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Varka isn’t sure how long he’s there, in that white space.
It takes forever just to start seeing something, ages of dragging himself forward by the claymore and hoping his plan wasn’t to waste. He would hate for everyone to have used up their ink and paper for him not to even come back home.
When he was younger, and Diluc and Kaeya were even younger, and their father still took time to paint, he would sometimes ramble to Varka about things the man couldn’t possibly understand: things like color theory, composition, balance and contrast… If his memory serves him right, he must’ve learned from Crepus that theoretically, naturally, all this white should be blinding to the eye.
But he can see his sword, and himself when he looks down, in perfect color. It doesn’t bode well with his crumbling sense of humanity, but he pulls himself up anyway.
After seconds, or years, he finally starts to see things. Hear things. His beloved people, his kids, his knights, all waiting for him. He knows, logically, that he’s important, but faced with all of those letters raining from the sky and the apparitions that beseech him to return to Mondstadt, it still tugs at his heart strings. Maybe it’s that elderly sentimentality.
Still, even as the sights bolster him, he can’t help but stop again when he sees the swords. Of people he couldn’t help then, and couldn’t now, but yet still gave him their longing, their images, their strength. Of people who are gone and will be forgotten, too, one day, once time washes them away. They don’t get to see the flowers of their homeland, or taste sweet wine anymore, so he pours one out for them. Takes his own sip, too, before he delivers his letter.
He doesn’t stay long after delivery. He knows firsthand how awkward it can be when you’re trying not to get emotional over a letter and the courier continues to stand there, watching you. Instead, he walks forward some more, and sighs deeply. He’s always prone to taking a quick nap when eyes aren’t on him. Sleeping is a weakness when no one’s there to watch your back, especially on an expedition like this, but he’s a light sleeper, so there’s no issue to it. It gets him in trouble when he has stuff to tend to, but it’s not like there’s anyone who can truly reprimand a Grand Master—besides their Archon, maybe, who has always been one for taking a few minutes or decades of shut-eye of his own.
Well… and another Grand Master, perhaps, which is why Jean is so effective. Or it may be because of her resemblance to Frederica, who would sooner hit him over the head than give him a time-out. A few notable events involved her dragging him back to camp by the ear, much to the horror of everyone involved.
Just thinking about these memories and the details of his very long life makes him tired. If he didn’t know better, he’d say his life was flashing before his eyes. Albeit very slowly.
He’s leaned back against his sword, somehow able to be stabbed into the ground even in a liminal space such as this, and his eyes are closed. He can’t stay long, not when he has a home to be back to, but…
“Varka!” A familiar voice sing-songs. “Wake up! You have someone very important here!”
He yawns to hide the grin threatening to pop up, instead playing it up as he tiredly mumbles, “…the Traveler?”
He blinks his eyes open to stare up at Venti’s unimpressed stare, and his first thought is about how normal his clothes look. He’s just in his normal green bard getup, but something tells Varka he would look much more natural in a setting like this while in his godly form. In his citizen attire, he looks like some sort of trespasser. Varka supposes it can’t be too different from what he must look like, though.
“No, me!” Venti smiles wide as he leans into Varka’s space, thoroughly blocking the blinding-not-blinding light out. “Though, they’re quite worried as well. Says you told them quite a concerning plan!”
Varka does sigh at that, albeit fondly. Venti was hesitant about this plan, too, at the beginning. Something must’ve convinced him, though, whether it be Varka’s own resolve or something that old wolf said. They’re not keen on letting their children run headfirst into mortal danger, both Barbatos and Andrius, but freedom comes first anyhow.
Venti doesn’t hold out a hand to help him up, despite the fact that Varka knows he can. The bard might be small, but one too many nights at the tavern and a couple close calls in the great outdoors had shown that the stick arms are for show, or the wind helps him out with even the most mundane. So, Varka stands up from his nap in all of his old-man glory, grunting like his father used to.
“What are you doing here?” He decides to ask, once it’s clear Venti is just going to stare up at him with his typical I know simultaneously nothing and everything smile. “Did my heart finally give out after all?”
