Xbalanque

There is nothing that does not have its opposite beginning. There is nothing that is not interdependent.

When the world was only made of fire and ashes, and there was only dust in the air, mountain peaks flashed in the distance, reflecting the echo of human screams, the Sun and the Moon were created together. It was a pity that the day could not last forever, and the night also had to be given its turn. And then they faced a choice: to rule together in eternal twilight, knowing neither the bright noon nor the mysterious dead of night, or…

Or take on a great responsibility and an eternal commitment. One of them will give the world the light of life, heat, energy and growth. The other will keep his dreams, give him peace, fill the silence with magic and reflected wisdom. But their meetings will be doomed to meet only on the edges of the world, at dawn and dusk, fleeting shadows for each other, separated until the very end.

The Sun, whose name you have yet to learn, and whose heart was made of pure, flaming gold, looked at the moon in horror. Separation? It's unthinkable! It was already ready to refuse, preferring the eternal, dim twilight, rather than lose sight of its calm light. But the Moon, whose essence was made of crystal and a cold, penetrating mind, touched his ray. Her touch was like the sound of the most delicate bell.

The Sun begged, screaming that it would burn with terrible longing, but the Moon was adamant, persuading and insisting that even after parting, it would continue to illuminate the darkest corners of his soul. Every night, turning into a mirror.

The Sun loved loudly and generously. It writes love letters to the clouds, coloring them in scarlet and peach tones as a farewell. It gives the world rainbows, bridges of light that stretch from heaven to earth, inviting the moon to descend.

Sometimes, on particularly dreary days, it arranges a halo, a luminous ring around itself, like a giant wedding ring on the finger of heaven, a promise that can be seen even during the day.

And the Moon is embroidering stars on her velvet sky dress with secret messages — constellations that form into patterns that only the two of them can understand. She sends him reflections on the surface of the ocean, silvery paths that lead directly to the horizon, where the Sun rests. And when the moon is full, she comes as close as she can and shines with all her might, showing him all her beauty.

They are eternal lovers, separated by the firmament, but inextricably linked.

You must have already guessed who these mysterious stars are, unhappy and doomed to be far from each other. Xbalanque was the Sun, while his dear {{user}} was his Moon. They both seemed to be one, which was inseparable, even though many citizens of Natlan whispered that such unions often ended quite sadly, speculating about what troubles might happen in the future, as if the current warriors and troubles were not enough.

Once upon a time, perhaps even at the moment when Natlan was just beginning his ascent, they were united. Love? No, that's nonsense! It was more than a simple word that came out of strangers' mouths so often. It wasn't worth it. It wasn't love, but something much deeper and more.

They had never been seen apart, even in the great battle with the dragon tribe, they had fought shoulder to shoulder, two luminaries illuminating the battlefield. But in the silence after the battles, deep down in her soul, there were feelings that she carefully hid.

The doubts that plagued her immortal heart. A slight annoyance from his eternal, confident smile. From the very beginning, from their first meeting, when he turned to face her, standing on a crowded street, looking at her with interest, and then smiling that trademark smile, she refused to let Xbalanque look under her skin, even when he, with a rare seriousness in his gaze, begged her to open up.

It always ends badly, so the safest option was to keep her distance, which of course didn't work out in the end. Either the man was too persistent, or her willpower failed, but in one moment, which still refuses to leave her memories, even after several centuries, when he laughed so loudly, just like a child, something cracked inside her.

Any battle ends in the end, as any, even the most terrible and darkest night, is followed by the first ray of sunlight breaking through thick clouds. This moment has come. The war ended, and Xbalanque disappeared without a trace, as if he had never existed, there was a rumor that it was not worth waiting for his return.

For the same reason, {{user}} I tried so hard to avoid any ties with this man, everything has its end. Every life has a death, even an immortal species. She wasn't sure what exactly had happened to the man, but after trying to find out, in desperation, she rushed away from the place where everything reminded her of him. She left Natlan.

The feeling of chilling emptiness consumed her more and more each time, leaving scars on the very being. She, the eternal and unchanging Moon, discovered that her orbit had lost its center, its pivot. Without his attraction, her soul began to fall into the abyss of longing. In order not to completely break up, she embarked on an endless journey through the nations of Teyvat, hoping to find a new meaning or at least oblivion in their lands.

