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There are countless tales of gods being lonely beings, alone on their thrones in the sky. Some of them are even true. Divine beings can feel regret, remorse, loneliness. Occasionally, they feel joy. The question is where they feel. Humans feel pain in their heart, loneliness as a dull ache in the chest, joy thrumming throughout their bodies like hummingbirds’ wings. But gods, with bodies of light and gold, have no hearts. They have no tear ducts to cry from, no stomachs to hollow out with regret. The closest they have is a Gnosis, that phial of fickle magic controlled by the iron fist of Celestia.
A Gnosis is a cruel imitation of a heart at best. It can be ripped from the chest just as mortal hearts are in countless poems, leaving the god gasping and shivering as they are hollowed out just as mortals’ tears leak into the soil. But mortal hearts are made of flesh and rushing blood, blood that spills forth and stains the earth for centuries. Venti supposes that’s another way mortal hearts and Gnoses are similar. After all, a god’s power is like their blood, is it not? Inherent in the veins, and without it, they fall, weaken, and die.
But a Gnosis is unlike a heart in that it cannot feel. It is a vessel, nothing more. The mortal poems of lonely gods and hands stretching down from the heavens—most are nothing more than fantasy.
Look at this perfect being , humans say, they are just as lonely as us . They feel the ache of mortal struggles, search for meaning where the horizon meets the sea, look for love where there is none just as we do .
However, it is true that gods can feel something . Look at the Shogun’s voiceless agony at her sister’s death, the Geo Archon’s gentle compassion toward the fragile mortals he rules over. But these are anomalies of Celestia’s design. Gods are not created to feel . They are created to carry out Celestia’s will on the mortals foolish enough to worship them. But Celestia has not made a perfect god yet, and even grows afraid of the attempts by mortals that come closer. For a perfect god has no veins or conduits or manifestation of will, only wrath and destruction.
Mortals snatch at these inherent imperfections and magnify them, painting gods as beings with mortal desires and emotions. Gods who leap to the earth at the sight of a beautiful mortal, gods who care for their people as a mother does for her children, gods who weep and mourn and construct monuments to their sorrow. These tales are told a thousandfold to wide-eyed children, the lips of bards spinning clever lies. Venti sings these same lies himself, but they swirl hollow in his chest like alcohol dregs. He wants to believe them, even, wants to believe that gods can love instead of crudely copying the mortal emotion known as lust for the novelty of it, wants to believe that gods truly care for their people instead of a protection instinct manufactured by Celestia.
The worst part is when he gets caught up in his own tales, strumming his lyre on the tables of the Angel’s Share, singing of gods enamored with mortals, with mortals teaching gods the meaning of death, gods mourning and loving and falling from the sky on broken wings. The lanterns spin in his vision, his fingers on the lyre the only sensation, and he believes . He believes that gods can love. That he can love.
And then the song stops, and the lanterns still, and he hops off the table to applause and collects tips in the cup of his beret, coins ringing as they clack against one another.
He should know better than to wonder. After all, when he first rose to Celestia, that question was answered directly. His wings, snow-white and thick, were heavy on his back as he adjusted to the feeling of having a body after years of his flight being like the dance of gauze in the wind. But this was a minor thought compared to the all-encompassing grief he felt scratching at the inside of his newly formed chest.
Why , he had asked in the cold throne room of Celestia, staring through eyes that could no longer shed tears at the gilded throne meant for him. Why did he have to die?
The response had been a low thrum around him, pressing against his new skin. That is what mortals do. Come now, gods do not feel pain or sorrow. You have a job to do.
And it was true, he had realized. The tearing sorrow he had felt now rang hollow in his chest, as if he were an actor on a stage. Without a mortal vessel to validate it, grief was performative. He had felt a stab of fear, grasping at the emotions that once came so easily now slipping through his divine fingers.
You’ll get used to it , Celestia had said, and Venti felt himself moving to take his place on the throne. His movements were not his own, and he would later come to understand that neither were his thoughts. That was an indulgence only mortals had, and he was no longer bound by their laws.
Sometimes, he forgets that he cannot feel. He feels the buzz of joy, the ache of loss, the curl of desire, and for a split second believes it. The emotion hangs suspended, warm and inviting, then shatters like painted porcelain. His emotions are poor facsimiles of the weaknesses reserved for mortals. He has been living among mortals for so long that he has started to pick up their habits, as a bear cub raised with wolves will try to run with the pack instead of hunting alone. He cannot afford to believe in lies, only spin them for others.
Though mortal emotions are not available to gods, other indulgences are. Some gods choose to become drunk on mortals’ bodies, to take empty pleasure and scoff at the ones who expect real love. Others command their people to erect countless statues in their name and sing their praises daily, expecting the songs and offerings to fill the void inside of them. Venti prefers music.
Being perfectly created, he can play any score set in front of him, and pull new lines of music from thin air at will. But that does not diminish the beauty of the notes he can call forth from his lyre, the sweet strain of his voice infusing the night air. If Celestia did leave a flaw in his design, it would be his joy at weaving stories for others, at setting them to music and watching mortals stand rapt, their eyes wide and hearts rising and falling with the heroes in his tales. It is beautiful, their enrapturement with his songs, and gods are at least able to appreciate beautiful things.
Music and beautiful things, music and beautiful things are what have always drawn him like a moth to a flame. The lilt of a song in the Mondstadt countryside, the striking golden eyes of a flute-playing adeptus. It is mortal to love, but it is divine to covet, and he often feels the sharp desire to take these things for himself as a crow lines its nest with shining jewelry. But he is not a crow, and he has taught himself to be content with listening and watching.
But there is always that part of himself that wonders, would taking the only things that he truly desires finally fill the space inside of him that was once taken up by wind and delight at the world’s beauty? Would he feel whole?
He doesn’t know, and lets the desire float away in the breeze.
After all, if it is a malfunction in Celestia’s design, it would be best not to indulge and widen the crack that could shatter the heavens.