Chapter Text
After having seen the way Diluc swings his claymore, the last word he would use to describe the young wine merchant would be ‘gentle’. And yet, after Jean explains the situation to Diluc, the young man is surprisingly gentle in the way he places his palm on Venti’s chest and begins to channel pyro energy in a warm steady flow.
The effect is immediate. The last traces of ice melt away from Venti’s skin and clothes, until the water begins to slowly evaporate, leaving him warm and dry. The colour returns to his cheeks, and Venti sighs in his sleep. He looks warm. Alive.
“He should be alright, I don’t sense any more cryo energy in him,” Diluc says, slowly lifting his hand away.
“Thank you, Sir - Diluc,” Jean says. “It’s a great relief.” Diluc nods at her.
“Can all pyro users channel warmth like this?” Aether asks, marvelling at the expertise with which Diluc could regulate the temperature without burning the whole place down.
Diluc shakes his head.
“Pyro as an element is quite volatile, and perhaps the hardest to control,” Diluc says, adjusting his gloves. “I just have practice at this sort of usage because -” he hesitates, and fiddles with his gloves again “- Kaeya.”
“Oh, I -”
“If you don’t need me here anymore, Acting Grandmaster,” Diluc says, turning towards the exit, “I should like to be useful elsewhere. Perhaps at the root of this problem,” he adds, with a look of determination in his eye.
“Right. This way.” Jean leads him towards the exit, with a request to be notified when Venti wakes up. Aether promises to do so.
It leaves him alone with Venti in the quiet room of the Cathedral, and he settles down on a chair beside the bed with a sigh. Venti still looks paler than usual, and his braids are still bleached of colour at the ends, a lifeless frosty gray. He hopes it’s not permanent.
It’s unnerving, being alone in silence like this. He never got used to it. Aether is not much of a talker, but he likes listening to people around him, and enjoys the company of someone by his side to fill the air with chatter. Lumine used to be that person, and he remembers how much she liked to speak her thoughts out loud, working out their next destination or picking their food for dinner. Lumine would never let him feel alone in the world, would never let him hear the loud echoing silence of the universe.
It’s hard, without her.
When he finds her, he’s going to have so many stories to share. She would love hearing about Monstadt and its people, and Dvalin, and their funny little archon.
It’s amusing to think of Venti meeting Lumine, but he thinks they would get along pretty well. Aether would like them to, as long as Venti doesn’t think Lumine is cooler than him.
Just when the silence starts to get unbearable, something bursts into existence next to him in a shower of sparkles, and launches itself at Aether with a loud wail.
“Aether! You’re here! Paimon was so worried,” the little pixie yells, wrapping her hands around his head in an approximation of a hug. Aether hugs her back the best he can, patting her back gently as he sways from side to side.
“It’s good to see you, Paimon,” he smiles, something akin to relief settling in his chest. “I was worried about you too.”
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Paimon asks, leaning back to inspect his face, turning it from side to side with her tiny hands. “Who was that horrible lady? She froze Paimon into a solid block of ice! And what about -” She lets go of his face, noticing the room they’re in for the first time, and gasps loudly when she sees Venti on the bed.
“Tone-Deaf-Bard! What happened to him?”
“He’s sleeping now,” Aether says, before Paimon can panic even more. “That lady attacked us, but they say he is going to be okay. I’ll explain later.”
Paimon nods, and flies over to Venti to float next to him.
“It’s strange to see him like this.”
“Yeah,” Aether sighs.
“Have you tried waking him up?” Paimon asks, poking Venti’s cheek. Venti scrunches his eyebrows in his sleep.
“Oh! Paimon, do it again.”
“Hey, Tone-Deaf-Bard, wake up!” Paimon yells, poking Venti’s cheek again. “You’re making Aether worry!”
Venti frowns, and turns his face away from her, and begins to stretch like he’s waking up from a long nap.
Aether watches with bated breath as he opens his eyes again, squinting at Paimon in confusion.
“Wh - ?”
“Venti!” Aether gasps. “How are you feeling?”