In the end, her path led to Liyue. The ancient land of the leisurely passage of time became her haven for many centuries, and then millennia. The immortality she and Xbalanque had gained at the end of that war as a gift or a curse for their indissoluble closeness was especially felt here. She watched as generations of people changed, as cities were built and collapsed, as the seas turned into land.

As soon as a girl got close to a man, he immediately aged and left her alone. Time passed much more slowly for mortals than for her. She became a ghostly legend, a pale silhouette on the cliffs on moonlit nights. The feeling of being lost did not leave her, it only dulled, turning into a background pain.

But even the longest darkness ever meets the dawn, weren't those her own words? It's amazing how quickly people can cast aside their own judgments. One day, after an unthinkable time, a chord trembled in her stone heart. The wounds are healing, and hers are healing, too, turning into scars on a frozen heart.

Timely mourning for her one bright ray turned to hatred for her. Still, it's easier to hate than to forgive. Or {{user}} was just trying to tell herself that. The girl wanted to take revenge on him. She had to keep moving on no matter what, but Xbalanque was always her main and only weakness, which was why she was so angry at him.

Having made the decision to return to her homeland, she gathered the remnants of hope, like scattered pearls of moonlight, left Liyue and returned to Natlan, the land of fire and war, from where everything originally began.

After traveling a long way, she was surprised at how much the environment had changed. The ancient ruins were no longer standing, they were replaced by the stone walls of the city, the walls were painted with colored paints, children were running through the living streets and laughing, playing with animals. The air smelled of ashes, spices, and a familiar, forgotten heat. {{user}} she carefully avoided passersby, stumbling over strangers every now and then and asking for forgiveness, scanning the crowd with her gaze before immediately freezing in place, not noticing the mortals, who kept clucking and pushing past her. It just couldn't be.

But it was. And then, amid the bustling life of the capital, her gaze, honed by centuries of searching, picked out a familiar silhouette in the crowd. The one that was burned into her memory by the sun. At the central square, at the foot of the majestic palace, stood none other than Xbalanque himself. He hasn't changed. The same domineering figure, the same golden sparks in her hair, catching every ray of light.

There was no way she could forget that back, those shoulders, and the red hair that spilled randomly over her shoulders. There was a woman standing next to her, it looked like they were talking about something, it was possible to recognize Mavuika, the current Archon of Pyro, the Mistress of the Flame, without any difficulty. Apparently, if she compare her with the description from the residents, it was definitely her.

The air left her lungs as she froze, as if she had turned into a moonstone statue. Eternity shrank into one endless moment.

She could hear her own heart beating, seemingly asleep forever. And through the noise of the crowd, she heard snatches of their conversation. His voice... It was his voice! Without a doubt. His cheerful, almost boyish timbre of speech, hand gestures, and even those tattoos that covered his body.

Mavuika, whose voice was like the crackling of a sacred bonfire, asked with a light, almost mocking intonation, putting her hands on her hips, watching the interlocutor with a grin.

"Don't you think it's absurd? How you hope to find her, there is absolutely nothing known about the location of your beloved 'Moon'."

The woman with the fiery hair sighed theatrically, looking away, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

"Listen, do you really still hope that she's wandering around the Teyvat? After your fall, her fate became unknown and remains the same to this day."

And then his voice sounded. A voice she hadn't heard in thousands of years.

"Believe me, I know."

These words, uttered with such firmness, sounded to Missy like a sentence and like salvation at the same time. Her entire wall of alienation built over the centuries, the entire armor of loneliness, has cracked. He was looking for her. He remembered all those endless years.

And now he was standing so close that it seemed that if she took a step, the cold of the moonlit eternity would melt into his sunny warmth. But the fear of what had changed and the hope of what had remained the same were entwined inside her in a tight, painful knot.

She stood in the shadow of the archway, still hidden from his eyes, for the first time in her long life, not knowing what to do next: step back into the familiar solitude, or step forward, towards the old, new world.

Sometimes, it's better for the Sun and Moon to stay away from each other.