Archive of Our Own

He struggles to breathe, gasping as the hatred from all those he’d slaughtered slowly ate away at his soul. The corrupted spirits of the slaughtered demons shriek and holler with glee, cheering on the decaying of his soul. He doesn’t try to protect himself or stop the erosion of his soul, heaving harshly and collapsing onto the grass. 

He doesn't want to do anything, because he realizes there's no point in living. 

Even after Morax freed him and granted him a new name, Xiao has no purpose, no goals, no home to go to. Wangshu Inn is simply a place that he stays in between his wars. He holds no bonds to the mortals living there, nor is he bothered to make the effort. He’d barely won the last fight, but for what purpose? Who does he live for? Why did Morax even bother saving him from that demon of a god? 

Now, he wanders aimlessly through Teyvat, fighting his own wars with the noises in his head and painting his skin with the blood of others.

There was once where he would’ve tried to save himself from the darkness tainting his heart, where he would’ve raised his arms in an attempt to summon anemo and wind from his vision and call for his polearm.

But he’s so, so tired. 

He thinks about the petite lady with the pink hanfu robes that saved him alongside Morax, with her sweet smile and soothing giggles as she gave him a bowl of almond tofu (“I hope you like it, Xiao!”). He thinks about her final resigned smile as she extends her hands towards Morax, Xiao watching helplessly from the distance as the sword impales her stomach and crimson red litters the grass. 

Maybe he can see her again. 

It’s really loud in his head. 

He closes his eyes.

A soft melody floats in the air. 

All the pain and agony that Xiao’s soul is engulfed in slowly ebbs away. He can feel the tight grip on his soul loosen itself. The cacophony of noise is immediately replaced with the calming tune. Xiao lies unmoving in the grass as the melody plays. He blinks his eyes open and stares at the sea of stars that invade his vision as the wind gently blows, caressing his bloodied hair like a parent would. It’s comfortable, and Xiao shuts his eyes again.

The bittersweet tune carries itself over the mountains and rivers, lakes and villages to reach him. It whispers at him and gently fills up the empty hole in his darkened heart. 

He’s never heard such music before. He knows it’s a flute, because he saw a performance once with Morax and Guizhong when she convinced them to sneak into an orchestra hall. 

It’s just, he’s never heard anyone play it with such emotions before. It’s slow-paced, yet it brings out a mix of hope and melancholy. His mouth silently hums along to the tune. His poisoned heart aches with the yearning to live, and he’s reminded of a time before he was taken captive and forced to leave his innocent self behind. He barely remembers anything from then, but he remembers warm and gentle hands that ruffled his hair kindly. 

He watches as the sun rises in hues of orange. The music fades with the wind, and when he finally regains his senses, he forces himself up from the grass and trudges his way back to the inn. 

He finds himself wishing to hear the melody of the flute again.

~

“Morax.” The Geo Archon blinks up from the book he holds in his hand. “Do any of the seven play any instruments?” Morax puts down his book and glances curiously at Xiao. The former is currently in his human form as a man with dark hair that fades into amber tips and piercing eyes. Xiao will never admit it to his face, but the look suits his personality. 

“Why do you ask so?” Morax questions. Xiao looks away, refusing to meet his eyes. “That’s not any business of yours, is it?” Xiao snipes, before realizing that he had talked back to his own archon. 

“Well, Barbatos plays the lyre. I do not check in frequently with the others, so my apologies for not being able to help out more.” Morax replies with a tinge of sincerity in his voice. Xiao nearly feels bad about being rude to Morax. Nearly. 

Xiao furrows his eyebrows. “That’s the God of Freedom, right? From Mondstadt?” 

Morax nods. “He’s also the Anemo Archon.” Xiao discreetly glances at the swirl in the centre of his pale blue vision and thinks back to the night he heard the flute in the winds. “Currently, I’m not aware of his whereabouts or his current form, so it may be more troublesome to locate him. The lyre is also a fairly common instrument used by bards in that region, so the sound of a lyre may not necessarily lead to him.” He pauses, glancing at Xiao again. 

“I’m assuming you’re going to look for him?” Morax asks. Xiao doesn’t reply him, gazing towards the direction of the Stone Gate that separated Liyue and Mondstadt. Morax follows his gaze and doesn’t comment on it. 

~

“What the fuck is this? ” Xiao growls, glaring at the offending item in his hands.

“That’s a flute. A dizi .” Morax replies calmly, sipping at the tea that was paid for by Xiao, because someone forgot to bring his Mora again.

“And what would I need it for?” 

“It would be good accompaniment for your trip.” 

Morax is really testing Xiao’s limit now. Maybe he should ask the owner to ban him from the inn next time. He can feel his veins popping. “ I don’t even know how to play it, Morax.”

“It’s simple.” 

“For you, maybe.” Xiao mutters unhappily, twisting the flute to look around it. Xiao immediately recognises the texture of bamboo in his hand. The bamboo is painted over with a sleek coating of brown, and the ends of both sides of it are a lighter shade of brown. It’s a beautiful design.

He lifts it to find that It’s surprisingly light, and could easily fit into one of his pockets. 

Morax slides a brightly-covered book across the table. Xiao, despite his anger, places the dizi down gingerly as he picks up the book and flips through it. He flips it back to the cover page and stares.

Learning for dummies: the flute! 

Xiao throws the book at Morax, who catches it with one hand without looking up.

“No.” 

“I can order you to.” Morax replies immediately. 

“We’re not bound by contract,” Xiao smirks. “You said that yourself centuries ago.” 

“I’ll remember to bring mora with me for the next decade. And pay for all your Almond Tofu.” 

In the end, Xiao takes the book and dizi with him. 

~

He leaves Wangshu Inn a week later, carrying nothing but the dizi and his vision. The dizi is loosely secured around his belt, swinging in beat with his steps. Despite Morax’s insistence, he left the dummies book behind in his room, not wanting to be caught with it. That bright yellow cover was embarrassing. 

