Chapter Text
❧❧❧
It was far from the worst day Venti had experienced.
That list was far too depressingly long to contemplate, at the very least not while the sun was up and the winds weren't nippy. Those atrocities from the era of the war of gods are not to be forgotten, even after the hundreds of years of peace he’s been allowed to exist, far past his time.
Maybe cursed with existence is more apt.
Objectively, today was low on the list of Bad Days, even excluding the war and the uprising and the Majorly Bad Days, but that didn’t make wandering the Mondstat border with a ban on his name for at least the next week at every bar any less shitty.
In short, Venti was bored.
Bored out of his mind.
Or more accurately, he was antsy.
Agitated.
The apples and sunsettias that grow where the lush green fields turn to red clay soil and tall bushes, just outside of Stone Gate, had a bitterness to them that felt appropriate. On such occasions he almost preferred them, the tartness complementing the aftertaste of sweet.
Poetics.
He’s always had a knack for poetics.
That’s how he found himself at one of the few markers of the end of Mondstat and the start of Liyue, the border fuzzy across the sprawling wilderness, but here he could feel the shift of powers, the transition to a familiar foreignness.
It was grounding.
That was something he rarely craved, much less sought out. Venti wasn’t exactly known for his affinity for grounded steadiness.
It was a welcomed feeling though, a soothing balm to a deep ache.
Almost cloyingly bittersweet.
He rested lightly on the highest stones of the arch, watching the bustling tourists and commerce at Wangshu Inn. It was just past noon, the hottest time of day but a helpfully refreshing wind promised, under-breathe, the coming of fall. Venti absently flittered a few samaras and leaves in a lighthearted dance across the path below him, if only to see the placid intrigue from the squirrels and foxes at the motion.
The great port of Liyue Harbor was far beyond his sight, but he felt it on the sea-stained breeze. It was energetic, poignant, a place of new freedoms at the end of a contract that spanned thousands of years.
That’s actually exactly why he’s currently blacklisted from being within 200 feet of any place housing liquor and/or people that would have to listen to him while he has consumed said liquor.
He was the last original archon.
Him.
He’d outlasted everyone .
A pixie who was the last pick of the last picks of the lax and power-phobic godlings of Mondstat. A nymph on a gentle summer zephyr at best, a dust mite at worst. Easily less than man, yet stretched and pulled to fill the mold of an absentee god. He’s a fairytale gone wrong, left with the realities of a life too long, power too burdensome, and an existence inherently too lonely .
He was meant to exist forever, but not like this. Not with this kind of awareness, this kind of duty. He wasn’t meant to live on, his breeze weighed down by mourning that which was mortal and finite. He was supposed to blow dandelion seeds and lift laughter across sprawling spaces, make music with the rustling, and heed to the cycles of life naturally.
That is something he's long made peace with, that his life was to be in a state of constant pittering out and surging. A wind never truly dies, just shifts and changes, it’s life that is of constant rebirth. It does not die, it does not live, it just is.
He’s been something for too long, he was born to be semi-conscious, more feeling than thought, to be man, much less to be a god will always feel beyond him. He was never meant to be something tangible , always something real but never to be tied down to existing, never to be acknowledged, never meant to acknowledge himself .
For a creature meant not to think Venti finds himself in his own head often.
Spiraling and spiraling. Reworking his thoughts and memories morphing them until they grow far bigger than himself.
Just how many times will he have to be reborn, while those he loved were allowed to pass on? Was this weightedness truly worth having met them at all? Was it truly worth living if he couldn’t share it? Was that still living? If none of them could carry his memory as he carried theirs? Was that really fair?
Was something as fleeting and pathetic as love near unrequited really worth that price?
…
It was growing dark over the marshes.
“Well, Wangshu Inn is pretty close to the winery, it must have some dandelion wine tucked away somewhere!”
❧❧❧
It was far from the worst day Xiao had ever experienced.
Really, Really far from the worst.
Or at least that's what he keeps telling himself.
He hadn’t realized how comfortable he had gotten, how much he had taken routine and monotony for granted. How much he relied on it, needed it, how much he borderline… enjoyed it.
He was alone again.
Growing close to the geo archon had been selfish. He had tried to rid himself of the fear that things like curses and rumors were right about him, the lone yaksha. That there was no basis for Ganyu’s whispered fears that he was bad luck, that he got people killed. That he was the reason everyone-
He knew it would devastate her to know he heard her talking about such things to the traveler when they suggested a team-up. He hadn’t thought much of it, even appreciated that it kept the talkative and overly cheery half-Adeptus from meddling too much in his life.
But it was starting to feel less like vapid gossip and more like fact.
