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Ganyu knows a thing or two about the aftermath of a dreaded warfare.
Centuries would give that idea; there is no privilege for those who survived, and as such, a wounded memory is all that will become of them.
"Do they still hurt?"
There are bumps turned into valleys, and valleys turned to faults — these are what pulls a frown from Ganyu the most, her fingers trailing in the presence of tainted skin. Keqing had been adamant in hiding them, no less than a fearful soldier who adores the importance of wrapping the past.
"Not so much as the new ones," comes the whisper.
So much as Ganyu touched, there was a following wince. And she had been careful dancing along the bandages that clothed Keqing whole, seeking instead what weaved across her skin from far beyond their newfound moments. Long gone are the wounds that bled, now stitched in complete remembrance for those whom Keqing trusted.
A note down, and Ganyu felt the shiver as she skimmed upon the muscles of those shoulder blades. The gashes have dried to pad the ointment there, but the swelling lingers to have her Vision cool in spite of the aching. Not that Keqing harbored much right to complain; Ganyu was far into her concerns to cry her disbelief, fully hindering a medium of thought for an argument to take shape.
It wasn't that Ganyu dwelled in the fury. While careless, Keqing knew of the risks in the light of her shadow — a speed unparalleled, only for her foes to pierce at the worst of times. Ganyu caught on the agony from the hilltop, thus down below scatters the blood of a friend, and the inevitable pain of a beloved familiar.
But it was all done now. There is life in Keqing's lungs, a beating pulse beneath the chest Ganyu sought warmth to lean into. There is no torment, nor the needed grief after denial; a firm embrace is what welcomes her, enough to call it home and rest easy as the dawn breaks for another day.
Atop the bed they lie to fill the night, and make love through the hours of tearful promises. A gasp of apologies Keqing pursued, in return from the whimpers of fear Ganyu declared. When all is said and done, then, the touches fade onto the intimacy of hardened scars — the souvenirs of battle that Ganyu detested, but much more for Keqing to ignore.
There was a long gash right where the spine is, a little older than the ones recently shared. Ganyu's brows sew themselves a look of sorrow beneath the sheets, because only monsters of severe kind can only leave a wound this deep.
"When was this?" Ganyu went on, scratching the streaks of tissue in repetitive motions.
It seems to calm Keqing for a minute of her silence. "My first expedition," she says in the end, voice as tender as the dark they bathed in. "A flock of hilichurls found shelter in the cave I stayed the night in. The mitachurl struck from behind to give them an opening."
The surge of emotions wavered at the tip of Ganyu's tongue, a call for wrath amidst the familiarity of fractured care.
It's been… occasional since. Only when the palm of her hand was enveloped to press down, in the heat of Keqing's own did Ganyu let loose the tension in her stomach.
"That was long before I spared you a glance." The blanket draped just right above Keqing's midriff. Ganyu clutched on the edges of the fabric with the last of her hand. "I've gotten smarter, faster. It's easier to dodge ruin guard missiles."
"I'd say otherwise," Ganyu argued. Though it wasn't intentional, the memory of peril came to ignite it. Her fingers turned to graze Keqing's waist next, where the bandage was rolled to treat a stinging burn. "You nearly got yourself killed. Would you call that smart?"
It dims to soften — Ganyu's voice. She hadn't acknowledged the thought on the way back, and even when the blood poured for her palms to clog it.
The musing was only but a second, anyway, as the slightest crane of Keqing's head left a panic to sweep Ganyu's instinct.
"You said you weren't mad." It wasn't accusatory, fortunately.
"I'm not," Ganyu sighed. "You fucked it out of me."
"I know I did."
The snicker escaped for Ganyu to roll her eyes at, to find offense in the absurdity of Keqing's discernment. She was a ghost in her own presence that Ganyu would've wanted to poke, if not for the rashes that vaguely trailed down the supple flesh. Making love was due on the days change ought to grow; time, chances, or vague conceptions that influence the beat of Ganyu's heart, planting inside the desire for no other warmth to hold her steady. Keqing was here to fulfill that imminent need, but that, too, is a change Ganyu fears the most.
The bandages were proof of a fear she opted to despite. Ganyu's palm rests against the woven fabric around Keqing's hips, wrapped tight where the bruises leave the woman flinching at the slightest contact.
It was only a miracle that her existence slipped between the seasons of peace. Wounds like these are hardly treated in the past, their nature beyond comprehension for simple doctors to formulate a cure for. There were herbs — bitter ones, those that last centuries to cultivate, and unconventional means of restoration through the eyes of a deity.
And yet, Keqing is no god's child. If she had lived among such days, crawling at the depths of tarnished soil with a string of blood down the river — Ganyu thinks, then, of divinity's receptiveness to her calls; Are you not a follower? she hears them asking, with their nails digging into their palms at the sight of a traitor alone.