He hasn’t been to Mondstadt much, apart from the time Morax had dragged him there to pick up some delicacies that were native to the area. This time, he’s by himself. Morax had wished him luck the last time he came over to the inn, and the owners were glad to see him off, excitedly waving at him as he walked towards the Stone Gate.

Who knows, maybe it will be the first time he doesn’t return to the inn all bloodied and disgusting. 

Following the path, he comes across a mansion sitting in the middle of a bunch of plants, although they are mostly grapes of different types. He wrinkles his nose when he sees the brick mansion. A mansion, sitting in the middle of a bunch of plants in the middle of nowhere? What a showoff. 

Smaller, common straw huts surround the area, blending nicely into the scenery. 

“Hey kid! You from Liyue?” 

Xiao turns to look at the owner of the voice. He has a piece of wheat in his mouth, and he’s lying in a pile of hay with his hands behind his head.

“And what if I am?”

The stranger chuckles. “No need to act so defensive. What are you doing here? Not everyday we see foreigners pass by here.” 

“I’m looking for a bard.” Xiao replies after a moment of hesitation. No harm in asking, after all. Maybe he could finally get more clues about this mysterious Barbatos. The man cocks his eyebrow. “You’re gonna have to be more specific. There’s plenty of bards around here. It’s a common job.” 

“That’s all I have to go off on.” 

“You should head to the main town, then.” He supplies helpfully. “There’s a bar there called Angels’s Share. Bards gather there to perform every night, so there’s a chance you’d find the person you’re looking for.”  

“What about your Anemo Archon, Barbatos? Is there any way I can find them?” The man stares at him incredulously before guffawing loudly. Xiao frowns. Was the Archon not respected in their own region too? 

“You’re about decades late! After freeing us, he disappeared, saying he wanted to retire!” He chuckles. “Even when we begged him to stay, he simply vanished into thin air!” 

The journey suddenly feels more troublesome than necessary, Xiao muses unhappily as he gives his thanks to the man, who waves it off with a friendly grin. “May the winds be with you!” 

The sky is beginning to darken when Xiao is onroute to the Windrise region. He sighs and decides to rest under a tree, leaning against it as the moon slowly rises and the animals disappear into the dark. 

He’s reminded of the night where he nearly lost himself to the monsters, lying on the grass bloodied and staring at the stars. He thinks of the kind winds that carried the sound of the dizi to him and played with his hair when he was lingering on the edge of death. 

He takes out the dizi from his belt and places it in front of him. He’d been trying to replicate the sound he heard that night, but he keeps missing keys here and there. Sometimes, it sounds like a masterpiece from the opera houses. Other times, it sounds like a dying boar. 

At least it drowns out the dissonant harmony that cries loudly at him in the pits of his mind.

He blows a few notes, trying to match each one to the music he heard. It comes out scratchy and shrill, and Xiao cringes as he repositions his fingers. He blows another note. No, not that one. He mentally crosses out the notes and maps out the score. 

Surprisingly, the book Morax had provided him with was useful. He quickly picked up the dizi and its corresponding musical theory behind it. It may have also been because Morax started going off on a tangent about the history of chinese orchestra instruments, but who knows?

He sits cross-legged as he lifts the dizi to his mouth again, gently blowing in it. The music comes out harmonious, and he allows himself a small grin. 

Unbeknownst to him, a little spirit with feathery blue wings watches from the shadows.

~

When the sun rises, Xiao’s already packed up and walking towards Springvale. It’s a quick walk, and he stops by the village to pick up some food. The cat-like people are friendly, and he doesn’t realize how much he misses his Almond Tofu in Liyue until they stare at him weirdly when he asks for a bowl. 

No matter, once he gets everything done and over with, he’ll get Morax to buy him enough bowls to last a century. 

He’s drinking water at one of the tables when he hears a melody float along in the air. It’s slow and forlorn, and he stands up immediately, knocking over the chair and causing the owner to yell at him. 

“Hey! What are you doing?” The other customers shoot glances at him, muttering words of scorn under their breaths. He ignores them and rapidly glances around the area, looking for the source. 

It’s the same tune that he heard under that starry night, the song that chased away his demons and made him feel loved. 

He slaps down the mora on the table and runs towards the direction of the sound. He climbs up the hills and runs through the trees, entranced by the sound of the plucking of strings. 

His mind is a haze, and all he can hear is white-noise and the faint melody in the background, barely heard over all the static in his head. He runs, he chases, and he extends his hands because he’s so, so close and he thinks he can finally find his saviour - 

And then the music comes to an abrupt stop. 

He can feel traces of wetness on his cheeks. 

He gently presses his fingers against them, and he realizes that they’re his tears. 

He hasn’t cried ever since Guizhong’s departure into ashes and dust. 

~

After that whole fiasco, he finds himself sitting in the middle of a field of grassy plains and meditating with his eyes shut and legs crossed. So, he cried. Good for him, good for him. 

Those emotions were probably long overdue for someone like him.

He gathers himself up after sitting dazedly for a while more and hikes towards the town. He arrives at the entrance just as the sun sets, which fits his schedule. The people at Springvale informed him that Angels’s Share only opens when the sun completely disappears, and the stressed workers of Mondstadt gather to share a drink and relax with the occasional bar fights.

Despite his foreign appearance, the guards barely acknowledge him with a nod before he’s allowed inside the castle-like walls. He enters through the front gate and is almost immediately overwhelmed by the difference in buildings and structures. Sure, he came across other villages and that big mansion at the winery area, but even those were slightly similar to the houses in Liyue. At the town area, the colour schemes are startlingly different. The colours are duller than what he’s used to, and he finds it hard to get adjusted to it. 

He gapes around confusedly. Where the fuck is Angels’s Share? 

