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{0.}
Little has changed about Xiao’s duties. Morax’s fall should’ve heralded his own retirement, but the cacophonous cries of the damned shriek another story; they are, after all, simply a reminder of the unfulfilled clause of his contract. And so he fights on. Careful. Vigilant. Ever-aware of the mantle he’d sworn on since the first time he donned the mask.
At least now respite comes easier. There is a place he haunts when he feels like a shade of himself, when the karmic binds bite so deep he feels it in the shortness of his breath, the tightness of his chest. Xiao doesn’t like admitting that he needs help, but the promise of peace and solitude, the sweetness of the wind against his cheeks and almond tofu on his tongue— ah, these are truly what keep him returning to the roof of Wangshu Inn.
A breeze kisses the boards of the balcony, and he is decidedly no longer alone.
“Xiao!” Venti yells as he stumbles out from the gales. He’s well on his way to being drunk, judging from the volume of his voice and the egregious smell of cider. The usual, then. Xiao regards him with little more than a tip of his chin and a shift of the arm he’s propped up on to make room. As Venti flops down beside him, the winged tip of his cape flutters onto Xiao’s knee.
Xiao stares at it. Venti carelessly brushes it off and replaces it with his hand.
“Did you miss me?” he smiles.
“You played for me three days ago,” Xiao says, and he still catches himself looping its variations in his head, a small relief amidst singing blades.
“Mmmm,” Venti hums, “a non-answer! It’s okay, I missed you a lot. That said, why’s my favourite adeptus still working himself to the bone, huh? My melodies can’t reach you everywhere, you know.”
Xiao knows that’s a lie. They’ve had this song and dance before. “And my fights are never over.”
“Bah! That’s what people say when they haven’t experienced fun. Take a break,” Venti proclaims, turning his gaze across the river to Mondstadt’s hills. And here’s where their choreography goes awry, because instead of weaselling Xiao into a drink— “The city’s hosting Ludi Harpastum in a week. Wanna come with me?”
Xiao pauses. Two millennia of warily skirting around humans have instilled in him the reflex of immediate refusal, to which Venti pats his knee and gently reminds, “You’re always free to say ‘no’, of course.”
And yet—
“But! I hear a little traveller managed to get you to walk the streets of the harbour during your Lantern Rite. Might I not humbly ask for the honour of the same?”
Liyue’s own Lantern Rite ended a month ago. Still, Xiao recalls the harbour being painted in golds and oranges, stars and lanterns shimmering and dying in the depths of the sea. He recalls hearing the clamouring of demons, yes, but also wishes caught on stilted breaths, set free into the skies. He recalls the hearth-warm comfort of wandering with someone he trusts, nearly shoulder to shoulder, taking in the sights and smells and splendour of a city in bloom.
Maybe the addition of music and mischief isn’t all that unwelcome.
“Will we only be away for a day?” Xiao hedges.
“This bard would never dare demand anything more from your illuminated being,” Venti teases, eyes twinkling with the satisfaction of victory.
So be it.
{1.}
All Xiao knows about Ludi Harpastum either comes slurred from the drunken reminiscence of the Anemo Archon, or articulated from the wealth of knowledge the Geo Archon possesses. If the Lantern Rite is a festival of peace, reunion, and light, then Ludi Harpastum is one of song, wine, and flight. It’s a raucous, carefree celebration of music and liberation, nothing like the extravagance of the Lantern Rite at all.
Venti whisks them to the edge of a field, right in the midst of a carnival in full swing, and only Xiao’s instincts save them from being barreled over by someone carrying a mountain of food. He loosens his grip on Venti’s arm, eyes tracking the man as he warbles away. “Next time… I’d appreciate better positioning. Or a warning, at least.”
He’s met with a laugh. “Come now,” Venti says, hooking their elbows together, “my people come up with new stalls each year, but some things will never change.”
Invariably, Xiao is helpless to follow wherever this wind tugs.
