Chapter Text
When she wakes in the morning, the sun shines bright in her eyes where she had forgotten to draw the drapes the night before. She rolls over with a quiet groan, pressing her face into the pillow for a long moment, before finally pushing herself up, readying herself mentally for the day ahead. She double-takes, however, as she turns to swing her legs off the side of her mattress, noting the angle of the sunlight beginning to slant in through her windows.
She’s overslept.
It's been years since it last happened, but— then again, she had been rather exhausted the night before. She’d quite thoroughly expended herself running about the whole day. Luckily, she has not scheduled any meetings for the morning, but nevertheless, she makes herself presentable as quickly as she can, before heading on horseback for the city at a brisk canter.
Entering through the side gate, Hertha is the first knight she encounters, looking visibly relieved as Jean approaches. “Acting Grandmaster!”
“Captain Hertha, good morning,” Jean greets. “Please report.”
Hertha nods, drawing her forearm up to her chest and then firmly down to her side in a sharp salute. “I issued the travel advisory on the bulletins around the city, as asked, and have instructed knights on duty to spread the word to travellers.” Here, she pauses briefly, posture easing a little from military attention. “I… hope everything went smoothly on your end too.”
“I am uninjured and well,” Jean quickly assures her, understanding the worry in Hertha’s words — she had, after all, vanished the day before, all alone, and no one had known where she went. “The matter seems to have been largely resolved, but just to be safe, let's keep the travel restrictions in place for a while longer until we know for sure the storm in the area has settled.”
“Of course,” Hertha complies.
From there, Jean returns to headquarters, quickly summoning the various captains for their daily report, before she swiftly begins to take care of the stack of paperwork on her desk. On an average day, half of the letters on the desk she would have insisted on taking care of personally, but she's anxious to return to Venti today, so she delegates most of the tasks out. As a result, her paperwork is done in truly record time.
Just as she's preparing to leave, however, intending to pass a task list to Lisa to enforce, there's a knock at her door. After a short wait, Kaeya comes in with a stack of new paperwork in his arms, much to Jean’s dismay. As he picks up the stack of letters on her desk, however, he casually leafs through the ones she had left on the top — a bad habit she wishes he would quit, really; some of those are meant to be confidential — before finally raising an eyebrow.
“You delegated your tasks out,” he observes, surprised.
Jean sighs. “Yes.”
With a quiet noise of impatient exasperation, she begins to look through the new letters Kaeya has brought, already calculating in her head how she may delegate these out as well. Kaeya just stares.
“You never delegate your work,” he says, with blank confusion. “Not even when you honestly should have.”
“Well, I need to leave the office early today to take care of other responsibilities,” Jean confides crossly. At Kaeya's extended silence, she finally looks up to find him still gaping at her. “What?”
Kaeya shakes his head a little, seeming to come out of his stupor. “Nothing, just surprised.” He clears his throat, crossing his arms. “I'll take care of the letters. In fact, I'll take charge of everything else from here as well. If you need to be somewhere, you should go.”
Jean blinks, surprised, before her heart softens in gratitude. There are not many people she would entrust her work and her responsibilities to, and Kaeya is one of them. After a moment, she just nods.
“Thank you,” she says, knowing that Kaeya will hear everything else unspoken in the warmth of her voice.
With everything now settled, she leaves her office and heads for the Thousand Winds Temple again at a clipped pace, unable to help her irrational anxiety that Venti has been attacked while she was away. As she draws down the long cobblestone promenade drawing from the fountain plaza to the gates, however, she passes by one of the many temporary stalls set up in the outermost layer of the city, this one set up by a travelling merchant, it seems, and one from Fontaine, judging from the style of clothing on sale.
Laid over the edge of the wooden table, a child’s blouse has been displayed. It is similar to the one she had picked out of that chest of Kaeya’s old belongings, long-sleeved and with a ribbon at the neck, but this one— the ribbon on this one is made of tulle, large and puffy, and the cuffs— they are made of the most darlingest of translucent lace. Jean approaches the stall in what she can only describe as a semi-fugue state, numb and almost removed from herself. She picks the shirt up, holding it up for a better view, and underneath—
A child’s blouse with the fluffiest of cravats, with frills going all the way down the front and adorning the wrists.
Fifteen minutes later, she is satisfiedly trotting for the Thousand Winds Temple on the horse that had been lent to her, bearing five new bags of clothing. Inside the temple, she finds the same door as before. She stands outside for a moment, collecting herself, before she eventually pushes them open to that same resonant creak. When the doors finally open, she sees Venti seated on the stone pedestal, and quickly crosses the threshold to approach him.
“Did you sleep well?” she asks with a smile, crouching to place her bags of shopping down and open the pack leaned against the pedestal, but Venti only looks vaguely confused at the question.
“I do not need to sleep.”
Jean pauses mid-motion, before finally turning to regard Venti again, now strangely disconcerted. Venti had not slept. He's sitting in exactly the same spot she had left him in the night before, sitting in the same position even. Upon examination, the pack of rations on the ground is unopened, the food inside untouched. Even the sheet she had wrapped around him is still arranged in the same way.
It's as if he had not moved at all from the position she had left him in, just sitting there quietly alone for the entire night, waiting for her to come back.
