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The air in Liyue is different to the air in Mondstadt.
It tastes different, Venti thinks. Mondstadt is pine and fruit. In the mountainous regions of Liyue, everything is fresh and sharp with the chill of being high up.
Here in the city, the air tastes of salt.
The people around him are happy, laughing and talking and basking in the company of their loved ones, or the kindness of perfect strangers. Children chase each other and giggle as they wave sparklers up at the sky. Music still floats through the streets, warm and peaceful.
He had every intention of heading straight for the wharf following the dinner, but had found himself immediately distracted by the prospect of wandering a while, content to just watch. He supposes that’s how he was found so quickly.
“Bard.”
Extremely blunt greeting, Venti muses. How very typical. He turns and grins.
“Funeral parlour consultant, was it?”
“‘Zhongli’ is fine.”
Venti looks at his friend, his oldest still living friend, takes in the way he stands calm as anything with his arms crossed over his chest, no less poised and regal in a relaxed stance as when he was commanding armies. Venti wonders how any of these mortals can possibly believe he is anything other than what he is. He suspects a fair few of them don’t, but maybe that’s just his bias getting in the way.
He looks at Zhongli and can’t quite get Morax out of his eyes.
It might be a little hypocritical.
“Walk with me?” he asks, singsong in the way that had often made his friend inclined to throw something large and geological at him.
“That was the intention,” Zhongli replies.
Venti hums. “You lead the way, though. Somewhere pretty. And quiet.”
Zhongli raises a suspicious eyebrow and it reeks so much of habit that Venti giggles.
“Relax. All I’m after is a quiet word with an old friend in relative private, nothing sinister.”
Zhongli inclines his head, conceding, and sweeps an arm out in invitation. Venti falls into step beside him as he leads them up towards higher ground.
The city is less busy now, up in the streets especially. Groups linger by the stage, sitting together and gazing out at the lanterns still glittering in the night sky. Many more still are indoors, dining in restaurants or enjoying the company of family behind closed doors. Lights spill out of open windows and dance across the walkways.
“Alatus seems well,” Venti says tentatively.
Zhongli hums his agreement. “He seems happier these days. I think it makes him a little sad that he can’t quite integrate into human society the way many of the other adepti have chosen to, but there are exceptions to his loneliness.”
“The traveller seems to get along quite well with him.”
“They always seem to notice when he’s uncomfortable without him having to say anything.”
“They have a knack for that,” Venti sighs.
Zhongli leads them up a staircase, around a corner and up another staircase, and then around another corner. They come to a stop on a balcony, the still in view of the water but not directly overlooking the harbour. It’s deserted here, even though the sounds of amiable chatter carry from the streets below.
“Liyue looks happy,” Venti observes.
Zhongli leans forward to brace himself against the railing. There’s a controlled grace to ever movement he makes, even in the action of reclining.
“Liyue is happy,” he responds simply. “Their Qixing are diligent and attentive. The adepti walk among them and protect them from afar. They wake each day and go about their work, and they sleep each night proud of everything they have accomplished. They live good lives.”
“Does it bother you that they’re doing all of it without you? You always took a significantly more hands-on approach than I did.”
“It doesn’t,” Zhongli says. “I wanted this for them, and I made sure they would be alright on their own. I will not pretend it doesn’t make me feel a little melancholy occasionally, but this is what I wanted for them. And they are not without me entirely, I simply play a different part in it now. Times change, old friend, and so must we.” He allows a thoughtful silence to stretch out between them for a moment. “I understand why you took the approach you did with Mondstadt, now.”
Venti shrugs. “Liyue needed you to be what you were. Our nations are very different places, after all.”
“I’m quite proud of it all,” Zhongli admits.
“It’s our duty as archons to be proud of our people,” Venti agrees. And then, “even if our Gnoses are gone.”
It comes out like an afterthought, like something he never wanted to speak of wrenched from him against his will. In response, Zhongli gives him a look that is as close to a side-eye as the god of contracts will ever come.
“I’m sorry yours was taken from you in the manner that it was.”
Venti really doesn’t want to talk about it, but he’s brought it up now and something in him is desperate because the only person in all of Teyvat that he could ever speak of such things with is standing right beside him.
“She took it from me outside my own church, Morax.”
“I understand there might have been something of a personal grudge there.”
“I know! Listen to me. You know full well that wasn’t the point.”