Venti rolls his eyes dramatically, as if the very notion was absurd. “No, of course not. You were taking your sweet time, though, so I figured I’d give you a shortcut! You know, if you didn’t want to ride home on Dvalin, you could’ve just said so instead of wandering around here in circles.”
Varka frowns, looking around. “I’ve been… wandering in circles?”
“Metaphorically,” Venti says, which explains nothing. Then, he gestures behind Varka, to the lone sword in the distance. It’s glowing with what seems to be Anemo energy. “I’m not quite sure what power or spirit is associated with that sword, if the true Roland is dead or alive—not after his associations with the Abyss—but whatever it is, it was a great help. Led me straight to you! It's too easy to get lost here.”
He then abruptly spins around and starts walking, so Varka is quick to follow. He’s quite fast, for someone with little legs. “I would’ve gotten lost?”
“Oh, no, you would’ve found your way out eventually. It’s not your time yet.” Venti hums. “But, like I said, you were taking your sweet time.”
“I got distracted,” Varka admits, giving a sheepish smile. “But it was for good reason.”
Venti hums once more, this time noncommittal. He’s always been careful with his words, much more than people think, and Varka knows he’s not going to assure him on what is good or bad. He is not upset, though, still smiling along.
Varka thinks they’re going straight. He doesn’t really feel his body turn. He supposes Venti would know better, though. “Hey… where is this, anyway?”
There’s a long silence as Venti seemingly thinks of what to say. Usually, he’s quite expressive—or, good at acting like it, anyway—and somewhat fidgety, flighty. Here, he does nothing but walk with his hands held together behind him. His smile is gone, but not in a concerning way. He’s looking ahead with a perfectly neutral expression.
“This place isn’t really a place. Not a concrete one, anyway,” Venti finally decides on after a moment. “It’s difficult to explain. I guess you would call it the Ley Lines, or a bridge to it.”
“So, in the end, I did kind of dissolve into the Ley Lines,” Varka says cheerfully.
Venti shoots him an equally cheerful smile, but his eyebrows are drawn together in a way that could be reprimanding. It’s something his mother used to do, when she was technically supposed to disapprove of his words or troublemaking but entertained by it all the same.
“You didn’t dissolve, did you?” Venti leans over to knock into Varka’s arm, doing absolutely nothing in terms of unsteadying him. “Nope, still here.”
There’s another stretch of silence. Both of them are experts at filling silence with their loud, boisterous everything, but Varka is tired and Venti seems content just to hum tunes.
“How long have I been here?” Varka asks eventually. “Enough that you decided you had to come get me?”
“About a day or so.” Venti tilts his hand back and forth. “We expected the whole thing to take a while, I know, but people would not stop asking me where you were! As if I knew.” He huffs, shaking his head.
“You did know,” Varka points out, just to be annoying.
“I knew where you were, not why you were still here.” Venti knocks into him again, this time a little more forcefully. “Turns out all you have to do to distract the great Knight of Boreas is show him a few shiny swords!”
Varka laughs. It’s not as energetic as it would be, but a laugh nonetheless. “Hey, that’s how I got here in the first place, isn’t it?”
“At the barest bones of it all, I suppose.” Venti sighs. “I heard from the Traveler you were quite taken with a man that collects shiny things as well. Like meets like?”
“Are you trying to get gossip from me in the middle of Ley Line Limbo?” Varka asks, partly in actual disbelief and partly trying to distract.
Venti laughs this time, loud and gleeful, all but throwing his head back. “Ley Line Limbo! I’m telling that one to the others at the next Archon get-together.” Before Varka can ask what the hell Archon get-togethers entail, Venti is composing himself to continue. “Technically not gossiping. Like I told them, the wind hears all! It’s just better to get it right from the horse’s mouth.”
Varka thinks of his Cavalry Captain, and shudders. “Kaeya is going to be quite upset that I skipped out on horseback and left them all in Nod-Krai.”
“I’d worry about Diluc, as well,” Venti says quietly, as if the redhead could pop out at any moment. With whatever Diluc does in his free time, Varka can’t say he would be too surprised. “Last I heard, he was asking Lohen if Alfonsina was doing well.”