Abruptly, she realizes that when she had left him the night before, he still could not walk. He could not even stand and had still needed to be carried. He hasn't moved from the spot she left him in because he can't. Her heart pangs, chest twisting so sharply that she could have been stabbed. She's abruptly furious at herself. She shouldn't have left him here overnight in this dark and lonely place. If anything had found him here, had tried to attack him here, he would have been mostly defenseless, and even if he had called out for help, no one would have heard him— not even if he screamed.
And the clothes she left for him, she realizes suddenly, looking back down at the untouched pack— the adjustments to the shirt he’s currently wearing had been done so hurriedly, with both her and Diluc hastening to take him away from the winery before he could be seen. They had not made adjustments to any of the other clothes. He would not have been able to wear them even if he had grown cold in the night.
Overcome suddenly by emotion, by that odd mix of guilt, sorrow, and self-directed anger, she impulsively scoops Venti up in a fierce embrace.
“Gunn—” Venti begins, surprised, before quickly correcting himself. “Jean? What's wrong?”
Jean wipes quickly at her eyes, smiles, and then puts a hand over his. “You can call me Gunnhildr if you're more comfortable with that. I don't mind.”
Venti looks at her searchingly for a long moment. “Yesterday,” he finally begins, carefully, “that woman called you Miss Gunnhildr.”
Jean can't help her surprise that Venti had been paying attention. He had been so quiet, so strangely out of it.
“Gunnhildr is my last name,” she explains, and smiles. “I'm a distant relative of the Gunnhildr you knew — a member of her clan.”
“Is that why you look like her?”
“Yes.”
Venti seems to consider that response for a moment, before he nods slowly. He looks up at Jean again with those alert, intelligent eyes. “Did she send you to me?”
Jean pauses, and then, after a moment of hesitation, sighs. “Not really.”
“Then why are you here?” Venti asks sharply. “Why are you helping me?”
Jean’s hand is still placed atop his, so after a moment, she reaches with her other hand as well, holding both of his hands firmly in hers. “Because you are dear to me.”
Venti seems somewhat confused at that. “Why?”
“You are my god,” Jean says simply. One who is worthy of my faith, she thinks, and can't help the twitch of a fond smile that comes to her lips. Finally, she raises her hand, cupping Venti's cheek gently in her palm. Venti stares into her eyes for a long, long moment. She doesn't know what he sees there, but eventually he averts his eyes, with a jerky nod.
“Okay,” he whispers in a small voice.
The reaction draws a small frown from Jean. Not for the first time, she feels like she's somehow failing to reach him. After a moment, she very gently smoothes his hair back away from his face, and he very idly lets her. She isn't sure why, but it makes her uneasy. Just like the day before, he doesn't give the sense that he's reading her touch as a gesture of care or affection, nor does it seem to occur to him to resist her touch— to resist any touch. He's just… oddly empty, a blank slate or passive canvas, merely a surface to be acted upon.
“Venti—” Jean begins impulsively. He blinks, then turns to look at her, and she realizes that she doesn't actually know what to say. Finally, she just sighs. “I'm sorry.”
“You don't have to apologise to me,” Venti says.
“Yes, I do,” Jean insists firmly. “I was not thinking straight last night. I was exhausted and… it did not occur to me that it was wrong to leave you in a dark and unfamiliar place all by yourself, especially with such limited supplies.”
“You do not have to apologize to me,” Venti just says again.
“But I do, because—” Jean pauses, struggling to put her thoughts into words. “Because you deserve better. You deserve… everything I can give to you, everything I'm capable of giving.”
Consumed again by a swell of strange emotion, she bows her head, pressing her forehead to the back of his hand. There are too many emotions running through her at that moment to name, but within that maelstrom, she recognizes grief, anger, helplessness, sadness. It’s almost too much to bear, too much to understand. When she eventually collects herself enough to raise her head again, however, Venti is smiling at her, but his eyes are oddly sorrowful.
“You do not have to give me anything of yours that you do not wish to give,” he says, quietly but gently.
Jean gazes at him searchingly for a moment, before she finally smiles. “Thank you.”
“You do not have to thank me either,” Venti quickly says, then smiles in return, “and you never have to apologize. You will never need to ask for my forgiveness.”
The Lord forgives all, she suddenly remembers her father preaching, back when she had still been a little girl, back before the divorce had torn her family cleanly in half. There is no one in His eye that is not worthy of absolution, but that only means that we should strive, all the harder, to be worthy of His grace.
Her father had always been like that in her memory. Upright, proud, but oddly inscrutable, even as he'd intoned his preachings with that strange gravity of his. Sometimes he had seemed so distant, so lost in his own thoughts, so far out of reach. Towards the end, however, even he had seemed tired at times.
Suddenly, a flash of memory overcomes her: her father, where she had found him in the library one evening. He'd been sat by the window, staring sightlessly out into the night, startling as she had called out to him— Father, why did you not come to dinner?
She can remember now, how he had turned to look at her, inscrutable as he had always seemed, and yet so strangely muted, so strangely faraway.
I was not hungry.
Oh, she had said. She remembers the silence that had ensued. She remembers how he had looked out into the darkness beyond the window again, so distant. It had frightened her, she recalls now, how he had looked in that moment, drawing her to call out to him again. Father?
