Work Text:
There is something utterly divine, almost eerily holy about Ganyu:
Uncompromising elegance in the face of duty, always accepting more work with a smile even as the papers piled up. Unwavering kindness even while dealing with the worst humanity has the offer, buried in the unchecked greed of the Liyue Qixing’s more scheming members. Unmatched memory, in how she speaks of historical events that passed hundreds of lifetimes ago as if they had occurred to her during her morning stroll. Yes, even before Keqing knew of the nature behind her horns, she had always guessed that Ganyu was different from the rest.
It is not as though Keqing is intimidated by her capability. The Yuheng is always on the lookout for others who can match her pace, and, if her assistant turn-over rate isn’t enough, the many admonishments of her fellow Liyue Qixing will tell you all you need to know about Keqing’s incredible demands. But if you asked Keqing, it is they who are not quick enough, not forward-thinking enough, not capable to pulling their heads out of their mountains of mora to see what Liyue truly needs. Her high expectations extend beyond just work matters: many men of Liyue have tried to court her, and she found every single one of them sorely lacking.
“Understood,” Ganyu plainly responds, after Keqing reads out the entirety of her forty-five-step action plan to charter new maritime trade routes with Fontaine. “I shall get to work right away.”
“What, just like that?” Keqing quirks an eyebrow, because her years of experience have led her to interpret a lack of questions as a lack of understanding. “No objections?”
Ganyu places a hand to her chest, giving Keqing a polite curtsy. “I would not dare,” she says, but it sounds less like learnt helplessness and more like a quiet confidence, one that only the secretary of all the Liyue Qixing could possibly possess. “I will follow every order to the letter, Keqing. After all, to carry out the duties of the Liyue Qixing is my job, is it not?”
Only when the morning rays begin to filter through the window does Keqing realize that she has pulled an all-nighter to explain those very same orders Ganyu speaks of, and yet, the secretary voiced not a single concern the entire time. And when the light of dawn falls onto the lightened blues of Ganyu’s hair, she almost looks like a piece of the morning sky, plucked from the heavens and chained to the earth as its emissary.
-----
And in the three thousand years gone by, this is what the people say:
“Only when days be darker than the darkest night, may a qilin be compelled to fight.” Ganyu laughs softly to herself, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head. “That’s a massive exaggeration... but should the time come for battle, and should you need me, then I will give it every ounce of my strength.”
And what history doesn’t remember, three thousand years past:
At the very beginning of Liyue Harbor’s inception, there came a saying that was whispered as a word of caution. One that was said in hushed tones, when someone had gotten too drunk, too reckless, too bold. Do not make the qilin’s arrow sing. Those words were enough to deaden even the most raucous of laughter, to make even the wildest of men look behind their shoulder.
The other adepti took to the mountains, the rivers, the very heights of Liyue where no men dared tread, for they were not of humanity and never will be. But Ganyu was different, and always has been since her very birth: she is the first of her kind and the last of her kind, born of an unholy matrimony between the most sacreds of beasts and violent animals we call humanity. She is something in-between, too tainted by human blood to be respected by the qilin who are paragons of virtue and yet too divine to speak to mortals without them falling to their knees or grasping for her power.
When Osial first rose from the water, she was the first to descend at the heed of Morax’s call, sweet rain and thunderous clouds. She who had never felt at home in the heavens thought that perhaps her place would be found in the muddy earth, running soil and drenched in blood. She fought and fought well, perhaps too well, because Morax took to her side and said,
“You are as persevering as the stone itself.” And when he smiled, amber eyes flooded with his own rapturous divinity, Ganyu thought that, perhaps, she had finally found her place. “Join me, and together we will defend humanity.”
But humanity’s greatest threat lay not in the gods that wished to drown Liyue in the sea’s scent, nor the demons that rose from their screaming bones. When Havria was murdered, slaughtered by the very same people she had loved with all her heart, it was not because of some malicious machination by the warring archons who sought to take her land: a sword was plunged into her unresisting breast because they loved her, they all did, and they thought they perhaps it would be better to die at the hands of those you knew than be crushed under the heel of one who will never give your corpse a second glance.
