Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

If there is one thing that Dahlia loves the most about the Windblume Festival, it’s the sheer amount of gossip he can find. Nearly every soul in the City running around, their hands full with attempts to confess, or towering high gifts, or bundles of gratitudes? A gold mine, truly! Why, there’s nothing quite like perching atop a ledge to watch how Timaeus fiddles about with the newest gift for Ying’er by the crafting table, or how Klee waves down a wide eyed Diona, catching her in a big side-hug as she declares them bestest friends, or how Jean is bombarded by the Knights with little trinkets—Kaeya, Amber and Lisa spending extra time crowding around to show their appreciation of her—and later, slipped a gift by her sister Barbara, who then gasps when Jean pulls out a gift of her own to give to her…

Ahh, truly, he could go on and on! What a shame it is that hardly anyone outright asks for help for the Windblume Festival, he has more than a few pointers that he would gladly give out—he doesn’t spend his time eyeing how people in his choir try and subtly knock their shoulders together for no reason, you know!

But alas, here he is, forced to the sidelines, where he does everything within his power to spin around the looping strings and pull them towards their destined path. While, of course, working on the growing pile of his churchly duties; such as now, where he shuffles through all the lists of flowers that they’re meant to retrieve for the statues of Barbatos strewn about the nation, alongside the particular altar that they’re meant to bring bring out for the large statue situated in front of the Cathedral (one of his favorites to decorate, he must confess).

The clacking of his heels echo across the hall, curling upwards to join the quiet rumbling of his humming—a verse from one of the hymns they did in choir today. He thumbs at the corner crease of the page, lifting it and twisting it over the page that laid beneath it. Windwheel Asters, Daffodils, Cecilias, Ring of Hearts, Poppies, Promise of Blue Skies…

A heavy creak breaks through the tranquil air, followed by the shuffling of shoes, and the muffled call of, “Deacon Dahlia?”

His ears perk up and flick, as he turns his head towards the doorway frame, where the hallway door had been left ajar. Oh?

Rearranging the pages so that they’re all draping over each-other neatly and orderly, he tucks the stack of lists into the crook of his elbow, then makes his way over to the doorway. With one hand clutching onto the wooden frame, he begins to lean his body into the nave, and drags his gaze across the grandeur of the room—where, eventually, he finds a figure standing by one of the pews placed in the far back of the nave. Curly, chestnut hair falls down to her chin, and squared glasses perch upon her nose, donning a buttoned-up cream blouse that’s been paired with an umber brown belt, a long, mauve skirt, and ankle-length buckle boots—he would hazard that she’s one of the few recently moved in from Dornman Port. Agnes, he remembers.

In the very moment that he spots her, she spins around to spot him. Her eyes widen, and she proceeds to take a tentative step closer.

“Deacon Dahlia?”

“At your service,” he reassures. He lets his hand fall away from the wooden frame, and lower towards the door handle, gently closing the door after him when he fully enters into the nave. Once he hears it click, he moves his hand up to offer the woman a wave, and accompanies it with a follow-up of, “What brings you to the Cathedral?”

She all but brightens at this, her boots clacking roughly against the marbled tiles as she hurries over to meet him halfway in the aisle—a sudden, heavy breath leaving her upon coming to a halt right before him. “Well,” she goes on to say, lifting up from the slight hunch she had bent into, while pushing up her glasses with an index finger, “I come with a small request to ask of you. You are Barbatos’ herald, right? I heard all about it from Sister Hannelore.”

“A request?” he repeats, blinking. Through a sheer force of will, he keeps both his ears from rapidly flicking, and his tail from snapping out into a wag. “At this time?”

“I know, I know,” she laughs, rather bashfully, as she flaps her hand around. “But I really wouldn’t be able to do what I planned for without your help.”

He tilts his head. “Do tell?”

“My partner’s a real big fan of Cecilias and Windwheel Asters—one of her favorite flowers, even. But since we barely got any shipment of Cecilias back in the Port, and the walk up to Starsnatch is so... treacherous, really,” Agnes sighs to herself, “I was wondering if I could ask you to escort me to Stormterror’s Lair?”

Storm…?

Oh, he thinks, suppressing a wide grin from forming. Ohoho.

“Well, I’d be glad to, but—” Dahlia crosses his arms across his chest, lightly pressing the stack of lists against the large, pointed ornament stitched onto his capelet. He narrows his eyes and puckers his lips, continuing with, “I’m also quite sure that Flora would be more than happy to assist you?”

“I was gonna ask her about it,” Agnes says, reaching a hand up to scratch absentmindedly at the side of her neck, “planned to get the Cecilia from her, even. But listening to all the gritty details is a lot different than seeing them. I want to get everything right so Leni can have both her flowers to care for. I figured we could pick an Aster and see when it starts wilting from the winds.”

“I see. And why not Starsnatch Cliff, again?”

“Honestly, I’d… rather not go knocking around in that Temple,” she replies, as a sharp shudder goes rippling down her back. She, then, raises both hands to shake them in a placating gesture. “It might be because of all the ghost stories going around in the Port, but I don’t wanna risk anything! Not even if I took the most reliable Knight there was to take on the camps out there!”

Dahlia glances down dubiously at her gesturing. “..Right.”

“And besides—” she claps those hands together, and the sound it causes echoes around the nave, “—Stormterror’s Lair is where the East Wind resides! I’m sure that by now he’s gotten rid of anything nasty stirring up trouble.”

“Of course,” he agrees with a nod, “and would this be where I fit into this?”

“Exactly right! Since you’re the Herald, you can talk with the winds, can’t you? That would be a whole second layer of protection!”

(Distantly, he recalls earlier this morning; how the threads of wind plucked his stoles from where they had been draped over a chair, lifted them up, and twirled the red fabrics around his room while he was busy pulling his vest over his arms and buttoning up the golden pins on the chest. Once he was finished, those stoles flew over to where he had been standing, and whooshed past his head, before creating a small gust as it danced out of the door into the rest of his house.

He had jogged after it, watching it weave and twirl through the stair banisters, then rocket towards the front room. Little spindles of teal bumped into the coat stand situated by the front door, where his hat had been plopped onto the top protruding handle, and gathered underneath said hat to launch it into the stoles grasp. Both objects proceeded to rush back towards him, performing one last elegant twirl in the air, before the hat was gracefully deposited onto his head and the stoles glided across his shoulders.

“Thank you, o Lord,” he announced to the dancing threads, as he pushed pink bangs out from his eyes.)

Decidedly, Dahlia does not bring up how those winds she speaks of would rather play around with him.

“Lord Barbatos would have graced your steps still,” he says, instead. A considering hum escapes from his throat, and he continues, “We would need permission from the East Wind, too—of which I can settle, if need be—so how far are you planning to venture inside?”

“Ah! Right, right,” she hits her palm with a fist, a focused expression upon her face, “at least until that storm barrier? Or wherever the wind blows strongest there. Do you think he’d be okay with that?”

What’s this? Do his ears deceive him? Directly to the Tower…

“That could be arranged, yes,” he tells her, and presses the stack of lists more firmly against his chest, idly tapping a thoughtful finger at his bicep. “Would you allow me a couple of days to get everything sorted?”

“Oh—really? Yeah, no problem at all!”

Dahlia smiles, a glint of light catching on his fangs. “Wonderful.”

Agnes beams right back at him, her grin pushing the lids of her eyes into a happy crease. Faintly, her boots clack against the floor as she prepares to leave. “Amazing, even! That’s so quick! I’ll be helping out in Springvale if you wanna meet, just give me a heads up or anything—you’re being a lifesaver, honestly! Happy Windblume to you!”