I'm here, my angel, he had murmured. What is it?
You— You looked like you went somewhere very far away.
I was lost in thought for a moment, but I'm here now.
What were you thinking of?
He had been silent for so long then, expression half-hidden in the dim light, that she had thought he would not reply. I was thinking… of darkness, he had said at last, and then had continued, without prompting. The older I get, the more it occurs to me— the Lord, he must have seen all the goodness of humanity, but all its ugliness as well.
She had been too young then, too confused and truthfully too completely out of her depth to say anything, so in the end, she had said nothing at all.
Godhood must be immensely more lonely than any human, than I, even in all my faith and loneliness, can ever truly understand, her father had mused, eyes still cast faraway over the darkened fields. Yet despite all of the ugliness He has seen, all the confessions He has heard— He chooses forgiveness. Again, and again, he chooses to believe the best of humanity.
He had sat there for a moment longer, looking out of the window again, completely silent.
I must— he had finally spoken again, before correcting himself. We must… endeavour to emulate his forbearance.
She thinks that might have been the last time she had spoken to him alone before the separation was made legal.
“Jean?” Venti whispers, drawing her firmly back to the present. Jean shakes herself a little, and quickly offers Venti a reassuring smile, taking his hands in hers again.
“I’ve heard it said that there are three very important things that every person must learn to say,” she says. Venti tilts his head, and after a moment, Jean elaborates— “Thank you… and I'm sorry.”
Venti is quiet for a moment. “And what is the third thing?”
It's I love you, but despite all her preaching — she really is turning into her father with age, she realizes with distant dismay — she has never learnt to say that freely. It's an issue that seems to run in the family. She knows that her father had once loved her mother fiercely, and that her mother had loved him back with equal ferocity, yet neither of them had ever quite learnt to say those words. Perhaps, in the end, that is why things eventually fell apart.
“Jean?” Venti whispers again.
“Sorry, I was just lost in thought,” Jean immediately says. She instinctively smooths his hair back again, and he allows her. “I need to make some preparations,” she finally says, a little briskly, “but when that is done, if you're willing…”
She pauses, then after a moment, strokes a thumb gently over his cheekbone, smiling.
“If you're willing,” she repeats quietly, “I would very much like to take you home with me.”
She returns promptly to Gunnhildr manor after that and decisively begins to make arrangements for Venti's arrival. First things first, she gently bids all staff who have families outside the manor to return home to be with their loved ones for a long, indefinite, paid vacation. For those who have nowhere else to go, she gathers them in the main parlor for a briefing.
“I’d like for everyone to stay out of the family wing for the foreseeable future — no exceptions,” she orders. “You should continue to maintain the rest of the manor and the grounds, and yes, you should also prepare meals. I would like for two portions to be delivered to the family wing at mealtimes, but please leave the food outside the wing. Do not enter without my permission under any circumstance.”
The remaining staff are quiet, unprotesting, but Jean can tell that they are troubled, slightly disturbed, and definitely concerned about these new set of orders, so after a moment, she sighs, and explains.
“There is… someone I am bringing into the manor,” she elaborates reluctantly, “a child victim from one of my cases. I do not make this decision lightly, but he has nowhere else to go, and—” She swallows then, before she continues, the words more truthful than she wishes it to be. “He's afraid. I still don't understand what is wrong, but he's afraid. I need… I need everyone out of the family wing for the duration of his recovery. I don't think he would be comfortable with anyone else being around.”
The staff trade glances, but finally, they nod. Jean exhales.
“Thank you,” she says, with some relief. “Will you all keep this to yourselves for the time being? No one must know that I've taken someone here.”
There's a moment of silence before the cook speaks up, her eyes narrowed slightly. “Are there people looking for him? Bad people who wish to harm him?”
Jean considers the question for a moment. Immediately, the Abyss Order comes to mind. She still can't forget those final moments on that tower— the fact that they had used his blood to very nearly break the seal.
“Yes,” she finally answers in a quiet tone. “There are extremely bad people who are very likely looking for him still.”
The staff are silent for a long moment.
“I will deliver the food at the usual mealtimes,” the cook says. “If anyone asks, the young mistress Gunnhildr is deeply unwell with an extremely unfortunate case of adulthood chickenpox. She is quarantining in the family wing for the duration of her illness and wishes that no one else witnesses her in her current state. No one will be allowed into the manor at this juncture, no exceptions.”
“Except Diluc Ragnvindr,” Jean qualifies.
The staff seems first surprised, then vaguely unhappy, although they are clearly keeping it to themselves. Suddenly remembering what she herself said to Diluc about the child's clothing and the implications of her requesting to see him privately, about the opinions and speculations that would likely ensue, Jean winces a little.
“I am not having an affair with Diluc Ragnvindr, of all people,” she scoffs, before wincing at her own tone. “Not that there's anything wrong with Diluc,” she clarifies quickly. “He's just a little moody.” She immediately slaps her forehead. Wow, she’s really putting her foot in it today. “Please don't tell him I said that about him.”
She stands with her forehead in her hand for another moment, before finally managing to summon up some sort of explanation.
