Chapter Text
Dvalin lands before him with agony in his eyes.
He reaches out to touch his old friend, noting the dark clots marring the noble dragon’s back. It feels him with anger and sadness — whether towards Dvalin or whoever hurt him, he doesn’t know.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispers softly. A part of him hopes that the wind carrying his sincerity is enough to create a calming atmosphere. So far, so good. “It’s alright now. I’m back.”
The hair on the back of his neck prickles. They’re not alone — though the spectators don’t seem to mean them any harm.
“Is he talking to a dragon?” A cacophonic voice whispers to the wind.
A spark of Anemo follows her words, the energy flowing out in a flash of green light. It agitates Dvalin, who roars and lashes out towards the young bard with razor-sharp claws tearing through flimsy white sleeves. The latter nearly falls to the grass, using the wind at the last split-second to keep his footing.
“Who’s there?” he calls out amidst the sudden burning pain.
That’s when he sees them — a girl of gold and white, and the strangest little creature with stars upon her cloak. They brace themselves as Dvalin roars again.
He knows that girl — an outlander who just might be the key to setting right all the wrongs in this world.
This isn’t going to work. Feeling himself grow even weaker with every passing second, the bard summons the last dregs of his power to disappear in a flash of green light, leaving nothing but tendrils of Anemo in the air .
The wind is growing stranger and stranger. By the time Venti fully recovers under his old friend’s tree, he can already feel a strange storm brewing in the distance. Pulling himself together, he uses his powers to rush back to Mondstadt, wondering what he can do to help his long-forsaken people — and Dvalin.
He’s never felt such fear before — not when he helped his old friend see a world of song, sky and birds, and not when he helped Venessa free the oppressed people of Mondstadt. No, this is a fear beyond everything he’s felt before.
It’s fear and desperation and anger that he, in part, directs to himself.
“Hurry up and find some safe place indoors, little bard,” Lawrence says as Venti sprints towards the gates. “Stormterror’s coming.”
Stormterror? Venti doesn’t have time to ask, however. He has to do something, anything, before Dvalin goes on a rampage.
He barely makes it further into the city walls when the sky completely darkens. Dvalin swoops into Mondstadt’s skies, roaring in rage and pain, his wings shredding unfortunate roofs to pieces amidst the citizens’ screams. Dark whirlwinds tear through the city streets as mothers flee with their children.
Venti finds clarity amidst all of this.
He spots the golden-haired girl from before — accompanied by a red-clad girl — looking lost and terrified as people run in droves around her. Her little friend clutches her shoulders tightly, fighting against the strong currents. A gust of tainted wind sends her spiralling into the air with a scream, and it’s all she can do to stay afloat with her glider as Dvalin rams into her headfirst with startling ferocity.
There’s something Venti can do about her situation, and so he shall. It’s been a long while since he last took this form, but he manages to turn into a strong gust of billowing winds that keeps the poor girl afloat. He can feel the power of Anemo surging through her, though he’s sure that she’s never received a Vision from him. There’s also the undercurrent of a strange, otherworldly energy that he’s never seen before.
“How are you staying afloat like this with just a Wind Glider?” her little friend asks in that shrill voice of hers.
“I-I don’t know...” she whispers in wonder as she soars effortlessly in the air.
Though it’s probably a bad idea, Venti decides to reveal a sliver of himself — perhaps to guide them and Dvalin to safety. “I’m preventing your fall with the power of a thousand winds.” It won’t hurt to brag at this point. They can’t see him anyway.
“Thank you!” The courage in the girl’s voice is admirable.
It only takes a moment for the windborne bard to assess the situation. At this state, all they can do is to drive Dvalin away and buy some time. It pains him to have to do this but it’s the only way he can ultimately help his old friend.
“There will be time to thank me later. Now, concentrate. See yourself grasping the wind. Harness its energy.”
His admiration grows when the girl takes to the power of Anemo with exceptional ease, firing blasts of wind charged with green energy towards the rampaging dragon. It also fills him with pain, however — this shouldn’t have to happen at all.
Oh, Dvalin.
He guides the girl safely back to the ground and watches from afar as she convenes with the Knights of Favonius mere minutes after Dvalin has fled. Though he itches to offer his help, he knows that they will not trust him — not in his prefered form. They’ll have to come to him out of their own accord. He knows that the winds will eventually bring them to him.
Dvalin lingers outside of the city for a long while, however. His anguished roars carry through the air, threatening to tear Venti apart from the seams.
“I thought something happened to you during that storm ,” Diluc says as Venti slips into the tavern, still shaken from the events.
“It’d take more than that to bring harm to me, for evil has no place in a heart that’s free,” the bard chirps happily as he pats his trusty harp.
Is his heart truly free when Dvalin and the people of Mondstadt are suffering?
Diluc raises a brow but thankfully doesn’t comment. He turns back to his previous conversation instead, leaving Venti to grace the patrons with a song about the Four Winds.