“Sir, are you lost?” Xiao looks down to see a little girl with pigtails that are held together by pink ribbons, which stand out against her black hair. He pointedly shakes his head and continues to squint at the wooden boards hanging from houses, hoping for a sign or direction. She cocks an eyebrow and tilts her head at Xiao’s refusal. Xiao sighs when he sees that she’s not making any move to leave at all. 

“I don’t need your help, go home.” Xiao mutters. The little girl crosses her arms and sticks her tongue out at him. “Angels’s Share is over there, mister! You’re welcome!” She giggles as she turns and dashes away. Xiao stares dumbly after her for a second before he yells after her. “Wait, how the fuck did you know where I wanted to go?” 

He’s replied with a childish titter. The little girl turns into a corner and when Xiao follows, he comes face-to-face with the end of an empty alleyway. There are no crooks or crannies for her to dive into and the wall is too high for a girl her size and height to climb over. 

What the actual fuck. 

At least he now knows where the bar is at. 

He makes his way to the bar and is immediately overwhelmed by the drunken men yelling and toasting each other with their cups of beer. The bartender is unaffected by the chaos happening around him, calmly wiping the cups and continuing to take orders from customers. Xiao wrinkles his nose at the smell. Mondstadt beer. He found it hard to stomach the disgusting and bitter taste of it the last time Morax offered him some, and he always prefers the Liyue wine that Morax would bring in occasionally. 

He hears the sound of a lyre from a darkened corner of the bar, and his head jerks towards it on instinct.

A bard stands on a small platform, his lithe hands gracing the lyre as he hums a lullaby. The only light source at the area around the platform is a dim light hanging from the ceiling. Xiao can’t see anything past shadows and the lyre from his angle. The bard’s face is shadowed over, and his golden lyre is the only thing that stands out in the darkness. It’s a startling contrast to the atmosphere around him, and amidst the chaos of the pub, everything else is drowned out by the tranquilizing voice of the bard and the hymns of the lyre.

Xiao walks closer to the platform to take a better look at him. He stops right before the platform.

He’s beautiful.

That’s the first thought that comes to Xiao’s mind when he sees the bard. 

He’s heavenly. If someone had placed white wings behind the bard, he wouldn't have doubted for even a second that he’d come face to face with an angel. The dim lights do the bard’s appearance no justice, but they surround him like a halo. His dark blue hair fades into aqua blue near the end of his twin braids. A cecilia flower sits on his head innocently, supported by the green beret. 

His voice hums the lullaby like an angel would to a newborn. It’s voiced with such tender kindness, and the yaksha feels as if he’s dirtying the song just by being there, standing and listening to it in a run-down bar surrounded by drunkards and alcoholics. 

“My, it’s not often there’s a sober person here! Won’t you at least say hello instead of staring?” 

Xiao was so immersed with the bard’s...everything that he didn’t realize when the other had stopped playing. He looks away guiltily at the thought of being caught staring like a love-struck flower boy. 

“Isn’t it rude to interrupt when you’re playing?” Xiao mutters. 

The bard’s eyes reminds him of the dandelions that he walked past on his way to town. They sparkle with glee as he replies, “You’re not wrong, but hey! No one here is conscious enough to walk home half the time anyways!” 

Xiao snorts. Taking a glance around him, he sees that he’s surrounded by men who’re snoring on their tables, their respective drinks abandoned beside them. 

“So, what's a foreigner like you doing here?” The bard suddenly asks.  

Xiao shrugs his shoulders absentmindedly. “Something.” 

“Something?” The bard repeats, cocking his head. Curiosity dances in his dandelion coloured eyes and Xiao has to force himself to look away. 

“I’m looking for something, someone.” 

“Let me come along.” The bard suggests suddenly. Xiao’s eyes shoot up slightly in shock, and the bard returns his look with a slight tilt to his lips. 

“Why?” 

Because why would someone as angelic as him want to associate himself with Xiao, a murderer, a demon, to travel the lands to seek for someone that may not even exist? Xiao, whose soul is tainted by hatred while his mind is clouded with mocking laughter and words that do not belong to him.

The bard crosses his arms. “Why not?” He shoots back. 

“I don’t even know what your name is.” Xiao protests weakly, ignoring the quickening of his heartbeat. 

The bard pauses. “It’s Venti.” 

“Just Venti?” 

“Just Venti.” Venti grins, and Xiao decides that maybe, he could finally find something to live for. 

~

"So, where are we going next?" Venti asks as he walks side by side with Xiao, his left hand holding onto his lyre. Xiao eyes him with exasperation. "You don't even know where we're going, and you're still following me." 

"A good bard never misses out on an adventure!" Venti laughs lightheartedly. He repeats his previous question. "So, where to now? I can be your guide!"  

If the Yaksha is being honest with himself, he actually has no idea where to start. 

"I'm…" Xiao hesitates. He isn't sure how much a mortal would know about their archon, especially since said archon was nowhere to be found and retired decades ago, leaving its citizens to fend for themselves. He decides to give a half-lie instead. "I'm looking for a bard that plays the flute."

"The flute?" Venti cocks his head. "Last I checked, bards usually played the lyre around here." He pointedly holds up his lyre, its golden body glowing in the moonlight. 

"Not the one I'm looking for." Xiao grumbles. Trust the Archons to all be so difficult. First Morax, now Barbatos. He’s starting to see a pattern between them. 

Venti tilts his head and stares at the darkened sky. “It’s late.” He looks back at Xiao. “Let’s retire for the night. You must be tired, after all.” Xiao wants to protest that no, adepti definitely do not need sleep, but how could he do that without revealing his identity? The last time he’d slept was around five years ago, and that was only because he accidentally took sleeping medicine instead of the usual painkillers. 

If he was being honest with himself, he could probably use some sleep. 

So, he lets the bard drag him to the town’s only motel. 

~

“Two rooms for us, please!” Venti holds up a peace sign. The receptionist barely glances at him before she boredly flips through a book. It’s really worn out, with the cover nearly falling off at its hinges. 