Keqing wouldn't have lived. Tossed away by the same hands Ganyu held, trampled on for the faith she has long dismissed.
"Be careful on the hip."
Ganyu looks up, meeting Keqing's eyes over her shoulder. Calculating, gentle, and always so, so knowing of the plights Ganyu forced herself into. It was easy to forget who aged far enough to accumulate that wisdom, because Keqing is every bit of conception to leave everything out of the question. Not that she truly tried to contest millenia worth of experience, no, but that only added to the acceptance Ganyu wouldn't have otherwise expected from a woman of youth.
"Don't worry. I'm not keen on opening a stitch," Ganyu leaves the spot accordingly, and returns to press her hand against Keqing's spine to weigh the pressure. "Doctor Baizhu advised you to undergo physical therapy. There's someone from Qingce Village I have in mind."
"What?" Keqing turned at that, but was gratefully hindered with the force of Ganyu's hand glued to her skin, pinching her instead. "Ow!"
"Mind your actions, love."
The wince was, perhaps, much more prominent than any of the last. Keqing tries to reach where it must be soothed, only for that same hand to slap hers away with a determined need of another reminder.
"That was barely anything strenuous!" She argues despite herself, instead coerced to sit still as she was asked while Ganyu ensured the image before her was nothing but that scarring back. "And we had sex!" Of course, she doesn't forget to add.
"That you nearly burst a vein over, dearest?"
"I was stable."
"Barely," Ganyu sighed. "You would have bled if we didn't stop after you came."
Keqing always did love to try her, even after knowing Ganyu's heightened chances of triumph in an unreasonable debate. Mostly because Keqing was stubborn to test the waters of rationality when it came to her girlfriend, but outside this circle of loving banters, she was often on the verge of succeeding whatever prize was at the end of an argument. Ganyu, meanwhile, was docile in the face of inferiority before anything else; ask Ningguang once, and the woman would count her intellect extraordinary above her secretary's own.
Still, it doesn't mean that neither weighed victory at the end of the day; concerns were subjective, something Ganyu felt her own foolishness emerge whenever the situation made them known. Keqing was just as troubled at the slightest times Ganyu pricked herself, and was quick to make work of whatever injury forced her hand to press on.
So Keqing relaxed, and huffed the tension from her shoulders with a deep breath Ganyu could only assume as regulated. "Who is it?" she asked right after a needed pause.
Ganyu's fingers were drawing shapes, now. Circles, squares, and distorted diamonds that fostered the semblance of the tip of a snowflake. At some point, they stop somewhere along Keqing's spine, a spot Ganyu finds herself tracing most times, because what befalls her in conclusion is a shiver — a sensitive pulse no resistance can shake while Keqing adapts to submission, leaving whatever message Ganyu likes for the simplest touches to convey.
"A friend of Madame Ping," she answers. "I'll ask her tomorrow. We should make the trip by the weekend."
"I'll be busy by then, you know that."
Ganyu stops to consider in the meantime. Anything further than that would only prolong Keqing's aching, not to mention they're bound for a report to Bubu Pharmacy for the medical appointments Baizhu scheduled. If a doctor hears of Keqing's neglect, an alternative is the closest option they would have to resort to: the intolerable, unmistakable taste of perhaps the most abominable antidote known to mankind — in Keqing's words, at least.
And Ganyu wouldn't want to force questionable choices of medication down her girlfriend's throat, anyway.
She sighs the second time, and only then was Keqing permitted the liberty of movement, as she retracts her hand to shift closer to the edge.
Her legs dangle over the moment she lets the blanket loose. Keqing was just right behind, and Ganyu can feel her gaze piercing holes through her back with an interest she can't tell.
"Ningguang wouldn't let you," she says instead, because anything worth mentioning right now wasn't the Tianquan's authority to know. Ganyu knows much to actually step on Keqing's patience. "Remember the last time I fell ill?"
Keqing was intent on taking her home at that time. It was quite a shock to see a Cryo Vision bearer, of all people, to catch a cold; Ganyu's heritage should have bolstered the average human's assumption that her immunity was unparalleled, and still, it only added to the worries Keqing carried upon realization, that a run to the pharmacy was the first solution to mitigate that frown — even if Ganyu's protests were loud enough to bleed her throat dry.
Ningguang? Ningguang was unrelenting. While she was known for the composure no other man could take on, her shared concern didn't pass unnoticed once Ganyu gave in to the permission she offered. She declared an order that no employee in Yuehai Pavilion should pay heed to the secretary's requests of fulfilling a task, and even informed the Qixing members available that day to dismiss Ganyu if ever she so much as knocked on their doors.
