[There's something achingly cold about it all. A familiar sensation of failure that nips just at his heels, whispers sweetly in the back of his mind. He was too late, after all. Somehow, he had missed the signs... somehow, things had gotten out of hand, and Kelzalik and his supporters had ultimately shown theirs.
Zhongli doesn't question the why or how of it as his footsteps resound in an empty palace. It's not that others haven't tried - a few have, to mixed results - but that he's made the quiet instruction to leave it to him, for now. The horror of bloodshed, the metallic tang of it against his nostrils, is nothing that difficult really. He may have given up his post as a Warrior Deity many long eons ago, but even if Dahna and Rena have no written history... the fact remains.
It feels somehow fitting that this legacy is what hounds him, as the purity of carnage reveals itself like the deepest, brightest gemstone core. In another place and time, he might find it beautiful.]
... there you are. Rise, Lord Dohalim.
[Bodies remain, intricately entwined in their woven prisons; the stench of blood and death is numbed but still there. Again, Zhongli pays it no heed. He can tell that the Lord is still struggling, still lost in whatever maddening dream has plagued him to this point. And as Zhongli, the mysterious man who had simply appeared one day to share knowledge and history, he has no right. Beyond that, though...
His hand reaches out, a gentle flow of earth astral energy there in the motion. More flows elsewhere, beginning to seep into the twisted, broken energy that has created such carnage, to burrow into its roots and shatter the rotted, warped core that keeps it so together. Even insurgents are undeserving of such cruelty - though it is laughably common in the Lords, he's come to understand.
... but... Dohalim is not just any lord. And seeing him like this, curled in on himself and broken by his past and his trusted people... knowing he could have stopped it, had he only been a little more observant... maybe there is still something he can do. A passing kindness to soothe Dohalim's pain, and to protect those who never deserved it in the first place - Renans who hold his ideals first and foremost, perhaps even Dahnans should his state deteriorate more. He doesn't know if the man will accept it, but... he has to try.]
no subject
Zhongli doesn't question the why or how of it as his footsteps resound in an empty palace. It's not that others haven't tried - a few have, to mixed results - but that he's made the quiet instruction to leave it to him, for now. The horror of bloodshed, the metallic tang of it against his nostrils, is nothing that difficult really. He may have given up his post as a Warrior Deity many long eons ago, but even if Dahna and Rena have no written history... the fact remains.
It feels somehow fitting that this legacy is what hounds him, as the purity of carnage reveals itself like the deepest, brightest gemstone core. In another place and time, he might find it beautiful.]
... there you are. Rise, Lord Dohalim.
[Bodies remain, intricately entwined in their woven prisons; the stench of blood and death is numbed but still there. Again, Zhongli pays it no heed. He can tell that the Lord is still struggling, still lost in whatever maddening dream has plagued him to this point. And as Zhongli, the mysterious man who had simply appeared one day to share knowledge and history, he has no right. Beyond that, though...
His hand reaches out, a gentle flow of earth astral energy there in the motion. More flows elsewhere, beginning to seep into the twisted, broken energy that has created such carnage, to burrow into its roots and shatter the rotted, warped core that keeps it so together. Even insurgents are undeserving of such cruelty - though it is laughably common in the Lords, he's come to understand.
... but... Dohalim is not just any lord. And seeing him like this, curled in on himself and broken by his past and his trusted people... knowing he could have stopped it, had he only been a little more observant... maybe there is still something he can do. A passing kindness to soothe Dohalim's pain, and to protect those who never deserved it in the first place - Renans who hold his ideals first and foremost, perhaps even Dahnans should his state deteriorate more. He doesn't know if the man will accept it, but... he has to try.]