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The first time Xiao saw Barbatos, the god was resplendent in the purest of whites and golds. Beauty incarnate, the winds around them seemed to whisper as Xiao stared into glimmering, otherworldly jade eyes, our master.
As Xiao knelt on the blood-soaked battlefield, he gaped in awe at who was undoubtedly the most beautiful person he’d ever seen. The god walked towards him, paying no mind to the mud that sullied their bare feet.
Even the remnant souls of long-forgotten archons began to quiet at their presence, the weight of karmic debt starting to become a bit more bearable. The vision on his wrist, flecked with black blood, seemed to pulse, as though it recognized the one who gifted it. All of a sudden, Xiao felt self-conscious of the filth staining his clothes, of the half broken mask on his face—
“Hello Alatus.” Barbatos said with a musical lilt, “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
After a long pause, the yaksha managed to force out, “Xiao. My name is Xiao.”
A wide, bright smile, then a twinkling laugh.
“Hello Xiao.”
-----
When Xiao wanted something for the first time, he didn't know how to ask.
He stood at the edge of a verdant clearing as he watched Barbatos hum a song, absent-mindedly strumming their lyre to an unfamiliar, yet comforting tune.
The nature around them seemed to be listening in: birds stopped chirping, grass stopped rustling, the river stopped gurgling. Everything held its breath, giving their full attention to the god of songs.
Until a twig under Xiao’s foot snapped.
Squirrels scurried away into the trees, and finches hopped away quickly. Barbatos whirled around, but relaxed instantly once they recognized the intruder.
“Hello sweet thing,” Barbatos cooed, “would you like to hear me sing?”
“Yes,” Xiao breathed, “yes I would.”
-----
And when Xiao met Venti, he fell.
Xiao fell in love with the way Venti lived, with the ease he carried himself through the ordinary life that Xiao could never hope to have. The way he hopped from place to place, reminiscent of a flitting butterfly.
He fell in love with his gentle touch, his beautiful voice, and his ethereal beauty, which remained even in his mortal form.
To Xiao, Venti had a kind of perfection even Barbatos could not hope to match.
-----
Yet even gods have their flaws. When Xiao saw Venti cry for the first time, he felt an unexplainable ache in his heart.
When Venti sobbed while telling the story of his first friend, Xiao held him in his arms tightly, feeling unfamiliar yet right. He listened, and listened, as Venti told him tales about the boy in the whirlwind, and how he dreamed to be free. How Venti grieved, and how he could only watch helplessly as his friend passed away with an arrow buried in his chest.
How he regretted stealing his friend’s face from his body, stopping his soul from reincarnating on this star, even if he did so in an attempt to fulfill his final wish.
At a loss for words, Xiao remained silent. And listened.
-----
Now, as Xiao pulls himself back to the present, he realizes he is seeing his first love for the last time.
He grabbed the bard’s bony shoulder and shook him lightly, taking in his too pale face and short breaths. “Venti. Venti.”
The bard’s lashes flutter as he wracks out shaky coughs. “Xiao,” Venti smiles weakly as his eyes flare in recognition, “You’re here.”
Xiao barely hears what comes out of Venti’s mouth as he holds him with the most gentleness he can muster— the gentleness Venti taught him so long ago. His blood rushes to his ears as he takes in the scrapes and bruises that cover his love’s body— and the shaft of the arrow that protrudes from his chest.
His words pour from his mouth quickly, doing little to hide his thinly-veiled panic. “Venti I— no. We need to get you to a healer. I can take you there now, I can—”
“Stop.”
Xiao falls silent at Venti’s quiet plea.
“Xiao, it’s too late for me. Can’t you see? With my gnosis gone, I can’t heal wounds the way I could before. Death is already knocking at my door.”
Xiao’s blood runs cold at that word. Death. The presence that haunted Xiao for as far back as his memories could go, that chased Xiao tauntingly, always taking those he held dear.
Bosacius, Indarias, Bonanus, Menogias… Venti’s name would soon follow.
No. No, no, no.
“No,” Xiao rasped, “No, you cannot die. You will not die. Venti please, please stay.”
Venti shook his head with a light chuckle, then whispered, “Xiao, live. Live that mundane life you’ve always yearned for, that you’ve always deserved. Will you grant me this last wish?”
Desperation seized him, panic making his throat tight and hands clammy. He had no words to express how much he cherished him, how much he admired him, how much he loved him. He could only find it in himself to beg him to stay even just a little while longer.
“Venti please-”
His words fall on deaf ears as Venti bursts into clusters of delicate anemo-green feathers that fade into the wind.
And as Xiao hears Venti’s life whisper past, something in him breaks.
------
As decades pass, Xiao survives. He visits the places Venti loved whenever he can, hoping to find some long-gone trace of the bard he loved. He passes by the statue in the square and the Statues of Seven that still bear his likeness, hoping to see more than their stone-cold grace.
Stumbling to the ancient tree at Windrise, Xiao searches for something, anything. Light blue twin braids, a familiar twinkling laugh, the merry tune of a drunken bard holding a lyre, any comfort to soothe his unending grief.
But there was nothing; Xiao could hear nothing but the incessant roar of a thousand forgotten souls, screaming, clawing—
“Who are you?”
Silence. Then...
As Xiao’s golden eyes meet a plain, jade gaze that hold no otherworldly radiance, no sign of the archon that he loved so dearly years ago, he feels at peace.
And finally, Xiao decides to live.