Wangshu Inn rose from the mist like a guardian on stilts, its gentle lantern glow piercing the veil of dusk that clung to Dihua Marsh. The soft chatter of night insects and the rhythmic lapping of water beneath the wooden stilts welcomed the weary, and tonight, the inn opened its arms to two travelers far more exhausted than they appeared.
Xiao landed first, his boots whispering against the wooden planks. He turned, his eyes flicking up to where Furina drifted down slowly on a surge of Hydro, her shoes clicking lightly as she touched ground beside him.
"Is this the place?" she asked, glancing up at the curved roofs and distant bell chimes. "Not bad. A little rustic, but charming."
"It's quiet," Xiao replied.
Furina gave a dramatic sigh. "That's not a compliment, is it?"
Before he could answer, Verr Goldet stepped forward from the front desk area, blinking in mild surprise.
"Xiao? It's been a while." Her gaze shifted curiously to Furina. "And you've brought... someone."
Furina offered her hand in a perfectly practiced Fontainian curtsy. "Furina. Former Hydro Archon, actress, diplomat, reluctant traveler, and currently very sore from running through ancient death mazes."
Verr blinked once, looking oddly at the Fontainian girl "I see."
"She needs a room," Xiao said flatly. "Two, actually."
"Of course. I'll prepare them."
Furina watched her go with a tilt of her head. "You have an innkeeper who doesn't even flinch when someone says, 'former Archon.' That's either impressive or depressing."
Xiao didn't respond. He simply turned and moved up the stairs toward the roof.
"Ah—where are you going?"
"To meditate."
She sighed again. "Of course you are."
Later, Furina stood just outside her room, hair damp from a quick rinse, staring out at the starlit marsh. She heard the faint chime of wind and the soft echo of calm breathing. Xiao was perched high above, at his usual vigil spot.
She glanced upward.
Then she cast her gaze downward upon herself.
She then gazed upwards once more.
"Well, why not?" she murmured, and she set off climbing.
Furina settled on the same level, across from him. Xiao sat cross-legged, eyes closed, his spear lying beside him. The wind seemed to circle him without bothering him, like a silent cocoon of air and willpower.
Furina mimicked his pose.
She crossed her legs.
She closed her eyes. She took a breath and then sneezed.
Xiao did not move.
Furina exhaled dramatically, adjusting her shoulders. "How long do you sit like this before something actually happens?"
Silence.
She cracked one eye open. "I think I'm doing it wrong."
Still no response.
She sighed, then winced as a muscle pulled sharply in her thigh. "Ow—gods, how do you sit like this?! My legs will forget what standing feels like!"
She shifted again, finally flopping back with an exaggerated groan. "Fine. Meditating is for brooding pretty boys with tragic pasts. Not for glorious Fontainian actresses with too much energy."
A breeze tugged her bangs gently.
She frowned. "That wasn't a compliment, by the way."
Still nothing.
Then she heard it.
She detected a slight gust of wind.
Xiao's lips curved just slightly.
Furina's eyes widened. "Was that a smirk?! Did I actually get a reaction from you?"
"Go to sleep," he murmured.
"Too late, I'm invested." She now got back on her spot.
He opened his eyes finally, and the glint of moonlight in them caught her breath.
"You are exhausting," he said.
"I'm charming," she corrected. "And also sore. I think I bruised something pretending to be enlightened."
Xiao stood and turned toward the stairs.
"Where are you going now?"
He responded, "To keep watch."
She looked at him worriedly. "You really never stop working, do you?"
He paused. "I can't."
And then he was gone.
Furina remained sitting there, staring after him.
She hugged her knees and looked up at the stars.
"I wish I could say the same," she murmured.
The stars glittered like scattered frost across the velvet sky. The Wangshu Inn loomed quiet, perched above the sleeping marshland. Lanterns flickered softly along its eaves, their golden glow barely competing with the moonlight.
Furina sat at the very edge of the rooftop balcony, legs dangling over the side, arms wrapped around her knees. Her cape was draped over her shoulders, offering little warmth but enough to keep the night wind tolerable. Her hair danced lightly with every breeze, as if the wind insisted on rehearsing some forgotten scene.
She wasn't sure how long she had been sitting there.
A soft crunch behind her.
She turned. Xiao approached, barefoot and silent, his expression unreadable. He sat beside her without a word, mirroring her posture. Not too close. Not far either.
"I thought you were watching the perimeter," she said, her voice quieter than usual.
"I was."
"And?"
He looked at her for a moment "Nothing at the moment."
"Except us."
They watched the night a moment longer.
Furina tilted her head toward him. "You know, I always imagined meditation would bring peace. Some kind of clarity. All I got was stiff knees and a very loud internal monologue."
He still looked away from Furina "You can't quiet the noise in one night."
"I don't think I've ever had a quiet moment. Not really."
He looked at her then, his gaze softer in the starlight. "Why?"