Humans are violent animals, their hearts filled with all manner of terrible things: fear, greed, anger, love, everything, everything. And when Morax set the first stones of Liyue Harbor onto its roads, chiseled buildings out of the very mora which poured from his veins, the threats their people faced turned away from the gods and onto the violent hearts of one another. The hearts turned treacherous, thrummed with the beat of a wardrum, and the most audacious amongst them dared to believe that perhaps Morax was not worthy of his seat upon Celestia’s chosen seven. That perhaps, another should take his place; that it would be them, their pathetic little hands who could hold Morax’s gnosis, wrestle away his godhood and his mandate of heaven.
And when those hearts needed to be stilled, Ganyu offered her bow.
The other adepti took to the mountains, the rivers, the very heights of Liyue where no men dared tread, for that was where they belonged and where their duty took them. Ganyu, however, had remained in Liyue Harbor to fulfill the orders of the Liyue Qixing, and she carried out every instruction with unquestionable devotion.
“Power?” Ganyu looks at her hands. “...Now there’s a key performance indicator I haven’t needed in a long time.”
But even in the three thousand years gone by, the bow has never felt out of place in Ganyu’s hands. When she shoots, the qilin’s arrow sings, almost like a songbird, and the Cryo which bursts from each arrowhead is enough to make the frozen blood upon Morax’s paved roads look almost beautiful.
It is not that she craves violence. Her blood, tainted though it may be, can never be rid of the gentle graces qilin hold dear, and it is just--
It is just that if you serve Morax for three thousand years, then, keeping your hands clean is a simple impossibility.
-----
Keqing is no stranger to hardship:
There is a saying, of Fontainean origin but oft used as insult towards Mondstadt’s history of corruption: noblesse oblige, or nobility’s obligation. Those who hold the wealth and power of society are obliged to extend a hand to those who lack such things, to balance one’s privilege with a responsibility to those without. That is the duty of which Keqing has been raised to uphold, and that is the reason why she drives herself to such lengths for the good of Liyue.
There was a time when she worked as a laborer, herself: chopping off the lengths of her hair and hiding her tell-tale ears under neatly-tied buns. She waited tables and shoveled dirt, mined ores and did backbreaking work under the sweltering sun. She met a cruel man who thought himself more valuable, more important than the rest, simply because of the status of his family and that it was his birthright to grab Keqing by her neatly-tied buns before shoving her face against the minecart, as if breaking her nose was a proportional punishment for her dastardly mistake of simply failing to bring back enough Noctilucous Jade.
Perhaps it was a little more than just her sense of justice, the pride which swelled within her when she had that man tied up in chains. Perhaps it is only human, in the end, to want him to suffer, to temporarily entertain those fleeting thoughts of cutting him a thousand times and displaying his pathetic corpse on Liyue’s rooftops. But she is no tyrant, nor a murderer, and all she does is follow the due process while hoping that it works.
“Keqing, I think I had the wrong impression of you before.” Ganyu’s voice gently wakes her up, almost like her own mother’s hands shaking her shoulders, and Keqing blinks blearily, rising from her workdesk. It’s the third time this week that Ganyu has discovered her like this, slumped over an endless mountain of geological reports and construction blueprints. “I thought, perhaps, you were the type that criticized Rex Lapis in order to hide your own flaws... but I see now that you work harder than anyone else here.”
“Oh,” Keqing says, because that’s all she can say when she’s barely awake and suddenly being complimented. When Ganyu places a mug of coffee onto her desk, the smell alone is enough to help tug Keqing back to the land of the living. “Why... thank you... oh, this coffee is definitely made of the highest-quality Mondstadtians beans-- how did you know I favored these?”