She was, and thank goodness for that. Varka couldn’t imagine coming home and telling Diluc that his favorite horse when he was Captain had been lost or passed away on the expedition. She was getting up there in years, but like her previous rider, she was not eager to be sitting around while everyone else got in on the action. Diluc must’ve taught her how to understand human speech or something, because she is far too knowledgeable of when she’s about to get left behind. Kaeya was the only one who could soothe her when Diluc had left, and now the duty usually falls to the younger knights, who she is far much more lenient and careful with.
Varka doesn’t realize he’s going on and on out loud until he stops, and he sighs at his own sluggishness. His head is getting away from him. “Are you sure I can’t sit down and take another nap?”
“Positive,” Venti says with zero empathy. “The more tired you feel means the closer we are!”
“How does that even work,” Varka grumbles, but he’s long used to the Anemo Archon’s cryptic words.
He’s not expecting Venti to actually answer him, but he does. “As you get further from your little brush with godhood and the otherness of the Ley Lines, you assimilate back into humanity. So you feel human things, like tiredness.”
“I’d hardly call tiredness a human thing when you’re the one who sleeps nonstop for years.” Varka elbows him this time. He has to restrain his strength much more than usual with Venti, whose bones must be hollow or something. Even with only a slight push, Venti tips over like an empty glass.
He quickly rights himself, not without giving a look to Varka. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you to respect your elders? Of course I need more sleep, I’m ancient!”
Varka is reminded of the group meetings back when Rerir was a problem. It was a strange experience overall, and it feels so long ago what with The Doctor’s antics, but one moment sticks out to him: standing in a room full of immortals alike, yet looking the oldest. Dainsleif looked like he could be the same age or even younger than Kaeya, and it certainly hadn’t helped the paternal instinct any. All Varka could think about was how young he must’ve been when his brother and closest friends betrayed him, his homeland felled.
Albedo and Durin were easier to get used to, since Durin was technically still of a child’s mind, and Varka had long treated Albedo as one of his own kids at the insistence of Alice. Then he’d see them speaking to Columbina, an aged goddess of the moon yet wondering about portrait painting. Then Flins, the fae, and whatever enigma the Traveler was.
Varka had asked Venti once, not long after meeting him, why he chose a form so young. “If it bothers you to be restricted from bars and the like, why don’t you just appear older? Can’t gods do that?”
Venti had gone silent and neutral, but hummed thoughtfully. He had tilted his head and stared at something unseen, considering for a long time before eventually settling on his words.
“The original, true reason is something sad and sentimental of me,” Venti had said. “But, when you really think about it, youth is the epitome of freedom. Those who aren’t shackled by things like jobs, relationships, or finances.” He huffed a slight laugh, then. “Trust me, if I had it my way, Mora wouldn’t exist at all!”
Then, in a solemn way that Varka had never seen before from Venti at that point, he had turned and stared into Varka’s eyes. “Enjoy your youth, Varka. You’ll miss it once it’s gone.”
Does Varka miss his youth? Maybe. He wasn’t a stranger to back pain in his childhood, always up to trouble and injuring himself in a variety of ways. He never took the fairytales seriously, always comparing them to reality and focusing on the history instead, even as young as he was. He could say he misses being smaller so he was harder to find in situations of stealth, but he handles brute force much easier.
He misses his parents, and people like Valentine. But then again, they were part of his adulthood just as well, so perhaps that’s not a limited factor. In his youth, though, Crepus’s children were not yet born and Seamus had only just come to Mondstadt. In his youth, Rosaria and Razor and Noelle did not yet exist, nor did plenty of his other youngest wards. In his youth, he had not taken a glimpse into the spyglass yet and lived in ignorance of the danger breeding. In his youth, Eroch breathed over the Knights’ shoulders and ridiculed him for the slightest move.
“I don’t think I miss my youth all that much,” Varka blurts out. It’s then that he registers how quiet it’s been, even more so when Venti just stares at him confusedly. Right, even though he certainly acted like it sometimes, he could not read Varka’s mind.