He hears about her . The wind carries stories that not even the wildest rumors in the city can compete with, and for that he is thankful. The girl — Lumine, he now knows — is quite the helpful little heroine in the Knights’ eyes.
It’s exceptionally admirable for an outlander such as she. He hopes the wind brings her to him soon — he can’t wait to meet her properly so they may help each other in their chosen quests.
This doesn’t mean he stops thinking of Dvalin. On the contrary, most of his waking hours are spent dwelling on his old friend’s fate. Though he hates to admit it, it feels him with pain more unimaginable than the wound Dvalin had inflicted upon him. This is all his fault, he knows. If he cared just a little more , then perhaps this wouldn’t have happened. Things would have been different if he didn’t completely run from his duties.
Maybe it’s why he’s found himself frequenting the plaza right in front of the cathedral, singing songs of Barbatos and Dvalin beneath his own statue, bravely facing an audience seeking temporary respite from worry brought about by the darkened sky. It’s something that would have made him cringe just mere weeks ago. Now, however, it’s all he can do to temporarily soothe the pain in his old soul.
That, and the apples. Can’t forget about the apples.
He sees her one time, perhaps in between her trips to three of the Four Winds’ temples. He doesn’t approach her — no, she must do it out of her own accord — and contents himself with listening to the tales the wind brings him as he happily munches on his apple.
Her laughter rings through the air as she trails behind Cavalry Captain Kaeya, a flustered blush dusting her pale cheeks. It seems that they’re getting along quite well, and Venti finds himself wholeheartedly approving. Mondstadt, after all, is quite the romantic city, and such a dalliance is never out of the norm.
Oh, to be a mortal privy to such passionate emotions.
On the day the sky finally clears, the windborne bard finds himself wandering the plaza alone. There's no one to listen to his songs, and frankly, he isn’t truly in the mood for one. Something big is about to happen that day, he knows. The wind always speaks to him.
It’s near high noon when he feels a surge of Anemo thrumming into his veins. It makes him feel one step closer to the powerful god he used to be. Strange . The wind tells him of Lumine offering an Anemoculus to one of his shrines — the shrine next to a dear friend’s final resting place. The mere thought brings a bittersweet twinge to his heart.
A fresh breeze blows around Lumine when she finally returns to the city, shining as radiant as the sun. The breeze carries a wordless song of her victory, nearly concealing an underlying song of Dvalin’s rage.
Fearing the pain threatening to crush him once again, Venti loses himself to the whispers of the crowd — only to bump into one of the Fatui diplomats prowling his beloved city. The fuming woman’s eyes narrow as she meets his gaze, but he slips away with a bright grin before she can put two and two together.
Damn the Tsaritsa.
Honorary Knight .
Again, he hears of Lumine’s promotion from the wind, carried past the whispers passed from one Knight of Favonius to another. He also knows that she’s onto him now. She and her enigmatic little friend, Paimon, have seen him talking to Dvalin, after all. It’s only natural of them to be suspicious — though he knows he’ll be allaying their fears soon enough.
He knows, without a doubt, that meeting with her will eventually lead only to one thing — the revelation of his identity. He’s gone incognito in Mondstadt for so long that he doesn’t know what to feel about this inevitable outcome.
It takes another three days before they spot each other in the crowd, standing on courtyards separated by a flight of cobblestone stairs. Knowing that he’ll give chase, he dashes down to a shadowed alley leading down another level of the city, turning into the wind as soon as he’s alone. He won’t make it easy for her — that’s not how proper songs are made.
It’s been a while since he played a game of chase and he’s relieved to know that his skills haven’t completely gone rusty. Fleeting past the unsuspecting crowds at an inhuman pace, he makes sure to leave Anemo traces of Anemo for her to track down. Though she doesn’t have a Vision of her own, he’s confident that the blessing he had inadvertently given her when she first prayed to his statue is enough to give her an elemental sensitivity of sorts too.
Being one with the wind itself gives him an advantage, and he manages to circle back to the statue’s plaza before she can even catch up to him. He hasn’t had so much fun in centuries, and he finds himself laughing his head off as he saunters to the crowd, harp in hand.
“Mr. Bard!” a child calls out, waving a chubby little hand as he approaches. “Do you have a song for us today?
“Never fear, my timeless tales are for you to hear!” he quips as he stops right at the statue’s feet. “Gather round, my good people, and prepare for a song without any equal.”
He catches a glimpse of gold and white among the crowd, making a small smile quirk up his lips. Making eye contact with Lumine, he holds her gaze as he begins to strum his harp, stirring up a tune older than this iteration of Mondstadt itself. He can’t help but grin when she pushes her way to the front of the crowd, Paimon hovering suspiciously beside her.
He makes the wind brush against her cheek, warm and reassuring. They’re not enemies, he tells her, before he pulls away to appease the audience with a song.