“Happy Windblume to you, as well,” Dahlia replies cheerfully, briefly closing his eyes while his smile tugs a centimeter wider, then lowers his arms from his chest to shuffle the lists to one elbow once more. With his hand now free, he raises it to wave her a small goodbye, and a calling, “May the winds bless you!”

She returns the wave enthusiastically, before fully pivoting to face the large doors, where her arm drops back to her side as she makes her way towards the entrance. He watches her go, waiting until those doors have closed behind her in loud creaks, waiting until a solid thunk echoes across the nave, before he acknowledges the threads of teal that have begun to brush against his boots. A single glance down, accompanied by an amused huff, is all the acknowledgment it needs to blow breezes over his ankles.

It follows him out into the hallway—where it continues to whirl around his boots in persistent, little kicking currents—and pauses when he falls to a stop in front of a room. He twists the door handle down, pushing open the door to reveal the streaks of sunlight scattering over an intricate bookshelf, a large desk, the neatly arranged pile of papers laid upon said desk, an ink pot sat next to them, and a cushioned chair, before he slips inside. He hums to himself (picking up from the last verse of the hymn he had been humming before this) as he walks over to the desk, and drags the stack of lists from his arms to place on the empty side.

The threads of teal trail upwards, swooping around his torso, where it then busies itself with flicking breezes at the white, fluffy ruffles threaded into his capelet. Dahlia pays no mind to it, and hauls the chair out from under the desk, then opens the desk’s top drawer to take a handful of paper sheets from it. While he looks over them, his tail sways behind him—swinging back and forth in swift motions—only to twitch mid-swing, and dart to curl across his lap as he takes a seat.

He, first, lays the papers onto the table. Once done, he grabs at the quill resting in the ink pot with his right hand, and positions it over the blank papers. A full sentence has hardly been written when the threads—who had gone strangely still as he moved about—flick at the baby hairs sprouting from his nape, and press down at his hat.

Ending the sentence with a dot, Dahlia maneuvers the quill’s feathers to rest over his thumb as he places his hands flat on the wooden grooves. When he tilts his head up, up, up to the ceiling, what greets him is the jovial expression etched upon Venti’s face—which only grows at the sight of Dahlia’s own expression falling to a half-lidded mirth.

Venti moves the hands that had been gripping onto the hat downward, and tugs the hat to where it was before he pushed down on it. The action results in the strands of hair bouncing up, grazing across Dahlia’s skin as they slowly ease back to how he styled them, which has his ears fluttering.

“So?” He says.

“So?” Venti repeats, crossing his arms over Dahlia’s hat (and making him all too aware that the bard is standing suspended a foot above the floor), that smile fixed on his face.

“If I may be so bold, I do believe our God was listening in on a little conversation.”

“Oohh, is that right? Perhaps He was.”

“Uh-huh,” Dahlia leans back in the chair, and Venti—truly embodying the wind itself—lets his body follow the movement, as he’s swung those few centimeters backwards. “So, then. As the voice of Barbatos, I’d be glad to hear any verdict of His.”

“Well, if I were to speak for Barbatos,” Venti begins, poking his right index finger at his bottom lip. “I do believe a solution could be found for one of your problems.”

“Oh?” He lifts a brow. “I’m all ears.”

“You would not need to worry about the East Wind peeking into your journey if he is not there, would you?” Venti sweeps his hand out in a flourishing gesture, ending it with his palm facing the ceiling. “A most genius idea, I’d said! This can give me time to take him out for celebrations! We haven’t flown together for quite a while, you know, and I admit to being a tad antsy to unfurl my wings besides his own.”

Dahlia laughs; an airy, light thing. “You’d be able to convince him?”

“Aye, ye of little faith,” Venti scoffs, mock offended. “When songs flow to the winds, it stirs even the most powerful of hearts. To say—I think we’re overdue for a duet. I have a place picked out just for us two to hang around.”

The bard’s gaze is brought downwards by the twitching of Dahlia’s ears, and smiles at the expectant, engrossed expression that has graced his face. “Is that so? Sounds exciting,” he prods, the length of his tail laid over his legs lifting up in a rippling motion, before settling down.

Venti regards him with an expression that tells Dahlia he is holding back an amused laugh.

“I’m afraid this—” Venti leans over him, to poke at his nose (which has Dahlia scrunching it up for all of a second), then drops back to where he was standing, “—is not a gossip I can share.”

Slumping his shoulders, Dahlia blows out a disappointed breath. “I had a feeling you would say that,” he mutters.

“It is said that Barbatos takes every Windblume given very seriously,” Venti tells him, giggling that signature ehehe of his, “and I would be remiss to simply give away the details of my Windblume of Friendship. ‘Tis would be a crime!”

“Keep your secrets, then,” Dahlia sighs, drawn out and melancholic. Then, he straightens up from his slump (a faint whoooaa coming from Venti when he does), and taps his index finger against the quill’s tip; lightly enough that it doesn’t flick ink. “So that’s one down. What about the Tower?”

“Right,” Venti’s wide-eyed glee crumbles, and his face wrinkles to a grimace. “The… tower.”

Ah, Dahlia recognizes that tone. All too well, in fact.

“The Tower,” he repeats, nodding. His left ear swivels, and twitches up, towards Venti. “What advice does Lord Barbatos have for this?”

“Haha, well… it depends on when you leave. If you were to finish preparations in, say, three days time—” his body gradually melts into a bright teal light, and condenses into large, spindling threads that drift above the desk in twirling, ribbon-like motions, where a figure stretches out from within the coiling ball to perch upon the very edge of the wood, “—that would leave you with half the week. Four days before the Windblume Festival is set to commence.”

Idly shaking his head (those twin braids of his swishing), the teal drips off of him in clutters of dispersing feathers. Venti then twists to face him—casting a shadow over his eyes as his hair sweeps across—and continues, voice lowered by a pitch and donning a serious tone, “I believe it would be wiser to test at the platforms, rather than the tower itself. You know as well as I that the winds that slumber there are not… particularly forgiving, this time of the year.”

That, meaning; whenever the Windblume Festival comes around for the season, it stirs the buried within Old Mondstadt. As each day passes, and nears closer to the grand opening, the winds surrounding the sunken city seem to wake, dragging themselves to a rumbling crawl. With every new gust that is created, they only grow stronger, hastening, as though the winds were remembering the storm that they once had been—the storm that had once blocked blue skies, the storm that once were witness to blazes and blood, the storm that once suffocated each breath that stood beneath it, the storm that had been forcibly brought down by mortal hands. Not enough that another dome is formed, but enough to stagger you to the ground, and keep you there. Not a problem for a fellow wind (or, in the Traveler’s case, for someone otherworldly), of course, but certainly one for a human.

Dahlia had once asked Venti about it—he could control every current that brushed across Mondstadt’s lands. Venti had, in turn, glanced away, and replied, They always come back.

Dahlia didn’t ask again.

“I imagine that’d cross out just walking up to the entrance,” he finds himself musing, tail thumping.

“Most certainly,” Venti laughs, quietly, and the shadow gradually vanishes, “it would wilt the flower immediately. Perhaps starting from the side may yield better results.”

“Is that so…”

Looking down sideways at the words written on the paper, Dahlia slips his tail off his lap, and slithers it under the loafers being idly kicked into the air. A small noise erupts from the back of Venti’s throat when his tail darts upwards to coil itself around his upper calf—near the bend of his knee—and heaves him closer to where Dahlia sits, while simultaneously pushing the papers off to the side by where the neatly laid pile rests. With a slowly widening grin that bares his fangs, Dahlia drops his elbows atop Venti’s knees, and leans into him, drawling out, “And what other tips and tricks would the Lord bestow me?”

