The benevolent Majesty, unable to bear the hunger and cold of the living beings, hurled ice spears, slaying the monsters that harassed the refugees.
He also created a sacred tree, from which fell a satisfying sweet dew.
Humans were permitted to travel with the honor guard, heading towards Mondstadt.
Due to the humans’ slow pace, it took another twelve days to reach the border of Mondstadt.]
—«History of the Azure Star Faeries: Early Years of the Reign»
The morning light illuminated the procession of humans and faeries, who set off once again from the Honeyed Giant Tree that had become a landmark.
However, this time, the pace of the procession clearly slowed, and the atmosphere was completely different from the purely ceremonial journey before.
A practical problem lay before them: the carriages were limited.
The faeries’ aesthetic in creation leaned towards ornate elegance rather than practical carrying capacity.
The few accompanying carriages were originally prepared for His Majesty, the Grand Duchess, and important ceremonial officials, and their capacity was not large.
“My carriage will be given to the elderly, women, children, and injured who have difficulty moving,” Morgan commanded.
Thus, the magnificent imperial carriage was meticulously cleaned and padded with thick furs, becoming a temporary shelter for the most frail among the human refugees.
Morgan himself, along with Anastasia, squeezed into the slightly smaller carriage that originally belonged to the Grand Duchess.
“Your Majesty, you could actually condense a means of transport with your elemental power…”
Anastasia couldn’t help but suggest, seeing her Majesty, looking a bit aggrieved, huddled in one corner of the relatively cramped carriage.
Morgan waved his hand, his ice-blue eyes glancing out the window.
Those humans, wrapped in the distributed animal skins, supported each other as they walked.
“Making an ice sled or carriage is effortless for us, but not for them.
My ice is too cold; prolonged contact can cause frostbite at best, and be life-threatening at worst.”
He paused, his tone slightly self-deprecating, “I got too used to being casual in the royal court, almost forgetting that humans are much more ‘delicate’ than us.”
But he still made several deer and horses out of ice to help the humans pull their luggage.
This decision, and His Majesty’s “condescending” behavior, stirred no small ripple among some faerie guards and attendants.
During rests, fragmented discussions in the ancient faerie tongue occasionally drifted into Anastasia’s keen ears.
“…How noble is His Majesty, how can he ride with those… people?
Now he’s even given up his imperial carriage.”
“Those humans still smell of dirt and grass.
How can they defile His Majesty’s carriage?”
“Hyperborea people… Hmph, just think how they used to enslave our ancestors!”
The discontent had its roots.
Today’s Snezhnaya is a faerie kingdom.
This harsh land, once struck by the Skyfrost Nail, was difficult for humans to survive in, but perfectly suited the faeries’ physique and preferences.
The few surviving descendants of the ancient Golden Kingdom of Hyperborea mostly gathered in the Nordkale district in the warmer southern border.
In the core region of the Northern Royal Court, humans were rare.
And historically, the Hyperborea people who created the faeries did indeed treat them as tools and labor.
This divide, stemming from bloodline and history, had not completely vanished with time.
Now, their beloved Majesty, as revered as the sun and moon, elegant and powerful, not only delayed his journey for these fragile beings, who were also of the same race as their former oppressors.
Personally hunting monsters, performing miracles to create food, and even yielding his own carriage—this made it truly difficult for some faeries with old-fashioned views or lingering resentments to calmly accept.
Although Morgan explicitly ordered not to trouble the humans, the faeries could only suppress their dissatisfaction.
It manifested as a slightly cold attitude during their journey together, and subtle complaints in the faerie language, which humans couldn’t understand, spoken in private.
Sensitive humans naturally noticed the aloofness and subtle displeasure from some faeries.
They became even more cautious, trying their best to keep up with the group while traveling, and gathering together during rests, heads bowed, trying to minimize their presence.
They feared making a wrong move and angering these beautiful yet powerful faerie lords, leading to being cast back into the icy wilderness.
Compared to when they first met, the refugees’ complexions had become much rosier, and although their steps were weary from the long journey, they were no longer weak and powerless.
This was all thanks to that golden sweet dew, and the subsequent distribution of SoulGlad juice. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Before leaving that camp, Morgan used his ice element power as a tool to gently extract almost all the ripened juice from the branches and leaves of the Honeyed Giant Tree.