They end up stopping by: a stall touting handcrafted paper windmills (made to honour the wind Archon, Xiao’s told, as Venti flitters around and sets them spinning in turn), a carnival game of ring tossing (where Xiao spikes the rings down as he would his spear and Venti semi-cheats by floating them to the goal), a stall selling harpastums (seemingly manned by a small girl dressed in red, who tells Xiao her creations got rejected for being ‘too boomy’), and a station for making flower garlands (where Venti weaves a cecilia blossom into a wreath of daisies, delicately crowns Xiao, and winks as he says they match).
“I brought you to this carnival for one reason and one reason only,” Venti says between bites of his caramel apple. He leads them to a food stand with a whirring steel bowl set on the counter, capped by a clear dome cover. Inside it are anemograna, constructed to create wind currents that swirl along the edges of the bowl instead of upwards. “Behold! The marvels of human innovation.”
Xiao raises an eyebrow. “‘One reason?’ You said that for the last stall we went to.”
“Fine, this stall is for you,” Venti grumbles. “The flower crown was for me. Unless… you don’t wanna wear it anymore?”
Xiao’s hand twitches violently.
Venti grins. “Heh.”
He orders one ‘candy floss’, and Xiao watches as the owner places a ball of condensed sugar into the contraption and the anemograna spin it out into threads as fine as silk. They’re gathered into a pink, fluffy mesh, almost like the sunset-tinged clouds of Guili plains. Venti all but stuffs it in his face.
“I heard from Zhongli that you eat almond tofu for its texture, so I thought to let you try our wind-blown equivalent,” Venti says, pulling out a tuft of spun sugar. He holds it up to Xiao’s mouth, wiggling it to entice him. “I promise it tastes like a dream.”
Hesitantly, Xiao takes a bite. It melts on his tongue instantly, coating it, airy and light, with the sugary sweet taste of sun-warmed memories. Sunset-tinged, almost. It reminds him of gentler days, back when he could look at flecks of dust suspended in space without his mind glazing over, back when song-bound lilies still flourished across the plains. If almond tofu was associated with the dreams of others, then perhaps this treat echoes his own.
“Sooo what do you think?”
Xiao plucks out another tuft. “... It’s good.”
{2.}
The streets of Mondstadt are filled with music.
With each corner Xiao takes, the melody of one song blends into another, their verses interweaving into a tapestry of bygone history. Folktales in Liyue are carried down through storytellers—vivid and exuberant, if not a little exaggerated. Here, times of war are told in rolling baritones and resonant chords, times of peace in flitting trills and flighty runs.
Xiao can’t see the appeal either way. As it turns out, having lived through the atrocities of war and having to repay the debt he’s accumulated for centuries really detracts from their romanticisation.
It’s very odd then, to find himself tunneling on Venti’s humming harmonisation as they walk down the streets. The clear notes of his lyre wash over him. “I’m surprised you aren’t performing along with them.”
“Oh! A rare occurrence where I’m yours to condemn,” Venti starts. “Well, I wouldn’t want to steal the show. I’m this city’s most decorated bard, y’know.”
“... You’re already rhyming.”
“Heh, oops. That’d be the festivities doing their priming.” Venti tilts his head in consideration before perching himself on a crate by the pavement, plucking testily on a few strings. “If you so wish, then a story from across the sea wouldn’t hurt! I’ll just borrow one, and into a tune I’ll make it convert.”
A small crowd converges upon them as Venti strums the beginning notes of an improvised song. Once it’s clear he’s got them entranced, he locks his gaze with Xiao’s and begins:
Past hills there lies a harbour of stone,
whose seas haven’t always known peace.
Slain gods used to shred the earth in groans,
tearing the land up piece by piece.
Once things were looking deathly grim,
Rex Lapis so chose to arrive.
He spoke incantations akin to a hymn,
breathing life into warriors five.
He issued an order: purge evil through slaughter.
To this, they devoted their lives.
Eons of bloodshed spelled their enemies’ end,
phantom ichor stained their moonlit blades.
They were bound by debt they couldn’t amend,
upon their souls it relentlessly weighed.