“He previously assisted on the case and the victim, despite never quite voicing it, seems to have grown attached to him,” she explains, looking back up with returned composure. "I'll be sending a letter later today to let him know that the victim is here, and he's very likely to visit once he has been informed."
She certainly recalls Diluc recounting to her, multiple times, and always with some degree of tiredness and exasperation, that Venti is perfectly fine, thanks, and frequently causing a ruckus at the Angel’s Share. Perhaps she should be enquiring after Diluc's well-being instead— after all, he frequently is struck by the thought that Venti will be responsible for him finding rest in an early grave.
Diluc is very often dramatic like that. As much as he’s changed from the boy he had once been, that’s one thing that has remained the same.
Finally, she clears her throat and opts for a more business-like tone again. “Food should be left outside the wing. Someone may come in to clean once a week, upon my indication. Otherwise, I will take care of basic chores and clean-up in the family wing myself on a day-to-day basis.”
The staff trade glances again, but this time with some degree of amusement, rather than the worry they had exhibited previously. After a moment, they bow their heads, curtsying gracefully— “Understood, Missus.”
Following that briefing, the staff immediately make preparations to clear out from the family wing, moving quietly but extremely efficiently. She watches as they do a final sweep and a final dusting, cleaning as much as they can, and clearing out whatever used plates or rubbish they can find. Once that is done, they empty out of the wing completely, leaving behind a broom, dustpan, mop, and two buckets. Jean recognizes the first bucket as being for the mop, judging from the wringer attached to it. The other bucket is probably for drawing water from the well in the courtyard.
Upon peering outside, she sees that they’ve dragged a laundry hamper over and left it by the door, along with a small table that has a jug of drinking water, and a serving of bread and cheese on it. They've evidently left everything she needs to live independently in the family wing for the foreseeable future, and not for the first time, she is immensely appreciative for the efficiency of the Gunnhildr manor staff.
With preparations having thus been made, she leaves the manor again, heading off quickly to retrieve Venti from the temple. He's again, exactly where she left him, on the pedestal. The pack of food that was left for him is untouched, and he doesn't look like he's moved from the spot she left him in. Her heart pangs again, but she quickly sets that aside, crouching down to smile up at him.
“I'm done with preparations,” she says, and allows her smile to widen a little more. “Let's go home.”
After some thought, she eventually decides to put Venti up in the room that had once belonged to Barbara, in that long ago time before the separation had been made legal and her father had left with Barbara in tow. There's nothing of Barbara’s left in the room. They had cleared out of the house so very quietly, leaving behind no trace that they had ever existed within the walls of this house.
She quickly clears those thoughts from her head and focuses instead on settling Venti into the room — putting him in the bed, fussing a little over the covers, and then arranging the apples Diluc had also given them on the nightstand along with a jug of water, some of the bread and cheese the staff had left outside, and a vase of flowers. She fiddles unnecessarily long with the flowers before, with a sigh, coming to terms with the fact that she's never had a talent for flower arrangement, and it's likely a lost cause. In the end, she just helplessly leaves the freshly plucked flowers in the vase and steps back, turning towards the window. Outside, the sun is beginning to set.
“I will give you some privacy,” she says, and offers Venti a last smile. “I’m right next door. If you require anything, anything at all, call for me. I will hear it and come over.”
For a moment, Venti looks surprised, then he smiles. “There is nothing I require. You should rest. Humans… they require rest.”
Jean hesitates for a moment longer, then finally reaches out, allowing herself to cup his cheek very briefly, before drawing back. She bends very briefly to pick up the sling bag of Kaeya's clothing.
“Sleep well, Venti,” she whispers, before closing the door quietly behind her.
She stands there for a moment, her palm still pressed against the closed door, before taking a long, deep breath, collecting herself. Then, finally, she heads into her own room, locates her own field sewing kit and, collecting the bag of Kaeya’s clothing as well as her day’s shopping, finally sits down with a pair of fabric scissors to begin sewing.
The next day, she wakes habitually at her usual time — a time most would consider early and that Kaeya, in particular, likes to describe as the asscrack of dawn — and swiftly sets about tidying the place, taking care of all the daily chores. Although she had grown up in a noble clan, she had also moved out for a time, stubbornly, to live in the barracks early in her career, unable to get along with her mother who had been overbearing and critical and an insufferable perfectionist. It had been hard growing up under the shadow of her mother, a veritable local legend in her own right. It had been hard growing up under the shadow of her clan. And so, she moved out, living in the barracks for five years, and only moved back into the manor after she had made captain.
And now, she's Acting Grandmaster.
Once she finishes tidying the bedrooms, she heads out into the parlor, where she immediately hears a set of quiet and polite knocks at the entrance to the wing. She gets the sense it might have been going on for a while, but she had not heard it because it was so distant. She hurries to the door and opens it to find the cook on the other side.
“Diluc Ragnvindr is at the door, Missus.”
Sweeping off the front of her pants, Jean checks her appearance briefly in a mirror to ensure that she isn't covered in dust or dirt, before going to receive Diluc. She winces to find him waiting literally outside the front door.
“You may let him wait in the sitting room in the future,” she instructs the cook.
“Inside or outside the family wing, Missus?” asks the cook primly.
“Inside,” she clarifies, and smiles reassuringly. “It's fine. As I told you, he knows the victim.”
