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The morning sun... The warmth that caresses his hands in the morning, trembling, dry hands from that stuff he has been drinking since last night. What was it? He couldn’t remember. Venti wasn’t able to save enough Mora for a Dandelion Wine so he got the cheapest alcoholic drink that five hundred Mora could afford. “I really don’t care what’s on it” he said “Just give me a bottle.”
Ah, the gentle, warm sunlight… He hated it. It made him feel lonely, it made him feel like longing. It was so strange, but also, kind of familiar to long for someone.
Trembling hands looking for the bottle he drank last night, he forgot the name of the guy that sold it to him, but he was certain it wasn’t a good one. Just a few sips and his body was already feeling tipsy and wobbly.
“This one's for you, Sun!” He celebrated before sipping. “I haaaaaaate you!” Another sip. “You stand there so proud…! Thinking we’re all thankful for you, but that’s not it, no-no…” Trembling feet walking, hands trying to hold on to nearby trees. Eyes trying to stay awake. “…Why don’t you go extinct for once?” He murmured when his head finally hit a log, feeling unable to keep walking. “You feel so lonely, isn’t it? No stars visible to keep you company… What a silly god you are.”
Breathing calmly, the morning on Mondstadt was surprisingly quiet and a little cold too. With closed eyes, he pouted. “I really hate you, but I guess we’re not that different.” Laughing, he finally gave up before sipping again. With his back leaning against the tree, he let his body rest on the ground, feeling the morning dew in the grass.
“So lonely up there… like a forgotten god.” He murmured with the bottle still in his hands. “When you’re shining the brightest, that’s when I hate you the most. Shining like you’re smiling, but why are you so happy?” Venti's face frowned in annoyance before he poured again into the cup in his right hand and took a sip. “Why are you laughing and singing those stupid silly songs if you’re all alone… You don’t even know what love feels like.”
A sob escaped him after sipping once more, his head was still spinning, but not enough to make him sleepy. If anything, being this groggy cleared his head of weird thoughts of futile fantasies. Fantasies of a god loving a star.
“Sun, you’re… Such a foolish, ridiculous god. Thinking that some star is going to fall in love with you just because you’re the brightest star in the sky. Just because everyone worships you, you think someone is going to fall for you. It’s time to wake up… no star is going to love you, no matter how many songs you write… how many battles you win, how strong you might be… It won’t make a difference.”
Laughing to himself, he opened his eyes to look up. The sun's rays peeked through the branches. Setting the bottle down, Venti raised his hand to feel them. So warm, so far away… The sun was mocking him. “Why do you keep projecting those feelings on me? You’d say, don’t you?” He let out a chuckle before sipping again. “You’re the only foolish god here who daydreams about love…”
That wouldn’t be true. Not possible. He said to himself many times that those feelings of him meant nothing, specially when everyone was feeling the same thing for her. He was so thankful, it was so strange. Lumine didn’t even blink before accepting to help him and Dvalin.
He was determined to save his friend so he really didn’t mind that much about some help, especially from a Traveler, so alien to Teyvat, it was until everyone was celebrating Lumine’s return that he felt weird.
“Jealous much, bard?” he heard someone say to him when everyone was paying attention to Lumine only. After she left Mondstadt, long days passed since he heard about her again. The sound of her name echoed in his ears like a melody. Before he even realized it, he was already listening. What was she doing now? Was she safe? “It won’t be like this always, tomorrow you’ll be back being the latest novelty. So… cheer up!”
With a chuckle, he pretended to be enjoying the little chit chat. Focusing on the drink on his hands, he kept listening to everyone calling for her. He wasn’t mad that for this night, he wasn’t the center of attention. He wasn’t mad at all, but he couldn’t help but feel strange when she had barely time to talk with him.
“Another one for you, because you’re so pathetic you can’t even drink to lull yourself to sleep.” He said before sipping again.
Just a brief smile, with eyes so radiant. She was back again at Mondstandt for a night and he couldn’t even talk to her at all. He couldn’t dare to interrupt, she was having so much fun. Even when people asked him to sing a bit or play the lyre, he wasn’t in the mood until she looked at him too.
“Heh.” For the first time, his laugh wasn’t mischievous. Having her eyes fixed on him waiting for a song made him feel something entirely unfamiliar… “C’mon, a bard with a stage fright is the same as an uncoordinated knight.” He said before standing up. He was already tipsy, so he didn’t pay much attention to his own thoughts. “Uhhh, I wrote this song recently so… it’s not entirely finished but… Here goes nothing!”