Driven mad by such fear, they lost any veneer.
Thus began a deadly cascade.
Amongst the five, death came to three.
One strayed away, the last spared free.
And even now, ‘tween the reeds and trees,
they’re honoured in wind-carried melodies.
It’s a bloodstained tapestry lined in serrated chords of crimson. Haunting in the way it’s stitched with tragedy. Lingering in the way it’s strung into song.
Who told you about this, Xiao wants to ask. Were you watching us since then? Have you heard me play for them in the marsh? In the end, after Venti collects his earnings in apples and wine, Xiao only has this, “Did you write that on the spot?”
“Wish I could say I did! I actually pieced it together from the talks we’ve had, the stories I’ve heard, and some personal experience. Although...” Venti sighs wistfully, kicking his heels against the crate, “it still feels incomplete.”
Normally, Xiao would rather bite his tongue off than speak against the acts of a god, but being with Venti has always been far from the norm. He swallows his uncertainty. “I… I’m grateful for your songs, but I’m not sure I understand why people choose to tell stories of old. The Yaksha swore an oath. This was never done for sympathy.”
Venti stills and looks at him, jade eyes turned cutting. “Did that sound like a mournful ballad to you, dear adeptus? Was my tone not chilling enough? Was my playing at the end not prudently hopeful?” Pressing his forearm to his head, he sways weakly. “Ah, it must be because the story has no proper resolution. I knew it!”
The God of Songs was always one for dramatics. Fortunately, the urge to knock him off his pedestal fades accordingly with time. “But the way you’ve ended it is right.”
“And it ends with you still ridden with blight. Unbreakable the karmic bonds may be, can you blame me for still wanting you to break free?” He pauses. “No, those lines won’t work. Anyway! We sing the songs of war and peace to keep history alive. They’re a reminder of what’s been lost, and to be grateful for those who’ve fallen. Less pity, more remembrance, you see.”
Does he see? Xiao’s grounded his entire life on duty, has had his gilded wings eroded to bone. Karmic grudges fade to nothing in eternity’s horizon, but still he remembers, through half-veiled shadows and fine mists of blood, the writhing forms of his comrades as they splintered into wraiths.
For all he does for Liyue, honouring his family is the one thing he does for himself.
So he plays the flute to guide their souls home, burns their favourite food at the altar. Tells himself that these bouts of selfishness are dust to incalculable debt.
If songs are the way outsiders pay their respects, then… then—
“You can stick with me,” Xiao says, unbidden, “until you think my story’s complete.”
“Mm is that so?” Venti’s mouth curls up at the corners. When the tips of his braids glow blue, it’s almost as if Xiao’s entering a contract with Freedom itself. “I’ll hold you to it.”
{3.}
It’s customary for the people of Liyue to pitch in for the Mingxiao lantern. Even Xiao can acknowledge its opulent grandiosity—it’s a symbol of unity, a celestial body rivalling the full moon, a beacon guiding old warriors home. In the glittering wake of its trail, he finds reticent peace.
Now, however, he defers his gaze to the maiden on top of the church spire. “I fail to see how catching a ball of yarn is the main event of your festival.”
They’re seated at one of the overhanging balconies of a tavern, because Xiao grimaced at the thought of standing in the midst of a crowd and hurting someone in the scramble, and because Venti hadn’t had enough alcohol. Warily, he eyes the rabble—a child precariously balanced atop shoulders here, some armor-clad knights there, a full-blown band tucked in the wings of the courtyard—truly, it seems like the entire city’s managed to find a way to squeeze themselves into the square, their cheers mingling with the blare of brass instruments in an uproarious symphony.
Xiao wonders if it’s something special, to see the country you love in skyward spirit.
(It must be, if Venti’s faraway gaze is anything to go by. But there are still some things Xiao doesn’t know about his past.)
“Xiao, you hypocrite. There’s a custom in Liyue where you also toss a ball down into the crowd. A matchmaking thing, I think,” Venti says.