Ganyu pulls out her notebook, and points at a few scribbled words. “You asked for a mug of this three months ago. Double extracted, two teaspoons of sugar, topped off with steamed milk.”
“You remember?” Keqing rubs her eyes, before taking a sip. It’s absolutely perfect. “The last time I asked you to make me a coffee, it was...”
“...Before your latest assistant quit,” Ganyu finishes for her, before giving Keqing a rather embarrassed smile. “Sorry, did I speak out of turn? I had assumed, with how she stormed out of the Jade Chamber...”
Keqing puts the mug down with a sigh. “No, you’re absolutely right. That’s why I’ve been pulling overtime, trying to put together the reports she left unfinished! Really, the audacity of some people... couldn’t she at least finish her current tasks before quitting...?”
“Keqing...” Ganyu mulls on her words, rolling them around her tongue like a meal she’s savouring before deciding to let them out. “With all due respect... I think it’s a little impossible for any of your assistants to finish the tasks you give them.”
“Nonsense,” Keqing responds stubbornly, and Ganyu only responds with a quiet smile. “The work I give them doesn’t hold a candle to the work you deal with, Ganyu. I’d wager the two of us are the only people who know a thing about hard work! ...Besides Ningguang, but she’s a little...”
A little bit of a fucking pain, is what Keqing doesn’t say because she’s well brought-up and, well, the Tianquan would only be amused to hear Keqing cuss her out, but that’s not a bridge she wants to cross right now. Ganyu nods in silent understanding, and the smile that remains on the secretary’s face tells Keqing that, in this, too, they see eye-to-eye.
“It is always easier to criticize than to tolerate,” Ganyu opts to say instead, and Keqing knows that she’s right. “With that said... Keqing, you are Yuheng of the Liyue Qixing. These endless all-nighters can no longer be tolerated. The toll it will have on your health cannot be understated.”
“I’m young, Ganyu. I’ll live,” Keqing retorts blithely, and Ganyu leans back with her arms crossed. “Besides, that’s a little hypocritical, coming from you. We’re both the same, in this respect: devoting our roaring years of youth to the growth of Liyue, rather than the hedonistic pursuits of our peers.”
“I... would not say that,” Ganyu begins, but something about her expression catches Keqing off-guard. It’s hesitation, firstly, but also melancholy: the type Keqing only sees in the elderly, when she delivers the news that their old villages must be razed to the ground to construct new roads, that the mark of their long-lived lives must now be erased off the earth to make way for progress. It is unfitting, for a young woman like Ganyu, and yet it is there, framing her face in a sadness that seems almost eerily holy. “Well... and I’m not the perfect worker, either...”
And then, Ganyu lowers her voice into a whisper, as if she is sharing some sort of scandalous secret: “Some mornings... I take my own sweet time, strolling along the docks! I could have the daily survey done by 9:30am, but instead, I only return to the Jade Chamber at 9:35am!”
“We are literally the same,” Keqing deadpans in response, and Ganyu frowns. “But, tell you what, Ganyu... after every Rite of Descension, a lot of things go absolutely haywire. It’s almost impossible to get any meaningful work done while everyone’s running around like headless chickens over the latest of Rex Lapis’ forecasts. So... let’s both hold out till then, and after the Rite, we can take a day off. Just to decompress.”
Ganyu nods. “That sounds like a good idea.” And then, her eyes widen: “Wait, the both of us?”
“Why not?” Keqing shrugs. “We’ve... had our differences, yes, but I do find your reliability most admirable, and your encyclopedic knowledge of Rex Lapis is valuable as well. We both work for the good of Liyue, do we not? I think it would do both of us good, to get to know each other a little better.”
“Oh, wow,” Ganyu blinks, fidgeting with her sleeves. As capable as she is, the secretary is prone to nervous fits like these, especially when pushed out of her comfort zone (that is, work). “No one’s asked me out like this before, I... um, yeah! I’d be honored!”
