Work Text:
The nameless bard tells him this: “There is not enough time.”
Barbatos, true name Venti, considers this. Mulls it over like a slice of an apple. For a wind spirit, time is timeless. The winds blow and keep blowing and will continue to blow until the sky mandates it not to.
Still, Venti considers this. After a minute of careful deliberation, he floats down onto an outstretched palm. From there, he looks up into the bard’s eyes. They are the colour of the sky he so desperately wishes to see.
“I will bring you a piece of the sky anyway.”
Zhongli, if left in your periphery for too long, almost blends in with the stone lions that guard Liyue.
Venti lands on the boardwalk, hunched over in an excessive show of searching his surroundings very hard. “Huh, where’s Zhongli?”
With an exaggerated swoop of his upper body, he looks to his left, then to his right. “Where is that piece of rock?”
Zhongli steps forward from the wall, unamused. “You closed your eyes whilst looking past me.”
Venti smiles. “Did I?”
Pretty fingers weave together and settle behind Zhongli’s back. He turns sharply, walking into the marketplace with lazy purpose. Venti floats to catch up. “Yes, quite obviously so.”
“The sun was in my eyes,” he sighs dramatically.
Zhongli does not look at him. “The sun is to the east.”
“There was a particularly strong gale that dried my eyes out,” he tries again.
“You are wind personified.”
Venti laughs. Skipping ahead, he shouts contently over his shoulder. Zhongli’s eyes finally meet his. “And you have rocks for brains!”
The bard calls his name when Venti is on the search for the most vibrant feather he can find. It pierces the tempest walls and carries to the tops of the mountains, where Venti had chased after circling eagles.
In his haste, the feather slips from his grasp.
Red. It stains the snow.
Zhongli is incomprehensibly old. A piece of stone, a magnificent dragon. Half qilin, half not. It seems as though he was there when the first star was created.
Venti tells him this, humour filling his cup to the brim.
Zhongli looks at him. Really and truly looks at him, past the swathes of green and the chess piece that blocks his heart. Without missing a beat, he says, “That may be so, but there were winds then.” He swirls his cup expertly before taking a deliberating sip. “Perhaps even a thousand.”
Venti makes it back just in time for the bard’s rallying speech. There, he stands tall upon crudely stacked boxes. Strapped to his back, a wooden bow. Cradled in his arm, a wooden lyre.
The people are angry, rightfully so. They soak up the bard’s words. Fiery hair, fiery hearts. Venti watches on. If the winds blow just right, that fire can be stoked even higher. A dangerous game.
Wood is meant to be burnt, after all.
Venti balks, slamming his tea cup down with refined grace. “I am not that old! I refuse to be associated with your age group.” Huffing, he pouts, “Besides, I was barely sentient back then. It doesn’t count.”
Zhongli carefully slicks away the remnants of Venti’s tea off his clothing. “What is a couple millennia to a god?”
“About half your age, perhaps.”
He hums, unperturbed. “Yet, we are immortal. Time is a mortal measure.”
Irritation crawls into Venti’s skin. He allows it to colour his voice, if only for a second. “Time may be a mortal device, but do we not live in a mortal world?”
“The heavens dictate otherwise.”
Eyes narrowed and voice hard, Venti asks, “Do stars not fall? Do they not fade into oblivion?”
There is not enough time.
There is not enough time between the first arrow, nor the second or third.
The bard falls. Time, a fickle thing, only seems to slow down between the last arrow and his body meeting the ground.
Time is timeless, or so Venti thought.
Immovable as ever, Zhongli does not answer.
Silently, Venti pushes his chair back. It grinds on the hardwood floor. Gathering his coat and hat, he makes for the window.
Wooden heart, wooden soul. It burns under the earth’s gaze.
“Venti.” An imperceivable crack. He perches precariously on the sill, eyes trained on where the sky meets the sea. Orange paints his hands, his heart, his feet. “There is enough time. For you, for me, for—“
The colour fades fast into pinks and purples. It bruises his skin.
“That is what they want you to think, God of Contracts,” Venti interjects, his breath floating listlessly from his lips.
A twist of his body, and then his feet no longer find purchase on solid ground.
Red falls onto the shoulder of the bard. The warrior presses his palms into the wounds, a poor attempt at a tourniquet. There are tears there, and blood too. Fiery hair, fiery hearts. Nothing has changed, but the tinderbox has been lit.
Slowly, the sky opens itself above them. Blue reflects blue, and it is a sight to behold.
“Ah,” the bard breathes. It's ragged, bubbling, and completely wrong.
Pale, calloused fingers reach for his fallen lyre. Blood drips from his arm and settles under his nails.
“This is no time for a song,” the warrior laughs brokenly, his usual snark replaced with uncharacteristic defeat.
Weak, the bard coughs, “That’s where you’re wrong.”
“There is always time for a song.”
Above him, amber fills his vision, the azure sky in his periphery. It mocks him. What is freedom without time?
“Venti—”
“Pass me my lyre, you blockhead.”
Contrary to popular belief, the heavens are an abyss, a dark water that bleeds. It dries red on Zhongli’s cheek.
Cold fingers reach out, and Zhongli’s eyes flutter shut. A shuddering breath. Then, silence. Even the tectonic plates halt their lazy circulation.
“There is not enough time.” The fine china plates begin again, moving in its molten bath. A crack, a fissure. A white dust that settles. Venti smiles.
“That is what I have been saying.”
“Then I am a fool.”
“This is old news.”
The god before him places his hands over his. It is unexpectedly gentle. It almost warms him to his toes.
“Then let me tell you this: as long as it takes. A hundred years, or a millennia. I will wait for you.”
Venti laughs, which soon gives way to wretched coughs. “The God of Contracts wishes to transgress the laws of the universe?”
“A contract to end all contracts, if you will.”
Venti’s hand falls, and with it, Zhongli’s.
“Then I, the God of Freedom, shall hold you to that.”
Zhongli presses the wooden lyre into his palms, his chest, his soul. It’s a desperate thing.
“Then play me a song when that moment arrives.”