Xiao hums, thumbing the blossoms of the flower crown on his lap. “The xiuqiu? That’s long since been abandoned. Even then, the main event would still be the wedding.”
“Nonono, it’s the build-up to the wedding! The anticipation in the second she makes the toss! The catharsis when it gets caught!” Venti chugs from his mug of wine and makes a pleased sound, then clumsily scrapes his chair over to hook an arm around Xiao’s neck. “And after that, the winner receives a year of good fortune, and everyone enjoys a night-long feast!”
“Are you now referring to the harpastum or the xiuqiu?”
“Hmm, both.” Venti blinks, processing. “Although I think it’s a little sad if you only receive one year of good fortune after a wedding.”
Xiao scoffs lightly and turns back to the courtyard, just as the music and hoots of the crowd crescendo to a high. Stepping out from the shadows of the spire, sheer trails of her dress unfurling like petals behind her, the harpastum maiden graces them with a beatific smile. A cecilia, elegant against the gales.
She spells a silent wish, only audible because Xiao’s attuned to the winds it’s carried upon, and cradles the harpastum in her outstretched palms. Just like that, like an orchestra to their conductor, the music cuts, the crowd hushes. There’s a beat where the world stops. All there exists is the whisper-soft rustle of a breeze.
Anticipation, Xiao thinks, breath caught in his throat.
A beat. She lets go.
The harpastum falls, eye-catching against a backdrop of solemn greys, its red ribbon streaming like the trailing flames of the Mingxiao lantern. When it lands amidst the crowd Xiao momentarily loses sight of it— until he hears a scream of surprised joy, and all the air rushes out of him at once.
Everything erupts back into life: the people shout and sing of celebration, the symphony surges. Beside him, Venti hollers and jostles his arm, laughter sparking out of him undeterred.
“How’s that for a main event?” he beams, radiant in the afterglow of pride.
If this is catharsis, Xiao doesn’t feel it. Liquid mercury swells against his ribcage, hot as it spills down the notches, and for once it reminds him not of the thick heat of blood, but the scorch of a bonfire in the chrysalis of winter.
It’s arresting.
{4.}
Around the hour where the city lights go dim, Venti tugs gently at Xiao’s sleeve and guides them back from the tavern to the church square. Around the hour of quiet slumber, he leads them to the statue of Barbatos and stares up at its hands, a pool of quicksilver moonlight.
No words have to be said as Xiao teleports them up to sit in its palms.
Instead of sprawling out, Venti draws his knees to his chest, practiced, as if to ensure he fits. Xiao allows himself a sidelong glance, and there’s that faraway gaze again. He doesn’t need a taste of Venti’s dreams to know that they’ve fermented bittersweet.
It feels almost liminal, to be washed in silver and wrapped in warm winds. To be granted a promise of peace and solitude without the shackling clauses of duty. To simply exist, for that can be enough.
“Hey, aren’t we like harpastums in the hands of the statue? You’ll be the first to catch me if I fall, won’t you?”
So much for the moment.
“Venti,” he grouses, “you won’t fall. I’ll throw you off.”
Yelping, Venti yanks his cape up between them like a shield. He peeks out from behind it. “So touchy…”
Xiao summons a gust to flick it back into his face.
“Pwah— I knew I should’ve gotten you a drink.”
In lieu of answering, Xiao turns back to the sky and basks in the chill of the night. It’s easy to imagine the glow of a thousand lanterns hanging amidst these stars, drifting lazily along rivers of constellations.
“Not many people know this,” Venti begins, shifting closer until their hips bump, “but Liyue’s lanterns were inspired by our wishing on dandelions. You see, Morax got so jealous when he saw some Mondstadtians do it that he asked me if he could use the winds too. Being a kind and benevolent god, of course I agreed, and what did I see? That blockhead turns around and sets rocks into the sky. Rocks! Went and enchanted them so they’d float too. The nerve.”
Xiao squints at Venti’s guileless smile. He knows that lilt—it’s the same one Venti has when he spins tall tales for susceptible drunkards. Xiao is decidedly not susceptible nor drunk. “Somehow I find this story hard to believe.”
