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If he slept that night, Morax would wake up when the sky was still dark. If he didn't, then that wasn't anything he should worry about.
He would clean himself up. Take a shower, change, look into his wardrobe for something nice to wear. The suit that he preferred nowadays, maybe. Or something else that Menogias designed- he could never go wrong with that. Or longer robes, soft ivory or ebony black or indigo, like the midnight sky. Morax- Zhongli, now- always liked wearing finer pieces. Perhaps it was his eye for detail, his preference for beauty, his fondness for the stories behind each craft. Or perhaps it was that something fit for fighting had too many memories attached to it. Well, it was still an option nonetheless. After that he'd do his hair. He would have it tied at the back of his neck on regular days, but in the mornings he preferred something looser. Maybe he'd let it all down, or secure some of it with a hairpin. Occasionally he'd tie it up to a high tail and secure it with a hair stick, or do a topknot with one of the many hairpieces he owned and collected over the years. Then he'd have some breakfast, if he felt like it.
He'd go out. He'd materialize in a familiar platform balcony, overlooking the sea of clouds.
And then, he would raise the sun.
This was not supposed to be his job. It is, now.
Here's the story: Morax was rather old. In mortal terms, of course. He was from a different time.
He was the first disciple of the Halls of Effervescent Light, an immortal who served under the Sovereign Deities of the Sun.
As the first disciple, he was an archivist, and his task was to record everything important. It was simple, but crucial. He was trusted with important knowledge, and the heaviest of secrets, and to document them all without missing details. Naturally, he was the most trusted confidant of the Sun deities, the role model of the other disciples of the Halls.
A star example, one might say.
It was a blessing and a curse.
Everyone knew that the duty Sovereign Deities of the Sun were in charge of the solar chariot that maintained the cycle of day. The Sovereign Deity of the Morning Star raised the sun, and the Sovereign Deity of the Evening star set the sun, and it was supposed to be like that everyday for the rest of his immortal life.
And then the calamity that toppled heaven and earth came to being, and everything changed.
The elder died, but even as his soul disappeared, his celestial body, eternal as it is, remained as a vessel of light, and became the golden daystar that illuminated Teyvat from then on until now, forever enacting duty as the sun. He saw it with his own eyes.
The current sun was formed with the death the Sovereign Deity of the Evening Star.
The Sovereign Deity of Morning Star disappeared.
He survived. The Halls of Effervescent Light collapsed, and the palace of the stars fell. They did not have many disciples, he was the only one who survived.
The plot of the story was missing. The information is locked away.
He did not know much, just that when he had awoken, it was a few hundred years after that catastrophe, and the Sovereign Deity of the Morning Star was dying.
This was the first thing he sensed when he regained his consciousness.
A storm alighted the desert, and the world became dark.
Why did-
The sun not rise?
What happened, when he was unconscious for the past centuries? Did the sun not rise, either? There's no way, because the world wasn't dead.
He lost much of his power.
He could only rely on knowledge.
Then- the Sovereign Deity of the Morning Star must have raised and set the sun himself. How devastating must it be, if the sun was his brother's remains, then it must have reminded him of his loss, every morning and every evening, to maintain the cycle of the sun.
So why?
How did the Sovereign Deity of the Morning Star die?
There was darkness, and not only in the literal sense, for a while, when he was dying, and the world turned black when his soul was truly gone.
When the dark aura disappeared, the world was still without light. The only way he was able to tell was through the moon cycle.
When he woke up- wait, how did he wake up? Why not earlier?
It did not make sense, why didn't anything make sense?
He should be grieving. He should be grieving, but everything was just- too overwhelming.
He looked up at the sky- the moon is up. The moon is up? How is the moon up?
Nobody survived, not even the seelies.
Right?
How did the moon cycle continue, still?
Was there still- anyone who raised the moon?
The Sovereign Deity of the Morning Star raised the sun and set the sun, everyday. Now, he is dead.
If the Morning Star was dead, and the Evening Star long gone-
Then what would become of the fate of the world, without a sun?
This was the worst epiphany he had ever come to.
The first disciple had an outstanding memory. He cultivated it, over the years, as he as an archivist who had a duty to keep track of everything that mattered.
He didn't think it would come to use now.
He had to find the highest ground.
There was a mountain.
And from there, with everything he had, Morax delved deep into his memories of a past that once was, a time that was once present, an age that once glimmered with glory.
His eyes glowed, and his entire figure radiated with golden luminance, brilliant, and if not for the sphere of pure light that rose from behind him, he would have been mistaken as a Sovereign of the Sun himself.