The memory seems to have elicited a groan, with Keqing's displeasure completely disclosed to reverberate across each corner of the room. Ganyu lets her chuckles echo back, as she takes Keqing's hand to guide her where their limbs are soon to meet.
"She's soon to write protocols for health concerns in the pavilion." The sheets rumple as Keqing brings along the blanket with her. "I'm surprised she hasn't. The work environment isn't exactly preferable for anyone's physical welfare."
While Ganyu expects for the nearest side to be presumably occupied, what passes, instead, is her surprise at the sensation of a weight behind her. She's bound to have her legs squeezed together, right between Keqing's own, as Keqing situates herself a spot against Ganyu's bare back and slips her arms around her waist to plant her palms on Ganyu's thighs.
It's relaxing, somewhat, and Ganyu can't restrain her chuckles at the faint breeze of Keqing's breath against her neck. "It tickles," she mutters, while Keqing begins to wrap her frame entirely.
It takes a minute or two before Ganyu melts against the comforting warmth, having Keqing close to provide the protection she never knew she needed. Keqing always did adore being embraced to satisfy any sort of intimacy they usually lacked in the day, little gestures Ganyu was more than glad to return even in the long hours of the night atop the bed. When it's Ganyu's turn, however, she makes a mental note of Keqing's subtle habits whenever she tightens her hold, or the way her fingers slither across any inch of skin accessible from a distance.
The multitude of times she expressed her love for Ganyu's body was countless by now, and not just for the purpose of sex, no. The first time Ganyu exposed herself, there was this lingering fear at the back of her mind, forcing a thought of withdrawal to push Keqing away in time for her to witness her initial reaction. How could she not? It was easy to concern yourself with appearances; it was a nonsensical matter for most, but Ganyu ultimately despised looking at the mirror each time her scars throbbed in remembrance.
Keqing was gentle, regardless, and knew not to impel Ganyu to leave the caution she created for herself. It took some time before Ganyu could actually get used to Keqing's gaze, which was highly inquisitive towards both her distress and the memories she chose to conceal, because it was originally safe to conclude that the comfort between them was never compromised.
Still, Keqing was consistent with her reassurances, and took every chance she could to express the smallest of reasons for Ganyu to trust her. "Your flaws are the mementos of a cherished time," she said that night, where Ganyu finally succumbed to a finger down the blister from a hundred years past. "There's no harm in loathing them, but it's easier to take pride in the evidence of your artistry."
Ganyu remembers asking, then, of the wisdom behind those words. Keqing has yet to reach the age of someone seasoned in the essence of life, when she simply answered, "Aristocrats learn two things from painting lessons. Surely the first one's obvious, then my teacher was from Sumeru."
Keqing, in fact, was quite the artist to sell that reason trustworthy. While Ganyu has yet to fully comprehend how the nobles take on a variety of mediums to interpret distinctive art, the role of the Yuheng was known for its required skill to hone architectural creativity.
Was Keqing the artist all this time, then? Embracing this masterpiece of a soul, a canvas that Ganyu herself was careless to think so lawless. Even as she lets her hands be encased in the struggles of Keqing's own, the contrast of their hardships unveiled that Ganyu frowned; Keqing was too young, she would've said. Too young to wound this much.
"You write more than I do."
Keqing takes one hand, and spreads Ganyu's fingers open against her lap. "You see that?" She grazes on the knuckle of her right index, the one Ganyu uses to keep her string steady. There's a scrape from the time her bow flew against her, with the arrow of an enemy darting past to ultimately disrupt a calculated posture. "I don't remember you getting this. I would've mistaken it for a scratch from your quill."
But Keqing doesn't stop, surprisingly, that the response lodges in Ganyu's mouth to hide in anticipation. Keqing proceeds to flip her hand bare, her own thumb stroking along the creases of Ganyu's palm. "This one's deep. Has it always looked like this?" It's a full gash across her skin, akin to that on Keqing's bicep. "It's a sword. I can tell it is."
Ganyu closes her palm, engulfing Keqing's thumb, and opens it again. "You're quite clever, aren't you?" she jests in the midst of it. "It was practically forged to behead us adepti. It's a miracle enough to know it didn't pierce through my hand."
She feels a shift behind her, incessant with its need to give space more than Ganyu already occupied. But the blanket gave away the idea, anyway, as it cloaks to an extent of reaching Ganyu's knees, the fabric weaved perfectly to encase them both in the seclusion of this midnight bubble.
"Someone flared up?" Keqing continues to make work of the blanket, pinching its edges to droop from the mattress. Soon enough, all that's left of the bed were the sheets they have yet to change, with their frames fully submerged to the warmth such fabric holds.