Furina shrugged. "I always felt like I had to be the loudest person in the room. The cleverest. I always strove to be the most captivating. Fontaine expects a show, so I gave them one. Even though I didn't feel like performing, I still gave them a show."
"That's a lot of burden you deal with."
She let out a soft breath. "It was also a shield. If I kept them entertained, they wouldn't look too closely. Wouldn't see how scared I was."
Xiao said nothing. The wind filled the space between them with a gentle sigh.
"I don't want to be irrelevant," she whispered "Not now. Not ever. That terrifies me more than death."
Xiao looked down at his hands.
"I understand that fear," he said after a pause. "The world moves on. You become a statue, a name in a footnote. The suffering remains, but the memory fades."
Furina turned to him fully. "Is that what you fear?"
"No."
She blinked. "Then what?"
"I dream of screaming."
The statement was so stark, so sudden, that she stilled.
Xiao's eyes were fixed on the distant treeline. "Every night. There are voices that I find impossible to silence. I hear the cries of those I was unable to save. Alternatively, there are those whose lives I was forced to take. Even in rest, there's no silence."
She didn't interrupt.
"Sometimes," he said, "I forget which screams are theirs… and which are mine."
Furina swallowed. "Xiao…"
"I am not telling this story for sympathy," he said flatly. "I tell you because you asked."
She looked away, her fingers tightening around her knees. "I think I've been running for years, in place. I smile as a form of protection; making me laugh so I don't cry."
He turned toward her, and their eyes met.
For a long time, neither said a word.
Then Furina let her head fall back, looking skyward again. "The stars are brighter than ever, aren't they?"
Xiao followed her gaze.
"They shine whether we notice or not," she continued. "They don't care who we were or what titles we held."
"And we endure beneath them," Xiao murmured.
She smiled faintly. "Maybe that's enough."
They sat in silence, but it no longer held awkwardness as of before.
This was the silence of shared truth. The space where burdens, once spoken, no longer needed to be carried alone.
Furina's voice broke the stillness again, softer this time. "Do you think we'll ever find out what's behind that fragment? Why does it keep showing up?"
"I don't know." He replied.
She nodded. "Well. That's a better answer than a lie."
Xiao closed his eyes. "Get some rest. You'll need it."
Furina gave a little mock bow. "I will be less insufferable tomorrow."
He didn't reply.
She rose and padded barefoot across the rooftop. Before she descended, she looked back.
"Thank you," she said.
"For what?"
"For listening."
Xiao opened one eye.
"I still think you talk too much," he said.
She grinned. "Then it's a good thing I'm trying to improve."
And she vanished down the stairs.
Xiao stayed still and stared at the stars for a little while longer.
But something had changed.
The wind around him felt warmer now.
For once, the wind didn't attempt to carry away his burdens.
The dream crept in like a tide.
It started the same way it always did: clouds, wind, and darkness wrapped around his chest. Xiao stood alone on a crumbling precipice of rock, staring down into a void. Screams echoed up from below, faceless and infinite. Arms reached from the mist, clawing, not to drag him down, but to anchor themselves to him. As if he were the last thing keeping them from falling apart.
He had dreamed similar scenes before dozens of times. The karmic echoes are the punishment of a soul that has been stained by war.
But this time, something changed.
The mist parted, the arms stilled, and above him—high in the darkness—glimmered a sphere of impossible light. It resembled a star, yet it was alive, breathing.
A presence.
It descended slowly, like a petal falling through water. As it neared, it coalesced into a more defined shape: a figure of many layers, shifting between male and female, mask and face, and light and shadow. A divine fragment—not of any Archon he knew—but older, older than Celestia, older than the contracts of Liyue.
Its voice echoed in him like a bell struck underwater:
"You have touched the vessel."
Xiao stood his ground, spear forming in his hand.
"What are you?"
The figure turned in slow, graceful motion. Faces flickered across its form: a child, an emperor, a scholar, a dancer. And then, for a moment it formed into Furina's face, but her eyes are hollowed.
"The burden you bear is borrowed."
"I made the choice."
"But you were not meant to carry it."
A tremor ran through the dream. The arms below surged again.
Xiao leapt upward, soaring toward the figure.
It did not retreat. Instead, It opened not like a door, but rather like a memory that was meant to stay shut.
Xiao plummeted into it.
He stood in a memory not his own.
It was a city filled with white towers and silver water. Not Fontaine. Not Khaenri'ah. Something in-between, lost to time. Runes floated in the air like drifting snowflakes. A woman walked across a glass bridge, her steps silent and her face obscured.
Furina.
No. Not quite.
This woman radiated something colder. Wiser. More ancient. She walked with power that bent the light around her, and her reflection shimmered oddly beneath her feet. It resembled a copy that was out of sync.
The figure beside Xiao spoke again:
"She carries us. And she does not know."
"What are you doing to her?" Xiao demanded.
"She was chosen in the absence of the true vessel. But echoes do not become songs. And justice without understanding. It is silence."
The city collapsed suddenly, with buildings fracturing into water and bridges cracking into voids.