That earns him a scrunched nose, alongside a narrowing of eyes.

“If you are trying to bribe me,” Venti uses two fingers (the index and middle) to pluck the quill from his hand, huffing another thin-bare laugh to himself as he plops it into the ink pot, “then I must admit it is going poorly. Half the fun comes from experiencing the adventure!”

“Boo,” he puffs out, eyes falling half-lidded. Then, they light up, his ears perking alongside them. He flutters his eyelashes at Venti in a coy manner, and folds his hands to settle his chin atop them. “Not even if I add a sweet price?”

Venti jerks his head to the side, sticking his nose up high. “I see no apples around,” he tells Dahlia, mock solemnly, “that would have been your best bet. Tsk, tsk, an amateur mistake, my Herald.”

“Oh, hush, you,” Dahlia laughs, leaning further onto his left hand, so that he can use his right to lazily point up at Venti—wiggling the very tip of his finger, as though chastising. His tail sways beside him, almost giddily. “You say that like I don’t give you baskets of them every time. I might even be able to get you that limited-edition wine fresh and early, hmm?”

The wind surrounding them swirls, then quietly stills. It’s followed by Venti swinging back around to lean down closer to Dahlia, laying his hands over his chest in a sprawl and wrinkling the folds there. His voice is full of faux outcry when he says, “Goodness, just for me? How thou spoil this humble bard, truly!”

“But of course! I mean,” his grin sharpens, “how else is Mondstadt’s most infamous bard meant to wet his lips? Imagine the uproar if I had slacked on my part…”

“How very, very true. It would be a sad day for all,” Venti nods, before he slides a knowing gaze at Dahlia, allowing his head to droop right—braids brushing across the fabric of his blouse—to emphasize the look. Gesturing to the papers that have been pushed away from Dahlia, where the ink of the single sentence left upon the sheet is drying up, Venti hums out an inquiring, “But that’s not the problem at stake, is it?”

“I was going to get to it.” He slips his arms off of Venti’s knees in a huff, to instead, move them towards those papers—shuffling them in front of him, then reaching over to take the quill out of the ink pot. With a lamenting sigh, he twirls the feather between his fingers, and says, “Heavens forbid a man want to make some fun.”

“One can only imagine what more fun you would have in the future,” Venti crows, kicking his feet.

“And yet it seems so far away,” comes his reply, in that same melodramatic tone. He taps his finger at the quill, idly positioning his grip over the parchment to begin the next sentence, writing out the looping letter of a T. “I don’t suppose there is any encouragement to be had in the wait, is there?”

There is a breathy, nearly bemused puffing exhale, only for it to be overtaken by the rustlings of a breeze forming together into the wooden bend of a lyre. A finger plucks at the strings in preparation for a song, eliciting a soft tune to float high into the airs surrounding them, before coming to a halt as Venti drums against the wood. “And, pray tell, whatever could that entail?” He hums, lifting his crossed legs to lean the lyre against his thighs. “I’ll have you know, this shall raise your cost.”

“I’m sure we’d be able to figure something out, no? Perhaps we could add in a pie or two with that limited-edition wine, cinnamon buns, maybe even a jelly and a hymn on top…”

Venti whistles lowly, tipping his body to the side whilst he does so—in a manner that would have had anyone else falling over completely, yet he keeps upright, loafers swinging in the air when he drops back to his previous spot—as he hovers his hand above the strings once more. “Ah, truly, you know just the way to a bard’s heart! Yes, yes, you’ve got yourself a deal, my dear Herald—now go on!”

Dahlia’s shoulders bounce with the laugh that rumbles out from his chest. 

For the next hour and a half, Venti graces him with song after song, while he sits and writes out the correspondences—a letter to Sucrose with a specific request, a note for all inquiries left for him to be placed in a box at his office, and a long discussion piece to Mika for how to mark out the route for where they are to venture. Preferably, he begrudgingly adds, one that lets them pass through areas with the least amount of Hillichurl Camps, or one that doesn’t disturb the Wolvendom forest. Once a final finishing flourish marks the sheet, he stows the quill away into the pot, folds the remaining paper into two, and gingerly tucks it into an envelope that oh so strangely disappears by an equally strangely Anemo-teal colored dove construct.

Reaching his arms up into a stretch, he watches the dove flutter towards the door, where both it and the letter disperse through the slit of it in a burst of teal feathers that serenely float to the floor. They land without nary a sound, sparkling like a starry night sky before steadily fading to nothing—and it is here, that Venti strikes a lingering chord, before transforming the lyre at his side back to the false Vision hung at his waist.

“There’s that done,” Dahlia cheers, his ears fluttering, and tail thumping against the chair legs. “And before sundown, too!”

He sets his hands on the desk, pushes himself up into a stand—

“Ah, wait just a moment.”

A hand gently brushes at Dahlia’s chin, silky-soft frills tickling the skin there. Fingers soon find themself locked around it in a firm grip, coaxing him down to meet a pinning stare—one that has furrowed the brows, tugged the mouth into a slant, and casts a shimmering, overwhelming radiant gleam to the teal pupils of the irises.

“I, of everyone, shall not order a command; the people of Mondstadt are free to choose how and where they walk. But you, my Herald, have listened well to the stories of old,” Barbatos murmurs, “so please, listen to my words now. You mustn’t go more than two days for this. Promise me that.”

Caught by the gaze of his God, what else is Dahlia to do but agree?

Barbatos blinks, and it is Venti who stares back at him, fingers dropping from his chin.

“Good,” he breathes, a small smile forming upon those rosy lips. The wind—that had frozen in the airs—begins to languidly twirl around them, in loose threads of teal; matching how Venti shuffles off the desk to land elegantly onto the floor, and how he twirls on his heel to regal Dahlia with a noticeably more joyous, “Now, you do remember everything you’re treating me to, yes? Because we have a most delectable evening set out for us!”

——

Later, after Venti has gouged himself on the exact banquet Dahlia had promised to lay out for him (and would have been sans the limited-edition wine, since Diluc had been most impassive to his pleas, but that was easily solved with a bit of… borrowing), he ends up smearing a dark red stain on the corner of his lips, where it stretches out over a large portion of his cheek. A mix of both the jellies and the apple pie, if the smell wafting from it is any indication, and Dahlia laughs as the sensation has his nose twitching.

Grabbing at a napkin, he asks, “How did you manage that?”

Holding a hand close to his cheek, Venti replies, a mournful yearning to his words, “The food was very good…”

“I’m certain it was.”

Reaching out, he rubs the napkin against Venti’s cheeks. He leans into the touch, closing his eyes like a cat as Dahlia wipes up the stain, using his thumb to tuck away any of the visible crumbs into the napkin. When he has finished cleaning up half of the stain, Dahlia—thumb lightly pressing into the dip of Venti’s cheek, trying to keep all the crumbs he picked inside of the now stained napkin—receives what could only be the divination of an idea.

Venti blinks his eyes open upon Dahlia pulling his hand away. He watches as Dahlia plops the napkin onto the the table, and reach up again, his thumb extending out—

—to run through the rest of the stain.

He pulls back to lick at the mess on his thumb, and trills quietly in the back of his throat at the taste—is there a way to combine jelly, apples, and spice together? Surely, there must be. He stretches his hand out to repeat the action, only for Venti (who had been gaping at him) to gasp, playfully pushing his hand away.

“I am not your taste-test—!”

“But you taste so sweet!”

“Awful man. I taste sweet all the time, thank you—” an accusing finger is pointed at him. “But besides the point! You deny me saving, you eat the precious crumbs fallen from grace?” He sniffles, leaning against the chair’s back as he crosses his arms across his chest. “The deliciousness I could have reveled in! All lost to my hubris…”

“I don’t know,” Dahlia licks at his thumb again. “I think you could still salvage them.”

