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“Almost there!” Ganyu calls, striding into a clearing, Beidou trailing right on her heels. A few more minutes takes them to a private little area in the outskirts of Jueyun Karst. Far away from the adepti that Beidou can be safe, but close enough that the air smells clean and old and like home. It makes Ganyu glow with happiness, bursting with a sudden impulse to be reckless.
There's no one around. Ganyu reaches out softly to grab hold of Beidou’s hand. The captain doesn’t react, but Ganyu can see her cheeks blush, a sweet little bashful look on her face. It’s a warm summer day in Liyue, and the butterflies trace lazy paths through the grass. The breeze ruffles the trees and sends a pleasant sound through the valley. A golden finch takes flight, wingbeats fast and fierce in its fight against gravity. A crab scuttles by.
Despite it all, Ganyu can't help but feel a wave of uncertain melancholy run down her spine.
Oh, Rex Lapis, if you were still here to see this… Last Ganyu had talked with him, the former Archon had embarked off on a solo trip through the back lands of the Qingce Village, following a trail of Glaze Lilies. He hadn’t told her what the purpose of this mission was, but she can hazard a guess. She hopes he’ll find what he’s looking for.
She thinks of chasing history, and that Liyue is in the hands of mortals now, and oh, how long has it been since her days of war?
Ganyu pauses by a little pond, deep in thought. So much has changed, she thinks, for better and for worse. Now, Liyue is a nation of peace. Her work entails more negotiations than fighting, from hunting down traitors long ago to now exposing corrupt merchants. A sharp mind for strategy is still of utmost importance, but now situations resolve themselves with much less bloodshed. Perhaps someday she can put her bow down for good and only use her pen.
The work is lonely, but it is always lonely, when she is not enough to truly belong to either the humans or the adepti. At least it is work, and at least she can still be useful in this modern world.
A branch creaks in the wind. Ganyu shakes herself.
She makes her way over to a dry spot on the shore to spread out a soft blanket over the landscape. It’s more for Beidou than it is for her; Beidou’s always a bit particular about sitting on grass. Beidou joins her a moment later, reclining on the fabric to watch the path of a lapis glede wheel about in the sky.
They spend the first few minutes in a wonderful meditative silence, and Ganyu embraces the time she can spend to soak up the nature around her. It's rare she gets to do this, and a welcome treat from the crowds of Liyue. She quiets her head and settles into Beidou’s side, nestling into her warm, soft embrace. She could spend hours like this, perhaps. It’s easier out here, to sit and breathe and let the world pass her by.
But of course, Beidou has never been good at sitting still.
Ganyu blinks back to herself at the sensation of Beidou pulling a leaf out of her hair, an expression of tenderness sitting so soft on her sharp features. Ganyu’s favorite kind of smile.
Beidou hums softly, looking at her with an intensity that makes Ganyu want to fidget, uncomfortable in the attention. She's used to being in the background, letting the world go by. The way Beidou keeps putting her in the focus makes her- nervous, almost. Self-conscious.
“You’re beautiful,” Beidou says suddenly, leaning forward to brush a piece of hair out of her face. "You know that?”
Ganyu’s breath stills, suddenly cold in the afternoon air. Beidou’s hand moves to trace a line up her side. It tickles, makes Ganyu’s spine shiver, but she’s not in the mood for laughing now.
When Ganyu doesn't answer, Beidou stops. Lifts her head up to look at Ganyu properly. “Right?"
“You don’t have to- say those things,” Ganyu manages. Beidou has always been honest with her, never once been deceiving, and the thought that her of all people might be trying to do that now is almost too much to bear. “You don’t need to lie.”
The resounding silence is near-deafening.
Beidou’s eye widens as her face changes near-imperceptibly, a multitude of emotions all with too much pity in each one. Ganyu tears her gaze away, unwilling to continue eye contact for even a moment longer.
“Ganyu,” Beidou says, and her name like this in Beidou’s mouth sounds so heartbroken. Ganyu hates that it was her, that she was the one to put that sound in Beidou’s voice. “Ganyu, I-”
“We’ve been together long enough,” Ganyu says, swallowing down the way her voice catches in the back of her throat. “You don't have to- I'm not pretty, it's fine, Beidou-” Words fail her, and Beidou makes a quiet sound like she's been hurt.
