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He wasn't wearing his moss-colored cape; He still had his usual attire on but he has decided to forgo the cape. It is fitting, he thinks, him not wearing the cape that reminded him of his wings. God of freedom and wind that Venti is, he feels grounded, heavy, and for the first time in a long time, bone-deep tired.
He has a friend to bury.
Venti whistles for the winds and they heed his call. He lets them carry him across Mondstadt, feels them change hands when he reaches Liyue. Liyuen winds always felt warmer than those of Mondstadt, buzzing with energy and restlessness. It reminds him of mornings in the market. Busy and ever in motion. Morax is- was, he reminds himself, a calm man but had a restless air to him. Not the nervous energy that Venti sometimes has, but an energy that felt like Morax had always something else to do. Morax was never still. Patient and calm but never, never motionless.
Funny, to think someone filled with so much life presides over something as still as geo. But geo, in its own way, is also filled with so much life. A steady foundation, a beginning, an end.
The scratch of pen on paper. Fingers curling over a warm cup of tea. Hands ever in motion. Small, fond smiles. Warm laughter. No, Morax is- was, was, was not a still person. Venti cannot imagine him in death but this is his reality now, isn’t it? Another friend to bury.
He is now the last living member of the original seven. The weakest archon has outlived his friends and Venti finds that hilarious. Hilarious in a way that it is utterly depressing that it circles back to being funny in the weirdest way.
Venti lets out a laugh that sounds like a sob.
The Liyuen winds pat his cheek in comfort. At least he still has the winds. Still, he feels himself weakening the farther he is from Mondstadt. With the loss of his gnosis and mere weeks after Signora's forceful removal of it, it is harder to visit the neighboring nation. The winds know of his situation, they know a lot of things, and try their best to help him in any way that they can.
Venti doesn’t exactly have a choice in this. Or rather, he can’t allow himself to mourn by drowning himself in alcohol. Morax deserves better than that and if it means traveling to Liyue then Venti will travel to Liyue, with or without his gnosis.
He has to pay his respects. He needs to. Most importantly, he wants to. Besides, Venti knows what his limits are and he always has the winds to support him.
The winds carry him far, all the way to Liyue Harbor. Well, close to it. He lands softly onto the grass. He thanks the winds and gets a gentle wind blowing through his hair in response. Cheeky, both Mondstadt and Liyue winds are both very cheeky.
Venti looks around where the winds brought him. If he recalls correctly, he has landed on Mt. Tianheng.
He fixes his button-down, running his hands on its sleeves, and slowly approaches the edge of the cliff that overlooks Liyue.
The Rite of Parting is what they call it. Venti has seen Morax arrange such things for his adepti, had explained in great detail what the whole process entails and why it's so important, and he wonders who has arranged Morax’s.
It is a solemn but elegant affair. Venti does not let the winds carry what the Liyuens are talking about, has never let any news from Liyue reach him ever since hearing about Morax’s death. Venti knows that it wasn’t a smart move but he is a coward. It makes all of this more real, makes him feel much more powerless. He can already distinctly feel himself grow ever weaker the longer he stays away from Mondstadt.
Any more of this grief and mourning and it will be the end of him. Any more weight and it may just be enough to break the camel’s back.
Venti feels an itch behind his eyes. He grits his teeth. If he starts crying now he doesn’t know when he’ll stop. He wants to call out Morax’s name, all the names Venti knows, but even that is futile and will only break his own heart further.
So he sits on the edge of the cliff, eyes on the Everlasting Incense, and says not a word. He is here to pay respects.
He is the last one living yet again.
(Venti is reminded of a soft, musical voice that can rally hundreds, of bright dawn red hair and grim determination, of a lover betrayed who will not compromise her morals. They left him too, hadn't they? And Vennessa, strong unflinching Vennessa, she did too.
But no- to think of that is to betray them. They hadn’t left him, not really, but that doesn't mean their deaths hurt any less.
That doesn't mean Venti doesn’t feel terribly, achingly, lonely.)
How, Venti thinks hysterically, how dare Morax fall before him? How can he? Venti is the weakest and yet- doesn’t he know- why, why, why-
Stupid blockhead. This wasn't the way the story goes.
Stupid, how can he be so stupid?
He spends the whole time sitting there, blankly staring down at the precession. Thoughts running into circles. This isn’t something he can sleep away- This is real, so heartbreakingly real. Venti scrambles for a justification for all of this but the justification does not matter at all. People die all the time, god or not, and time marches on. The world turns. There is no stopping that type of heartbreak.
Time marches on. Memories fade. Being forgotten is a terrible fate for anything. But, what about the ones who remember?
His eyes do not stray on the large incense even when he sees the traveler in the corner of his eyes.
What about the ones left behind?
Venti keeps his eyes on the incense even when they soon take it away to use for another parting. Hours pass. Dawn turns to dusk. The Rite of Parting is long finished and the crowd is no longer there.
He stays.
Venti feels himself falling apart. Too far from Mondstadt. Too long spent in Liyue without his gnosis. Too caught up in his grief.