“You—you have—audacity!” Venti yelps, mock scandalized. “My crumbs!”

“You’ll lose them if you keep moving around like that.”

“This is blasphemy,” Venti bemoans. He sinks in his seat, forcing the coat of his cape to ride up the back of his nape, before a glint enters his eyes—and he sits up from his slouch, casually as can be, and says conversely, “No, no, I digress. I am sure we can come to a stalemate.”

Dahlia raises a brow at his phrasing. It then quickly dawns on him what the God means when he drags his own finger through the stain, and lurches over to try splattering it on Dahlia’s face—stopped only by the hand that he shoots out to press against the puffy blouse of Venti’s chest.

“Hey, now! I was getting rid of that!”

“And we can get rid of it together! Here, here, lean in a little—”

“Not with those conniving fingers of yours—”

“In the oaths dedicated to Barbatos,” Venti starts to recite, in a tone that is far too solemn for the situation, “it states that one must allow Him to paint their face. As one most dedicated and devoted to Him, surely you recall such words?”

“Oh, really?” Dahlia laughs, pushing Venti an extra inch away, and squawking when the God takes this as a sign to lick his hand instead. He swipes that hand on Venti’s blouse in retaliation, which has him emitting a similar squawk to the one Dahlia had let loose. “Why, I seem to have trouble recalling! Where was that in any of the scriptures?”

“In the very first page,” Venti nods. He slithers a hand past Dahlia’s defense, and manages to smudge a streak of red across his lips. He takes that as a signal to lean back onto the wooden chair in a creak, accompanying it with a triumphant, lilting cheer—cut short by how Dahlia squashes his hand in the apple pie tray, and attempts to do the same back to Venti; the God batting at his hands and crying out (through petering giggles) how very very rude you are!

——

After the letters have been replied to and sent back, the note hand-delivered to Cardinal Seamus’ office, and the arrival of a notice telling him of a device’s completion, Dahlia runs through the City—boots scraping against the stone pathways—to make his way to the entrance gates. He slows his gait when the sight of it comes into view, and smiles to himself seeing the small trio crowded together by one of the tall pillars making up the entrance. There are various bags either held by hands or plopped beside feet next to them, and if he were to swivel his ears, he would be able to make out the excited gushing that Agnes is doing to a mildly bashful Sucrose.

“—you’re seriously a genius, this is perfect! And you made this in just a few days? How does it all work?”

“O-oh… it was simple, really…” Sucrose clears her throat, adjusting her hands on the device in her grasp—a large, cylinder-like glass object that contains a Windwheel Aster potted inside of it, with a metallic bottom and metallic levers on the side (actually, now that he's looking at it, it almost looks like those bug containers he sees some of the kids running around with). She twists one of those levers, opening up the front pane, before twisting another, which unlatches the two holes drilled next to the Windwheel Aster; the petals of the flower beginning to gently sway from the breezes drifting into the device.

“When you release this latch,” she goes on to say, tilting the device in Agnes’ direction, “it allows the wind inside, and condenses it to softer breezes. This will revitalize the flower, so that we won’t have to worry about it wilting permanently.”

There’s a click, and the two holes close up, as well as the glass pane falling to a shut over the Windwheel Aster. She takes a moment to maneuver the device around to show Agnes the side where the levers sit, and points to a white box that displays a black, dotted, gradually fading number of 4.1 that’s been bolted in next to them. “This,” she says, tapping against the display, “will keep measurements of how harsh the winds are.”

“Which would tell us exactly what kind of wind it is that’s too much for the Aster, but just right for a Cecilia…”

“Exactly,” Sucrose nods, her ears lightly flicking against her hair. She eases away (more of a shuffle, honestly) from Agnes, the device faintly clattering as she arranges it firmly in her grasp, the latches clicking once more when she twists them to their original, neutral position.

“Oh, Sucrose,” Agnes starts, clasping her hands in front of her, “you really are amazing!”

“Yeah, it’s really impressive work,” Mika adds in, curiously peering over at the device. Upon noticing how it has Sucrose fidgeting, he snaps his gaze back up to her, leaning backwards to scratch at the back of his neck. “Finding a way to transform the winds… it’s outstanding!”

“This is my field of study,” she mumbles, pressing her fingers against the glass. “I was happy when the Deacon requested assistance for your commission. This could prove indispensable for future experiments!”

Dahlia—picking up his pace to a light jog—figures this would be the best time to step in for a greeting. Raising a hand up, whilst keeping one pressed on the satchel draped across his torso, he calls out, “Yoo-hoo!”

All three of their heads turn to face his voice. Agnes is the the first to light up at the sight of him, bringing her own hand up into a rapid wave, which is followed by the more subdued waving of both Mika and Sucrose. “Deacon! There you are!” She calls back to him, lowering her hand to, instead, give him a questioning look, “I was starting to get worried you wouldn’t show.”

“Oh, nonsense. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“Did everything go okay with the Cathedral?”

“As smooth as butter!” He replies, cheerfully. Deliberately, he does not bring up how he had handed the note to Seamus, and spun around to leave the room without a further explanation—much to the visible confusion of the man. “How about you all? Is everyone prepared?”

Mika bends down to grab at the bag beside his shoes, easily lifting the strap of it over his shoulder. Once he’s finished adjusting it to his liking, he summons a large book into his hands in a burst of glimmering sparkles, pressing it against his chest after they’ve dispersed. “I have the map and supplies right here,” he tells them, flexing his fingers around the bound leather, “it should be—an easy trip there, I promise!”

Behind him, there’s a rustling of fabric, as Sucrose crouches to carefully slip the device into a bag of her own, tying it shut with the thin rope wrapped around the top. “Yes, everything has been accounted for,” she says, clipping the bag onto the left belt of her uniform before standing from the ground, and pausing to push up her glasses, “and Experiment 231 is set for testing.”

Agnes smiles next, patting at her satchel. “I made sure to pack extra snacks in case anyone gets hungry.”

Dahlia claps his hands, grinning widely (and most certainly baring his fangs in the action) at the three of them. So far, this adventure is going delightfully. “Wonderful, wonderful,” he titters, his tail lifting where from it had been hanging above the pathways to swing idly. “Then that just leaves us with the journey ahead of us, doesn’t it?”

He pivots on his heel to face Mika, who squares his shoulders at the attention given to him. Bringing his grin to a smaller smile, Dahlia prods, “Why don’t you lead the way?”

“Right!” The book falls open in a thump against his palms, and Mika glances down at it, then proceeds forwards out of the open gates, onto the dirt path leading to the stone bridge. His boots crunching beneath him, he waves them all to follow. “Just over here, if you please would!”

——

By all means, traveling to Old Mondstadt does not take long. If you were to walk the proper path from Mondstadt City to the ruins—discounting all the interruptions you may encounter, such as Hilichurls or creatures of the Abyss—it would only take around seven to eight minutes, at the maximum. So, taking that into account, Dahlia inspects the map for the heaves of cliffs that they are to traverse, cracks his knuckles, and readies himself for a long journey of launching everyone as high as he possibly can with his Hydro vision.

Of course, there’s an added benefit to hearing how they yelp in surprise when he activates the springing platform, too. Everyone deserves to be flung around at least once in their life, he says! And he’ll stand by that notion!

Eventually, though, after scrabbling their way up the cliff set to the side of the Wolvendom forest (and sparing a glance to the Cecilia Garden domain that lays beneath it, before scurrying away at the threat of any of the Hilichurls noticing them), the view of the Storm King’s Tower begins to peek over the cliff’s edge, the winds swirling around it in racing, vibrant blue hues. Even from this distance, even from the destruction that has crumbled large chunks of it, the Tower is grand, standing so tall in the sky that Dahlia almost wonders if a cloud would brush against the structure. 