Venti blinks at him slowly, until his eyes clear and there’s a spark of realisation in them.
“Aether…” he breathes. He suddenly places a hand on his chest, as if searching for something, and sighs after a moment. He turns to Aether with a wry smile.
“She didn’t hurt you, did she?”
“I’m okay, don’t worry about me,” Aether says quickly, reaching out to support Venti as the bard tries to sit up. Paimon does her best to support Venti’s shoulder from the other side.
“Ah, thank you dear friends,” Venti says, smiling at them, and rubs his chest absentmindedly again. “I must confess I feel less than fine, now that I’m missing something that used to be mine.”
“She called it a ‘gnosis’,” Aether says, and Venti nods.
“That is true, but perhaps we should discuss this somewhere more private.”
“You can barely sit up by yourself!” Paimon says, when Venti tries to get out of bed. “Where do you think you’re going in this state.”
“Haha don’t worry my little friend, I’ll let Aether do the heavy-lifting for us this time.”
Aether blinks. “Me?”
“Say, dear Traveller, could you happen to take us to the symbol of Monstadt’s saviour again? The wind beneath those branches should help me breathe easier.”
“Vanessa’s tree in Windrise!” Paimon exclaims. “You went there when you were hurt before!”
“Alright, I’ll teleport us there, let me inform Jean first. And also -” Aether picks up Venti’s hat from the bedside table and gently places it back on his head. Venti blinks in surprise, and then smiles at him with a happy glimmer in his eyes.
“Thank you,” he says, voice soft, and Aether pats his cheek, feeling very fond.
“Thank you for hearing my prayer,” he says, and sets off to find Jean.
Later, when they’re at Windrise and he watches Venti breathe in deeply, the beautiful hue of anemo returning to his hair, Aether feels himself breathing in too, washing away the last traces of frost from his own heart.
“From the look in your eyes I sense some unrest,” Venti smiles softly. “Telling a friend your troubles is always for the best.” They’re sitting on the palms of the Anemo Archon statue, legs dangling off the edge, watching the people of Monstadt go about their lives on a quiet summer night.
“I -” Aether hesitates. He doesn’t want to destroy the peaceful moment with his terrible thoughts, but all this time without his sister has made him much more anxious as a person. Venti sits patiently next to him, like he has all the time in the world to wait for Aether to speak. His eyes are luminous in the soft moonlight.
“It’s not something pleasant,” he says, trying to work up the courage to ask what has been on his mind for the better part of the day. “Probably inappropriate too, now that I think about it.”
Venti raises his eyebrows high. “Whatever have you been thinking about, my dear Traveller?” he asks. Aether sighs.
“Can gods die?”
Venti goes still, staring at Aether with an unreadable expression on his face. He blinks - once, twice - before his eyes soften and become a little sad around the edges.
“That’s what has been eating away at you?” he murmurs, reaching out to hold Aether’s palm in his own. His hands are slightly smaller than Aether’s, and his fingers are soft, despite centuries of playing the lyre and shooting arrows. Most importantly, his hands are warm.
Aether nods. “You didn’t see yourself when - when I finally got to you,” he swallows, blinking away the memory of Venti’s pained gasp as Signora plunged her hand into his chest. “I thought I was too late.” Again. He doesn’t say that part out loud, but Venti seems to understand anyway as he cradles Aether’s palm between two of his own, almost like he’s trying to hold onto a crystalfly.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says, and truly seems apologetic. Aether doesn’t say anything. He knows he doesn’t need to. They sit quietly for a few moments with Venti tracing meaningless shapes into his palm until the bard speaks again.
“Yes, gods can die,” he says, and Aether can’t help but look at him. Venti looks far too calm for someone talking about his own mortality. “Many gods died in the Archon war. It was no time for weakness or hesitation, and there was no mercy or scope for benevolence. Those who could adapt lived to tell the tale, and those couldn’t, perished.”
Aether looks at Venti’s hands again, his swift and delicate fingers. It was hard to think that those hands could ever hurt someone.