The cook curtsies. “Alright, Missus.”
As the matronly woman makes herself scarce, Diluc raises an eyebrow, before questioning in a low and somewhat skeptical voice, “Missus?”
Jean sighs. “They've started calling me that in the last five years since Mother went away on the expedition and I've been left in charge of the house.” She opens the door, gesturing towards the family wing. “Did you have to come so early?” she complains as she begins to walk ahead of him. “I haven't had time to tell Venti that you might possibly show up at some point to visit. I haven't had time to finish cleaning either, and I still have some sewing to do.”
Diluc merely raises his eyebrow again, and Jean sighs once more.
“I'll let Venti know to be ready for company,” she says grudgingly.
She had only managed to alter two of the shirts Diluc had given them before retiring to bed the night before, one for day use and one for sleeping. She had hoped to have more time in the morning to finish the rest, but she consoles herself now that even though it is not a full wardrobe, Venti at least has something presentable to wear for Diluc's visit.
Heading to Venti's room, she knocks twice, waiting a moment politely before opening the door and sticking her head in. Venti is seated upright in the bed, looking out the window, but he turns at the sound of her entrance.
“Hey, Venti,” she calls in a warm, friendly tone. “Diluc, the red-haired bloke from the other day, is here to see you. Can I come in?”
“Okay,” Venti says.
She steps inside with the prepared outfit folded in her arms — Kaeya’s blouse with the ribboned neck, now carefully altered to accommodate his wings, and a set of breeches — laying the clothing on the nightstand.
“I'll give you some privacy to get dressed,” she says, and quietly leaves. She returns to the sitting room to find that Diluc has located the broom and dustpan and is now sweeping.
“Do you even know how to sweep?” she asks skeptically, to which Diluc shoots her a slightly nasty look in response.
“You're cranky without your coffee,” he snarks, and continues sweeping without further retort. He looks relatively familiar with a broom, and Jean can't help but think back suddenly to the five years he had disappeared from Mondstadt. She had later heard that he had gone to Snezhnaya by himself— he'd probably had to tidy up after himself then, not to mention during all his shifts at the bar.
Diluc was right, she realizes. She is cranky without her coffee. Making a conscious effort to readjust her mood, she turns around to make herself some, only to find a carafe already sitting on the tea table, steaming hot. It hadn't been there previously, so Diluc must have made it. She pours herself a cup, taking a sip, and immediately feels better.
It's good coffee. Diluc has come a long way from the clumsy, too-loud, too-bright boy he had been as a child, she can't help but reflect. He'd been young and stubborn and yet also a little bit of a crybaby for how much of a hard-ass he could be over nothing, but she really needs to give adult Diluc more credit. He had earned her respect as a captain above her in the ranks, but had disappeared just as quickly into the Snezhnayan wilderness soon after.
The coffee slowly kicks in and she gradually starts feeling more human, more inclined to be charitable towards the world at large.
“Thank you,” she says to Diluc. “The coffee was good.”
Diluc nods in wordless acknowledgement. As he finally finishes sweeping and gets the mop out, Jean heads back to Venti’s room, knocking at the door. This time, she does not enter of her own accord, knowing that Venti is awake and unsure if he's fully dressed. After a moment, seeming to realise that she's waiting for permission, he speaks.
“Come in.”
When she opens the door, she is surprised to find that he is not fully dressed. He has successfully gotten the blouse over his wings, but it is still hanging open.
“Oh, excuse me,” she immediately says. “You should have said that you weren't dressed.”
“It's alright,” Venti says.
Jean is about to leave again, giving him more time to get ready, but notices at the door that Venti still isn't trying to button up the shirt. Suddenly, she is struck by the thought that he might not know how to button a shirt.
“Do you need help getting dressed?” she asks kindly.
Venti just shrugs, and after a moment, Jean approaches, sitting on the side of the mattress and reaching for his collar. She pauses as she realizes that the seams are on the outside— he's wearing the shirt inside out. Momentarily reminded of a very young child, she can't stop herself from smoothing his hair back fondly, before gently taking the shirt off of him.
“You're wearing it the wrong way,” she explains, and just as gently begins to guide his wings back out of the slits she had sewn into the back. She is careful to handle them as delicately as she can, but still, it's only as she's putting the shirt back onto him that she realizes what a struggle it must have been getting into it the first time without a mirror or a second person to help— and yet, he had not spoken a single word of complaint.
“Venti…” she begins hesitantly, and then, after a moment, sighs. “It should have occurred to me to dress you. I'm sorry.”
Venti looks surprised, before he smiles that strange, wan smile again. “You do not need to apologize to me. I do not expect or require service. You should not trouble yourself.”
“It's no trouble to me,” Jean immediately assures him. “You should not have to struggle with something I can easily help with. I will dress you going forward.” Too late, however, hearing her own brusque, military tone of voice, she winces, and quickly softens her tone— civilian voice, Jean, she reminds herself, civilian voice. “If you would allow it, that is.”
“You do not have to seek my permission,” Venti says.
Jean… isn't sure how to address that, so in the end, she simply sighs, very quietly, and drops the subject. They can have the necessary talk on consent and bodily autonomy when Diluc isn’t waiting in the sitting room.
