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If asked, there were many words in the dictionary Diluc could use to describe Mondstadt.
Kind – for their leniency in their own shortcomings and people who did not deserve it.
Careless – in both ways.
Free – perhaps too free, that they’ve forgotten how it came to be.
And finally,
Pathetic.
“The Abyss is wounded, and they’re gathering resources still,” reported the cloaked figure behind him, head bowed beneath their hood. “It is unlikely they will infiltrate the city tonight.”
Sitting cross-legged on his leather couch, Diluc hardly looked up from his novel, cheek resting on his right palm. “Is that so?” he said absentmindedly, unsurprised by the information. He was there himself, after all, with the roaring adrenaline that’d yet to fade from his veins. It was one of the Abyss’ grandest attempts for sure; but like all the others, it was doomed to fail.
The Agent swallowed, their haggard breaths piercing in the quiet shadows. “Yes, My Lord,” he croaked, forcing calmness into their haggard tone. On another day, Diluc would’ve had him dragged out for his incompetence, but he was feeling rather merciful tonight. “H-However, with Stormterror defeated, the Fatui has no more leverage against the knights.”
Diluc snapped his book shut, haunting red eyes reaching the old Grandfather’s Clock ticking away at the corner of the room.
11:57p.m., read the copper hands on the clock.
With a hand supporting himself on the couch, he rose to his feet, waving the leather-bound book in front of the cloaked man. “Amuse me, Agent. Are you a fan of literature?”
The Agent fell silent, presumably taken aback, before responding with an uncertain, “No, I’m afraid not, My Lord.”
The corner of Diluc’s lip twitched. “It’s up to me to enlighten you, I suppose.” With a precise flick of his wrist, the book flew through the air in a clean arc, before falling into the waiting hands of the Pyro Agent.
With clammy hands under his glove, the Agent raised the book to the moonlight, recognizing Mondstadtian embedded in gold print at the very front.
“‘The Little Mermaid,’” Diluc translated aloud, staring into the dying embers of his fireplace. A single glowing red eye watched from the darkness above. “A fairy tale most parents in tell their to their children every night.”
The Agent didn’t speak, keeping his head hanging low and the book close to his chest.
“Did you know that there’s two endings to this fairytale?” Diluc raised his arm. A black raven hopped down seemingly from the shadows, perching onto his guarded forearm. “Most versions that the young ones hear nowadays is doctored, if only to protect their innocence from this cruel world.” The bird croaked once, spreading its wings as it obediently thrust its leg out, revealing a tied note on its limbs.
“It says that the Little Mermaid regains both her prince and voice, where true love prevails in the end.”
After untying the note, the raven burst into a torrent of black flames, possessing the dying fireplace to light it ablaze, the embers now burning a dark, unnatural red.
“A lovely ending, wouldn’t you agree?”
He opened the note. On the crumpled, smudged surface had written only one word:
Witch
Diluc turned on his heels sharpy, surprising the agent where he stood. “The Eighth approaches.” He balled the note in his fist. “There is a message I need you to pass along.”
The Agent nodded, clenching his teeth.
“Before you go, Agent.”
The Agent paused, halfway towards the open window. He turned, hesitant to bow down, noticing the red-haired man had already reseated himself back into his couch.
“Do you know how the original tale ended?”
“No, My Lord.”
A dry laugh. “Why don’t you look for yourself, Agent?” he mused. “Surely, even you are capable of that much.”
The Agent peered at the book, which now laid on the table by the windowsill. With some reluctance, he opened the covers, cautiously flipping the pages to the very end. It was filled with lines and lines of a foreign language, yet the illustrations conveyed the setting and tone of the story in spite of its minimal strokes.
When he reached the very end of the book, only one single illustration remained, with a sentence below it. It depicted a young girl with her head in her hands, tears streaming down her face as she dissolved into the waves, willingly walking towards her inevitable fate.
“‘Heartbroken, she ignored her sisters’ cries, and turned into foam,’” Diluc recited, as if he was capable of reading minds. “She sacrificed her voice for the man she loved, only to receive betrayal at the very end.”
“M-My Lord?”
“This is the price for her own foolishness – the product of her boundless freedom,” he continued. The Agent had an inkling that he was no longer talking about the fairy tale in his hands. “It teaches a more fitting moral, don’t you think?”
After a moment of silence, the redhead waved a hand, finally dismissing the poor Agent from his presence. The Agent bowed, before melting into his own shadow, and a mere second later it was like he had never been there to begin with.
The curtains in his room swayed to the chilling breeze, the cinders in his firewood finally dying out.
With a sigh, Diluc rose to his feet and approached his window. A wonderful sight of Mondstadt’s city greeted him in the gentle night, his vine leaves rustling in the wind. The Statue of the Seven stood quietly from afar, unbothered by the sudden drop in temperature.
Mondstadt’s winds were never this cold.
His black raven squawked once behind him, perched on his seat’s backrest after materializing from nothing. Then it kept quiet, sitting as still as a statue.
Diluc scoffed. He then closed the windows, knowing deep in his heart that cold winds were going to be the least of his concerns.