And then he fainted.
Anyway, that was how Zhongli learned that he was the only one capable of maintaining the solar cycle.
The only one left.
Why couldn't he just teach someone? To take his place?
It was impossible. Zhongli was born an immortal of the star.
It has to be an immortal of the star. If not-
The unlucky being would simply fade away from the sheer everything-ness that it needed. Their bodies, their souls, their wills, were not made for this.
It could drive someone mad.
Even he himself only knew because he was archivist.
And-
There were no other immortal of the stars.
They were long dead.
There was someone, out there, who raised the moon and set the moon, but he never looked for them.
He didn't have to, as long as order was maintained across the world.
And since then, he was always conscious every dusk and every dawn, because without him there wouldn't be a dusk or a dawn at all. Only stagnancy. And with stagnancy-
Came destruction. That was fate.
That was his fate.
Stars fall, lights dim.
Sometimes, he wondered what it would be like, if he hadn't survived the calamity.
He knew how to raise and set the sun only because he was the archivist. If he wasn't archivist, if he didn't work so hard to be the first disciple- was he doomed?
Maybe. That was a possibility he hated to dwell on. Well, the past is past. And so long as he did his duty, and that stranger did theirs, the world would be fine. It didn't take out as much from him as it did the first time, anyway.
Alternatively, though, it meant he was going to be weakened every solstice, and unstable every equinox. Well, those were only four days. He'd be fine to take four days off.
Zhongli could never be unconscious at those hours, even if only for a moment.
He had only ever faltered once. The day his closest friend died, the sun rose three hours late.
He met Guizhong about one thousand years since he first awoken after falling into a coma post-calamity. There was a new order of the celestials, and the story of the palace of stars and the kingdom of the sun and moon were long lost.
He was jaded.
Morax had affinity with geo, he learned. Perhaps it was because gold resonated and jade glowed when he was around. He took the form of a flying dragon, the first creature he had killed.
Morax had never taken a life as the first disciple of the Halls of Effervescent Light. He was valued for his mind.
But to live was to survive- and in the mortal realm he was deadly when he needed to be.
He was angry.
He was angry at fate, at the calamity, at the fact that he was like a target, his soul emanating a powerful divine aura, it meant that many would aim to take his life. His life was to fight to survive and maintain the solar cycle.
He only wanted to live.
By the time he met her, that day at the glaze lily fields, he was used to the way so many had wanted to kill him-
He forgot how it was like when someone didn't.
It was foolish to trust so easily, but he couldn't help it.
He only wanted to live, but with her he realized it was as though he had forgotten how to.
"Protect us. And I will teach you everything I know."
Morax was now known as a warrior, but he had always held knowledge in high regard.
"Will this be a contract?"
"No. I will not be bound and neither will you, for it will be an act of willingness, a test of trust, and a proof of faith."
"A promise, then."
The Guili assembly.
Guizhong was an immortal who had dedicated her life to the mortal realm. She had lived for a long time-
Like him.
"You know who I am." He brought it up, one day.
"Does that matter?"
"Doesn't it? It matters to everyone else."
"Will it change anything? Must it change anything?"
He is Morax to the world, but he is Zhongli when he's with her.
They don't speak of it aloud. He still raised and set the sun, and on occasion, she would accompany him.
He met a dragon. Lord of vishaps.
He has never met anyone older than him after he awoke.
Retuo Longwang insists that he call Morax Xiongzhang, ever so formal. He preferred didi.
It was nice, to have some kind of normalcy.
Retuo was curious about the world, and he was glad to explore.
He wondered if, in another life, they would have been natural enemies. A disciple of the Sovereign Deities of the sun, and the Dragon Sovereign of geo.
But this was not that life.
He doesn't feel as lonely, anymore.
When Guizhong died, it was like everything he had ever known disappeared with the snap of a finger- and his whole world shattered to pieces once more.
But he made a promise.
The Guili assembly was gone but Liyue shall live.
And so, he fought, tooth and nail, and he's no longer alone, now- the Archon War will be gone from his lands-
Morax, Geo Archon. Morax, deity of Contracts.
Celestia does not trust him. He wondered if they knew.
But he made himself indispensable- at what cost?
Celestia does not trust him, they never did. So they proposed a contract that he could not refuse.
The bargaining chip?
Well, that was easy to guess.
It was peaceful, for a while.
He and the other archons were in the same boat.
At least they could drink their grief away together.