Having successfully gotten both wings and arms into the blouse, she comes around to Venti's front, offering him a gentle smile, before beginning to button it up, double-knotting the ribbon and adjusting the collar. When she's done, she steps back, giving him a once-over, and then smiling.
“There you go,” she whispers fondly. “You look very handsome.”
With the large ribbon at his neck, he looks adorable in fact, like one of those little vintage dolls her mother used to collect when she and Barbara had still been children. His cheeks are so round and so boyishly pink that they could have been painted on. The breeches are thankfully closed with a hook and not a button, so she does not have to help with that, but she makes a mental note to separate the bottoms that require buttoning from the others until she has taught him how to button his own clothes.
It's just too bad they don't have any of those little lace socks and tiny loafers to complete the look, she can't help but mentally lament. They'd not been able to find any of Kaeya’s shoes in Venti's size. She’d forgotten how big Kaeya's feet had been for such a tiny boy, a somewhat cublike look now that she thinks back to it, perhaps hinting at the larger frame he would eventually grow into. If only they still had some of Barbara's childhood belongings in the manor. Jean had always favoured more practical shoes for swordwork, even in girlhood, but Barbara— she had always owned such a lovely assortment of the most darlingest of shoes and socks.
Venti is not a dress-up doll, the more dismayed, adult part of her brain reminds her then, aghast at the strange train of thought her mind had inadvertently ventured down— and you're much too old to be playing dress up, Jean Gunnhildr.
Shaking her head a little to clear the last of those thoughts, she brings herself firmly back to the present, only to find that Venti is looking up through his lashes at her, something strangely searching about his eyes. Jean tilts her head slightly.
“Is something the matter?”
Venti shakes his head, immediately lowering his eyes. Not for the first time, Jean finds herself disconcerted by his reaction, instinctively reaching up to smooth his hair back again. He allows the touch, completely unresisting, and after a moment, Jean manages to muster up a smile, holding a hand out to him.
“Shall we head out into the sitting room to see Diluc?”
Venti blinks once, and then, a little hesitantly, nods. He pulls the covers off himself, pauses, and then gingerly lowers his feet to the ground — struck by the unsurety in his movements, Jean reaches out to grab him on instinct, and not a moment too soon — the moment Venti tries to put weight on his legs, they crumple beneath him.
“Are you still unable to stand?!” Jean demands, concerned.
In the immediate aftermath of what happened in the tower, she had attributed his inability to walk to exhaustion, but it's been two days since, and Venti seems alert and is clearly responding without any hint of tiredness.
“I'm sorry,” Venti says, very quietly, not looking at her.
“It's nothing you need to apologize for,” Jean quickly reassures him. “I'll ask Diluc to come in—” And then, remembering how Venti had shrunk back upon seeing Diluc the first time, she quickly adds— “unless you have any objection to that.”
Venti shakes his head. “It's fine. He can come in.”
With a nod and one last reassuring smile, Jean goes outside to fetch Diluc. Her smile drops the moment the door closes behind her, however, and she stands there for a moment, mind racing. The way his legs had just crumpled beneath him— he had fallen quite a ways from the top of the tower. Is there something wrong with his legs? Has he been injured all this time, and she didn't even notice?
She feels sick.
When she emerges back into the sitting room, Diluc takes one look at her, and immediately stands from where he had finally settled on the sofa. “What's wrong? Why do you look like that?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Jean says reflexively, and then, at Diluc's skeptically raised eyebrow, sighs and relents. “Okay, something is wrong.”
Diluc turns serious. “What is it?”
“He can’t stand,” Jean says.
There's a moment of silence, Diluc frowning, as if taking her words in, and finally, Jean makes a slightly helpless gesture.
“At first, I thought it was exhaustion,” she admits, wringing her hands a little in her now mounting distress, “but he seems alert and rested right now. I checked him over very briefly when I first found him at the base of the tower. I had thought that he did not look injured and he didn’t seem to be in any pain, but… he fell a long way that night.”
“You think there's something wrong with his legs?” Diluc asks.
“They just collapse under him whenever he tries to stand,” she reiterates helplessly.
Diluc nods briskly. “Let's have a look.”
They head grimly into Venti's room. Venti looks up, eyes wide, at Diluc's barked-out call of bard, but there's no recognition in his eyes at that familiar address. Diluc seems to notice that as well, because after a moment, he corrects himself.
“Venti,” he amends, and hesitates in the doorway for a moment longer, before clearing his throat. “May we have a quick look at your legs?”
Venti blinks, and then nods slowly. Diluc and Jean immediately crouch before him. Venti does not stop them from pulling the covers very gently away from his legs, nor does he resist when Diluc grips his foot, rotating his ankle slowly.
“Does it hurt when I do this?”
“No.”
Diluc checks Venti's knee very briefly, and then repeats the physical examination on the other leg, but Venti answers negatively whenever asked if he’s in pain. Venti doesn't seem to be lying either. He does not flinch or react in any other way to any of the assisted movements, seeming more confused than anything.
“It doesn't hurt?” Diluc finally demands. “Not even a bit?”
“Is it supposed to?” Venti asks.
“No…” Diluc admits, before squeezing Venti's ankle, a little harder than before. “Can you feel it when I squeeze you like this?”
“Yes.”