After stopping at a page, she looks between the two of them before glancing back down at her book. Xiao stares back at her warily. Venti notices her weird looks too, because he asks,” What’s wrong, miss?” She sighs. Xiao kind of feels bad for her. It’s hard to work alone at night, when there’s hardly any lights or noises to keep you from falling asleep. 

“Sorry, we only have 1 room left. We would’ve had another, if he bothered to fix it..” She trails off, cursing under her breath. She looks back at them. “Would the two of you be okay to share a room for tonight?” 

“Sure!” Venti chirps, a smile plastered across his face. Xiao’s opening his mouth to protest, because he’s an adepti and a Yaksha that has killed many, surely he can rest on a tree for a night or something, but then Venti is dragging him by his right arm up the stairs. The bard waves at the receptionist with the hand that’s holding the lyre, and turns to look at Xiao. 

Xiao’s pretty sure his face spells out ‘What The Fuck’ along with a hint of bewilderment, because when Venti reaches the second floor, he starts cackling. 

“You should’ve seen the look on your face! Priceless!” Xiao suddenly thinks murder is okay, but he has to resist the urge to kill his only guide around Mondstadt. He yanks his arm away from the bard’s grip. 

“I would’ve been okay setting up camp in the nearby forests.” Xiao grumbles unhappily, ignoring how Venti’s laughter started to increase in volume. He rolls his eyes. 

When they near their room, Venti’s laughter has thankfully died down. 

Xiao shakes the doorknob, and the door comes ajar. He pushes it open, and Venti rushes in. Xiao sighs tiredly as he follows the other. 

The room is not as small as he’d expected, but it definitely was meant for one person. The double sized bed takes up most of the space in the room. Beside it, there’s a tiny bedside table. A small table lamp on the bedside table, the only source of light in the room. Across the bed, there’s another wooden table, albeit slightly large in size, along with a chair. There’s a connected bathroom beside the room, and Xiao is suddenly reminded of the dirt that’d gathered on him during his crazed run through the woods to follow the sound of the flute. 

Venti flops onto the bed without taking off his shoes, the lyre hanging precariously off the bed. Xiao is disgusted. Right, he’d forgotten that taking off shoes before entering rooms was a custom that was only more common in Liyue and Inazuma. He gingerly removes his shoes and settles them at the entrance of the door before walking further into the room.

“Take off your shoes.” Xiao remarks, walking into the bathroom to quickly clean himself up. He can hear shuffling, followed by the sound of two objects hitting the ground with loud thuds. Xiao finds himself smiling fondly. 

When he leaves the bathroom, the lyre is placed on the wooden table, and there are a pair of black shoes scattered beside the bed. The bard’s sitting upright on the sheets, taking off the flower and beret on his hand and placing it gently on the bedside table. 

“I’ll sleep on the chair.” Xiao says. He isn’t planning to sleep at all, considering he would probably end up waking the poor bard with his frequent nightmares, but what the bard didn’t know wouldn’t kill him. 

Venti pouts. He fucking pouts . “There’s enough space on the bed. I’d feel bad if you had to sleep there because of me.” He pats the space beside him. “Come on, it’s enough for both of us!” 

Xiao shakes his head. “No, it’s fine.”

“I’ll sleep on the floor if you’re that insistent!” Venti shoots back. Xiao hesitates, glancing between the bed and the floor. “I’ll do it!” 

“Fine. Fine! You win.” Xiao snaps. Venti doesn’t reply to him, instead choosing to give him an innocent look as he lies down on the bed, shifting to turn himself away from where Xiao would be sleeping. Xiao removes his dizi and anemo vision, placing it beside the lyre before cautiously climbing onto the bed. 

The sheets are surprisingly soft. It’s a weird contrast to what he’s used to at the inn. He slowly lies down on the side nearest to the door and turns himself away from Venti. He hears a click and suddenly, the room is engulfed with darkness. Even then, a bit of moonlight sneaks in through the windows. 

Xiao resists getting up and jumping out of the window. His body is tense, and he has to stop himself from shifting around more in fear of disturbing Venti. It might have been years since he last slept, but it can’t be that hard to sleep, right? 

He clenches his eyes shut and tries to slow his breathing. The least he could do is pretend to be asleep for the bard. 

“Are you asleep yet?” Xiao hears the whisper from beside him. He stops himself from turning around and lays there silently. 

“What do you want.” The Yaksha replies stiffly, resisting another urge to turn around and look at the bard. 

Venti lets out a small laugh. “Can’t sleep too?” 

Xiao doesn’t dignify him with a reply, leaving the bard in silence. 

Then, there’s a melody being hummed softly. It’s familiar, and it reminds Xiao of home. It reminds him of hanfu robes and of soft hands that combed his hair and offered him Almond Tofu. It reminds him of an amber eyed man who would visit him at the inn, bringing along herbal tea and medicine and stories from a harbour so near yet so far from him. 

It reminds him of calm winds that caressed his hair on the grassy field under a blanket of stars as he struggled to breathe, to live for himself. 

Xiao immediately feels his body relaxing at the voice. His head feels heavy, and for the first time in a while, his mind is filled with nothing but tranquil waters and blue dandelion flowers that dance for him. For the first time in years, he finds himself falling asleep to the humming of a bard he's only just met. 

~

He doesn’t wake up to a nightmare. He doesn’t wake up in cold sweat, desperately calling for his spear as the swirl on his anemo vision glows bright with panic. He doesn’t wake up with his demons screaming at him and condemning him to a life of misery.

Instead, he wakes up to soft strumming of lyre strings. 

Xiao pushes himself up from the bed. He realizes that the lyre is gone from the table across him. Venti holds it in his hands as he stares out of the window, watching the rising sun. 

“What’s that called?” 

Venti turns to look at him with a smile. The graceful playing doesn’t stop. “An aubade.” He replies simply.

“Aubade?” 

Venti tilts his head. “A beautiful word, isn’t it? It's a song played for when the world wakes up and starts anew.” 

