He glances down at their joined hands, watching the way his fingers fit against Ajax’s, like two stones plucked from the same river, worn smooth where they press together.]
There is a kind of victory, too, in knowing which pieces you are willing to lose.
[He does not clarify whether he means the game or himself.
He suspects, in the end, it will make little difference.]