“Whoa,” Agnes breathes, coming to a halt. “It’s so much different up close.”

Mika, caught in examining the map, looks up at her words. With a nervous laugh, and an accompanying tense yet sheepish expression, he says, “It—gets even different when you’re really close to it. That storm barrier is a lot faster.”

In the back of his mind, Dahlia recalls how he’s overheard some of the Knights admitting to being… uneasy, in this area. Something about the winds here feeling foreign to their body, as though someone had taken the breezes given by Barbatos and twisted them, settling down to the ground to watch every movement they make. He hums to himself. “Well, that was where the Storm King was felled.”

“Yeah,” Agnes replies, rubbing at her arm, “I can tell.”

“Hey, now, we’ve only just begun,” he crows, stepping forward, looking down at the land laid out under their feet—stretching out by a mile before pausing at where the ground abruptly drops to form the massive crater below. Putting upon an encouraging expression, he gestures to the Tower in a jerk of his head, his ears fluttering with the motion. “Come on, pull on a cloak if you need it, and get your windgliders out, too! We should be able to glide down from here.”

Without giving them all too much trouble, that is. Just as predicted, the currents that surround the fallen City have already started the long process of awakening, moving around their bodies in a manner that reminds Dahlia of someone fumbling a hand across the top of a bedside table in the morning—quick, but almost sluggish, as if refamiliarizing themself with the idea of being awake at all. It blows past their skins in a temperature that’s edging close to a shuddering cold, which has Dahlia briefly thankful for the fur hidden under his clothes.

There is a rush of rustlings as the windgliders are taken out, and soon enough, they are drifting down to the lower ground. The wind pushes at the various colored wings, tilting them up by the tips of the feathers ever so slightly, before slipping past them once more—allowing them to momentarily tuck away the windgliders, to peer down, down, down at the very bottom of the crater. The sight that greets them is this: a large body of water surrounding the very base of the Tower, where all except for one of the pathways connecting to the top of it have broken off, and collapsed to the ground; broken structures forming together to make a loose square-shape; a tall, two-tiered archway that leads to nothing; seven stone pillars planted around a large, circular sigil, with a gleaming beam located in the middle of it; trees bereft of any leaves or flora left stuck to the grounds or sagged against the stone walls.

A click. He swivels to see Sucrose opening Experiment 231, looking down intensely, first, at the swaying of the Windwheel Aster—appearing faster than it had before in the City and in the traveling here, its petals now spinning—then at the number gradually ticking upwards. “16.4,” she announces, another click signaling the pane shutting closed. “We should move closer.”

“Where to, though?” Agnes asks, tilting her head. “If we move just down there, the speed will be the same.”

“Hmm….” Adjusting her glasses as she looks out over the land again, she points a gloved finger towards the glowing beam, then looks back to the rest of them. “How about there?”

“That would be a good idea,” Dahlia hums. Light actuators, he remembers Venti informing him. “Those are used to help manage the storms. They go haywire if left unchecked.”

Agnes leans ever slightly forward to attempt a better look. “They’re much more glowy than I imagined,” she murmurs, and startles when a hand—Mika’s, he finds, going from the blue glove and boxy sleeve—grabs at her blouse to ease her backwards onto safer ground. She gives him a thankful, but bashful smile.

“We should hurry before they try.. going haywire,” Mika then pipes up, dispersing his book in a burst of sparkles.

“Another great idea! Windgliders folded out, everyone.”

They glide down to the towering cliff beneath the one they stood on. Catch their bearings (and for Agnes to scramble catching her glasses), before they head for the next mass of land that seems to be sprouting up from the ground. All while they do, Dahlia keeps hearing these… murmurs, for a lack of better words.

It starts with one brushing past his ear, a puff of breath more than anything. He jerks, twisting to ask if anyone was attempting to call for his attention, only to stop short upon seeing everyone was still in the positions they had been—not a single one of them even close to him to try such a thing. His ear twitches. Normally, he would chalk it up to the wind’s doing (Venti has a habit of sending him messages on the breezes), except…

It happens again. And again, and again. With every one, something new about it catches his attention—how the strands of grass behind him, for a moment, appear to.. glitch, cleaved in half by gold. Or how the murmurs seem to writhe, a single letter of a word shining through, before it is smothered by the rampaging jumble once more. It is… distinctly divine, in an uncanny manner.

“Dahlia?” comes Agnes' voice. He forces his gaze away from the strands he had sworn were floating not a second ago, to bring them up to meet hers. She stands by a collection of protruding rocks, one hand laying against the stone. “Ready to go?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” he smiles. “If everyone else—”

A shrill, nearly silent shriek shatters through the air.

His ears twitch in a harsh jerk, then pin to his head sharply. All around him, the whisperings grow stronger, almost louder, turning the nearly indecipherable sounds to a buzzing, roaring wave of pure static—

“—atch—”

“—OUT!”

A bubble pops, fractures, and splinters together in cracklings of frost behind him. Puddles of Hydro bursting into his palm, Dahlia swivels on his heel to face the delighted singing of an Abyss Mage, and summons a large platform beneath the creature to rock the bubble upwards over to where Mika stands with his polearm prepped to swing. The sound of metal piercing into sheets of ice rumbles into the air (with frosted flecks tumbling out in every swift, heavy slice), soon joined by Agnes’ loud, wavering yelp.

Distantly, there is a loud call of Sucrose’s experiment’s name as she throws a potion of pure Anemo at the Abyss Mage. As a burst of elemental wings fan outwards and push the creature away from Mika’s position, Dahlia skirts around the now battlefield to run to Agnes’ side, urging her over to hide behind the wide rocks, before he coats his palm in Hydro once more and enters the fight with another summon—creating a splash that’s consumed by the crystal-fly shaped Anemo wings and swirled hard against the fragmented ice.

The Abyss Mage stomps its feet in an outrage, emitting a thinly-pitched wail, and raises its arm to wave the wand in its hand. Warbling, light blue clouds begin to form on the ground beside it, furred arms emerging from within and spilling out as two Samachurls—one Electro, the other Hydro.

It laughs in their faces seeing their eyes widen.

Those Samachurls lift their staffs, and a showering of rain is poured onto the Abyss Mage, while a bolt of Electro is sent in Dahlia’s direction. He disperses the next coating of his own Hydro from his hands, to dodge right, that bolt zipping past him in whirring electricity—one that sends goosebumps over his skin. 

Rolling to a stand, he summons Hydro underneath the dancing Hydro Samachurl, while—out of the corner of his vision—Mika drops one hand from the polearm, and twists the arm up to summon a crossbow into the palm, directed at the same creature. Water bursts out the ground, launching the Samachurl, where its screech turns garbled as an arrow strikes through its stomach—falling to the ground in a heap of fading dust.

The rain abruptly ceases. Healing no longer being applied, the Abyss Mage curses at them, launching barrages of pointed ice towards all three of them. Dahlia is just barely able to dodge this one, hitting his shoulder into the ground when he dives away. A bolt of Electro is then struck down in front of him, threatening to singe his hat, and he scrambles further with a strangled yelp—nearly slipping off the cliff entirely when his palm meets nothing.

“Dahlia!”

Anemo bubbles below the Abyss Mage, bumping it backwards as it explodes into a smaller set of wings, and catching the Electro Samachurl by a brief draft, forcing it to throw its arms to the side. Dahlia takes that opportunity to scramble closer to the fight, towards where Mika stands—it’ll be easier to take care of the Samachurl if they manage to freeze it, he muses.

