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She rests upon vibrant, verdant grass fields; she rests on the ground, with her ear pressed into the earth, to feel the “heartbeat of the world”. She’s curled up into a little ball, sleeping soundly under the shade of a grand old golden knotwood tree – the late afternoon filters through red orange leaves as they dance in the breeze, and make mottled patterns over smooth, pale skin. Gingerly, his hand brushes soft, silken blue hair that gently frame her sleeping face as she murmurs, and grows quiet once more.
As he watches, with his face propped on his elbow and his elbow propped on his knee, he knows he’s in love.
He’s been in love for a long time, actually. He’s been in love more times than he can ever count – consequences of being a bard, really. It’s so easy to fall in and out of love; to find yourself craving the sweet joyfulness that seems to consume your every waking moment, despite the harsh, sudden pain that it will bring when it ends. But love’s always been worth it, no?
Ganyu certainly is, he thinks.
Honestly, he’s just surprised she took his cape; the green fabric crumples under her sleeping fingers.
It had been so funny , really! One moment, they found themselves casually strolling somewhere along the ancient peaks of Jueyun Karst, far away from the prying eyes of the Tianquan and the Qixing where they could ask no questions and where they could love as freely as they wished; the next moment, she had taken hold of his cape, pulled it off his shoulders and curled up in it, into a little ball, and from there, fell right asleep at the base of a lone golden knotwood tree. It left him a little speechless, honestly…
He knew she had told him before, but…
“I’ve made a habit of sleeping at noon,” she tells him once, under the moonlight in Liyue Harbor. He had come to pick her up from work, to go out to a bar to drink and celebrate a hard-won vacation. He remembers the stars reflected in her eyes as she fiddled with her fingers. “I just… fall asleep without thinking about it. For about an hour or so around noon. If it ever happens, please don’t be angry with me…?”
And was he angry?
Was he angry, here in this moment, as he gently brushes yet another loose strand of silken hair from her face? How could he be? Sleep was the exact thing she needed the most! And he couldn’t be angry anyway, because she had told him! Though, really, he didn’t think she meant it so literally – he had just assumed she was more likely to get tired…. But then, she does what she said she would, and then, she grabbed onto his cape.
He almost feels…. bare, naked to the world without it, if he’s quite honest. His shoulders seem unnaturally free without that familiar weight, free of a burden he’s grown too comfortable to live without, and it makes him feel strange. For his cape is his wings for when he has none, and his shelter from the world for when he was tired and weary, and just wanted to take a nap. It reminds him of his friend too, of that old, tattered thing he used to wear…
But, if it’s for her sake, he thinks he doesn’t mind.
(And isn’t it comforting? To be wanted? To be wanted by someone as beautiful as her?)
He remembers the days of her youth; he remembers the days when she was such a cute, little round old thing, staring at him with wide, violet eyes behind the mighty form of Morax. The old blockhead would chuckle and side-step her, only for her to come running back to hide behind his legs. Lord Barbatos, she had called him, with her voice trembling. Always very polite, he remembered. Always kept ducking her head. Always so hard working.
“You end up working too hard, you know?” He tells her sweetly, as he kisses her shoulder. “You should sleep more, like this. You’re beautiful, did you know that?”
Oh, she was pretty back then, he’s sure. She was a short little thing with even shorter blue hair and her horns hadn’t quite formed the way they should have. And she was pretty, with wide violet eyes that seemed to dart whenever he spoke to her. But she was pretty in the way young, budding flowers are pretty. She was pretty in the way a young girl first confesses to a boy she likes, Windwheel Asters tied in her hair.
But now?
Oh, now she’s gorgeous.
She’s majestic, like an old, well-kept tapestry. She moves as softly as the clouds that surround the peaks of Liyue, and she sings as sweet as the songbirds in spring. Like Glaze Lilies of her homeland, she’ll only open up to the right song at the right time but when she does, her beauty could blind a man. One day, he promises, he’ll write a poem for her – a poem worthy of her. He just needs to find the right words, but oh, how difficult they can be…
And if her first instinct truly is for her to grab something of his – something of his comforts her – then by all means, how could he possibly be mad?
She eventually stirs after an hour or two, as he idly strums a tune on his lyre. He smiles at her as she slowly rouses from her slumber and rubs her eyes. “… Venti?” She murmurs.
“Good morning!” He greets her cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, I did – oh!” She says as she looks down at the fabric that she still clings to with her hands, horror slowly dawning on her face as she realizes it’s his cape. That she slowly realizes she took his cape off. Her face is as red as Valberries as she hangs her head low with her palms on the ground but the cape… the cape is swiftly moved onto her thigh, to avoid dirtying it more.
“Please, forgive me!” She pleads. “I didn’t mean to –“
“Aww, don’t be like that!” He chuckles as he takes hold of her chin and lifts it up with his fingers. Her breath hitches as her face turns a cute shade of pink. “If you like it so much, you can keep it for the day, you know?”
“But…. won’t you be cold?” She says as violet eyes stare at him, incredulously, and he can’t help but laugh.
As if this body was his original form, as if he was human –
As if this truly, really was his own.
He could say any of this. He could simply remind her that he was once an Archon, you know – that he’s still a god. He could simply tell her that he’s an elemental being, an elemental being of wind , no less – ice and wind don’t get cold, they make cold. He could remind her of how inhuman he truly is in the end, for as much as he might pretend otherwise. But he doesn’t.
He doesn’t, because he likes being human. Because he likes being Venti. Because he knows Ganyu is partly human, and a girl who struggles with two worlds pulling her apart doesn’t need a cold reminder from the arms that are supposed to keep her safe when no one else will.
“Mondstadt doesn’t really get cold this time of year,” he settles on. “I’ll be fine!”
So, she lets him wrap his cape around her shoulders, and tie his ribbon at her throat. As he looks back on it, he doesn’t think it suits her – she's all black and blue and white, and the cape is almost disgustingly green. The colors don’t match, and she looks like a young girl about to head off into the woods to deliver food in a basket to her grandmother. But he supposes the same could be said for the two of them as a whole – that they both don’t match at all. But they’re together, anyway.
He gives her a goodbye, and he’s about to leave, but not before she catches his arm and keeps him there; she meddles with something under the cape, and he feels her fingers as she ties something around his neck and under his collar. As she finishes the little bow, he feels it – it’s… it’s her bell.
“Ganyu?” He asks as he turns toward her again.
“Fair’s fair,” she smiles gently. “I took something from you, so now I’m giving you something from me in its stead.”
He knows how precious that bell is to her. It was a gift from her mother when she was younger, and she hasn’t really taken it off since. The fact that… she trusts him with it, speaks more loudly than any sweet nothings she could whisper in his ear (though, he wouldn’t mind – he loves the sound of her voice). And so, he can’t help himself but to draw her into him, to rest his hands on her waist and to kiss her. She kisses him back, as red-orange leaves fall from an old, grand golden knotwood tree.
“Remember not to work too hard,” he whispers against her lips. “You need to take more breaks.”
He yelps as she grabs a small fistful of his hair from the back of his head and tugs. “And you don’t work hard enough, Lord Barbatos. Please remember that you must set a good impression for your followers,” she says as she gives a little smirk.
“Guilty as charged,” he laughs, welcoming the roughness to their play.
And finally, this is when they part ways; this is when they wish each other well, that they’ll find a way to see each other soon and when Venti walks all the way down to Mondstadt, the sound of a small bell chimes with each joyful step.