“Any sensation of tingling or numbness?”
“No.”
And finally, physical examination over with, Diluc draws back, shooting Jean a meaningful look.
“We’ll be right back,” Jean assures Venti with a smile. They head outside. The moment the door clicks shut, however, Diluc exhales, leaning back against the door.
“Well, the good news is that nothing’s broken or dislocated.”
“But the bad news is we have absolutely no idea what's wrong,” Jean guesses, glum.
“Neither with his legs, nor with his memories,” Diluc confirms.
Jean lets out a forceful breath, putting her head in one hand and rubbing tiredly at her brow. After a moment, Diluc sighs again, and then speaks— “Have you tried healing him? Did that not work either?”
“No, I haven't tried healing him,” Jean says.
There's a moment of silence, and when she looks up, Diluc is giving her a somewhat incredulous look. “Why not?”
“Barbara tried healing him after he was injured by that harbinger at the cathedral,” she explains, “but she said regular healing doesn't work on him.”
Diluc folds his arms, looking quite unimpressed, to which Jean finally sighs again.
“Okay, fine,” she grumbles. “Let's give it a try.”
They head back in and Jean crouches before Venti with a reassuring smile, where he is still seated on the edge of the mattress.
“Venti,” she begins in an open and friendly tone, “I would like to conduct a quick check on your legs using my vision, if that’s alright. You might experience a faint tingling, but rest assured that you will not be harmed in any way.”
She immediately feels a little silly having said it. Surely, the god of anemo himself would not find the sensation of elemental magic too worrying, but in the interest of professionalism, it was important to say.
“Okay,” Venti says, still in that worryingly muted voice. Jean briefly trades a look with Diluc, before lowering a hand to his ankle, engaging the healing properties of her vision.
Immediately, she becomes somewhat aware of what Barbara must have sensed that day at the cathedral. There's something strange about Venti's body, something very much unlike a human. Every vision is slightly different and no two healers channel their healing in the same way, but even so, there's usually something to channel elemental energy through in a human body— muscle, veins, capillaries. She is intimately familiar with the sensation of elemental energy pooling in places it should not be pooling, along the faultlines of torn muscle and broken veins, intimately familiar with how, with a little will, she can urge those tears to repair themselves.
Venti, on the other hand—
In the immediate aftermath of the Fair Lady’s attack, he had taken off so quickly that Jean had not even had the chance to examine him. She had, in that moment, she is rather ashamed to admit in retrospect, been completely beside herself.
She knows she had probably frightened Barbara with the ferocious intensity of her frantic interrogation. Barbara had not complained or cried out, had in fact remained remarkably calm, answering Jean’s questions thoroughly and with a restrained clarity that Jean had not shared in that moment, but when Jean had finally let go of her sister, she had seen the red marks where her thumbs had been pressing so hard into the back of Barbara's hands, clutching at her with so much desperation, that they had very likely turned into bruises in the aftermath.
His body is incapable of conducting elemental energy, is what Barbara had explained again and again, patiently, under Jean’s intense questioning. I could not make the pathways of his body accept any of my elemental energy.
Jean had not explained it to Barbara after, but she had later understood it as the sensation of trying to channel one's own element through a pure elemental being of a different type. Like attempting to conduct electricity through a pyro slime, the turbulent clash of the two elements would explode upon the surface of the slime, flinging both parties backward, but no other element other than pyro would ever be able to channel through the body of the creature.
Under Jean's hands right now, however, Venti is nothing like an anemo slime, nothing even like the hypostasis she had encountered once upon the cliffs of Stormbearer Mountains, a mass of pure energy spilling her own away from it like a brimming cup running over under a tap. Instead, he is— he is—
—he is endless emptiness, and she is falling into him, falling down into a whirlpool with no bottom, falling through a vast dark sea. He is a vessel that will never run over, a void with dimensions magnitudes beyond the limitations of human comprehension— he—
There's a hand on her shoulder, and she is on one knee in front of a boy so small, drowning in too-large clothes, that he is the nearly same height as her seated as she is crouched on the hardwood floor. He's got a hand on her shoulder, and he's looking down at her with his head tilted in mild perplexment.
“You can command elemental energy,” he says, to which Jean can only blink.
“Yes?” she ventures, her voice coming out far more unsure than she had intended.
“But you are only human,” Venti observes.
“Yes, I am,” Jean confirms. Venti blinks at her once, twice, that air of poorly hidden skepticism still on his face, before he finally lowers his gaze. He nods shortly, and then turns his face slightly away, having seemingly decided to drop the topic. Jean sits on her haunches before him for a moment longer.
It's strange to digest, but it seems growingly certain to her that elemental visions might not have been a thing before the end of the Archon War.
“It is one of your blessings,” she finally blurts out, which only seems to confuse Venti further for a moment, before a look of realization dawns over his face. His eyes sharpen, gaze solidifying into flint in a way that she has not seen since he had awoken in the tower, his hand upon her shoulder tightening as he holds her gaze, suddenly immoveable.
“I do not expect anything in return for blessings,” he says. “I do not require— no, I do not accept ritual offerings of power. Not now. Not ever. Never do that again.”
“I'm sorry,” Jean immediately blurts out, taken aback.