“What happened to them?” Aether asks, because he must know. He needs to know. “What happened to those who died?”
Venti sighs and looks up from their joined hands to smile that soft sad smile at him again. “They returned to the elements in their purest form. They say the goddess of salt in Liyue turned into miles of pure salt when she was killed.”
“So you -” Aether begins, and then stops. He can’t bear to think of it. Venti dissolving into the winds some day, turning into a gust of unnamed breeze.
“I won’t turn into a hurricane any moment now, don’t worry,” Venti laughs, and Aether shakes his head. “You wouldn’t become a hurricane. You could never hurt people like that.”
“You think too highly of someone who made you commit robbery from a Church within hours of meeting you.”
Aether shrugs. “It’s not stealing if it’s technically yours.”
Venti laughs, his voice like bells in the night. “Try telling the darling Deaconess that,” he says, a smile pulling at his lips. He looks sweet like this, Aether thinks, when he laughs at something Aether says.
Venti would be kind, Aether knows, like a breeze laden with dandelion seeds. He would be soft and playful, like the wind singing through the windchimes. He would be caring, like the air currents that teach the baby birds to soar, and lets Aether glide through mountain peaks. He would be the air in his lungs, every time he breathes.
“Speaking of the Deaconess,” Venti speaks again, looking at the lights of Monstadts houses in the distance. “Her faith would remain unshaken even if I died, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
Venti lets out a nervous little laugh. “Well, Lord Barbatos is more of a concept to them than an actual being. My presence or absence changes nothing, as long as they continue to believe in the concept. Venti the bard can turn into the breeze before dawn, and the Church would still hold service in the morning and Sister Grace would teach all the children to pray,” he smiles. “It’s reassuring, in a way.”
“That’s not true,” Aether argues. “Venti the bard is the best bard in Monstadt for three years now, so many people would miss you.” Venti looks at him in mild surprise, and Aether takes it as his cue to continue. “Angel’s Share would be positively miserable without you, even Master Diluc would agree,” he says, and Venti giggles.
“Alice would find way less coins in the fountain without you emptying your own tip jar into it every other evening.”
Venti’s eyes widen. “How did you -”
“And Miss Gloria would be so lonely without the kind stranger who sits next to her and plays her a lovely song every time they meet.”
Venti ducks his head, clearly embarrassed. “I didn’t know you noticed,” he complains, attempting to hide behind his braids.
Aether laughs. “I noticed,” he says simply. “You’re not just a concept, or a half-remembered figment of someone’s faith. You are very much real to me, and many others, and if you became a breeze tomorrow, I would miss you the most.”
Venti shakes his head, blinking rapidly. “Making a bard lose his words? You’re truly something else, Outlander who caught the wind.”
Aether smiles. “The wind caught me right back, so we can call it even.”
Venti looks at him with his luminous eyes again, and then carefully leans forward to wrap his arms around Aether’s neck and puts his chin on Aether’s shoulder.
“Thank you,” he says, and the quiver in his voice is muffled by Aether’s scarf. “I’m going to miss you a lot too, when you’re gone.”
“But I’ll come back,” Aether promises, and Venti draws back to look him in the eyes.
“It’s okay, little crystalfly,” he says, tucking a loose strand of Aether’s hair behind his ear. “You go where you have to. Your journey has only just begun.”
Aether knows that, but. But.
“You know, people in Mond say ‘Let the wind lead!” Venti says. “It’s a bit misleading, the wind doesn’t lead anything. Even the smallest dandelion seed is simply pushed ahead by the breeze. All the wind does is simply follow.”
It’s a sweet sentiment.
“First a crystalfly, now a dandelion seed. What else do you think I am?” he huffs, and Venti laughs again, his braids swaying with the motion.
“You’re many things, and I will write a song about them all, and sing it to every person I meet,” Venti declares. “So that no matter wherever your journey takes you, you’ll know I’ll soon follow.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Aether smiles, throwing an arm around Venti’s shoulders, which makes Venti lean against him immediately.
“I hope you do,” Venti whispers, quiet as the wind, but Aether hears him anyway.