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The years crust with a ruthless pace. Venti was slowly losing his thoughts, his memories. One of the curses of living so long is that you never really get to remember it all, no matter how much you wish you could. Living for thousands of years did nothing but bring back blurry afterthoughts, bring flashbacks to times he had thought he lost. He was losing it, over time, he knew.
You can't simply go for thousands of years without sleep, without yearning for a release, for a break, for a few years of rest, nothing more than that and nothing less. He knows deep in his heart that’s why he drinks, he thinks others realise that as well, it’s not that he can’t function without alcohol in his system, but he’d rather choose not to, he likes the effect of not remembering what he did yesterday, not knowing why he regained his senses in a strange place, just have a moment of numbness, of feeling nothing at all, no thoughts in his head that he could recall the next day.
Venti knows he’s lived far longer than a person, or even a god should have, he’s seen too much, felt too much, lived through so many periods of violence and loss, only to experience it again, after a few centuries have passed.
Zhongli, or Rex Lapis, if you look from Ventis point of you, he's never been able to see the man as anything other than the only other god who’s lived long enough to know the toll history takes on ones soul and mind, the other archon always muses about those who share the memory, those who've lived in the fairytales that children are told at bed time, but Venti would always dismiss him, he would be preoccupied with causing some ruckus or sneaking away to enjoy some free time. He never had the heart to tell him, he barely remembered being alive for those first few centuries, let alone enough to have stories to share. He was a broken archon in that sense, too old to still be so unwise, so reckless with his time, but he was a god of freedom, if there was anyone who had the excuse to waste his own time and ignore his duties it was him.
His people didn’t need him, he knew that, and he had resigned himself to that knowledge, accepted it, his land didn’t need a ruler, they needed to forge their own paths, they needed to find themselves, by their own volition. The only thing Venti could provide them was the security in the knowledge that he would protect them, if the time came, that he wouldn’t abandon them in the time of need, and even that promise he wasn’t sure how long he would be able to keep. Even that was out of his knowledge and capability. He felt like a false god, like a child who had never abandoned his shell, who had kept running away from their homes, and making excuses.
Venti often thought about what the world looked like before he became a part of it, what the land looked like, how different were humans back then, how different were the adepti, even Celestia itself.
Venti had seen what the destruction of the biggest human achievement looked like, he had seen how the greatest of mankind's creations had been destroyed, he had gathered more blood on his hands, he had failed, yet again. He saw how a curse was placed upon Khaenriahs people, he saw the hatred that was placed in the eyes of those around him. And he spent years locked behind a facade, unreachable even to those who wished to speak to him, even to those who felt remorse.
Venti knew what mindless violence meant, he had been in the archon war, he had more blood on his hands than anyone, besides Morax, besides the only other god who had participated in that particular slaughter. Venti wasn’t an idiot, he knew the damage he had cost to so many around him, he knew the unspeakable things he had done, how he would probably do it again, if push ever came to shove, because despite wanting to drown his sorrows in the bottom of barrels, bottles and glasses, he wasn’t ready to die yet.
Venti was just tired, mostly of himself, mostly of history. Of the people praising the wars he lived in as the foundation for the relative peace they can enjoy now, not realising that those people in history had a life as well. Khaenriahs people were anything but miserable before warfare was involved. Venti knew that the blood on his hands was nothing but the evidence of violence he was capable of, it represented anything but growth, it looked like the sins he tried to drown in dandelion wine and the misery that came with being the one to live.
Even the name he has tied to himself, intertwined with fate now that he lived among people was just a disguise to hide his real identity, to cower away, to not be atoned for his wrongdoing. He chose the name because it represented the wind but also because it was his escape, his way of becoming someone else, even if only around others and not to the World itself. Celestia be damned he was so tired of being himself and having no memories of being something more gentle and calm. He was always the chaotic one out of the seven, the one who acted without remorse, he barely felt guilt when he was young. Rex Lapis might have been known for his brutality, for his lack of hesitation, how he never heard anyone out during the War. He was known for his power, his lack of restraint, his strength.
But Venti was the one who got away, with none of the repercussions and tainted reputations, but he was the one who abused his image the most, who acted dumb and unknowing, like he wasn’t the one who had shot so many, causing so much collateral damage. Like he wasn’t a god who got his place among the seven by no less pretty means than Morax himself. Those who fight the same wars, have the same names, but his people like hiding under pretences of Barbatos, of the god of freedom who did nothing but give his people free will and a safe haven, like the ground they stand on wasn’t forged by blood, like they weren’t using their current satisfaction as an excuse to not pry into the darker side of the past.
No, Venti was a god, and he would atone for his sins, when the time came, he couldn’t die in good conscience without letting the world know of the wrongdoing he has done to mankind. Besides destroying half of their history, he played a part in so many people's pain currently. Venti would be waiting for his last day to come, he was losing his memories, he was losing himself in the past. He didn’t want to die, wasn’t that good of a person for that kind of thought, no he would wait it out, for Celestia to have to make do with him.
He knew there wasn’t much left to Barbatos, he had lost the strength and lost his youthful vigilance, no longer having the patience for fighting and maintaining his power, he was exhausted, he drank too much to have a solid grip on anything going on around him, relied too much on those close to him. Sometimes he found himself praying, to what he wasn’t sure, and wasn’t that just absurd, a God looking for guidance to make sense of this world and his future. He wasn’t one for destiny, but he had come to recognise it in the stories he had seen unfold in front of his eyes, he had come to recognise it in past friends and the soldiers he had seen in battlefields. He knew what faith looked like, knew that destiny was ringing at his door, waiting for him to come home. So many before him, hopefully many afterwards. There were only two of them left now, anyways, all the other archons dead, replaced or simply vanishing as the years went by.
He hoped Rex Lapis kept good company, that he was content with being alone, Venti wasn’t worried about him, they weren’t much of friends anyways, their past often too painful to revisit and tainted by their own prejudices, and the future too riddled with unknowns and variables, all of that to say, even if they would have known how to confide in each other, it wouldn’t have worked out the way most would think, but he knew that already, was content in his knowledge that the other wouldn’t miss him much. It was for the better, for both of them.
He felt apologetic though, not to the other archon, but to an adeptus, to no other than the conqueror of demons, adeptus Xiao himself. He wish he could have promised the other to stay by his side for longer, he wished that he could save him again, if the situation ever rose again, but even he wasn’t strong enough to mess with faith, even he couldn’t make a promise like that. He knew the other would understand, Venti knew Xiao had resigned himself to losing everyone close to him, he wishes it wasn’t so true. He had cared for him, had loved him if that was ever a possibility for a creature like him, he wanted to be there for him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that he deserved so much more than the half-life he was barely living. In another world he would have promised him peace, he would have given him prosperity, a way out of his karmic dept, a way out of his misery. But that wasn’t in his abilities, and it wasn’t something he could give him now. Venti hopes that Xiao will forgive him, for being the first to die, to say amends, that Xiao would forgive him for having to outgrow him. That he would find a life, even if he wasn’t in it.
Venti knew it was time, he had known for a while. He didn’t really want to die, wasn’t ready to leave everything behind, but he knew, somewhere deep in his heart, that he had lived enough, had enough chances to make up for everything else. So he wasn’t really happy, but maybe, just maybe, he could be content with the knowledge that he had tried, and that the world would be just a little less sparkly and devoid of written bard tunes without him. That he had made a mark, for a few thousand years, and that he had to be okay with that. His life had to be enough, if not for himself, than maybe at least for others.
He could rest now. Knowing he made his peace with the world.