Zhongli turns his eyes on Venti, and it’s always a shock to have the full attention of his gaze. To Venti, his eyes are molten gold and brighter in the darkness than any of the lanterns. He turns away.
“It feels empty,” he admits. “I always wanted my people to have their own freedom, but I never wanted to be incapable of helping them if they needed it.”
“I don’t mind it,” Zhongli says. “I feel it’s absence, certainly, but I also feel… light.”
Of course he does, Venti thinks, because his Gnosis was heavy, a heart of stone. Venti’s was the thing that made him light. Some days, the feeling of his feet stuck to the ground makes him want to crawl out of his skin.
“You had choice,” he says instead. “The Tsaritsa knew how difficult you could have made things if you’d chosen to resist.“
Zhongli tilts his head thoughtfully. “‘Choice’ is an interesting word to use, especially where I am concerned. You are aware that once I enter a contract, I forfeit any right to choose, yes?”
Venti says nothing, but he thinks Zhongli knows that, yes, he is aware.
“Your people are strong, Barbatos. They have longs since been able to care for themselves, and that is due to the manner in which you have always led them. Besides, I don’t imagine you’ve left them entirely to fend for themselves just because you’re a little short on strength. That doesn’t sound at all like you.”
Ever Barbatos the bleeding heart, Venti thinks bitterly. He says nothing. He doesn’t know whether Zhongli’s appraisal of him is or isn’t true. What he’s done since losing his Gnosis shouldn’t count, he thinks. But maybe it isn’t up to him to decide whether or not the little things he’s done in that time have benefitted people or not. Maybe it isn’t for him to say whether or not he’s useless.
“Show me your hands,” he says suddenly.
Zhongli huffs a laugh. “Is this your attempt at changing the subject?”
“No, I’m just feeling sentimental. Please, Morax.”
Zhongli hesitates, then reaches for his gloves. He slides one off slowly, then the other, before carefully pocketing them and holding his hands out to Venti.
His skin is dark, smooth, veined with gold. Venti has always wondered if it’s an imperfect disguise, if this is as close to human as Zhongli is capable, or if it’s intentional, if being in a body that is entirely not his own would be painful. He takes the hands in his, turns them over, fiddles with Zhongli’s fingers where they fade to gold. He circles one of his own, smaller hands around Zhongli’s wrist and turns the hand to face him, pressing his fingertips against those gold pads. Zhongli watches him intently.
“Is this satisfying your sentimentality?”
“Teyvat has changed so much,” Venti says softly. “You and I are the only ones left who remember. I just wanted to see something familiar.”
Zhongli says nothing for a moment.
“I am glad to be that for you.”
Venti brightens, letting a wide smile chase away whatever expression had been darkening his face a moment ago. He releases Zhongli’s hands.
“You should come visit Dvalin sometime, you know,” he says. “I’m sure he’d be pleased to see another old dragon.”
Zhongli huffs a laugh and begins with fishing his gloves out of his pocket and slipping them back onto his hands.
“Is that so?”
“It is.”
“You should meet with Xiao more often. I think it would be good for him.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Not too often, though. You’re a terrible influence.”
“You’re a horrible friend, you know that?”
Zhongli laughs.
“Come, I’ll walk you back towards the wharf.”
Zhongli points things out as they go, giving a prolonged explanation of every little thing that catches his eye. Some of it Venti has heard a thousand times over, but some is new. Zhongli points out the office of the lawyer girl who is half adeptus, points out new designs hung in shop windows depicting the battle against Osial led by adepti and humans both, gives little smiles whenever he sees incense burning for the late Geo lord dusting ash on doorsteps. It’s nice, the comforting familiarity of Rex Lapis’ usual old tales mixed with the new.
Venti might have needed this trip more than he first thought, he realises. If the people here, so used to the watchful eyes of an old dragon, can thrive without their archon, then there is no doubt Mondstadt will be alright.
He lets the smell of salt and fireworks wash over him, lets the light of lanterns settle on his skin, and he feels happy.
Zhongli stops at the wharf, gesturing a hand out towards the sea in silent invitation. Venti smiles, and he feels the fondness in his own face despite himself.
“It was good to meet with you like this. I’ll be seeing you, Mr Zhongli.”
He gets a smile and a nod in response. “And I you, Venti the bard.”
With a last look back, just so he can catalogue the way Morax’s expression goes soft as he turns his face up to the lights with a proud sort of lilt to his smile, Barbatos turns and makes for the docks.