“Hm? Have you heard something different from Zhongli?”
“Well. No.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to take my word for it,” Venti chirps. He opens his hand, coalescing streams of wind into a storm’s eye above. There’s a pop of pressure as a dandelion floats down. “For you, an offering.”
Xiao pinches its stem. He can’t help but raise it to the moon—its seeds, ghostly things they are, shiver in the breeze. It’s so fragile. Ephemeral. Shards of dreams bound by a thin coating of hope. It’s hard to believe someone like him can hold it without it falling apart.
“How does this work?” Xiao murmurs.
Venti lowers his own voice in turn. “It’s nothing so complex. You put it to your lips, think of a wish, and blow like you would a candle. The seeds will scatter your desires into the stars.”
How does one cradle a galaxy of laughter and loss in their hands? How does one contain a universe of dreams in a word? When a lifetime becomes forever, wishes slip away like koi in a pond, impermanent. What, then, does he long for?
Xiao has always known.
A breath in. He digs soul-deep, feels the Anemo magic respond with a low tug in his gut. It swirls upwards to fill his lungs, and for a moment all he can smell are the fragrance of cecilias. His dream plays on the backs of his eyes, wisps in the hollow of his throat. He sets it free.
The seeds suspend themselves in the sky, glowing faintly with blue-green echoes of magic as they ride away on currents of air. In a way, it’s liberating to wish into the wind and see your whispers take physical form, as secrets laid to rest in Celestia’s starry graveyard.
“May the gales carry your dreams to fruition,” Venti says, uncharacteristically reverent, tracking the seeds as they dance. “May they take root and bloom into many more.”
Even if they didn’t, even if this is all he’d ever have, Xiao thinks it’s more than enough. Thoughts buried in his chest, desire buried amongst the stars, he leans into the soft fabric of Venti’s sleeve, going slack to the vibrations of blissful humming.
{5.}
Xiao wakes in a lake dyed red with rouge, and he knows something isn’t right.
Stagnant fog bears down on him as he staggers up. His fingers close around nothing. His feet sink into mud. A moan lingers, nebulous and low, in the split of his mind, and then—
Rumbling laughter. Ash on his tongue. A slow grind of molars against bone. Around him, the walls throb in a deafening pulse, the ceiling bows to a crushing weight, and they shudder closer, closer, closer,
There’s something evil in the air. It grins.
Perhaps he would’ve been more unsettled if he hadn’t had this nightmare for two thousand years on repeat—it’s familiar choreography now. Practiced, he leaps into the darkness, twisting away from grasping tendrils, landing on shifting ground, counting beats by the thud thud thud of his feet.
Two thousand years, and the same sins drown his solace.
Four more counts of eight and he’ll snatch the curtains of reality and rip them from their rods, will wake and sleep and dance through the encore, not to applause but damning, damning silence. Little has changed about Xiao’s duties.
Here. Clawing his hand into velvet, he tears through the open rift back into—
Hm... This is not Teyvat.
There is no place in Teyvat with a rolling sea of flowers. No place that carries the sound of a flute so clear. No place deserving of a bard with folded wings that shimmer in a mirage. Somewhere this lovely… can only exist in a dream.
The wind sings him home.
He takes a step forward, careful not to trample on delicate cecilias, because what can he do but follow the song of his salvation? A tremulous voice tells him not to get too close though, to stop just shy of the bard’s back; one touch from him could send this whole scene into ruin and by the Archons he does not want that.
As the song fades into the breeze, Venti twirls the flute and turns to face him with a knowing tilt to his head. They stand and say nothing for a good long while, and Xiao’s so torn between confusion and amusement and awe that he almost snorts.
What a pair they must make, two divine beings before the burial grounds of a prayer.
“You’re making a really funny face,” Venti says, bridging the gap. He trails his hand over, resting it warm under the curve of Xiao’s jaw. “Is it so shocking that I heard your wish?”