Venti showed up in the bar the next day, chipper as ever. However, rather than strumming his lyre for the drunken crowd, he hogged the furthermost barstool at the corner, shirking away from prying ears.
Diluc and the bard locked eyes the moment the Archon walked in, not a single word exchanged between them, because there was nothing to be said.
Instead, he uncorked a bottle of their oldest Dandelion wine, poured it in a glass and indulged the bard. To neither of their surprises, Diluc didn’t put the bottle away, and Venti didn’t so much as glance at the free alcohol.
“Tell me,” he spoke, looking straight into Diluc’s eyes, like he could look through this mockery of a masquerade and see his true nature underneath. “Do you feel anything for Mondstadt?” On his youthful face harbored centuries and centuries of wisdom, pooled and coagulated in his eyes. There was no hiding from a being who witnessed every single brick being put into place since the beginning of time. “Anything at all?”
Diluc set the bottle on the counter. Without hesitation, he answered, “Of course.” He breathed out from his nose. “It is my home.”
“And you will always be a child of freedom.” Sometimes, the title felt more of a curse rather than a blessing.
The Ragnvindr didn’t answer, effectively ending the conversation. Though the night went on as usual with Diluc tending to the patrons behind the bar, he still felt Venti’s gaze lingering on him, unrelenting. Every time Diluc snuck a glance over his shoulder, he failed to catch Venti in the act, so he could only chalk it up to his own paranoia, or Venti had that good of an intuition.
He wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.
Frankly, he still wouldn’t be, if Venti had known of his true alliance since the very start. Venti’s wordings were cryptic at best, nonsensical at worst. If it were true, and Venti had been in the know throughout, there was no reason for him to play along in Diluc’s whims and even revealed his godly status to him.
When the last customer left the Angel’s Share, Diluc stretched his limbs and returned to the counter, only to find an empty bar. The drink was still full on the counter, untouched and pristine as the time he poured it.
Sighing and grumbling ‘what a waste of wine’, he moved to clean the mess up, only to stop in his feet when from behind him, Venti said, “I’m sorry.”
Diluc turned. Venti was sitting on the bard’s stool, a seat typically reserved for Six-Fingered José. He’d moved it to the front, where they were face-to-face and uncomfortably close.
There was no drunkenness, amusement or even mischief on the god’s face. The only thing that was layered heavily in his expression was sobriety and somberness.
Diluc’s mouth felt like lead. Speaking was a monumental task, where his lips refused to open and his tongue tasted like sand.
“… what?” he rasped. “What did you just say?”
Venti didn’t blink. “Five hundred years ago, one of my children lost her lover in an Abyssal raid. Consumed with vengeance and grief, she set her blood ablaze to burn the monsters who stole him from her.” He closed his eyes. “She drove back the Abyss, but instead of showing gratitude, her villagers cast her aside in fear of what she had become. She fled Mondstadt, where the Tsaritsa took pity on her crippled soul.”
The lump in Diluc’s throat was difficult to swallow. Maybe he would never be capable of swallowing it – not now, not ever.
Venti opened his eyes again, staring straight into Diluc’s soul. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”
“Signora was from Mondstadt?” Diluc asked in lieu of an answer. “A child of freedom.”
“Ironic as it may be, one of the reasons why Mond remains so unbothered is because of her sacrifice,” Venti agreed indirectly. “The price that Mond needed for a tomorrow without tears, she paid in full.”
Diluc drew in a sharp breath. “Just like Venessa.”
“Just like you.”
The Harbinger stilled.
“As the God of Freedom, I cannot interfere with my people’s destinies,” Venti said. “I’m not like Morax or Buer, who guides their people indiscriminately; or Ei and Baal, who lead their people with an iron fist. If I do, that’s not really freedom, is it?”
“Venti,” Diluc snapped through gritted teeth. “What are you trying to say?”
For the first time that night, a ghost of a smile graced Venti’s lips, his braids falling down his shoulders as he tilted his head, like he was someone’s sweet little child on their best behavior when they had guests over. The truth was so, so detached from that foolish fantasy.
“The path you walk is lonesome and treacherous, where only a select few came before you.” Venti stood from the stool. He waved his hand, and suddenly the wine glass that had been sitting abandoned on the counter appeared in his palms. “Venessa chose to found the Knights of Favonius while Rosalyne found solace in the Land of Snow. Where will your choices and destiny take you, I wonder?”
He downed the glass in one gulp. With another flick of his finger, the empty glass was now in the sink, put away and ready to be washed. In its absence was the entire bottle, uncorked for him to shamelessly indulge in.
“Venessa had you,” Diluc argued, mouth dry as a desert. “She had your guidance.”
Venti chuckled. “Not as Barbatos, she didn’t,” he retorted. “At first she only knew me as Venti, the bard. And all Venti did was give her an incentive to look beyond the shackles she trapped herself in.”
“What abo—”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Venti took a swig of his Dandelion wine. “I never left.”
Diluc simply stared at him, a million questions flooding his mind.
It was all answered by a, “It’s your destiny, Diluc. Freedom is seized, not given.”