A wry smile springs up after Venti gets over the initial surprise, though, shaking his head in a way that could be fond. “I would say wait until you’re older than your fourties…” Venti says, then he sighs. “But people like you, Varka, are always young at heart.”
Varka snorts. “I can’t really tell if that’s meant to insult me or not.”
“Coming from someone like Diluc, or Jean… probably.” Venti giggles. “But, to me, it’s quite a good thing.
“Children are free, unburdened by the struggles most adults face in mortal life. They are curious, and don’t stop learning even when they think they know it all. They ask questions that sometimes philosophers do not think of: the why and how of fairytales, or the why and how of the world itself. They are true to themselves, and most do not even consider how to lie or cheat until they are older. Your curiosity brought you to take a peek into the scryglass, to wake the sleeping god in the temple, to fight the wolf spirit for four days. Wouldn’t you say those were good things, in the long run?”
Varka doesn’t give an answer, simply because they both know what it would be.
“Immortals and gods do not experience childhood like humans do,” Venti continues on, voice soft and deliberately neutral. “Wind spirits like myself might be different, what with our knack for mischief and all, but… being immortal or a god doesn’t necessarily mean being stronger. Most of us lack the guiding hand of parents, the home environment that shapes our moral compass. Some lack an environment at all, choosing to watch from afar and reaching conclusions from there, no matter how wrong.
“Some lack the teaching of a master, and instead learn on their own. They may lack lethargy, and therefore do not know their own limits and weaknesses. Some know their weaknesses, but choose not to accept it. Some may not know the sweet wine of Mondstadt, or the lilies that grow in Liyue, because they lack the human senses of taste and smell. Some may not know love, because it is not in their nature.”
There’s a long bout of silence as Varka considers Venti’s words. It’s rare that he goes into a tangent like this, and he knows that Venti is sharing something vulnerable in one way or another.
“That is why Boreas did what he did,” Venti says, and his voice is surprisingly quiet. He sounds sad, almost, or more like… resigned. “Humanity is, at its essence, stronger than a lot of gods. Physical strength is not the only feat one can have. Strength of the heart is important, too.” He sighs, and the air in this place seems to move with him. Does that mean they’re getting closer?
“You understand on a personal level,” Varka says, and it’s not a question. The slower movement of his, the emotion, all of it. Venti knows.
“Of course I do,” he laughs. “I roam with humans all the time! You all show me strength everyday. I understand completely why Boreas would give himself to you all.”
Venti slowly comes to a stop, and Varka follows suit. He’s exhausted. He hopes no one is expecting him to get to paperwork anytime soon, because he’s going to be sleeping for another full day after he gets out of here. All of his mental energy right now is being used to parse out Venti’s words, which he supposes is probably intentional; Venti never shows vulnerability in a true way until someone is inebriated or tired, likely to forget later or not entirely understand. Varka would know. He’s his drinking buddy.
Venti turns to face him, face much more expressive and cheerful than before. “Ready to go back?”
“Always,” Varka sighs out. “Ready to go back to my own bed.”
“Naturally.” Venti nods seriously. “Everyone’s waiting to see you, though!”
Varka sighs again, but this time he feels a smile stretching into it. He needs to see if Noelle’s gotten any taller, if Rosaria had cut her hair since last he saw her, how much Razor had learned from Lisa, how his three noble ducklings are doing. “Yeah, me too.”
Venti holds out his hands, waiting patiently. Varka can’t stop himself from wondering, though. And he had just said his curiosity was his strongest suit…
“Would you do that too?” He blurts out. “If you were in a situation like Boreas. Would you give yourself to humanity like that?”
His question seems to surprise Venti, at least a little. He blinks up at him owlishly, before a sad smile slowly grows on his face. He waves his hands, as if beckoning, and Varka slowly reaches up to let Venti take his hands. He’s still baffled by how small his form is—it’s like holding hands with Razor.
Venti then does something odd. He laughs, but not the loud and energetic laugh he usually has. It’s something soft and ironic, like he’s in on a joke that no one else is.
“Oh, dear Varka,” Venti says, shaking his head like he’s correcting a child. “I already have.”
Varka blinks—
—his eyes open, and he is finally in Mondstadt.
Home.