“It’s a date, then,” Keqing confirms with a smile. And then she ducks her head down to jot it down on her planner, just barely missing how Ganyu turns beet-red at her misinterpretation of Keqing’s slang. “I’ll see you.”
“Yes!” Ganyu squeaks, and then she’s out of Keqing’s office at the speed of light, not even finding a reason to excuse herself. Her quick escape leaves a few papers fluttering in her wake, and though she closes the door behind her, Keqing can hear Ganyu’s shriek as she trips and falls right outside.
Keqing quirks an eyebrow, looking at the mug of coffee in her hands. Ganyu didn’t even remember to bring it out for her. “...Did I offend her, somehow?”
-----
But there are some things even a qilin’s arrow cannot silence:
Guizhong had told Ganyu, once, that she should learn how to sing. That her voice is beautiful, as calming as the gentle rain, and when Ganyu does sing, the fragrance of the Glaze Lilies is almost as sweet as she remembers. But it is not the same, Ganyu is not the same, and Guizhong has never had to serve Morax in the same way Ganyu has.
“Do you know what they are saying on the streets now, my lord?” In the same voice that draws the most gorgeous of scents from Glaze Lilies, Ganyu summons the worst of humanity’s treachery from her heart and spills it onto Morax’s draconian lap. “When something is too obvious, they say: even passerbys on the streets can tell what is on the Yuheng's mind.”
And then Morax laughs, laughs as though the saying was any other ancient adage, laughs as though it did not brim with the worst of humanity’s treachery. Laughs, as though the idea of Keqing’s ambition laid plain on her sleeve was an interesting turn of phrase and not an affront to Liyue’s god.
When he is done laughing-- and Ganyu will learn, soon enough, that when it comes to Keqing, Morax laughs for an awfully long time-- he takes a deep breath, the scales on his body rumbling before declaring: “Ganyu, this is just the kind of person Liyue needs in this day and age.” The light of his amber eyes shimmer like the houses he chiseled out of mora, and when Ganyu meets them with confusion, his smile only widens. “How old am I?”
“You?” Ganyu gapes, for a moment, wondering if she’s being tested. “Well, I’m not sure on the exacts of it, but I believe you are about six thousand years old, or so you’ve told us.”
“That is correct.” The timbre of Morax’s voice shakes the very foundations of the Golden House, and he flies to another side of the mint, claws reaching for one of the books stashed within its many amenities. “And yet, the history of Liyue only goes back for three thousand and seven hundred years. Do you know why?”
Ganyu points at herself. “Do I know? Um... I’m not sure,” she admits, bowing her head in shame. “I guess... maybe no one recorded history back then?”
“Partly,” Morax says, and when he lands in front of Ganyu, the familiarity they regard each other with is more like family than a god and his servant. “In the missing two thousand and three hundred years, there were some who transcribed the events of their days. Before paper, their legacies were carved onto rock and inscribed upon stone. Some wrote the histories of their society upon dried hemp and pressed tree bark. From the dawn of time, mortals have had a fascination with creating something that would live beyond them, and writings were one such way. However... they are all gone, now.”
From the coil of his claw, he hands Ganyu a book. “This is... a... play?” She flips it open, finding it filled with stage directions and illustrations of actors in costumes. “A play about the archon war?”
“The memory of man is strange,” Morax hums. “Come, flip to the third act. What does the tyrant archon do?”
Ganyu dutifully obeys, reading the words on the script. ”Burn the books and bury the scholars,” she reads out. ”Let none remember that any came before me. Is this based off real history?”
“The villains we create in myth are believable only because of the atrocities we ourselves commit,” Morax explains. “The burning of books and burying of scholars... such a tragic fate, for the history of over two thousand years.”
“I see!” Ganyu nods. “And then, Rex Lapis-- well, your entrance... foul king, you have taken the lives of the innocent! And for that, Celestia will take the life of your dynasty. So you defeated the tyrant... that is the nature of the foes you faced, in the time before even I was born...”
