[Above Dragonspine]
"Felix… so he has come."
Orion's voice was not a roar, not a cry, but a husk. A whisper drowned beneath the chaos of wings and claws. His eyes—bleeding rivers of red—fluttered shut, as though even darkness was kinder than what waited in the storm above. Abyssal essence slithered over his wounds like black silk, sealing flesh with unnatural haste.
But it was no mercy. For every scar that closed, three more were carved anew. Talons gouged trenches into his body; fangs split scales faster than corruption could mend them. His Leviathan frame was not a body but a canvas—painted and repainted in his own blood.
"I cannot win…" The words broke from him like frost melting beneath sunlight. His vast form shuddered, wings trembling, before beginning its descent. Not a beast's tumble. Not a king's disgrace. He sank as though unseen hands lowered him gently, cradling him into Dragonspine's frozen arms.
Above him, the Frost Dragons wheeled in silence. Their wings cut circles into the storm—halos of ice, a funeral wreath etched into the sky. Yet mercy did not soften their claws. They pressed inward, tearing, shredding, gouging. Each wound burst like a ghastly flower across his flesh.
But their eyes held no fury. Only inevitability. They were executioners, carrying out the sentence of the world.
Blood drifted upward like snowfall, mingling with the storm. The heavens themselves seemed to mourn, painting the scene in twilight's palette—violet, silver, scarlet.
And as Orion's shadow stretched long across the peaks, the mountain groaned. Dragonspine itself seemed to sigh—a dirge of stone and frost for the undone king.
---
[And Then]
The world cried.
The heavens quaked, the mountains shuddered, and rivers faltered mid-flow. Grief had no words, so creation wept in silence. Its sorrow rippled across every stone, every star.
---
[Celestia]
In the hollow halls of eternity, a figure stirred.
Tall. Curvaceous. Her pale skin gleamed like ivory fractured by light. White hair cascaded in silken waves, and her golden eyes shimmered with pupils carved like seven-petaled flowers—divine blossoms etched into her very soul.
Her garments shifted between beauty and menace: a translucent bodysuit veiled beneath a black dress split to the waist, a ruffled skirt trailing like fog, and feathers fanned across her back—both mourning wings and blades.
Her pupils dilated, blooming wide like stars collapsing into supernova. She turned, sharp, sudden. Urgent.
"So soon?" Her voice trembled. A goddess, caught between dread and inevitability.
---
[Dragonspine]
Snow fell.
Not harsh. Not bitter. Each flake descended like a gentle touch, as if the skies themselves sought to cloak carnage in beauty. The mountain wore grief like a bridal veil.
Then the air ruptured.
A rift tore open—not in chaos, but in sacred geometry. A sigil of Ice, flawless and terrible, carved itself into reality. Its lines blazed with ancient frost, searing through the veil of existence.
Through it, she stepped.
Hair cascading like avalanches. Eyes deep with galaxies. Her form small, yet her presence eclipsed the mountain. A fur coat embraced her frame, its lining glittering with shards of crystal like imprisoned stars.
"Mother Rosen…?"
Yandelf's lips cracked, bloodied, quivering. Her blurred gaze pierced the haze—saw the impossible.
Rosen's gaze softened as she stepped forward, snow curling about her ankles like worshippers.
"I came as soon as I could," she whispered. A lullaby of eternity. Even the storm hushed.
Her fingers, cold as stillness, touched Yandelf's brow.
"Stillness," she breathed, "is a blessing."
And the world obeyed.
The storm froze mid-scream. Snowflakes halted in the air like diamonds suspended. The battlefield became a painting of silence. Yandelf's breaths stilled, her pain hushed beneath Rosen's touch.
But sorrow swirled in the goddess's eyes. "I long to heal you, child. But I cannot. This body is a fragment. My true self cannot reach Teyvat so swiftly. I may save only one."
She lifted Yandelf as though she were a newborn, and stepped back through the frozen rift. Her coat shimmered with imprisoned starlight as she vanished into the silence between worlds.
And time resumed.