“I've always thought you were,” Beidou whispers, relentless. Her captain, stubborn as stone, voice as soft and delicate as a spider’s web. “I do, I really do. I'll swear on it.”
It's almost funny, Ganyu thinks irrationally. The great untamable captain of the seas, offering to bind herself in a contract with Ganyu of all people when all the Qixing couldn’t.
"Beidou," she says, low: a warning. “Don't.” How can she be, when humans were the ones to coin this word, when beauty became synonymous with the shape of one’s body, and she never could blend in with them now, could she? She's tried, she really has, but it's so much of herself that would have to be excised and her self-control around food is poor at best and nonexistent at worst.
So much of herself that never did fit in. She presses a hand to Beidou’s side to say stop in a way she cannot say with words.
“No, really,” Beidou insists, because she's never been good at following an order she didn't like. Her tone takes on a quiet urgency Ganyu has never heard before. “Swear on my ship, swear on Liyue, hell, I'll swear on Rex Lapis-”
Something small and fragile within her feels like it's shattered into a million tiny shards of ice. She feels frosted over. She feels warm to her fingertips. It's an old wound, something scarred and torn inside Ganyu, something she’s only ever managed to hide within the deepest parts of herself, and here comes Beidou with the soft way she’s speaking. It threatens to break every last guard Ganyu has put up. With one touch, she thinks Beidou could tear through stone.
She's on her feet before she knows it, something akin to anger flowing through her veins. Ganyu shoves at Beidou, pushing her back with hands that do not tremble, forgetting - always forgetting her Qilin strength. But Beidou just lets her, rolling back to absorb the blow, the kindest expression on her face and head upturned so she can look up at Ganyu in the eyes.
Ganyu freezes. Beidou remains, kneeling at her feet.
Her face, so soft. So honest. It stops Ganyu in her tracks and her anger evaporates like snowflakes in the morning sun.
She lets her shoulders drop, her hand falling away from her Vision. She hadn’t even realized it was there, but it responds back to her, glowing, pulsating in frosty waves of energy. Beidou doesn’t even spare it a glance as she keeps her gaze fixed on Ganyu. Heedless of the danger she could be in, heedless of anything but Ganyu.
“Why?” Ganyu says, because she does not know what else to ask.
Beidou takes a breath, and Ganyu takes one with her. Copying her. Trying to force her own body along to Beidou’s rhythm, Beidou’s natural calmness. Her eye in the storm.
The shame of her actions threatens to overtake Ganyu at once. She almost lets her head drop, if not for the way that Beidou is looking at her. Searching. As if all the answers in the world were in Ganyu’s face. She cannot look away.
“Is this-” Beidou asks instead, quietly. “Is this how you feel?”
“I-” Ganyu begins, then stops. Starts again. Words come out of her in bits and pieces. “I mean- it's not- it's nothing, Beidou-”
“Tell me,” Beidou says, looking at her with piercing, honest eyes. “Who said that to you? Who told you-” and she cuts herself off then, lets the sentence hang unfinished in the air. She’s too kind to voice the words that haunt Ganyu’s thoughts. It’s a small mercy, and Ganyu trembles with the gift of it all.
What could she say? There’s no person to pin it on; it’s nothing, it's everything. It's the way that Cloud Retainer still makes comments on her self-control around flowers, the way she still dances around the Jade Chamber's mirrors and makes herself scarce every time the Traveler comes by with their new camera device. There's a story that still gets passed around by storytellers sitting at old bars: have you heard, the adeptus that won a fight with a monster only because she couldn't fit down its mouth? The laughter that follows. The way her hands still curl around her stomach even when she pulls in her breath, wishing it could disappear entirely.
A thousand answers she could give, and none of them would be the right one. Nobody ever said that to her, not really, in those words, but. Nobody ever said the opposite either.
“It's fine,” she says. She drops the arm she'd been unconsciously curling around her stomach, as if she could hide it.
Beidou isn't satisfied. “Ganyu-”
“It's fine- I-” Her insides feel messy, thick with emotion, too tangled to make sense of. Not with Beidou looking at her like that, so carefully. Nothing in her face but compassion. She wishes it weren't so tender.