Xiao says nothing as he sits on the bed and the sunrise colours seep into their room, it’s warm hues washing over the bard like the oil paintings he sees at Wangshu Inn. 

If, Xiao thinks, he could sleep and wake up to the sound of Venti's music everyday, he wouldn't mind living.

~

Xiao was a human once. He knows he was, because he has faint memories of a woman's back facing him as she cooks dinner for them. He remembers dozing off in her arms as she read a book to him, flipping the pages with slender yet rough fingertips, evidence of the hard labour she goes through daily to provide a life for the two of them. 

He also remembers choked out screams and bloodied skin as his captor rampaged through their village, leaving no one but him alive. He remembers the same fingers hanging a necklace around him, hands clasped together as she murmured desperate prayers.

"Please, anyone, save my child."

He remembers being shoved him into the kitchen cabinets, large enough only for the small child that he was as the screams and cries from their neighbours grew louder and nearer. 

He reaches out to her desperately, because it’s dark and he’s scared and he wants her to come back, but she pushes him back further into the cabinet and gives him a sad smile. 

"Mommy will be back soon, okay? I love you, my little angel."

A pat on his head, a kiss to his cheek, and the cabinet door was slammed shut. He dare not move, and soon after, he loses consciousness. 

The next time he wakes up, he finds out that he's a murderer that's feared by many on the battlefield. He's been used and discarded as nothing more than a tool of war, and he doesn't quite know how to feel about it. He’s covered in blood and bits that doesn’t belong to him, and he doesn’t remember anything from in between. 

He isn’t sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. 

When he looks into the water, he realizes that he also grew taller, but his body was so much thinner and shorter than the people in his village would have normally been. Instead of the young adult that he suspected he should've been, he looks more like a famished child with his sunken cheeks and hollowed eyes that hold no emotions. 

"Look at him ," The woman beside his saviour whispers into her sleeves, glancing at him with sorrowful eyes." What a cruel thing to do to a child."

His saviour gives him a new name to rid him of his past. 

"From today on, you'll be known as Xiao."

He can't remember the face of the woman with slender fingers that read him bedtime stories.  

Xiao can't remember her face, and so he doesn’t weep for the childhood that was stolen away from him.  

~

"There's lots and lots of bards around Mondstadt, you know?" Venti explains, waving at the locals who wave back to him. "We're free-spirited beings!"

"Free-spirited beings that make things inconvenient for me." Xiao grumbles, walking up the stairs to the church. 

After breakfast at the inn's restaurant, Venti dragged them both towards the church, claiming that many bards perform in the open areas near it. 

They're currently nearing the top of the stairs, and the wind feels nice on Xiao's skin. It’s a comforting and welcoming sensation against his uncovered arms, and he feels himself relaxing slightly in it. It's colder than he's used to in Wangshu Inn, but it reminds him of the chilly mountaintops of Liyue, of the qingxin flowers that he would occasionally pick up after a light drizzle with scents of rainwater and herbs mixing in the air. 

Strangely enough, he feels a bit homesick. 

“We’re here!” Venti stretches his arms with a pop, ignoring the disgusted look Xiao sends him. “I’m not sure who’s performing today, but it might be the person you’re looking for.” 

“Are you performing?” Xiao asks. Venti eyes him with a grin. “I didn’t know I had such a loyal fan! Eager to hear me perform again?” Xiao huffs and pointedly walks ahead of him towards the open area under the statue of the Anemo Archon.  

Something on the stone statue catches his eye and he stops before it, backing up a few steps to take a closer look at it before turning towards the bard, who’s jogging to catch up with him. 

“Did,” Xiao points at the statue’s hair before pointing back at the bard’s braids. “Did you mimic your hairstyle to resemble the one that your archon has?” Venti lifts up his braids with a hand and slowly raises his head to stare at the ones on the statue before glancing down at his own again.

“Huh.” Venti mumbles. He drops his braids and shrugs. “I didn’t know braids were copyrighted by my archon. What a weird coincidence!” He snickers at Xiao’s deadpan expression. 

“Anyways, look!” Venti points behind Xiao, causing the Yaksha to turn around. A man stands there with a wooden lyre in his hand, an audience made up of nuns and priests already forming around him. 

Venti grabs his hand. “Let’s go!” He grins at Xiao, who turns away with a groan. 

Xiao unwillingly lets himself get dragged along by Venti towards the crowd. When they reach the man, he’s already starting the song, the melody floating gently in the air. They stand near the end of the crowd and silently listens as the crowd around them murmurs their praises and criticisms. 

Venti doesn’t let go of his hand.

He doesn’t let go of his hand even when the man ends his song and bows, and another woman takes over and starts her song. 

It’s at this moment that Xiao realizes that despite being a bard, Venti’s hands are really, really soft.

~

“Where are we going now?” Xiao mutters. He’s spent a whole day under Barbatos’ statue, desperately hoping for a slight hint of a tune that would ring alarm bells in his head. He heard amateurs strum the lyre with hesitance, heard professionals sing their lullabies with passion, but he doesn’t hear a resemblance to the one he heard that night under the stars and during his crazed and frantic run through the Mondstadt greenery when he first arrived. 

He’s still back at square one, in the end. 

Venti hums playfully. “Like I said, bards are free-spirited creatures! If we feel like it, we could stand in the middle of our lakes and start writing a song! Our environment is our inspiration, so we’re never in one place for long.” 

“So what?” Xiao scoffs. “Are we going to travel around Mondstadt?” 

“Yep!” Comes the cheerful reply from the bard beside him. Xiao wants to pull out his hair and yell, because what the fuck, why is he going through such lengths just to find an archon/bard that hasn’t appeared in decades to even his own citizens. 

It feels ridiculous to him. Xiao, the sole survivor of the Yakshas, travelling around Mondstadt with a man he’s barely known for even a week as he seeks an archon disguised as a bard who saved his life. It feels like a desperate form of escapism to escape his painful reality in Liyue, to escape the lonely nights on the rooftop of Wangshu Inn with the stars as his only companion. 