---
Orion's body quivered. Abyssal essence clung to him, not to preserve—but to discard.
Scales cracked. Wings split. His great Leviathan form unraveled piece by piece into ash and snow. From within ruin, Orion's human frame emerged. Fragile in stature, yet bound to something far darker than the beast had been.
His voice rang, steady. Merciless.
"Felix… it falls to you now. You were once their blood. Their cherished hatchling. But that bond is broken. What remains of you is Abyss. My weapon."
---
Felix stepped forward.
The snow bent beneath him. His wings spread, corrupted blossoms scattering like poisoned confetti. His breath steamed with frostfire; his hollow eyes burned abyssal light.
The Frost Dragons faltered. Their circle cracked. Confusion splintered their unity.
"Felix?" one whispered. Horror laced its voice.
"He was a babe when last we saw him…"
"What… what has become of him?"
Their voices wavered—grief piercing their ancient throats. They did not see an enemy. They saw kin, desecrated. A child twisted into a blade.
Above them, Orion—human once more, bloodied—watched. His Leviathan shell gone, but his will sharper than ever.
"Felix.
Annihilate them.
Leave no wings unbroken."
The command rang. But it was not Orion's voice—it was the Abyss speaking through him, wearing his tongue like a mask.
Inside, the true Orion howled. His soul battered invisible chains, his throat bleeding with screams none could hear:
"No! They are your blood! They are your family! Stop! For the love of the gods—STOP!"
But the Abyss only laughed in silence.
---
Felix moved.
He was no dragon. He was requiem incarnate.
Corrupted wings cracked thunder. Blossoms scattered like funeral offerings, their fragrance sweet with rot. His roar tore the heavens—not beast nor kin, but Abyss's hymn: agony, fury, loss, woven into one endless scream.
The young faltered. Their vast eyes reflected disbelief.
"Felix? Our hatchling…"
But the elders knew. Their gazes hardened, tears burning in eyes of frostfire.
"He was ours," one whispered. "But no longer. Now he is Abyss's blade."
And Felix fell upon them.
He danced across the storm like a grotesque ballet. Violet wings painted beauty into carnage. Blood arced in crimson strokes. He tore wings, crushed skulls, ripped hearts. Each strike both massacre and masterpiece.
The Frost Dragons did not roar as soldiers. They lamented as family. Their claws struck heavy with sorrow. Their roars shook with grief.
But Felix only killed.
---
And inside, the boy screamed.
"Stop! Please, stop me!" His thoughts tore themselves apart into sobs. "Mother… Father… help! I don't want this!"
Each claw that raked flesh was mirrored by a sob. Each throat torn apart echoed with a cry of his own.
"I DON'T WANT TO KILL THEM! SOMEONE—PLEASE—STOP ME!"
But only the monster roared.
The Frost Dragons heard only a beast. The world saw only slaughter. But inside Felix, a child's sobs rang endlessly—pleas shredding his soul.
"It hurts! It hurts! IT HURTS!" His memories twisted: siblings curled beside him in the nest, elders sheltering him beneath their wings, lullabies in deep voices. All gone. All murdered by his claws.
He wept within his prison, even as his body slaughtered his kin. He was their dirge and their murderer. Their mourner and their executioner.
And the blossoms on his wings crowned his torment with pitiless beauty.
---
Within Orion, the Abyss deepened its grip. Cryo surged, not as gift nor birthright, but as weapon. Ice rose. Valleys buckled. Glaciers shaped themselves into city walls.
The Arian Core returned.
But false.
A counterfeit dream, born of Abyssal grief. Towers spiraled skyward like lances. Bridges arched like frozen prayers. Frost Dragon nests lay silent, eggs hushed into stillness.
At the center, the Aethercastle erupted—spires etched with runes glowing violet, not royal blue. Curtains of frozen waterfalls veiled it. Not rebirth, but mockery.
Inside, the throne room manifested—pillars alive with frozen silhouettes of dragons, whether statues or trapped souls none could tell.
And upon the jagged throne of crystal, Orion sat. Not sovereign, not boy, but Abyss enthroned. His eyes bled shadow, veins glowing violet frost.