At her apology, however, every last trace of steel leaks out of Venti's face, out of his eyes, out of his entire body. His hand slips from her shoulder, and all of a sudden, he is a blank canvas again, empty and completely passive, but his eyes— his eyes are somewhere very far away.
“You do not need to apologize to me,” he says to the wall behind her left shoulder.
“But I do,” Jean insists desperately. “I didn't mean to— I should have asked for permission before—”
“You do not need to ask my permission for anything.”
“Yes, I do— I wasn't trying to— I was trying to heal you, but it doesn't matter. Venti, no one should be permitted to touch you without you allowing it, let alone perform any elementally invasive procedures without informed consent. You're an elemental being, and I unknowingly violated your bodily autonomy without—”
“You asked and I said it was okay,” Venti cuts in firmly. “I do not—” He exhales then, and all of a sudden, he looks so defeated that Jean bites down on her tongue, bites off any more words before they can issue from her. “I do not require an apology.”
Jean has to bite down harder on her tongue to keep silent, to refrain from a very likely unwise attempt to navigate a lengthy discussion on the concept of informed consent and the oaths all healers are expected to take— heartbreaking as it is, she is not entirely sure Venti will be able to understand it in relation to himself.
“Okay,” she backs down helplessly. “Okay, that's fine, but I— even though you do not want an apology, I would still— still like to apologize—”
There's a hand on her shoulder again, but this time, the grip is firm and the palm covers her entire shoulder.
“Jean,” Diluc says, very quietly.
She falls silent, and after a moment, she closes her eyes. “Nevermind. We can— we can talk about this again another time.”
“Alright,” Venti says immediately, in that idle, unquestioning way of his.
Diluc squeezes her shoulder.
“We’ll be back,” Jean says, trying for a smile that feels shaky on her face, taking his hint.
She leaves the room with Diluc in tow, heading back into the corridor. The moment the door clicks shut behind them, Diluc breathes out, a long and slow sound. He does not turn to face her, just staring down the long hallway.
“That was,” he finally says, “a complete, unmitigated disaster.”
“I know, okay,” Jean snarls, immediately defensive. “I know. I don't need you to tell me that.” She whirls away from him, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes. She has never quite been the one for profanity but— “Fuck,” she whispers. “Fuck.”
“I didn't mean—” Diluc cuts himself off, and then exhales again. “I wasn't blaming you for it. You were the one who thought it wouldn’t work and I told you to try anyway. I just… did not expect it to go that badly.”
“I don't know what to do, Luc,” Jean rants despairingly. “I don't know how to behave around him, I don't know how to talk to him, I'm— trying but I'm just— failing so completely at taking care of him.”
“Please don't cry,” Diluc says awkwardly, and Jean turns to shoot him her nastiest glare.
“I'm not crying, for god's sake—”
“Okay, that's good,” Diluc assures her hastily. “Yelling is fine. Crying is not.”
Jean suddenly understands why she had so often heard her mother screaming wordlessly to herself in the garden after interactions with her father. For the love of Barbatos, men are utterly useless.
The only thing keeping her from following in her mother’s footsteps right now is the childhood memory of just how thin the walls of this manor can be against the sound of hissed arguments and incrementally raising voices outside her own and Barbara’s shut bedroom doors. Archons, just another way she is failing completely and utterly at this. How has two days of custody over someone who isn't even a child turned her into Frederica Gunnhildr at the pinnacle of that long and messy divorce? Venti is no colicky, screaming infant. He does not need to be fed in intervals throughout the night. He will not die if he rolls onto his front when no one is watching—
Cutting off the rest of those thoughts, she takes Diluc's wrist, pulling him along with her down the corridor, away from Venti's door. Diluc is utterly silent, saying nothing, so she concentrates instead on quietening her feet, not wishing for Venti to hear the sound of angry footsteps storming away, like she had all too many times in her childhood.
“No one needs you to be perfect at this, Jean,” Diluc finally says— so very quietly that she nearly does not hear it.
She does not reply.
They continue to walk in absolute silence down the empty, echoing hallways of Gunnhildr mansion, not speaking a word. It is only when they've finally made their way out of the manor and into the gardens, when they are — more likely than not — out of earshot of the bedrooms, that she finally turns back around.
“I need to head to Liyue,” she says decisively.
Diluc looks first surprised, then openly skeptical.
“That was the very last set of instructions he gave me,” Jean explains. “He told me to seek out the adeptus at Wangshu Inn, that the adeptus there would know what to do. That's our only lead right now. I need to look for that adeptus.”
“But are you sure that's wise?” Diluc questions reluctantly.
Jean frowns, folding her arms. “What do you mean?”
Diluc sighs quietly, and then elaborates, “Is it really wise to alert a powerful foreign actor that our god is currently indisposed?”
“We've been allies with Liyue for thousands of years,” Jean says defensively. “Besides, that was who he asked me to contact should he fail to return from that battle.” She pauses for a moment, before sighing, making a conscious attempt to gentle her voice— it's not like Diluc really deserves to be snapped at right now. “It’s our only lead.”
Diluc is quiet for a moment longer, before finally, he sighs, reaching up to massage at the bridge of his nose.
“I'll watch him while you're gone,” he capitulates, before looking up with a solemn nod. “Godspeed.”