Xiao stood firm even as the dream shook around him.
"You will not touch her."
The voice faltered.
"You would defend her?"
"I already have."
The figure hovered before him now, its shape dimming slightly.
"Then you will suffer for it. She will suffer. That is what the divine do. They bleed in silence until they forget they are alive."
Lightning flashed in the sky of the colors red and white.
And the dream shattered.
Xiao sat up in his bedroll, drenched in sweat. His breath came in short gasps, his vision still echoing with the colors of the unreal.
The inn was quiet, and the night outside was peaceful.
And yet something had changed. The air pulsed faintly with residual energy.
He stood, grabbing his spear without thought, and moved to the balcony.
There, perched on the outer railing in her night clothes, sat Furina.
She was staring up at the stars. Her hair hung loosely down her back, and her expression was soft and unreadable, reminding him of her in the shrine, dazed and distant.
She did not turn around as he approached.
"You felt it too," she whispered softly.
Xiao remained silent.
"I couldn't sleep," she continued. "Kept thinking about what it said. About me. About… how I'm not supposed to be what I was."
Silence.
"I've always wanted answers," she whispered. "But what if they only hurt?"
Xiao stepped beside her, leaning slightly against the railing.
"The truth always hurts," he said. "But it's still the truth."
Furina hugged her knees tighter.
"Was I a mistake?" she asked.
Xiao looked at her.
The wind stirred her hair.
"No," he said.
She turned, startled by the certainty in his voice.
"You are not a mistake," he repeated. "Whatever they gave you, whatever burden they left, you carry it. You endured what you went through. You are not a failure."
Her eyes glistened slightly in the starlight.
She didn't respond.
They stood in silence again.
Eventually, Furina leaned sideways, her head brushing lightly against Xiao's shoulder.
He tensed, but only briefly. He let it be.
The stars above remained unchanged.
Yet between them, something fragile had begun to settle.
A recognition of both of their own burdens. A sort of comfor that is brought one another.
Furina didn't know how long she had been leaning against him.
She had rested her head on Xiao's shoulder without thinking. But he hadn't moved.. The warmth of his body, surprisingly real despite his usual aloofness, made her eyes drift shut.
Time passed and yet both felt at peace for that moment. Furina was first to open her eyes.
"I didn't mean to wake you," she murmured.
"You didn't," he replied. His voice was low and even, almost soothing in its constancy.
The marsh below shimmered under the moonlight. A few fireflies drifted between the reeds like flickering thoughts. Somewhere distant, frogs croaked muffled lullabies.
Furina shifted slightly, careful not to break the fragile space they had created.
"You've really never fallen asleep beside someone before?" she asked.
"No."
She turned her head, cheek still resting against the slope of his shoulder. "Not even once?"
"I don't sleep often. And never with others nearby."
Furina hummed. "Then this is a first for both of us."
Xiao didn't respond, but his silence no longer felt like resistance.
The air between them carried more than quietness that existed. It was the acceptance of one another.
She straightened slowly but didn't move away entirely. Her voice softened.
"Earlier, in the ruins… when I said I was afraid of being irrelevant."
He glanced at her faintly.
"I didn't mean just as an Archon," she continued. "I meant as a person. I was created for performance. For justice. For image. If I take all of that away—what's left?"
He studied her. Moonlight caught in the curve of her cheekbone.
"I know what that's like," he said.
She looked at him, startled by the admission.
"Even now," Xiao continued, "I sometimes wonder if there's anything left of me that didn't come from suffering. If I was shaped only by violence, what part of me belongs to me?"
Furina's lips parted, but she said nothing.
"I fought so long for others," he went on, "I forgot what it meant to want anything for myself."
A long pause.
Then Furina asked, almost in a whisper, "Do you want anything now?"
Xiao was silent.
But this time, it wasn't because he didn't know.
It was because he didn't know how to say it.
Finally, he looked out over the railing again.
"Peace."
Furina's fingers curled loosely around the wood.
"Do you think we'll get it?" she asked.
"I don't know."
They sat like that for a long while. The moon moved slowly across the sky, and the stars began to tilt with it, like an hourglass emptying sideways.
Eventually, Furina's eyelids began to flutter.
Her voice came slow and fuzzy.
"You're not so bad, you know."
"Hm."
"Not exactly friendly. But not cruel either."
"I wasn't trying to be either."
"Maybe that's why I trust you." She gave a small smile.
She yawned, her head dropping again lightly against his shoulder.
"You don't lie," she whispered.
"No."
Her breathing slowed.
Xiao didn't move.
Even when she fully leaned into him again and curled slightly beneath her cloak, Xiao remained still.
The cool wind traced gentle lines over them both, and Xiao turned his eyes toward the stars.
He thought of the fragment. Of the warning it gave.
Of Furina's face when she admitted her fear.
He felt the strength it took to keep walking anyway.
His eyes closed, but not because he was sleeping; they were still.
It was probably the closest thing to peace he had let himself have in years.
He stayed there until dawn.
End of Chapter