Morax lets out another laugh, and this time, it is nowhere near as long. “The memory of man... is truly strange indeed.”
And then, Ganyu closes the book before shaking her head. “But, Rex Lapis, I’m afraid I still don’t understand. What does that have to do with the Yuheng’s insolence? How could you let her tarnish your name with such foolish ambition?”
“Think of the tyrant archon,” Morax says, and his wisdom reverberates of the Golden House’s hallowed halls. “The gods of olde who cared not for their people... the ones who lived in history and the ones that live on today, all share a common trait: the silencing of dissidents. A strong ruler cares about what the people say... while a weak ruler cares, as well, but only to ensure they say only the right thing. To erase the histories of all that came before... it is how some tyrants preserve the loyalty of the people, by making them forget that there was a time before even they existed.”
“...I... perhaps I am not smart enough, because I simply do not understand,” Ganyu confesses. “You are no tyrant, Rex Lapis, but, in the archon war... did we not do the same?”
A wide, reptilian smile spreads across Morax’s immaculate features, but there is a certain melancholy to it, one that Ganyu recognizes on sight: it is the smile of someone far too old. And Morax, well, to her, he has always been far too old.
“I am glad we now live in an age where the qilin’s arrow need not sing,” Morax says instead, and when Ganyu tilts her head in confusion, he takes the playbook from her hands. “But enough of that. Keqing is a powerful Yuheng, and her heart lies in the betterment of Liyue. I am not so weak that her disbelief in me shall taint my blood.”
Ganyu gasps. “Oh, I wasn’t insinuating that at all, my lord--!”
“I know,” Morax reassures. “Now... she may never see eye to eye with me, but perhaps you will have a better chance at it. Do make friends with her, will you? I am eager to hear what the most ambitious in Liyue think is best for the nation.”
-----
When Morax dies and Osial rises, Keqing realizes:
Ganyu has always been utterly divine, and wrapped in an eerie holiness. She has always been the closest thing to godhood that one tainted by human blood can hope to achieve, and when she takes to the bow, her arrows sing like a songbird.
Ganyu has always had a beautiful voice, Keqing thinks, just a little hysterically. As if the flight of her arrows were a birdsong that could draw the sweetest of fragrance from a Glaze Lily, like the lullabies Ganyu would hum as she hurried down the halls of the Jade Chamber.
When Ganyu raises her bow to the heavens and summons a rain of ice to take the hearts of the Fatui, Keqing realizes that the two of them could not be any more different, and yet, they were more than a little alike; because Keqing is human and Ganyu is holy, but even a qilin will taint themselves in human blood for the love of a nation.
-----
And when Keqing strikes down Osial, this is what Ganyu realizes:
Once upon a time, she had thought that the birdsong of her arrows were woven into her history. That the singing of the qilin’s bow would not be forgotten unless all the history books in Liyue were burnt and all its scholars buried. And that was fine, really; she was fine with this fate, to be remembered for how she is tainted by human blood, consumed by the part of her which is a violent animal.
But as each Tianquan lived and died, the reverence Liyue held for Morax both rose and fell at the same time. The orders for Ganyu to take a life of a rebel became rarer, and rarer, and then none at all, and at first, Ganyu thought that perhaps there were simply no more rebels to slay. Buried in mountains of paperwork even back then, she had no time to stroll along the docks and hear the moans of its workers, cursing Morax’s name during stormy weather and praising his glory on payday. And the memory of man is strange, indeed, for Ganyu’s birdsong faded into the annals of history, till one day there was no one left in Liyue who knew the true origins of Ganyu’s horns.
The peaceful centuries passed in the blink of an eye, and with the turn of each millenia, the people praised Morax’s name. After all, how could they not?
None remember that any came before him.
And so, when Ganyu met the Yuheng whose dissidence was so plain that it coined a new phrase which even the burning of books will not erase from history, she was left speechless. Perhaps there have always been rebels, but how could Morax allow one among the very Liyue Qixing themselves?