He then carefully sealed it in hollow ice bottles that instantly solidified.
The juice was roughly divided into three portions: one was distributed to the refugees on the spot to replenish their strength for the upcoming journey;
one was given to the faeries of the honor guard, both as a share and a taste of his own craft for his people.
The last portion was kept as a reserve.
As for the tree he had created on a whim?
Morgan lost most of his interest in it after accomplishing the main goal of food production.
“Let it grow on its own,” he had said then, “Perhaps people or faeries who pass by here in the future can still gain energy to travel through the snow.”
Inside the swaying, small carriage, the space was a bit cramped, yet it was filled with a peculiar sense of warmth.
Anastasia sat by the window, a book on northern geography open in her hands, her gaze on the words, but her mind not entirely immersed.
Across from her, Morgan was playfully teasing a sleeping infant in an old woman’s arms.
The old woman was the oldest among the refugees and had been assigned to this carriage due to her difficulty walking.
The swaddling clothes of the infant she held were Morgan’s own generously given cloak.
The old woman’s body was stiff, her facial wrinkles deepened by tension, completely daring not to look directly at the Emperor of Snezhnaya so close by.
Morgan, however, seemed oblivious, or perhaps simply didn’t care.
He leaned slightly, his ice-blue eyes gently watching the adorable little face.
A faint, harmless wisp of ice mist swirled around his fingertips, condensing into tiny, exquisite snowflakes and star patterns, slowly drifting before the infant’s eyes, trying to catch the little one’s attention.
Looking at the tiny infant, Morgan’s “old father” mentality began to bubble up again.
He recalled his time on the Astral Express; by seniority, he was in the same generation as Welt Yang and Himeko, considered an “elder.”
When Dan Heng and March 7th first boarded the train, he had looked after them quite a bit.
It wasn’t easy to correct the confused hearts of the dragon descendant, imprisoned for a long time, and the little girl wrapped in ice with lost memories.
Morgan had been a caring big brother for a long time.
Later, when the gray-haired little raccoon siblings, Stelle and Caelus, joined, that’s when chaos truly erupted.
Heaven knew how much effort and wisdom he expended to stop those two Trash Can War Gods from rummaging through trash bins on various planets.
It was practically like experiencing the hardships of raising rebellious children.
So much so that later, besides their “birth mother” Kafka, “adoptive mother” Himeko, and “adoptive father” Veritas Ratio, those two rascals bestowed the glorious title of “stepfather” upon him.
Whenever their allowance ran low, or they caused trouble and needed “help, help,” the call of “Daddy Morgan” would be exceptionally sincere.
They always tried to drag the relatively reliable Dan Heng and the easily fooled March 7th into “aiding and abetting evil.”
Even Sunday, who joined the train later, a former colleague from the Family, Morgan also put a lot of effort into caring for him, helping him better integrate into the Astral Express Crew family.
It could be said that when it came to raising children, especially mischievous ones, Morgan considered himself experienced.
After falling to Teyvat, he met little Ann.
At that time, Ann wasn’t doing well, and Morgan also raised her as a young cub by his side.
Despite being single and looking young, as an old man who had lived for nearly several hundred years, Morgan had rich experience in raising younglings.
This human infant before him had a pair of pure golden eyes, which reminded him of the little raccoon siblings.
A familiar feeling of wanting to take care of something arose spontaneously.
He had been trained by the train to be like an old father; every time he adapted to a new place, he had to take in a cub.
“Does this child have a name?” Morgan looked up at the nervous old woman beside him, his voice very soft.
The old woman trembled, immediately lowering her head, her voice as faint as a mosquito’s buzz: “N-no, my lord… no formal name yet.
Her mother met with misfortune after giving birth to her, attacked by monsters and gone.
This child was born just a few days ago…”
Morgan pondered for a moment: “Veronica [Вероника]… how about it?
In some ancient Snezhnayan dialects, it carries the meaning of ‘hope in winter.'”
The old woman was stunned, then her eyes reddened slightly, and she tightened her grip on the child.
She choked out: “Th-thank you, my lord, for bestowing a name… Veronica, what a good name…”
Morgan smiled slightly, and light gathered at his fingertips once more.
This time, it was not the playful ice mist, but a snowflake crystal that would not Melt and felt cool to the touch.