One of them- Rukkhadevata? She knew the Sovereign Deity of the Morning Star.
What a small world.
They don't talk about it, though.
But it was nice, to be able to share. He wasn't all alone, for a while.
And then the cataclysm came around-
He was so, so, tired of trying to survive.
He just wanted the world to know peace. Doesn't he deserve that, at least? Morax knew that he was no longer the same man that the Halls of Effervescent Light trusted with their archive of information. But-
It has been so long.
A contract he could not refuse- but he wished he could. He wished he was able to just stay out of it-
Please, let him stay out of it.
Wishful thinking.
It was the abyss, this time, and a nation called Khaenri'ah.
It was a series of unfortunate events- the abyss that took over a nation, the darkness that enveloped the world and killed so. Many. People.
Ignited the memory of those last few hours, before he lost everything he had ever known.
Khaenri'ah was living undead. Khaenri'ah was... Unsalvageable.
Khaenri'ah was a victim. Khaenri'ah was not innocent. Khaenri'ah- or at least someone from within there, things like this were hardly ever that simple- had unleashed the abyss, and it was like a miasma, eating up the land from the inside out.
And to stop the spread of a pandemic-
Cut it off. Cut it off, so it wouldn't spread any further-
Khaenri'ah has brought forth so many victims- they are their own victims, too. Khaenri'ah-
To seal the abyss and stop the spread-
They have to destroy it from the root.
They have to destroy Khaenri'ah.
He was an archon, he was the first disciple of the Halls of Effervescent Light- wasn't there a better solution?
That's right, he has all that knowledge-
He could do it.
He could seal away the abyss himself, and he could- possibly- burn away all the miasma- he could do it! He could sacrifice his divine body- and it would be a powerful enough seal-
But. Who will drive the suns to rise and set?
During the calamity that toppled heaven and earth, the Moon Sisters sealed away the tear in the sky by giving up their celestial bodies- the remains became the moon.
The Sovereign Deity of the Evening Star gave up his heavenly body to protect the world- he became the sun.
The Sovereign Deity of the Morning Star- he does not know much. Only that he went mad from too much grief.
But he too, sacrificed himself, even when weakened.
They had passed.
Zhongli could not afford to die. Nobody else could maintain the solar cycle. If the world went stagnant, it would die. It would die.
Without him, the sun will not rise and it will not set.
The world would be destroyed.
There was nothing he could do.
He could not save Khaenri'ah at the cost of destroying the realms.
He will carry the guilt within him for his entire life. That would be a very long time indeed.
He was responsible for so many lives.
Whoever had unleashed the abyss-
He could not fathom it.
It's so strange- to live in the mortal realm- he felt like he was aging, even if he knew that was impossible.
He felt so old.
Time didn't pass this quickly in the Halls of Effervescent Light.
He was responsible for so. Many. Lives.
One time, he drank twenty bottles of plain wine and he still wasn't drunk. So he raided his storage for some plain osmanthus, and some dewdrop osmanthus, and in total he drank fifty seven bottles before truly he became tipsy enough to cry himself asleep. It was pathetic. It was cathartic.
So many lost their lives by his hand.
The adepti, his armies, Guizhong, Khaenri'ah- it was his fault.
He sealed Retuo away with the adepti- his mind had been eroded, and he forgot everything.
It was all his fault.
He could not protect them.
Some role model he was.
No longer worthy of the position of First Disciple.
He missed Guizhong. He missed the first seven, and opened another bottle when he remembered some of them lost their lives during that cataclysm.
Barbatos came to see him. At least, he thought the he did. He didn't remember, he was drunk.
But the anemo archon was kind. Morax could only wish he could be that kind.
He knew that the anemo archon was a fragment of the shade of time. He was sure barbatos knew that he used to serve the Sovereign Deities of the Sun, a lifetime ago.
Should they be allies? Should they be brothers? Should they be enemies?
That doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter.
They're in the same predicament. At least he's not alone.
Of course, he woke right before sunrise, because he'd have to raise the sun, like he did every single day, like he would have to for the rest of his life.
The people of Liyue called him Dijun.
The mountain- Tianheng. Emperor's authority. Sky-measuring.
He was unworthy.
He never wanted to take the position of an unofficial Sovereign of the Sun, but he did not wish to see the world fall apart once more.
He was tired of it.
He goes by Zhongli, now. Rex Lapis- Yanwang Dijun is dead.
But still, he raised the sun at dawn, and set the sun at dusk.
The definition of eternal duty.
But for the sake of the world, he would.