But as Keqing’s hairpin electrifies the very raindrops that fall upon them, Ganyu realizes that the two of them could not be any more different, and yet, they were more than a little alike; because Ganyu is a servant while Keqing is a rebel, but even the most hopeless of uprisings were borne from the love of a nation.
-----
For the long-overdue date which was so rudely interrupted by Morax's passing, they meet at Wanmin Restaurant. Keqing insisted.
Ganyu’s identity as a half-qilin would have remained a secret no matter what, but now, Keqing is contractually obliged to maintain it: Ganyu would not agree to the outing till Keqing signed a non-disclosure agreement.
But they’re here now, they’re at the restaurant, Ganyu is dressed up the nines which makes Keqing feel a little unprepared in her casual attire and wow Keqing did not realize Ganyu could put away so much salad in one sitting but, damn, here they are.
“Xiangling is simply too good a chef,” Ganyu laments, and while Keqing agrees, the sheer amount Ganyu is indulging in seems more like a personal problem than anything. “The moment I caught a whiff... that was it!”
“Good thing I’m treating,” Keqing jokes. That had not been the initial plan, but the way Xiangling commented on how this was the first time she’s ever seen Ganyu eat with someone else is just a little heartwrenching, and Keqing’s still a sucker for pathos. “Well, for old time’s sake... how does it feel, to be eating on the dime of the most dissident Yuheng you’ve ever met?”
Ganyu pauses, chewing just a little more slowly as she contemplates Keqing’s words. “Oh, I did call you that once, didn’t I?” She smiles sheepishly, before picking at her next spoonful of vegetable soup while Keqing enjoys Xiangling’s perfectly-toasted golden shrimp balls. “I do apologize. Though... am I wrong?”
“You are not,” Keqing chuffs proudly. “And now, I’ve got even his most loyal to my side. The future truly belongs to humanity.” She then takes another bite, smiling smugly at Ganyu, while the other lets a wistful expression pass by her face.
"You know," Ganyu muses aloud, "back in the day, I used to kill dissenters like you."
Keqing chokes on her shrimp balls. "What the fuck?"
“Well, I’m glad we live in an age where we can find peaceful resolutions, instead!” And the way Ganyu dismisses her blood-chilling declaration does not entirely sit well within Keqing, but, well, there’s something infectious about the genuine brightness in her smile. “There used to be a saying about my arrows... but no one seems to remember it. That’s as sure a sign as ever to put it all behind me and in the past, then.”
“I... see,” Keqing notes, still bedazzled by the boldness of Ganyu’s confession, as well as how unperturbed Ganyu is by her own words. If Keqing needed another reminder of how different Ganyu is compared to other people, well, there it is. “Well... in any case! I am glad we have managed to put our differences aside, for the good of Liyue.”
Ganyu gives Keqing a confident nod, a smile finding its way across her face. It’s different from the others she’s given in the past-- in fact, it’s almost... goofier. No, actually-- it’s just a little less holy, and a little more human. “Yes! I, um... well, Rex Lapis did ask me to be friends with you, but I suppose this works out too!”
“Did he? I suppose he has good taste,” Keqing jests, before stretching her arm out for a handshake. “To Liyue’s future, then?”
“To Liyue’s future,” Ganyu chirps.
And then, instead of shaking her hand, Ganyu gently takes Keqing’s fingers in her palm before giving them a gentlewoman’s hand-kiss.
“Wha-- what?” Keqing doesn’t withdraw her hand immediately, just staring at Ganyu as her brain catches up with what’s happened. And then, her entire face goes as red as the shrimp Xiangling slaughtered to mash into her meal. “W-w-what was that for?!”
Ganyu blanks out. “I thought... this was... a date?”
“I mean, yes,” Keqing confirms. And then her own brain screeches to a halt. “Oh, you mean, that kind of date--?!”