Pushing himself upright, he nods to the Knight, and summons Hydro to his hand. When the Samachurl twists to face them, raising the staff menacingly, he places a platform beneath it and launches it just as he had the other, except this time, after Mika rushes forward to stab it through with his polearm, he twists to shoot at the frosted shield of the Abyss Mage. It cracks, then breaks, allowing the creature to fall to the floor—and gets very, very incensed about the whole ordeal, manifesting large spikes of icicles in the air above them all, and sending them crashing down.

With rushed words, Dahlia forms a bubble of Hydro around all four of them, just in time for the icicles to bounce off the tops.

Meanwhile, Mika yanks the polearm from the Samachurl’s body. It falls, knees dropping as its body fades to dust, but not before sending out one last bolt of Electro towards Dahlia. He eeps, the blast of lightning striking against the Hydro bubble, shattering it to pieces and splashing him with the remaining water left. Despairingly, the Electro also mixes into that water, seeping into his skin in buzzing whirls and hurtles him off the cliff.

Cries of his name follow after.

Ah, hell, he thinks resignedly, the wind cutting past him as he falls, all of that to get electro-charged.

As his body rushes to the ground, those winds dart across him, forming threads of invisible hands that latch on and pull—hauling his descent from splatter upon impact into something softer. The ground does not—meet him, so to say, as it does cushion him, his upper back landing against the uneven surface, before he slides down into a roll down whatever hill it is that caught him. His arms cage his head as he tumbles, catching every fleck of dirt and rock and stick that comes across him, until there is a dip in the ground that forces him to a halting skid.

When the world doesn’t spin around him in teetering motions, Dahlia opens his eyes, and  breathes out a small groan, flexing out the stinging in his hands while his arms squeeze one last time against his head (and what would you know—all of him’s still intact!)

“Thanks,” he rasps, to whichever Thousand Wind that’s listening.

There is the distinct smell of iron in the air, something that he pinpoints is coming from the cuts thinly sliced across his legs. Moving his arms away from his face, he peers up through the gap to find that not only are there trickles of blood seeping down in scattered trails, but that the fall has urged the folds of his boots to slide down as well, exposing the soft, pink fur that laid underneath it. Red coats over it, twisting the strands into coarse spirals, and he can’t help his ears from drooping when he chances a glance further upwards to access the rest of his boots state—which have been poked through at the tips with the claws of his feet.

“And after everything I went through to keep everything from getting dirtied,” he mutters, sighing to himself.

His eyes slide to his gloves, idly flexing them again, and as he feared, his sharpened nails have pierced through the sheer black fabric just the same. Rolling onto his side, he manages to get his hands underneath him—

He stops, ears twitching. Those murmurs from before steadily seep into the air around him, the sounds twisting and shifting, overlapping over each other until they merge into a single, striking echo of a voice—one that speaks the tongue of Old (and ever so grateful is Dahlia that he has not slacked on his lessons for that), one that, he realizes, is approaching where he is half-crumpled to the ground.

“Does everyone of your stature lack self preservation, or is this merely a unique trait of your own?” They say, and why is that tugging at Dahlia’s familiarity— “Truly, not even the winds themselves could understand that… excuse of a plan.”

Dahlia finds his gaze being brought upwards, noticing, first, the triangular speckles of glittering gold that float into his vision. They prance and jump, streaming across the very edges of his gaze, in what feels deliberate—it has him feeling dizzy, the more that he tries to catch one standing still, yet they never settle. He grits his teeth, squeezes his eyes, then squints them open; the glittering gold does not disappear from his sight, but it seems to have… settled, slowing themself to a languid pace, gently twirling in circles. Once he does feel like the things are going to send him through a fog of fuzz again, he lifts his eyes, and—

Someone with a striking appearance to Venti crouches before him.

Except—

Dahlia knows him. Knows exactly who this is meant to be.

His eyes trace over every feature: the fluffy bangs that swoop inward to curtain his face; the braids that dangle down, coming unraveled at the very ends; the tired eyes that blink down at him, and the impression of eyebags laid underneath them; the long, sweeping cloak that falls down the floor, spooling around him in a large circle and draping over his knees; a scarf pinned closely to the cloak with a Cecilia pin, two tassels hooked to it; the blouse, paired with a fitting vest, belts, and the broken dangling chain affixed to it; shorts with little punctures pierced through at the hems, accompanied with a strap wrapped around the right thigh; and ankle-length, metal-toed boots with beads hanging around them by a thread.

But, not only that, he traces over the unfamiliar features: the matching, dancing golden specks that seem to make up his entire body; how pieces of his body have shattered from his skin, drifting in pieces in the air just besides him, such as the skin resting just below his shin being broken off in a large chunk, leaving behind a leg that should truly not be standing; how his hands have wrought the worst of this—the fingers of his left hand seem to be barely held together; how there are splintering cracks of liquid, vibrant gold racing from the corner of his face and twisting down the visible skin of his body.

Venti has, through all the stories he has quietly told Dahlia of this bard, never mentioned anything of something causing him to… shatter. No, he has spoken about the bard in fond, melancholic, almost yearning prose, speaking of the times during the Rebellion Era, where the two of them would be up to just about anything. Apples stolen from vendors, songs sung in the City square, the subsequent running from the Guards attempting to give chase for such a transgression, or curling up in crates to hide away. Most times, however, Venti speaks of… his determination, his drive to keep running, how the bard had always reached for a sun that could not show.

Dahlia, as deeply curious as he was, never pushed for more than that. Venti got… quiet, those days.

But… that very same bard from stories past stood here, he wonders…

Rolling the Old Mondstadtian in his mouth (he rarely speaks this tongue with anyone other than Venti, Jean, or even Barbara), he says, “Is this how you greet everyone, or shall I consider myself special?”

The bard jolts, full bodily. “You can see me,” he murmurs (and his voice is almost nothing like Venti’s, pitched lower, and spoken with a raspy tone). There is a quiet kind of… horror, to the words—only for him to squash that horror and replace it with a stern scowl. “State your title. Quickly.”

“I would be glad to! My name is Dahlia, Deacon of the Church and the Herald of Barbatos!”

“You are the—” the bard guffaws, then squints, leaning in far to stare at the spot where his sleeve has been ripped open, revealing the teal markings wrapped around the skin of his arm. His shoulders sag, and he sighs… annoyedly? “Of course they would give that one to you. Of course.”

“I am.. hearing more distress than relief in those words?”

There is no reply to that (rude?), as the bard straightens so that he’s no longer looming over Dahlia. He tips his head, expression slipping to a raised brow, and analytic eyes. “Are you able to stand?”

“You know,” Dahlia begins to say, instead of responding, and tosses his hand up to gesture at the bard, “if this is how you treat—”

For all but a moment, it feels as though time itself comes to a slow. He watches as his arm raises, and raises, until it is a breath away from the bard’s chin—who lurches back from the offending limb in a discordant mess of flickering golden streams and erratic, racketing static. Barely, just barely, all but a mere passing second, the tip of his braid brushes against the fabric spilling open on his sleeve.

Then, as swiftly as it had happened, the bard lands on the ground in an inaudible thump, and time continues to march forward as it always has. Except, now—the bard is drawing every inch of himself inwards. His knees are pulled tight against his chest, his arms are stretched to wrap firmly around the knees, his head has bowed into the spool of his cloak draped across his shoulders, and faintly, if Dahlia squinted, his hands are clutching at his braids; all of which, is paired with … a look to his eyes, that Dahlia can’t quite describe. Wide, searing.

“Do not,” he says, voice straining to sound firm, “touch me.”

