Chapter Text
"So what you're trying to say is that you fell here from another world?"
Two glowing stars, yellow with a trailing blue, streaked past the both their screens across a large statue - Barbatos's statue.
Venti let out a low whistle, grinning. Xiao just raised an eyebrow at him and turned back to his own screen.
"But when you wanted to leave and go on to the next world, your path was blocked by some unknown god?"
Two figures, one female, and the other male, stepped onto a paved path, their blonde hair cascading down their shoulders as they looked up, where a streak of red appeared, opening up into a diamond-like shaped portal, and revealing a woman, with flaming gold eyes and feral flowing white hair, stepping out of the darkness that swirled within the diamond.
"Is that supposed to be Lumine and Aether?!" Venti asked excitedly, nudging Xiao as he did. "They look...so real! It's surprisingly quite accurate, don't you think?"
"Mhm."
"And...oh...this woman..." Venti's tone became more hushed when the said woman appeared, a little...darker, if you would suppose.
"'Oh' indeed," Xiao couldn't help but agree.
"Outlanders, your journey ends here."
With a swing of her hand, the portal turned from a dark, black red to a bright yellow, before forming into sharper, more deadly looking shuriken-like forms.
The blonde girl on the ground - Lumine, as Venti had said - stepped forward, looking up to the mysterious woman first with subtle shock, then challenge in her eyes.
"Who are you?"
"The sustainer of heavenly principals," The woman answered, and with a wave of her hand, a small, red box appeared in her palm. "The arrogation of mankind ends now."
Just as she finished her sentence, the same box appeared right beneath the twins' feet, only bigger in size this time, and the two blondes leaped into the air, evading her attack. Delicate, golden wings sprouted from Lumine's back, and Aether's too, and their sword materialising in their hands as they dashed forward, raising their weapons to attack.
But the woman in conflicting colours of red, white and yellow seemed to have anticipated that. She reached her arms out, and twisted, "blockish" structures painted in red shot out from behind her, rushing at the twins, forcing them apart, and they flew, weaving around the broken pillar structures all around the area, with the snake-like structures chasing after them.
Both the siblings quickly doubled back to where they came from, letting out a yell and a cry as they tried to attack once again.
They all met in the middle, in one single clash, in a explosion strong enough to shake the whole of Teyvat.
Select a twin.
"Ok, wow," Surprisingly, it was Xiao that commented on the whole sequence first.
"Woah..." Venti looked absolutely stunned, a even brighter smile spreading across his face. "I didn't not expect a supposedly "historical" game to look so good?! Imagine how I must look like in here!"
Xiao rolled his eyes jokingly. "Who are you going to pick?" Xiao asked.
"I don't know, pick 1 or 2."
"What?"
"Just pick a number!"
"Uh...2?" Xiao said a little hesitantly, not really knowing what Venti was going at.
"Aether it is!" Venti clicked the male blonde on his phone screen.
"I'll pick Lumine then," Xiao clicked onto the girl.
Let your name be known. Enter your name.
"What are you going to put as your name?" Xiao asked, but Venti was already typing away on his phone, so he leaned in to take a look at his screen, where the words "Bardbatos" was typed in black at the bottom of the screen.
Xiao just gave Venti an unassuming look, which the latter laughed off with an "ehe", and Xiao turned back to his own, typing in "Xiao".
"Ok, we press confirm on 3," Venti's thumb hovered over the button.
"2."
"1."
They both clicked the button on the bottom right hand corner.
Xiao's screen:
The woman huffed, glaring at Lumine, and thrusted a hand towards her direction where Lumine's sword was pointed, and red cubes started to form on the sword, forcing Lumine to let go of her weapon and it drove her up into the air far away from the woman and her brother.
Right at the same time, the woman grabbed onto Aether's sword, the same blood red cube-like structures crawling up his sword and to his distracted self, making him gasp in shock as it swallowed him whole.
"Aether!"
The cubes broke apart, revealing nothing at the spot where Lumine's twin was just a second ago, and they shrunk into one small cube in the woman's palm, and she examined it with narrowed eyes.