It feels ridiculous, but it feels nice too. No one here knows of his true identity as an adeptus, a Yaksha responsible for vanquishing demons. Here, he has no responsibilities to take care of. He’s simply a strange foreigner travelling around a new continent with his weapon and a flute (and a bard) to keep him company. No duties, no voices yelling at him, no more blood on his hands that would taunt him in his nightmares. 

It’s a life he wishes he could’ve had if the Archon War didn’t happen. 

“When all this is over, what do you want to do?” The sudden question has Xiao snapping out of his daydream. He turns to look at Venti, who’s staring thoughtfully into the empty space, fiddling with the golden lyre in his hands.

Xiao looks down at his dizi , which sits idly in one of his pockets. He thumbs the holes of the dizi and lets himself imagine. 

It’s not the first time that he daydreams about things like this. About how different his life would’ve been if Morax didn’t save him, if the Archon War never even happened in the first place, if he was a normal human with a normal life. 

He imagines that he’s simply a foreigner who’s here to look for a — long lost friend? Acquaintance? Stranger? — that once played a song for him on the flute. He’s here to find them, because he wants to thank them. He wants to hear them play the song again, because he feels at home and all his troubles disappear immediately and his mind would finally stop being so loud. 

He yearns and he wants and he decides that he could be selfish for once. 

“I wish to dance.” Xiao decides. 

If Venti’s surprised, it doesn’t show on his face. He tilts his head curiously. “To dance?” 

“To dance in a field of flowers.” To dance in a field of flowers with his demonic mask to the tune of the flute that kept him alive at his darkest hour, to finally feel free from all his duties that bound him to this world that he doesn’t quite belong in. 

Venti smiles. “Would you like to dance with me, then?” 

His voice is genuine, Xiao realizes. 

“To be honest, I don’t actually know how to dance.” 

“It’s not that hard.” Venti chuckles gently. “I’ll teach you.” 

“I’m not a good learner.” Xiao warns. It doesn’t seem to discourage the other man at all, because he replies - 

“And I’m a patient person! So let’s dance when this is over, okay? Promise!” 

When was the last time he’d told someone of his dreams? 

When was the last time he’d even had dreams? 

Xiao’s heart flutters ever so slightly. 

“You-” Xiao sighs. “You’re so stubborn.” 

Venti opens his mouth to reply.

They hear footsteps nearing them and landing on the path with loud thuds. 

Xiao never gets to hear Venti’s answer, because suddenly, he can hear grunts and battle cries ahead of them. He doesn’t see it until it’s too late. A whole camp’s worth of hilichurls and samachurls come running towards them, axes and bats and wands raised and ready to attack, to kill. 

Xiao curses as he summons his jade spear with a snap of his fingers. He pushes Venti behind him and gets into a fighting stance, ignoring Venti’s yell of “Wait, I can help!” as his eyes rapidly survey the area. His demonic mask fades into position on his face. He can feel energy and anemo running through his veins, his body now tense and powerful with newborn strength. New strategies form in his head rapidly, decades and centuries worth of experiences evident in his actions and thoughts. His movements are automatic. A swing here, a strike there, another hit, another dodge, another splatter of blood on his body. 

A hilichurl comes running at him with a wooden bat. It screeches at him and Xiao twists his spear to parry the hit before jabbing the spear through it. Blood flows and stains the grass and it’s merely another victim added to his ever growing list. Xiao’s eyes flicker to his sides as he blocks another attack from his back, before turning around and slamming his weapon on the hilichurl’s head. The hilichurll falls to the ground, and Xiao isn’t sure if it’s unconscious or dead. 

Arrows come flying from different directions, and Xiao easily stops their momentum with a simple swing of his spear. The adrenaline blurs his vision, and he hates himself for missing the thrill of fights. They feed the ghosts that chain his heart and muddles his mind with anguish, but it feels so exhilarating that he can’t help but want more . The hilichurls are nothing more than tiny specks of brown and red in his vision, running towards him and immediately getting knocked down. 

It’s supposed to be an easy job for him. He’s faced off demons who have no goal in their clouded minds but to seek revenge, faced off gods who want to conquer the world with their tyranny. Compared to all that, a bunch of hilichurls interrupting his day should’ve been a simple task. Nothing that would take more than an hour at best. 

But then, he hears a pained yell from behind him, and he remembers that there’s someone else here with him, someone that he needs to protect, someone that he made a promise with. 

He looks behind him and Venti’s clutching onto his arm, blood flowing from where an arrow has embedded itself into his skin. The lyre lays on the floor, the strings poking out haphazardly and torn from the crossbar. There’s a puddle of blood on the floor at where Venti stands and - 

And suddenly, all he can think of is Guizhong, with her arms extended towards Morax. He thinks of the unknown person in his memories with slender fingers pushing him into the kitchen cabinets as the stench of death hung heavily in the air. He thinks of the other Yakshas, remembers the slow decay of their sanity as they killed to protect the peace of Tevyat before eventually turning on themselves. 

It’s funny, really, how Xiao doesn’t realize how precious a person can be to him until he nearly loses it, despite it happening over, and over, and over again. 

The demons in his head whisper at him, asking him to give up, it’s always your fault, isn’t it? We’ll fix everything for you, and then it’ll be okay, little angel . 

Rest now, little one.

All he can think about is Venti, and there’s blood, and he feels the need to protect, because he doesn’t think he can bear to lose anyone else, because he finally has dreams and promises that he has to protect because there’s someone else in his life that cares for him. 

It’s all white noise and static in his head. He lets the demons take over. He can sense his soul slowly eroding under their pressure, but he’s too tired to care.

He shuts his eyes and falls into darkness. 