Rex Lapis was dead.
There were few people Xiao felt close to, much less felt it appropriate to rely upon them. Outside of Rex Lapis, only the traveler’s persistent nagging and boundless optimism had worn him down enough to open himself to them.
Well, now that list was just the traveler.
Who knows how long until that list was empty again.
With his track record, it would be soon enough.
Xiao shook his head.
“This is ridiculous, what a waste of time.”
He had a job to do.
Or at least he would if he hadn’t already done it. He had been cleansing the marshes of even the slightest inkling of darkness. Despite the loss of the geo archon, nothing seemed to be all that different, the sun still rose, the shadows ebbed and flowed, they did not rise into a catastrophe the way Xiao felt would be more befitting.
Even the people, though still in mourning, did not change all that much. They had lost a pillar of stability, yet trade continued, they laughed and danced below him on the layers of decks comprising the inn’s many levels. The melancholy was fading, Rex Lapis was a revered figure, but he was quickly replaced by the Qixing, and to some degree, the Adeptus, replacing his visage with something interwoven and strong.
The order was shifted, but not for the people, they continued to live on, in peace, if a little wistful.
So then why did Xiao feel like he was drowning?
The shadows were not rising, the Qixing were handling the transition with ease and grace. The humans were comfortably independent, perfectly self-sufficient.
So why was Xiao the only one struggling with this?
Rex Lapis was not a friend, he was an idol, a god, far beyond his reach. So what if he saved him? He saved all of Liyue, all of Teyvat, from many things.
He was not special.
He had no right to mourn Morax like he was a man.
To pretend he was anything more to him than a pawn in war, outstaying its use.
Morax could not truly die, nor could he live like a mortal, to see him as one would be blasphemous. As long as Xiao had suffered, as drawn out as his existence may seem, he would one day die. Not anytime soon if he had any say, but he would not exist as Morax does. His energy still pulses in the ground, and he could be reborn even if he allowed the people to live without his input. He would materialize if needed, a new geo archon, fresh and young and almost definitely nothing like Rex Lapis was.
Even the murdered gods of old live on, power seeping into the world, ebbing and flowing on the edge of existence. Only deeming to walk among them when called upon by something far greater than Xiao felt he had the right to even contemplate.
The world does not need a warlord archon any longer.
Liyue mourns, fondly it remembers, but it no longer grieves.
He could not allow himself to grieve an archon as if he were a friend.
He didn’t deserve that.
No matter how he craved it.
❧❧❧
The music below only grew louder as the night progressed. Xiao paced and sharpened his spear and stared out at the horizon trying to manifest something to do, something to satiate his mind and twitching hands. Something big and horrendous and a worthy catastrophe to match the sick feeling of wrongness in the air, leadening his lungs.
The sound of laughter, music, and the thumps of dancing feet on wood nearly shook the Inn’s tree base. Shook the still waters into distracting patterns that swirled around Xiao’s head.
With great turmoil comes the following need to let loose, apparently.
All at once, a melodic sound broke through the chatter and noise, it dripped sweet and filled to burst with melancholy, pulling all other sounds to a deafening close. It was clearly a harp, and it carried upon the wind crisply all the way to the rooftop terrace Xiao stationed himself on.
He perched on the edge of the roof to see the performance, finding this new sound far more palatable. The lanterns below were warm and bright, the bottom deck illuminated as if in a small patch of daylight in the darkening eve. The crowd almost rivaled the size of those found in the capital, but they were silent, facing a single table upon which stood a figure, small in stature, yet captivating all the same.
Even from the tall tree branches, Xiao could see that his hands were deft in their graceful plucking, coming as naturally to the man as breathing. The chords were too sweet and light to describe as piercing, but they cut through the silence all the same, carrying well into the marshes and gorges. The man moved with the music, almost hypnotic as the crowd watched, swaying softly with him like mirroring reeds.
He looked young, round face and large eyes, but when they slipped open, they were heavy, not with focus, but with something older. Something haunted. They reminded him of the eyes of…
He had the eyes of those Xiao hadn’t seen in a long time, of… of those who succumbed. The kind of look that only comes from clinging things that stick and stain and dig in claws. He had phantom fingerprints all over him. Fingers that grip hard and long and leave deep, dark bruises, the type laced with karma, he almost looked…
Before the crowd could cheer as the song drew to a close, the bard, he was a monstatian bard any which way you looked at him, waved his hands gracefully over the harp. In a shimmer of green firefly lights and fluttering feathers, the instrument changed.
In his hands was a flute and suddenly the figure was starkly familiar to Xiao.
He quickly lept to the lower roofs, eyes not leaving the bard as he brought the flute to his pink lips.