Venti wants to go home but he can't. He knows he can't. Home does not exist anymore. Mondstadt is home but not the type of home he desperately aches for. What he deeply wants is a type of home found in friends who are gone.
He does not move.
The winds pick up around him. He hears their worry and yet-
And yet.
The winds are screaming at him now. The winds grow stronger, blowing his hair, his tie, urging him to move.
He does not move.
Venti knows grief. It is his oldest friend. It is comforting in its familiarity but its weight has never changed. It is weighing him down now, the weight unbearable, and Venti is too tired to carry this millennium-long grief.
Dvalin is finally cured. Andrius still looks over Mondstadt. His children are happy. Maybe now he can finally rest. He will never step foot in Celestia with the loss of his gnosis, he never wants to anyway, but he can rest.
He can feel the winds, their anger, their grief, their fear. Beneath all that is also their resignation. They won’t begrudge him of his decision. They are beholden to him as Venti is to them.
He does not exactly know where gods go when they die but he does like to imagine that his soul can rest in a sea of dandelions and cecilias. It would be peaceful and maybe, just maybe, he can see his friends again.
That was a nice thought.
Venti lets out a soft sigh and lets himself slowly unravel. He closes his eyes and cranes his head to bathe in the warm afternoon sunlight over Liyue Harbor. It isn't harsh nor burning, just warm enough to resemble an embrace.
He finds it oddly amusing, to die in a land that isn't his. To call it quits in a nation he has little to no influence over. In a land where its people call his Mondstadt a godless nation. A land he has not fought over, has not bled and cried and done everything for.
There is comfort to find in knowing that it is the home of a dear friend who had done all these things, however. Liyue is Morax's and that is enough for Venti. There is a reason as to why Mondstadt and Liyue have non-existent borders and even Venti himself doesn't quite know where the line between the two nations begins and ends. Morax probably does-did, the walking encyclopedia, but Venti can't exactly ask him now can he?
He knows that the winds will take care of him though, however far he is from Mondstadt. He'll let the winds decide what to do with the energy he'll release when he completely unravels. He trusts them to know what to do.
(Perhaps finally, Dragonspine will stop its harsh winds and would be filled with a cold that refreshes and energizes instead. A portion of his power can be scattered all throughout Mondstadt, his final blessing towards his people. A part of it will be left to the winds to do as they please with it.)
Venti tells the winds to find a successor for him. Not to rule over Mondstadt, Mondstadt is never meant to be ruled, but someone to protect it and its people. To step in when it becomes too much for his children. Andrius is only a spirit. Dvalin is too young. The people Mondstadt chooses its own are too short-lived. He knows the winds, whoever they choose will be more than enough. He trusts their judgment more than anything.
Just one more step, one last decision.
Something stops him though, a thought. A question he has asked himself multiple times. As a reminder, a warning.
What about those who remember?
Venti is a patchwork of memories of the people he had loved and lost. People who had made history and people who have been forgotten by everyone except for time. Except for Venti. He sings their songs and they are remembered. They are remembered with every string plucked from his lyre, from every word he sings. They are remembered even if it's only for a moment.
Every day that Venti remains is a day where they are remembered. Every song is a declaration of their existence. Every breath is a reminder. Venti is here and they are not. It is painful to know, to remember, but they existed.
They died.
But, most importantly, they lived.
Death. Time. Forgetting. Remembering.
Being forgotten is a terrible fate for anything.
Venti is here to remember.
Time is forever running forward.
Here he was calling Morax stupid when Venti is about to do something utterly idiotic. Was about to do something idiotic. Venti breathes in deeply and exhales all of it out. He whispers an apology to the winds and they pull on his braids in retaliation.
Venti whispers an apology to his friends. He keeps them alive by staying alive and he was about to throw it all away. Foolish, to forget why he has stayed all this time. To make a decision that will betray them. For a moment, he lost hope. He had forgotten how strong having hope is.
Hope is a story worth singing over and over and over again. He can’t sing it if he’s dead, can he?
The echoes of possibilities and futures ring through his head and he has long stopped trying to discern it all. Winds bring memories and hope. Venti is the bearer of it all.
To die is not a decision for him to make.
He whispers an apology to Morax. He had visited Liyue to pay respects, not to die. It would be an awful way to say goodbye to his oldest friend.
He stands up.
Mondstadt is calling his name, he opens his mouth to call the winds and-
Venti startles when he suddenly feels the heavy weight of something crash onto him. Unyielding, stiff, severe. It's the heaviness of geo, he realizes. Venti's first instinct is to call his bow but does not get enough time to do that when pure unfiltered geo covers him entirely, disorienting him and sending him careening to the ground.
The ground swallows him whole.
In the next blink, he finds himself looking up at Vennessa's tree, the twinkling of stars above it.
In the next blink, he finds himself looking up at geo-colored eyes.
In the next blink, Morax is alive and curled protectively over him.
Oh, Venti realizes.
Oh, oh.