---
Felix stumbled into the hall, scales torn, blood pouring like rivers.
"Felix…" Orion whispered, trembling. "My friend… is this the price of my choice?"
Felix collapsed. Blood spread across the frost. His voice rasped, broken glass:
"This is no consequence. I sinned beyond undoing. I… slaughtered them. All of them. My kin. With my own claws…"
"Tell me," Orion begged, tears in his voice. "The nest—what happened?"
Felix convulsed once. Then stillness. His chest did not rise again.
And at that moment—
The Abyss retreated.
It abandoned Orion's body, slithering back into shadow. His chains snapped. His voice returned. And all at once—he felt it.
Every life ended through Felix's hands. Every scream. Every bloodied wing. Every dragon's final breath. Not muffled. Not distant. But vivid. Real. His grief crashed in like a flood with no shore.
Orion collapsed, screaming with all the voices of the dead.
---
He ran. Through snow, through shadow, through silence. Until—
The nests.
Ash and fire. Eggs blackened, cracked, steaming like lost spirits. Charred bodies sprawled—elders, mothers, hatchlings. All smoldering husks. All silent.
The stench of blood and ash choked him. He staggered, whispering:
"How… how did it come to this?"
No answer came. Only the hiss of fire.
He returned to the fake Aethercastle. Vast. Hollow. The throne waiting, cold as judgment. He fell into it, head in his hands.
"Venti…" His voice was a gasp. "Where are you? Will you not come? Not even now?"
The wind did not stir. The god did not answer.
"Oh, my friend…" His whisper cracked into frost, his gaze back towards Felix. "You were once noble. Now you lie still… wings broken… breathless."
Hours blurred.
When Orion woke, he lay upon ice. No crown at his side. No voices in the halls. Only grief—heavy as stone.
And then tears. Not torrents. Just one. Then another. Sharp and lonely, like icicles breaking.
"How did it come to this?" His voice was not king's, but child's.
The cavern answered with silence.
Far above Dragonspine's storm, the winds stirred.
Faint, fractured — like a drunk bard's sigh.
Venti stood upon a cliff of Mondstadt, his lyre cradled loosely in one hand. His eyes — green, usually full of songs and tricks — stared hollow into the horizon. No melody touched his lips. The winds themselves held their breath, as if afraid to speak.
"I hear him," he whispered. "Every scream. Every chain snapping. Every dragon's last breath."
His fingers plucked one trembling note — a string that refused to sing. The sound choked in the air, breaking apart like a sob.
Beside him, on the stone of Liyue's shores, Morax stood still. His golden eyes blazed not with wrath, but with the ache of centuries. His arms folded behind his back, not in pride but in restraint.
"Orion," he rumbled. "Felix. Children drowning beneath the Abyss. And we—" His jaw clenched, the words breaking against stone. "We can do nothing."
Venti's head turned, lips curled in a bitter smile. "Nothing? Oh, I can play a song. A lullaby for corpses. A dirge for a child begging for death inside his own body."
His laugh cracked, sharp as glass. He pressed the lyre to his chest, voice lowering. "But I cannot lift a hand. Celestia watches. And her gaze is chains heavier than yours, old stone."
Morax's brow furrowed. A dragon's fury flickered deep in his chest, but never rose to his tongue. "If I move… if I so much as breathe against her will…" His eyes closed, a tremor beneath his immortal calm. "…millions will pay the price."
The air thickened. Even the stars seemed to hold back their light.
Below, Orion's screams rose from the Aethercastle — a requiem of grief, echoing into the bones of the world.
Venti's hands trembled against his lyre. He strummed one last note, soft as a dying breath.
And the wind whispered back, not in music, but in sorrow.
Morax's voice was stone cracking beneath weight:
"We were gods. And yet we are but prisoners. Watching children die beneath our silence."
They stood together, two archons carved into stillness — witnesses to tragedy, cursed by eternity.
And Celestia's golden gaze lingered above them, cold, merciless, and endless.