Lumine took this as a distraction and pushed forward, flying fast until she was right behind her back, pulling her arm back, a bright yellow blinding light emitting from it, fizzling like electricity and she cried out as she went in for the attack.
A explosion filled the screen again as they collided, and the smoke all cleared away to reveal Lumine, panting, but she looked up only to see-
"Huh?"
-a shield, formed from an array of dark red cubes and dim yellow light, and it all shrunk down onto Lumine's fist. The girl struggled to remove her hand, but before she could, the cubes engulfed her, forcing her to succumb to a fate that was equal to her brother's.
"Wait, don't go!"
"Give my brother back!"
The screen faded to black.
"And just like that, the god took my brother.
Some kind of seal was cast upon me, and I lost my power.
So while we used to travel from world to world, we are now trapped here."
The darkness on the screen was lifted, to reveal Lumine now sitting on a rock in a beach.
"How many years ago was it? I don't know."
"But I intend to find out."
"I was completely alone from the time I woke, right up until I met you, two months ago."
(Xiao was a little confused why the subtitles didn't collate with the voice, since it said, "When I woke, I was all alone - until I met you two months ago..."
He quickly realised that it was supposed to fit Aether's line, which was playing on Venti's screen, but he didn't bother to point it out.)
"Yeah, Paimon really owes you for that, otherwise Paimon likely would have drowned!" A small, tiny, floating girl with white, short hair stood - no, floated - right beside Lumine.
"Oh~ Paimon!" Venti chirped, his expression in between endearment and annoyance. "I still have trauma from the days she had called me 'Tone-deaf bard'. Xiao, tell me, am I really that bad?"
"No," Xiao answered almost immediately without thinking.
"Aww...you're so sweet!"
Xiao opened his mouth to say something, but look that Venti gave him shut him up for now.
"So Paimon will do her best to be a great guide!"
"We should head off. Let's get going!"
"Oh, we can control now!" Venti exclaimed, grabbing hold of the controls and spinning Aether around in the small little screen. Xiao did the same too, his fingers clacking on the mouse and keyboard.
Quest: Wanderer's Trail; Go to Paimon
"So Paimon's being an actual guide in this game, huh?" Venti smirked, and they both directed the twins to follow the white haired creature.
Just as they skirted around the water, a hydro slime popped up, startling both of them momentarily. Then Venti laughed. "Too bad I can't shoot my phone, huh?"
"Well..." Xiao wanted to reply, but he was too focused on spamming the mouse to attack the slimes with swipes of Lumine's sword that he lost his train of thought. "...the sword attacks are pretty similar to the original Lumine and Aether's."
"True!" Venti finished off his slime. "And would you look at that, a teleport waypoint!" He pointed at the glowing red statue that was located just a little distance away from Aether on the screen. He directed Aether to the statue and unlocked it, the statue turning blue on contact.
"I guess this is the only time we can use teleport waypoints, I have always been jealous that Aether and Lumine could use it but we couldn't," Venti tapped past the instructions and click on the map, but just as he did, a notification popped down from the top of the screen, making his phone shrill just as it appeared.
"Oh shit- I forgot that I have a stream today!" Venti leaped up from the couch, exiting Genshin Impact as he did. Xiao's fingers paused on the keyboard as he looked up at Venti, who rushed into his bedroom.
"You have a stream?" Xiao asked, a little confused.
"Yup! I stream on Saturdays at 11.30!" Venti chirped, his voice coming from his room. Then he popped his head out of the doorway. "Hey, why don't you pop into my stream?"
"Me? On your stream-"
"As a viewer, I mean! I would appreciate it if the famous Xiao would watch my stream, right?" Venti winked at Xiao, and Xiao couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"I'll see. But it's almost lunch time, and I'm going to eat."
"Ehh? Without me?" Venti pouted, wailing. "And you don't even need to eat - you don't even like eating!"
"Force of habit," Xiao replied, logging off and shutting his computer down. Maybe he could continue Genshin on a stream another day. "See you around later."
"Xiaooooo~" Venti cried as Xiao headed for the door. He ignored Venti and grabbed the keys off the tray placed right at the door, and inserted it into the lock, unlocking the door.