~

He’s vaguely aware of someone screaming his name. It’s so muffled, as if he’s continents and worlds away from them. He feels like he’s underwater, but he’s drowning and breathing at the same time and he’s just lying there unmoving, unwilling to fight for anything anymore. 

He hears the sound of a flute. 

At least he gets to hear it again in his final moments, Xiao thinks. He smiles to himself. He’s longed to hear it again ever since the venture throughout the Mondstadt forests. It’s perfect. The melody, the tune, they’re still as beautiful as the first time he heard it on the grass as he bled out alone. 

He feels like he’s forgetting something though. A promise? A dream? 

He wants to sleep. Maybe he can finally, finally rest. No more duties, no more immortality, no more death. 

No more tea breaks with Morax, no more Almond Tofu at Wangshu Inn.

And..

No more travelling with Venti. 

The flute’s clearer now. It’s different compared to what Xiao’s ever heard in the first two renditions. It’s filled with desperation and sorrow, and Xiao’s cold heart aches.

It aches, and his cold heart yearns. It yearns and it craves for warmth that he would never experience.

Xiao wants to go up to the flautist and hold them tight. Hold them tight and never let go, because he wants to ask them why it’s so, so sad and to make it stop. 

Make the sound stop, because he can’t stand the slow and shaky tune, because it’s making his mind spin and it’s suffocating him, and he doesn’t want to remember anything. He doesn’t want to remember anything, because he wants to shut his eyes forever and sleep till the world collapses on itself. 

The empty abyss of water that he lies in is silent. He opens his eyes, but it’s pitch black and he can’t see and he wonders if he’s dead. Maybe this is his own version of hell, to be tortured to another life of despairing solitary by himself. Maybe it’s to atone his sins for having killed so many, for staining his hands with the blood of others. Maybe his karmic bond is finally consuming him after years of letting him run free. 

The currents are still. He can hear the flute playing in the distance, but it echoes in this empty chamber that he’s in, the song amplified louder and louder till it’s all he hears. 

He doesn’t remember the last time his head was this clear.  

He can feel the flautist’s agony, their dwindling hope as they continue to blow the flute. Xiao wants to yell, because the demons in his head have gone to who knows where, and he can finally listen to the music in a peaceful quiet, but everything about this situation strangely makse Xiao so melancholic that he can’t help but feel tears dripping on his cheeks. 

Xiao realizes that he wants to listen to the music forever. He wants to dance in it with someone in the field of cecilia flowers with his mask, no longer used for evil but for his own happiness. 

Cecilia flowers, because he remembers a boy with cecilia flowers and twin braids that fades out into the colour of dandelion flowers. 

They promised each other something, didn’t they?

His ice-cold heart aches.

~

Xiao opens his eyes to a very familiar ceiling. Specifically, the one that he sees whenever he returns to Wangshu Inn from his battles. 

He pushes himself up shakily. Waves of pain immediately vibrate through his head, and he grips it tightly. Right. He forgot how painful his headaches can be after an intense battle when he uses too much of his vision. 

“Xiao? You’re awake.” 

Xiao turns to see Morax sitting beside his bed, calmly flipping the page of the book that he’s holding. Compared to Xiao, whose clothes are currently half-torn and stained with dried patches of blood, Morax looks as pristine as ever. 

“Why the fuck are you here?” Xiao groans, throwing his hands in the air. Morax hardly ever meddled in his business, and Xiao was usually glad for it. Too many meddling hands and things would usually spiral out of his control, which Xiao absolutely loathed. 

Until now. 

Morax shuts his book and places it on his lap. “An old friend of mine begged me to help.” 

He stares into Xiao’s eyes. It’s unnerving. 

“I’ve never seen Barbatos so scared before.” 

And Xiao suddenly recalls the sound of a flute in his memories. 

He scans the room rapidly before noticing the lack of a boy with twin braids present. He tries to push himself off the bed, but Xiao didn’t take into account the fact that he’d just woken up from nearly dying. The muscles in his legs lock and turn into mush for a second, and he collapses onto the floor in a disgraceful heap. 

Morax immediately comes over to help him up, only for Xiao to push him away. Morax steps back and eyes him carefully as the Yaksha braces his hands against the bed frame and pushes himself up. 

“Xiao, go rest.” 

Xiao ignores him. He doesn’t even bother replying to Morax as he drags his body towards the door. His head’s splitting and it feels like an earthquake in it. His demons are back and they’re louder than ever and his arms are sore and weak, but he needs to find the bard. He needs his questions answered, and the only person that can do that is nowhere to be seen. 

Morax clears his throat. “He’s not here.” 

Xiao jerks his head towards Morax, who returns his glare calmly with crossed arms. “What do you mean he’s not here.” He snarls.

Oh, and if looks could kill, Morax would be like those hilichurls he obliterated in his fit of madness. 

“Barbatos left immediately after making sure you were safe.” He pauses, exhaling shakily.

“You nearly died.”

Somehow, Xiao isn’t surprised. He’s used to nearly dying on battlefields all the time. By now, it’s nothing new to him anymore. It’s part of his duties as a Yaksha, a guardian of Liyue. 

So why does Morax sound so upset about it? 

That question is quickly forgotten as Morax continues. “He played the flute for days and nights on end, only stopping after your soul has stabilized. I do not know where he’s gone, however.” 

“And you didn’t stop him?” Xiao accuses, desperation dripping into his words. 

“Bards are free-spirited, after all.” Morax reasons quietly. 

Xiao reluctantly turns around and weakly forces himself on the bed, turning his body towards the wall and away from Morax wordlessly. He needs some time to sort out his thoughts.

Xiao hears a faint sigh from behind him.

“Alatus…” 

He’s reminded of the night when he first met Venti. The sight of Venti under the dim lights of the pub’s still fresh in his memories, like glaze lilies after a light drizzle. The glow of his lyre and how his black hair fades into his blue tips like an oil painting that’s been blended with care. Childish laughter at everything and anything, the warmth of his eyes as he watches Xiao with curiosity.