“My body isn't beautiful, I've- I've tried,” she gets out, a quiet admission for the world, the closest thing to the truth she knows. It scrapes her throat on the way out.
She expects Beidou to pause, give another silence where Ganyu wishes she could dissolve into water and disappear. She expects her to leave, almost. What she doesn't expect is Beidou to rise, standing up until she's at full height, the slope of the grass keeping the both of them eye-to-eye.
“I'm going to tell you something,” Beidou says. “It's fine if you don't believe me, but just- listen, alright?” There's a fire in her eyes, a fierceness to her that crackles along the edges. Like she's rising to a challenge, readying herself. Ganyu feels something in her breath catch at the sight.
“I've never been much for words, that's more your thing, but I, I like you. As you are. I-, Ganyu, I swear, I have always loved the way your body is.” Beidou’s voice turns hoarse, taut with something thick and choking.
Ganyu takes a deep, shuddery breath.
And I'm gonna be real cheesy here,” Beidou says, “but I promise it's the truth and I've always thought you were perfect- oh, Ganyu-” and she breaks off because Ganyu is crying, thick choking sobs that wrench themselves out of her like a downpour. She pulls Beidou in close, and a shaky laugh comes out of her at the way Beidou is trembling beside her, the both of them clutching each other in a desperate way.
“I like your body,” Beidou whispers, like it's a secret, a confessional. Ganyu doesn't know what to say. “I like how nice it feels to hold you.” Beidou doesn't even take a breath before adding on, “I like the soft of your belly. I love your scars. I love the way you have a little dimple on the right side of your face and the way your stretch marks make patterns on your skin. I- I love you, Ganyu, just as you are.”
Her words echo louder than anything Ganyu has ever heard. She almost reels at the sound of them.
“Really?” she asks, when she can find the breath to say it. She rolls the words around in her mouth. Soft. Perfect. It's too much to bear, almost; she wants to bury herself underground like a Dendro slime and never come out. All the times she'd spent poking at all the worst parts of herself in a mirror and now here is Beidou in front of her saying: promise.
“On my honor,” Beidou says, and then she finally dips her head, bowing down and resting a hand on her heart. It's such an old gesture Ganyu doesn't recognize it at once, and then it's clear to her: a swearing of loyalty. The first form of contract. A promise of the utmost value, and Beidou gives it to her freely.
“Oh, Beidou-” and Ganyu pulls her up at once, into a hold that’s less hug than it is a desperate grasp, a gesture that’s part gratitude and part apology; part I love you and part did I hurt you, part of a million things Ganyu doesn’t have the words to say and just grips Beidou so tightly, holds her and buries her head in Beidou’s hair and lets herself fall into pieces in Beidou’s arms.
Beidou brings a hand up to curve around Ganyu’s shoulders. She places it slowly, carefully. Like she’s waiting for Ganyu to push her away. When she doesn't, Beidou settles herself down. Ganyu presses into her even more, anchoring herself in Beidou’s weight.
Every part of Ganyu echoes in a way that makes her feel raw, exposed. She feels fragile, young in a way she hasn't felt in centuries. It's so much to take in, the way Beidou just says these things to her, strikes to her heart in so few words. That Beidou likes her just as she is-
She doesn't know if she can accept it, not yet, not in its entirety, but her heart is beating faster in a way that says maybe, maybe.
Maybe she'll believe it someday.
Beidou kisses her once, twice, reaches up with gentle hands to clear away the tears off her face. Ganyu closes her eyes and lets her, basks in Beidou's words. She clutches onto Beidou’s side like a lifeline, taking breath after breath until her heartbeat reaches something steady again.
When she has the space between breaths, she pulls back just enough to kiss Beidou, pulling herself up to her tiptoes.
It's so warm in her arms.
Around them, the world continues onwards. A heron lands in the water, taking delicate steps to slow its descent. The wind whispers down from the mountain, bringing scents of Violetgrass and Qingxin flowers. In the middle of it all, Ganyu nestles her cheek on Beidou’s collarbone, breathes in the scent of her until peace settles into every beat of her heart. Beidou pulls back just enough to look at Ganyu, that same expression in her face, like she could see all the way to Ganyu’s core.
This time, Ganyu does not shy away.