Dahlia—his hand still damningly suspended in the air—closes his hands to a fist. “Right,” he clears his throat, shuffling backwards. “Yes, noting that one down. Sorry.”

The bard’s eyes press closed, then blink back open. He shifts to lean back, gradually uncurling himself up from the ground, before he gingerly pulls the spool around his shoulders over his head to form a hood, and tucks his arms into the inside of his cloak. “None of that, either,” he huffs. Pauses. Gives Dahlia a scrutinizing look. “Once more, I ask if you are able to stand?”

“Happy to try,” is his reply.

With a small grunt, he heaves himself upright, only to wince at putting pressure on his legs. It’s not that the cuts there hurt, necessarily, but that there’s enough of them there to cause a nuisance. He wobbles slightly, bending over to tug the folds of his boots further up his leg, covering where the pink fur ends. Once done, he does the same to his gloves, spending extra time fixing the cloth to fit properly over his fingers. The cut on his sleeve, after a considering hum, is “fixed” by yanking the cuff over the wrist part of his glove, stretching the opened fabric into a thinner slice.

Throughout it all, the bard continues to level him with a stare.

“And… there… we go!” Dahlia cheers, patting down his clothing. “Everything back in place.”

“Mm,” the bard flicks his gaze over him, for the final time—as if checking for something. When he seems to find it, he nods to himself, twisting to turn to the cliffsides. “Good. You do not seem to be critically injured. You will be able to find your companions if you climb up from there.”

An arm emerges from within the cloak, pointing a shattered finger towards the circular sigil. A ramp leads up from it, sloping over the hill there.

Dahlia finds his head snapping up at this, his hands halting in their endeavors to loosen the small twigs out of the hem of his shirt. 

“You are not coming?”

Those words have the bard wrinkling his brows in a quiet bafflement. His arm droops, lowering nearly halfway to his side, only for it to fall into the cloak’s confinements completely as he blinks at Dahlia. Slowly, as though he were gathering the thoughts while he spoke them, he lets an inquiring, “Why would... I?”, slip from his mouth.

And oh—oh, how it takes every fiber of his very being not to wag his tail in sheer ecstasy. A silver patter, gleaming and sparkling, has just been served up to him, and Dahlia would be a fool if he didn’t take it. Meeting a historic figure is one thing, but the chance to truly talk with him? The only other time that Dahlia had gotten this lucky is when Venti invited him atop the City walls to discuss why he fled the Church, only to convince him that not only was he, in fact, the Anemo Archon, Barbatos, in the flesh, but that he wanted Dahlia of everyone to become His herald!

Mustering the most nonchalant shrug he can, he tells the bard, “Well, I have not the faintest clue where to go, for one.”

Which is an outright lie, of course; if he tried, he could probably recall the map of Old Mondstadt from Mika’s cartography book. But—

“… for what reason would you travel to this area if you are not aware of where to go?”

Yes!

“Oh, a long story, there. I was asked to!” He points up, at the clifftop the rest of the others remain at. “Which is why I would be much appreciative if a guide could lead me back to that group?”

The bard drags his gaze to the cliff, then drags his gaze to Dahlia.

“If that is what you wish,” he hums, walking in the direction of the cliff, the hem of his cloak fluttering, “then I shall accompany you. Follow me.”

“Ah, but I have one other question to ask!”

“And that would be?”

Clasping his hands together, Dahlia softens his eyes, and says, “Well, I would like to get a name to call my savior, after all.”

“Mm. No.”

Wait, wha—?

“Wha—?” He squawks, his tail snapping out behind him in a manner reminiscent of when a cat bristles its tail after being startled. Reaching one hand out to grip at the slender, thin tip of the tail—close to where it sprouts out into a heart shape—he begins smoothing down the fur. Whilst he does, his ears droop pathetically, and he attempts to give this bard one of his award-winning pouts (after all, it’s gotten him out of trouble with the other Sisters more times than he can count, and even managed to wear down Kaeya!) “Not even a title?”

“It is not necessary to our task at hand.”

He squints, disbelieving. To the task? Dahlia would have liked to know his name even if his meeting with the bard was, like, five-seconds long.

“That is… do pardon me, but completely untrue?” He lets his tail slip from his hold, to gesture that hand at the bard. “Every being is deserving of a name. Instruments, objects, creatures, a cloud in the sky—any and everyone.”

And the bard…. parts his lips, a gentle gleam dancing within the golden irises as his eyes widen, before falling away to glance upon the dirt scattered across the bumpy ground. His expression is—unreadable, hidden in the cloak-casted shadows like this, but when he next speaks, his tone is distant, with an almost wistful, reminiscing edge to it.

“I do suppose that… you are right.”

“Aha, you see?” Dahlia grins at him. “May I have a name, then?”

“Your speech may ring true, yet a name shall not pass by,” he shakes his head, then brings his gaze back to Dahlia. “If you must refer to me, you may use the term Bard.”

The words I already kinda have been, very, very nearly leave from Dahlia’s throat. Instead of saying any of that, however, he tries for a less crash and burn of, “I find it unfair that I have many titles and you do not. Could I give you another?”

That earns him a strange look from the bard—like Dahlia had grown another head right in front of him, and then shoved an unripe lemon into his mouth to taste. Haltingly, he replies, “You are welcome to try?”

Oh, score. Clapping his hands, his tail wiggling as excitement bubbles and bubbles in his chest, Dahlia moves towards the bard. “I thank you for this, then!” He tells him, then drops the grasp of his fingers, to bring a thoughtful finger up to tap at his chin. “I promise I shall not let you down. What of.. say, Dandelion?”

“…no.”

“Songbird.”

“No.”

“Alright, alright, how about Caius?”

The bard—ignoring his words entirely—slowly exhales, as though he were regretting ever saying yes to Dahlia. “How many of these do you have left?”

“Oh, at least ten. I can make more, if you want.”

“I ask of you to not.”

“Your call,” Dahlia says blithely, shrugging his shoulders. He, then, twitches his ears and leans in expectantly. “So, which is it? Aster? Matteo? Ludolf? Dove?”

His shoulders tense upon hearing the last word leave Dahlia’s mouth, and if the Deacon were to squint, he would see the minute twitch of his brows alongside it. That has Dahlia pausing, his tail abruptly halting in its languid sway, before he smiles widely (his fangs just barely peeking out from under his lips). “Is that the one?” He asks, clasping his hands behind his back. “Would you want me to call you Dove?”

The bard narrows his eyes in a truly tempestuous glare at his smile, pulling his cloak tighter around himself.

“That is not—” He tenses further with a bitten off, frustrated grumble. In the next breath, every instance of hesitation that had reared its head has been wiped clean from his features, leaving only a tired gaze. “Will you listen to me when I tell you no?”

“Afraid not.”

“Persistent thing,” the bard sighs. Then, “I liked songbird better.”

“Songbird,” Dahlia repeats, weighing the name on his tongue. “That one is nice. What a pleasure it is to meet you, Songbird!”

“Hello, Herald. I cannot share those sentiments.” He drawls, dryly. The cloak swishes when he sweeps an arm out to gesture towards the cliffside. “Could you find it within yourself to hasten your steps, now?”

Dahlia does begin to walk after Songbird, but he can’t help uttering a lilting, “My name is Dahlia?”

“I am well aware. This way, Herald.”

“Still Dahlia.”

“I could call you Deacon, if you insist.”

“That—” He clicks his mouth shut. The more that he ruminates on the idea, he finds himself… oddly averse to that. Many people have taken to calling him by the title of Herald, most notably those within the Church and Jean Gunnhildr, as a sign of respect—all save for Venti, who says the title so horribly fondly each time, the mere two words of my Herald having the God split into a personally pleased expression. Songbird… says it in the same air of respect, but not the reverent way that the people of Mondstadt do; he says it in the way that reminds Dahlia of how people nod to the Knights, a passing trust.