He can still feel the soft padding of the hotel’s bedding as Venti stubbornly forces him to rest. He thinks about Venti’s soft voice when he sings him to sleep and how he, the Conqueror of Demons, managed to wake up without a nightmare for the first time in decades. 

“He promised me.” Xiao mumbles. 

“Your flute is here. He gave it to me when he left.” The Yaksha hears the sound of an object knocking into wood, presumably the bedside table. Footsteps walk away from him and Xiao’s glad for it, because he needs to be alone to wallow in his own misery.

The footsteps pause. “Archons always keep their promises. Barbatos doesn’t break his that often.” And they continue and slowly grow fainter until they cannot be heard anymore.

After years of waging war with anything and anyone, Xiao’s immune to much pain. Years of suffering and losing people he held dear to him has served to reaffirm that. His heart’s a bitter one that curses at himself and his mind’s a cacophony of his personal demons that wails at him every moment it gets to. His immunity has divided him with much of his emotions, and he knows better than anyone that crying is only a waste of effort and time.

Even then, he can’t help but notice when a lone tear rolls down his cheek.

~

To many mortals, decades are a sign of aging, of different times and generations changing.

To Xiao, it is nothing more than a snap of his fingers. 

He’s been staying at Wangshu Inn, avoiding both adeptus and mortals alike. He hasn’t seen Morax in decades, and last he had heard the Archon was posing as a mortal in Liyue. When Xiao hears about it, he scoffs at the notion that anything that’s not human could possibly live out a quiet life in Liyue.

He isn’t exactly proved wrong when a blonde traveller from another world and his floating travel companion comes bearing news years later - that Rex Lapis was assassinated during the Rite of Descension.

It’s also then that he finds out that the Anemo Archon had his gnosis forcefully taken from him by a Fatui Harbinger. 

He pushes down his bitter feelings from decades (or has it been centuries?) ago, getting back to the matter at hand. He doesn’t reveal anything to them and pretends to act appalled, because while Morax didn’t exactly reveal anything to him, Xiao’s been under him long enough to know when he has something planned. 

There’s also the fact that no mere mortal could easily beat the oldest of the seven Archons, but that’s only something for him to know. He accepts the offering of food and the travellers leave him alone once again at the inn. 

His dizi , which has been left untouched ever since that incident with the hilichurls at Mondstadt, sits on the bedside table innocently. Ever since he found out the truth of the tune of the flute that saved him, he hasn’t had the heart to play another note. He avoids looking at it on most days, and at nights, his dreams are haunted with dandelion eyes and aubades of early mornings. 

He stands before it, staring at it intently, weighing the pros and cons in his hand. 

With a sigh, he grabs it and shoves it into his pockets before jumping out of the window in search of the boy who holds the wind in his hands. 

~

It’s the first time he’s considered going to Mondstadt since the incident. He’s standing at the boundary between Mondstadt and Liyue, hesitantly weighing his decisions when he feels the wind play with his hair. It swirls around him gently like seelies do, and the demons quieten. 

A familiar tune flows through his ears. It’s one he hasn’t heard in years and he’s suddenly sitting in a hotel with a double-sized bed and listening as gentle hands strum the lyre strings. He shuts his eyes and allows himself a moment of indulgence as the melody of the flute brings him back to better times, when he’s just a foreigner in Mondstadt looking for something to feel alive for. 

He feels tears welling up at the edge of his eyes, and

oh, how he missed the sound of the flute. 

Xiao makes up his mind there and then.

He chases, because he can feel the wind calling him, urging him and pushing him towards the flute.

He chases, because he’s never letting Venti go ever again.

~

He follows the music to the place where Morax once fought another god. Guyun Forest is as still as ever, undisturbed by visitors from Liyue harbour due to its distance and the hilichurls that linger in the area. Xiao avoids the hilichurl camps nimbly, not wanting a repeat of the other time he lost control.

Even now, any thoughts of the event leaves a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. He would rather not think about it. 

In a burst of nervousness, Xiao summons his spear. The calming effect is immediate, and the urge to run disappears entirely. The music steadily grows louder, and he thinks he sees a figure sitting on the edge of one of Morax’s lances, surrounded by crystal flies and qingxin flowers. 

Venti’s as beautiful as the day Xiao first met him at the dimmed bar in Mondstadt. The moonlight surrounds the bard with a graceful glow, illuminating the sea around him. Xiao feels his heart clench and burst with emotions, and 

his ice-cold heart yearns,

and it melts.

“Venti.”

“Xiao.” The bard gives him a small smile, cutting off the melody and placing the flute on his lap. He jumps off the lance he’s sitting on and lands nearer to where Xiao’s hesitantly standing with his spear, surrounded by flowers native to Liyue. The glaze lilies bloom beautifully under the moonlight, and the paleness of the qingxin flowers stand out against the darkened area. 

The dandelion-eyed boy with cecilia flowers in his hair extends his hand.

“Would you do me the honour of a dance?” 

The wind picks up, ruffling both their hairs. 

Venti looks at him with starlight twinkling in his eyes. 

Xiao uses his free hand and grabs onto the other’s hand lightly. The spear vanishes from his hands. Venti’s hands are warm, a strong contrast to his cold ones. Like yin and yang, their hands fit together perfectly. They might have been people with different paths, with one of them being an Archon who brings freedom and the other being a Yaksha burdened with karmic debt, but in the end, it balances out for both of them. 

Xiao smiles. 

“I would be happy to do so.” 

“I do hope you’ve at least learnt to dance a little.” Venti teases, his laughter floating in the wind. 

“We’ll see.” 

Fingers intertwined each other as they slowly swayed along with the wind, uncaring of anything else. 

Centuries ago, a boy laid bloodied on grassy plains, wondering if each breath he took would be his last as the wind carried over the sound of a flute.

A day after they met, a foreigner and a bard made a promise to each other.

And now, as they hold each other and dance among flowers, a promise is fulfilled.