Xiao wants—to clutch at Venti’s wrist or shake his shoulders, he isn’t sure, so he settles for conveying some semblance of desperation through his eyes as his arm hangs awkwardly in the air. “This is a dream.”
“It is.”
“Did I… fall asleep on the statue?”
“You did, but I spirited us to Windrise. Wouldn’t want to experience a four-storey drop, after all.”
“Then, the nightmare I was trapped in earlier—”
“Ah.” Venti lowers his gaze. “The shadows wouldn’t respond to my magic. I tried getting you out, but I couldn’t even get in. For forcing you to live through that again…” his voice cracks, almost inaudibly, “I’m truly sorry.”
Xiao catches his hand when it falls away. “Karma has always been mine to bear. Even the gods cannot ease this burden. I was only afraid that you had to witness the hatred of the forsaken when it was supposed to be directed at me.” And the spark in Venti’s eyes is as catching as ever, so he must not have seen anything. Good.
In fact, Venti’s face only seems to tighten in resolve. The wind picks up. “See! This is why I wanted to grant your wish. Xiao, being caught in the past shouldn’t be anyone’s fate, I would know. You deserve second chances free from circumstance, desire free from hesitance. Happiness free from guilt.” He intertwines their fingers, eyes wide, winds a maelstrom of defiance. “I’ve seen you dance to keep the demons at bay. Why not dance for yourself here, today?”
Oh, this guy. Xiao searches his face and finds no signs of pity, just a stubbornness suited to a bane of kings. His heart sits in his throat, the words sit on his tongue, wretchedly heavy from years of resignation. Finally, he exhales. “This might sound cliche, but I’ll do it only if you play.”
Venti reaches to tuck a strand of hair behind Xiao’s ear, dandelion-light. “That’s all you had to say.” And then he floats backwards, leaving a fleeting breeze that kisses the traces of his touch. Venti holds the flute back up, a small smirk playing on his lips. It’s an invitation for Xiao to lead.
He takes it.
Putting his mask on is a faint reminder of routine, a way to hide mortal vulnerabilities behind a veneer of terror. Not that there’s anything to hide now. It’s comforting anyway.
He slides a foot forward to the first tentative notes of a flute, arms coming up as he sinks into the piece. As it mounts, Xiao lets the gales guide his movement, music flowing through his meridians, barely making ripples as it drips down the tips of his fingers into a sea of petals. Here, his jade partner is not a spear, but the viridescent winds and their master.
The melody soars, twining with the sweep of his limbs, pouring into the carved-out cavity behind his sternum. He feels drunk on it, the fragrance and music, and he thinks he can understand why Venti indulges in wine if it tastes just as sweet.
{ }
This time, Xiao wakes to someone smoothing a palm over his forehead. He registers gentle humming before opening his eyes. They’re under a grand tree, Xiao’s head pillowed on Venti’s lap, and he’s greeted by a smile and eyes that catch the glow of dawn. Everything is right.
“Good morning, I hope your dream was good,” Venti says, resuming the stroking of his hair. “One day, I’ll find a way to bring it into this world.”
Xiao slides a hand behind Venti’s neck to drag him down, if only to know what it feels like being so close to someone. He closes his eyes against the braids tickling his cheek. “There’s no rush. Things are surreal enough as they are.”
Venti breathes out a laugh. “My, my. Did you just call me a dream? Never thought I’d see the day.”
Xiao sighs, “Don’t push it.”
“Ehe.”
The background din of his thoughts is blessedly silent, loosened karmic bonds no longer biting into his skin. They’re still there, likely always will be even as they fade with time, but now if a wisp of liberation blows in, he knows better than to turn it down. “Venti… will you sing again?”
“Hmm, no apples or wine on you,” Venti ponders, “but since you danced so nicely, that’ll do.”
Xiao never quite believed that his greatest longing would ever be fulfilled, but he’d gather up all of Mondstadt’s dandelions and Liyue’s plaustrite and wish upon them if it meant he could keep it. (How fortunate that it’d stay for the simple promise of cider and far, far less.)