Hm. Dahlia likes that.

“No, no,” he has himself sigh, “Herald is fine, actually.”

“Glad to have that sorted,” Songbird hums, a deadpan tune to it. “Hurry forth. Your companions will not linger in the same spot for long.”

“Why, anything for you!”

“What bravery you have to announce this directly face to face with me.”

“Hmm? And why would it be brave, exactly?”

“The more that you talk, the slower that you will walk.”

“I think you simply wish not to answer me,” he harrumphs proudly, tail flicking as he quickens his pace to walk in step with Songbird. He does make sure not to walk too closely, jogging a couple feet away from him, both out of the warning Songbird had given him and in case it turns the man skittish.

If Songbird notices, he doesn’t mention it, but his shoulders aren’t as tense.

The cloak’s hood ripples, and Dahlia bares his fangs in the smile he gives Songbird. It does nothing to change the neutral expression upon his face.

“Does your voice ever grow hoarse?”

“Well, I have not had a problem so far.”

“Ah,” Songbird grumps, turning to the cliff, the cloak rippling once again. “What news.”

“Exciting news, no? Are my words not enlightening?”

“Use another term.”

He is pushy. Dahlia gleefully tucks that information away. “Remarkable!”

“Mm. Certainly, they have been… what one could call remarkable,” he concedes, before proceeding to walk… up, right into the air?

Dahlia squints. Rubs at his eyes with his knuckles, just to be sure—and, yup, just as he was before, Songbird is still standing high above the ground, glancing down at Dahlia as if him being on the lame, dirt ground was the strange thing happening here. “You know,” he says, sinking his claws into the wall of rock that’s stood tall in front of him, “It is rather difficult to follow after you when I am incapable of doing that.”

“Hm?” The cloak flutters as he lowers his head to examine the situation. His tongue clicks, in a realizing, “Ah.”

Then—in a truly impressive feat—he kicks off from the air, twisting mid-movement to land on the hilltop, his cloak fanning out behind him in a manner reminiscent of a bird's wings spreading; catching the evening sunlight rays around the hems. He rises to a stand, and the fabric delicately sweeps to enclose around his arms, and flutters as he leans his body over the edge to peer down at Dahlia’s form.

“Where did you learn to do that?”

“The same as anyone else.”

Dahlia can feel his eyes flatten. “And what does that mean?”

“You know.” He tilts his head, braids swishing. “Learning.”

“Very informative.”

“I do so aim to please.”

His eyes raise up to roll, before he begins the trek up the cliff. Small, nearly minuscule pebbles knock loose in his climb, pelting past him at speeds that have him leaning more towards the rock, just in case any get the idea of rocketing for his head. Eventually, though, swaying strands of grass peek over the lip, and he latches onto it, pulling himself over the edge and rolling onto his back on the clifftop. A ways away from him, Songbird observes how he swings himself into sitting up, all but springing up from the grass.

“Do you run around like that all the time?” He questions, carrying on from the conversation.

“Do you?” comes the reply. Songbird pivots to face the next cliff they’re to climb, seemingly dropping the conversation as he moves forward. It’s not until he inclines his head, to where Dahlia is walking behind him, that he prompts, “You had that… device.”

Device? It takes him a moment. Oh, the windgliders!

“Hm? Do you mean the windgliders?” His ears swivel. “You saw that?”

“It was … not hard to miss. People flying, in the sky.” He pauses, shoulders raising as if to say something else, before shaking his head. Twisting his body to give Dahlia his full attention, he continues, “‘Windgliders’, that is what you refer to it as?”

“Exactly right! Since not all of us bear the markings of Anemo, we use these to get around safely in the sky—although, I must confess, it truly only works because of the blessings cast upon them.”

Dahlia, abruptly, recalls all the stories and fairytales of the Storm King, how his winds had been so harsh that not even the birds could lift themselves from the ground that they were forced to. That it wasn’t until Barbatos’ ascension that any of them learned how to fly again. Lightly, he prods, “Have you never… seen one before?”

The cloak slips further over his face, shrouding his features in a shadow. Songbird turns away.

“No.” Then, he huffs. “Because of their blessings, huh?”

“Gods should not be the only ones able to wield wings.”

Songbird halts—suddenly enough that it has Dahlia scrambling away from him, in fear of accidentally bumping into him, or catching the rippling hems of his cloak. There is a pinning fire to his irises when his gaze meets Dahlia’s own. “So they gave you theirs, instead?”

He nods.

Something in Songbird.. softens. “That does sound just like them,” he murmurs, then spins to the cliffside.

Dahlia would have loved to poke at him for an elaboration to that, but he’s never given the chance for one. Much like before, Songbird steps into the air, where he then proceeds to hop his way up the cliff, twirling near the top and landing on the grounds there. Instead of standing, however, this time he brings himself to a criss-cross sit, propping his head on a hand to watch Dahlia’s attempts.

“Is there a reason,” he huffs, after pulling himself up, “that you wear that Cecilia pin?”

Songbird—halfway to standing up—seems to freeze.

“What of it?”

“The style you wear,” Dahlia gestures to his own chest, mirroring the spot that the Cecilia is pinned to on Songbird’s body. “It would look nice with feathers.”

“… I suppose it would.”

Dahlia goes to open his mouth again, but within the next blink, Songbird is gone. He swings his head around the area, trying to find wherever the guy could’ve disappeared to, and blinks rapidly upon finding that not a hair of him was to be found—only for the words to be taken from his mouth, when he spots Songbird a further distance away than he was before.

“You said I was meant to be following you!” He calls after, scrambling to jog over to him.

Songbird raises his chin in lieu of a reply, the top of his cloak dipping over his forehead, brushing at the bangs hanging into his eyes. “You have been,” he then says, and in a blink, he is gone again, only to re-appear in the next—closer to where the large, circular sigil rests, the light actuator faintly pulsing. And, oh, huh, Dahlia hadn’t realized they had gotten here so quickly. Pointing up the ramp, Songbird hums, “You did.”

Dahlia’s ears flutter, slowly falling to a droop. “This may have been the quickest I have climbed mountains.”

“A day of firsts. Try not to get yourself killed on the next one.”

“Wh—hey!” He whirls on his heel, his tail snapping out. “I shall have you—know…?”

No one greets him—not even the slight flickering of gold.

Above him, he hears the frantic shouting of Mika’s voice. “Dahlia!? Is that—it is!” Angling his head up, he spots the three of them running along the second floor of the ramp, close to where it slopes into the cliffside. “Dahlia, up here, are you okay?”

He spends a moment longer lingering on where Songbird had just been. Nothing greets him, still—so he pivots to face them instead, picking up into a sprint to reach them faster. “I’m just alright! No broken bones, and only a few cuts,” he shouts back, rubbing idly at the cut sleeve of his arm, where the markings lay. “Did you handle that Abyss Mage?”

——

Far, far in the night, when he had been pulled around by each of them to check for injuries and was promptly vigorously bandaged up by Mika, he is sat in the beds of the makeshift tents they had propped up by the outer areas of Old Mondstadt. They were close to figuring out Agnes’ answer to her flower problem—having decided to venture out once everyone was looked over—towards the crumpling bridgeway leaning against the Tower. 25.1, the display had said, and it had bent the Windwheel Aster, but did not wilt it. Since night was already fast approaching them by then, they had called it a night, with a promise of solving it by tomorrow.

A notebook laid across his lap, he dips his quill into the ink, and begins to write out every detail of his day.