In return, Ganyu hummed, and left her legs to poke through the aperture for air. The blanket was draping over Keqing's thighs now, but neither seemed to mind as she surrendered against the concrete of Ganyu's shoulder.
"I don't remember who exactly," Ganyu followed, trying not to move in her place lest she hit a vulnerable spot behind, "but they were vengeful all the same. Rex Lapis was just far too lenient to reciprocate the consequences."
Fury… is one thing Ganyu has learned to never leave unattended. Each year serves a purpose to withstand the prejudice human devotion has brought them; commitment to the divine, and the very envy that trailed after each sunken prayer. They were no gods, after all, but judgment was often misplaced in the course of history that not even the highest of might could alter for anyone else's benefit.
What happened was fate embodied — nothing Ganyu could confront. The power surging in her veins she often claimed to belong to someone else, anyway, never once beneath her name that simply belonged in the office polished each passing decade.
"If there's one thing I wish to thank him for," Keqing whispers down Ganyu's jawline — ticklish, as she first felt, though inclined to leave her head leaning against Keqing's forehead, "it would be for never failing to look after you."
Once more was the grip around Ganyu's waist tighten; Keqing's arms were firm around the outline of her curves, while delicate, she was as sure to succumb regardless — her figure perfectly immersed in the worship Ganyu knew was conveyed before her. She feels Keqing's chest, the beat of her heart pounding relentlessly inside her ribcage, and Ganyu hears it — hears the way that rhythm sings to her and her alone, underneath flesh and bone explored by no one else worthy of Keqing's attention.
Even after all the nights she was declared the sole god to receive praises that reached the heavens, the one true divinity Keqing wouldn't dare lay a finger on, the tainting of her skin was still proof of the humanity Ganyu pursues first and foremost; scattered on every limb, punctured across the details anyone else would have missed. Nobody should find fault in their deities when they were the epitome of the notions humans harbored to attain sanctitude.
But how is it that Keqing embraced her so? Wasn't she just as tainted, bloodied from the hands of the foes Ganyu wished divine judgment upon?
She sees them — the bandages on Keqing's arms, the texture prominent from the slightest movement. Years of bladework could only do so much to keep you away from the point itself, because Keqing was still… aging, growing from the present she swore to plant.
It dawns before her, then, of another vow Ganyu should have claimed long ago.
"Keqing," she calls, craning her neck to look aside, catching the amethysts Ganyu swore to have glinted more than any ore that flocked the land.
And Keqing was feeble, in a state of surrender they both knew wouldn't last until the morning, but Ganyu was nevertheless certain it proved her convictions well-placed.
She was met with a turn of a head as Keqing rose up, though her arms remained loose around Ganyu's waist. "Yes?"
There was no time to spare in the split second Ganyu seized her lips, pouring every ounce of promise she could think of since the day her heart soared in the truth of her desire.
I want you near — she presses further, nearly devouring what's left of Keqing's tongue that slipped in. I want you safe — comes unbidden, as Ganyu whimpers the further Keqing chases after that control.
By the time the air had mingled from the restraint they never saw coming, it was Ganyu who pulled away first, positively breathless. Her eyes were fixed on the cuts on Keqing's lower lip, ones that stood accomplice to the blood previously coughed out.
"I want to protect you."
The wish escapes from Ganyu's lungs, like a breeze left forgotten to the traces of time they lived in between. It was bound for the message it sought all throughout; she wasn't reckless to instill a promise that held not the gravity that should have always been there.
And Keqing was… surprised, at most. Perhaps stuck in the wavelength of both the amusement and shock portrayed, because Ganyu isn't one to declare when it wasn't needed.
But the thought was forged along her future, now, and Keqing's fate wasn't any god's toy to play according to their will. Rex Lapis was no more after all, nor were the spirits that waited for the opportunity to disrupt what beautiful soul.
She was sure Keqing listened. Processed. Accepted — if the kiss returned was anything to go by.
Soon, the arms loosen until they slack, as Keqing lifts one to plant her palm against Ganyu's cheek. "I know you do," she says, her motions returned to caress more of the recent scrapes. "My solace. You always have been."
Ganyu melts into the touches for a moment.
"Just as you are mine."
The blanket swings once more when Ganyu pulls Keqing down slowly. Their scars veiled beneath the sun they so feared wouldn't dawn again, and yet, the moon has flared in the eternity Ganyu never once hoped to lay bare.
She was no god, but the blood in Ganyu's veins was bound to weave into Keqing's heart if she only remained. A matter of wounds no bandage can heal, and a flaw no second can erase.
Keqing was safe — the sole follower of a god defiled, and the one lover of a human too gentle.