He sang about the sun, so he wouldn’t sing about the wind. He talked about his own loneliness like it was some kind of story, unrelated to him. Sang about the star he longed for, about fantasies and mornings. He sang about her, but she didn’t notice. How could she? To listen to a foolish love song.
“Hey, idiot Sun! Listen to me. Having a human body comes with its perks, certainly. You can enjoy the sweetest Dandelion wine, but you also get to experience how a broken heart feels like. So, even if you feel all lonely there, don’t get a body! You’ll regret it!”
The story about the sun wasn’t the first. He kept writing lots and lots of love songs that became so popular between the drunkards who would repeat them. His songs flew like the wind and he wondered if any of them would reach her.
Another sob, it was foolish of him to believe they would. Songs become popular, bards become forgotten, like old gods, like memories and he held a lot of them.
“You get to see her all day….” He murmured, now holding the bottle close to his chest. “I haaaate you.” Suddenly, he didn't feel drunk at all. His thoughts felt as clear as silver shine. For a freedom loving god, it was a misfortune to fall in love with someone just like that. “Everyone gets to love whoever they want, but I don’t. I can’t have the one I love.”
“Why not? Aren’t you Barbatos? Aren’t you all mighty?” asked the sun, using his voice. “No, that’s not how love works. You don’t get anything! Are all gods a stupid as you?” Replied Venti with a sad chuckle. “it must be! I’m surely as stupid as you are!” A freedom loving god cannot feel jealousy, cannot feel longing. “You’ll be surprised to hear that I’m not all that mighty. I’m the weakest of them, so that must be the reason why I cannot tell her.”
“You sure? Is it because you’re afraid she will reject you?” Another chuckle, another sip. “Ah, you’re touching thin ice now. Don’t get all cocky with me. I can make the wind cover you for a day.”
His hands are no longer shaking, nor does he feel as drunk as the early morning, so all that remains is the reason he drinks frequently.
“It’s not like I haven’t tried.” He excuses before fixing his hair and clothes. “But I guess not everyone can read between poetry.”
“What do you say? If I have tried with gifts already? Of course I have. But I guess that’s exactly what everyone is doing. I thought, if I give her something weird she will ask. And I don’t know how I would answer, so I gave her artifacts and rare objects so she would be safe and at the same time, she will have a piece of me with her.”
“Now, now. That’s not nice.” Venti replies to himself in a weird voice imitating an old man. “That’s not how gifts work.”
“What do you even know about how this works!” Venti replies almost offended. “Do you have any idea how difficult it was? Domains aren’t easy when you go alone!”
“Well, what about simple gestures?” He asks again before letting go a sigh. “I should have known that gods aren’t useful…” He laments before looking at the bottle, almost empty. “I have tried, did not work… She thought I was just being gentle. Must have thought of me like a gentleman, but I’m everything except that. No gentleman fantasies over morning kisses or pretty thighs.” He hiccups out of surprise, feeling now embarrassed. “N-Now, now! That’s drunken talk! My feelings are pure, I swear!” Chuckling, still embarrassed, Venti sips the whole bottle just to forget about what he just said, except that it only deepens his fear.
“That one was for you.” He says now in a quiet voice. “Because at least I got to experience this futile love. But you, up there... You will remain eternally alone. Watching the lovers wake up in the morning.”
And that’s exactly why he hates morning sun. He cannot be a lover, he doesn’t even know if she would ever see him like that. He just daydreams and writes love songs and poems and expects that at least one of them reaches her.
Keeping his hands on his face, Venti gives himself a few shakes before getting up. Some of the things he has said to himself fit very well in the song he’s writing. He can even imagine them now, night drunkards singing along without knowing that they sing about them. A story of a God who falls in love with a Star. A God that cannot leave his place, what would the world be without its sun or wind?
“The nature of shooting stars is to watch them in their departing beauty.” He says to the sun with a smile. “They cannot be held, they cannot be stopped…” and yet he hopes that someday he can tell her. He’s sure today won’t be the day, but surely, there is a tomorrow. “But that doesn’t stop the god from cherishing them. And I cherish this star like a person once cherished a wisp.”
The bottle empty, his thoughts aren’t clouded by intrusive thoughts, the melancholy of the night and the cheap wine. The day begins, and his fingers now touch the strings of the Lyre as he recites the same story he imagines before going to sleep.
“Not today, but surely, some day…” he says when he finds her. The night before, she agreed on meeting him before parting again. She looks radiant, courageous and beautiful, but also oblivious.
“Huh? What do you mean?” she asks, smiling as Venti descents from the sky, eager to hug her, to fill her face with kisses, but he only smiles back, chuckling with his flushed cheeks.
“Sorry, sorry! I’m just a little tipsy. Heh.”