Seeing that Xiao wasn't going to stay and watch his stream, Venti huffed. "Well, at least tune in when you're outside, pleaseeeeeeee?"
Xiao glanced back at Venti, who was making a puppy face that dissolved Xiao's original resolve. He wasn't immune to puppy faces after all, after all these years of Ganyu and even Zhongli (he blames it on the long dead Childe who must have taught him that) doing so to him.
"Fine, fine, I'll try," Xiao placated the archon, and Venti grinned widely.
"Alright then, have a nice lunch!" Venti disappeared back into his room, shutting his door behind him.
Xiao shook his head, sighing, and headed out.
***
He only remembered about Venti's request when he was halfway through his almond tofu.
He had came down to this tiny shop, named Almond Dreams, which was situated near Teyvat High, and even though it wasn't very popular, Xiao thinks that the food here are definitely uncontested. Mostly they sell almond tofu desserts, which was an absolute win for Xiao who is someone who can't stomach much other than almond tofu.
"Xiao, how's the almond tofu?" A shaky, yet gentle voice reached his ears. He blinked, and turned to see an old woman approaching him. He gave her a small smile. "It's good like usual, Granny Xiu."
Granny Xiu was the old woman who ran this tiny place, alongside with her husband. Because Xiao was such a regular customer, they got along pretty well, despite Xiao's introverted and closed off attitude.
When they first started an actual conversation, Granny Xiu had wanted him to call her "Granny" instead of "Mrs", and honestly, Xiao had a hard time doing that. Well, it made sense for Xiao to feel awkward about since he was supposed to be many times her ancestor, but he couldn't tell her that, so he went along with it.
"You seem to be thinking about something just now?" She asked, taking a seat beside him.
"Yea, just remembered something."
"What is it? Homework? Money problems?"
"No," Xiao shook his head. "Was just thinking about a friend's request. He wants me to watch his stream."
"Ah...then you should get to it, eh?" Granny Xiu smiled her gentle smile. "I'll leave you alone for now, need to attend to a customer," She stood up at the ringing of bells from the front door, and shuffled off.
Xiao watched her go, then drew out his phone from his pocket, and went onto twitter, where Venti's link to his streams was. He clicked the link, and a screen immediately popped up, Venti's face filling the screen.
The viewer count wasn't very high, just 50 people or so, Xiao noted. But that didn't matter. Venti still looked like he was having the time of his life.
"Ok guys! What song do you want me to cover next?" Venti set down the guitar in his hands and leaned forward, his face growing bigger as he moved his face closer to the camera. "Ooh, "Falling for U by mxmtoon and Peachy? That's a nice choice!" Venti backed away, picking up his guitar and strumming a few strings quickly for a warm up.
Then he stopped, lidded his eyes slowly, placing his fingers gently on the strings. Xiao felt himself suck in a small breath.
Then he played a few chords, the starting ones, and the soft music flowed into Xiao's ears. Then he saw Venti open his mouth, and started to sing.
"I was hangin' with you and then I realized
I didn't think it was true, I was surprised
When I found out I've fallen for you
Oh~
I didn't wanna believe my feelings for you
I didn't wanna believe that I could lose you
If I told you just how I felt."
Xiao's eyes widened. He knew that Venti could sing, but he didn't know how good it was.
Hell, the word "good" didn't even begin to cover the heavenly voice coming from the speakers of his phone that did not do his voice justice.
"Xiao, do you like that guy?" A voice shook him out of his entrancement, and Xiao startled and looked up. Granny Xiu was looking at him and grinning a coy smile that Xiao never would have thought that she would be capable of. "You seemed totally into it."
"N-no!" Xiao quickly rebuked.
"Why are you stuttering then?"
"I was just shocked!" Xiao frowned. "What kind of question is that anyway? He's just a really old friend, one that I'm not even very close to-"
"Then why were you totally lost when he started singing, huh?" Granny Xiu grinned, and Xiao spluttered. "It's...good! Of course I'll be entranced!"
Then Granny Xiu laughed. "Just kidding, I was joking around with you."
Xiao felt his face cool and his heartbeat slow down, then he shot the woman a look, and sighed.