At the same time, in his other hand appeared a light cone half the size of a palm, and a new “Remembrance” was inscribed within it.
The image depicted a tiny infant being playfully teased by a hand.
—[In a small snowfield, the Emperor of Frost and Snow bestowed a name upon an infant.
“May you grow strong and become the hope in winter,” he said.]
He gently placed the never-melting snowflake and the light cone at the edge of the infant’s swaddling, ensuring it wouldn’t bother her.
“This child and I have a certain affinity,” Morgan said to the old woman, “A small gift, may she grow up healthy.”
Anastasia’s fingertips unconsciously tightened around the book page.
She appeared to be reading intently, but in reality, every word from His Majesty was clearly audible to her.
When she heard Morgan bestow a blessing upon the child, her gaze finally lifted from the page, falling upon the side of His Majesty’s face, which still held a gentle smile.
He liked children very much, Ann had known that for a long time.
Whenever he encountered a youngling he liked, be it faerie or human, he always enjoyed giving them little trinkets, often a light cone recording the scene at that moment.
When she was little, she was quiet and didn’t like to talk.
When she first met this strange adult who fell from the sky, she was full of wariness and aloofness.
To amuse her, Morgan once used accumulated snow to build a small, spire-topped castle for her in the wilderness.
Then he sat aside, playing lively yet elegant tunes on his zither, claiming it was music for “Queen Anastasia’s Coronation.”
He also sculpted a crooked, silly-faced little snowman and placed it at her feet, saying it was her “Royal Guard” Olaf.
She remembered him mumbling words she didn’t understand while he was busy.
Things like “hurry up and cosplay Queen Elsa,” “let it go~ let it go~”
Finally, he left behind a light cone named [Frozen].
It recorded that simple yet childish snow castle, and herself, happily circling the castle, trying to teach the little snowman to walk.
At that time, Ann only found this person noisy and strange; although he didn’t look much older than her, his mindset was like a child even more immature than herself.
However, such leisurely times, as if time itself had slowed down, vanished forever as she grew older.
Morgan began to get busy.
He needed to unite scattered faerie clans, mediate conflicts and hatreds between tribes that had lasted for unknown years.
He needed to lead his followers to establish the first faerie city on the Frozen land—Kitezh.
After he was crowned “Azure Star Emperor” in an ancient ceremony, relying on his strength and prestige, the challenges did not end.
Externally, the faerie forces of the Beast-Monster Alliance watched covetously, and the prelude to the Archon War had slowly begun across Teyvat.
The North became more dangerous, the situation more complex, and Morgan was so busy he barely touched the ground.
More and more capable and ambitious faeries gathered around him: generals, strategists, dukes of various clans…
Countless eyes watched the throne, countless people wanted to approach the nascent “Sun” to gain power and glory.
Anastasia was no longer the only one who could approach him and share his leisure time.
Some even tried to challenge her special status as “His Majesty’s earliest follower.”
Ann did not argue based on her identity, but chose to silence all questioners with concrete military achievements and political accomplishments.
At the same time, she clearly felt that Morgan was changing.
The man who would build boring snowmen with her in the snow and tell her absurd fairy tales was increasingly becoming a true emperor, high upon his throne.
When she was little, she could still catch his true feelings from his subtle facial expressions—whether he was helpless, pleased, or bored with something.
But during the war, she had personally seen him, with a chilling calmness, order the execution of traitors, or personally wield his sword to cut down the heads of powerful enemies, without batting an eye.
Ann knew those people deserved it, and that it was the necessary cruelty of war.
But the image of the lively, eccentric, and somewhat unreliable gentle outsider in her memory seemed to gradually blur in the tempering of blood and fire, donning the majestic and mysterious armor of an emperor.
Until this moment, in this carriage crowded with human refugees, watching him carefully tease a human infant, Anastasia suddenly realized.
The man who would build fairy tale snow castles for her had never truly changed.
He merely hid that rich inner world and emotion, belonging to “Morgan,” deeper beneath the majesty and responsibility of Emperor “Morgan.”
Outside the carriage, the biting spring wind of the North, the occasional whispers of the faeries, the heavy footsteps of the human refugees, and their confusion about the future.
Anastasia closed the book she hadn’t truly read much of, her gaze quietly resting on the profile of the person opposite her.
The journey continued, ahead lay the land of wind and freedom.